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common laws of matter, it would not withstand decay or dissolution
for a moment. If a living creature is to survive in spite
of the general laws of physics, however short its life when it is
compared to that of a stone or another inanimate object, it has
to possess in itself a "principle of conservation" that maintains
the harmonious equilibrium of the texture and structure
of its body. The astonishing longevity of a living body in view
of the extreme corruptibility of its constitutive matter is thus
indicative of the action of a "natural, permanent, immanent
principle," of a particular cause that is alien to the laws of
inanimate matter and that constantly struggles against the constantly
active corruption whose inevitability these laws imply. s
To us this analysis of life sounds both near and remote. It is
close to us in its acute awareness of the singularity and the precariousness
of life. It is remote because, like Aristotle, Stahl
defined life in static terms, in terms of conservation, not of
becoming or evolution. Still, the terminology used by Stahl
can be found in recent biological literature, for example,
where we read that enzymes "combat" decay and allow the
body to ward off the death to which it is inexorably doomed by
physics. Here also, biological organization defies the laws of
nature, and the only "normal" trend is that which leads to
death (see Chapter V).
Indeed, Stahl's vitalism is relevant as long as the laws of
physics are identified with evolution toward decay and disorganization.
Today the "vitalist principle" has been superseded
by the succession of improbable mutations preserved in the
genetic message "governing" the living structure. Nonetheless,
some extrapolations starting from molecular biology relegate
life to the confines of nature-that is, conclude life is
compatible with the basic laws of physics but purely contingent.
This was explicitly stated by Monod: life does not "follow
from the laws of physics, it is compatible with them. Life
is an event whose singularity we have to recognize."
But the transition from matter to life can also be viewed in a
different way. As we shall see, far from equilibrium, new selforganizational
processes arise. (These questions will be studied
in detail in Chapters V and VI.) In this way biological
organization begins to appear as a natural process.
However, long before these recent developments, the problematics
of life had been transformed. In a politically trans-