Élan vital

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An idea created by French philosopher Henri Bergson in the late 19th century, élan vital is usually translated as "vital force". It is a hypothetical aetiological force thought to cause the evolution and development of organisms. It was also believed that this essence (élan vital) could be harvested and embedded into an inanimate substance and activated with electricity. The British biologist Julian Huxley remarked that Bergson’s élan vital is no better an explanation of life than is explaining the operation of a railway engine by élan locomotif.

A distant precursor of Bergson can be found in the work of the pre-Christian Stoic philosopher Posidonius, who postulated a 'vital force' emanated by the sun to all living creatures on the earth's surface. The concept of élan vital is very similar to Schopenhauer's concept of the will-to-live. Several other ideas throughout Bergson's works are reminiscent of Schopenhauer's thoughts.

The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze attempted to recoup the novelty of Bergson's idea in his book Bergsonism, though the term itself underwent substantial changes by Deleuze. No longer considered a mystical, elusive force acting on brute matter, as it was in the vitalist debates of the late 19th century, élan vital in Deleuze's hands denotes a substance in which the distinction between organic and inorganic matter is indiscernible, and the emergence of life undecidable.