Xavier Bichat and the duality of the phenomena of life

The physiologist Xavier Bichat, in his Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et la mort (1800), introduced a duality into the phenomena of life that completely broke with the monistic spirit that animated ideology; he distinguished between organic life (functions of digestion, circulation, etc.) and animal life (sensory and motor functions); one is exercised by non-symmetrical organs and in a continuous manner; it is removed from the influence of habit and is the origin of passions, such as anger or fear; the other is located in symmetrically placed organs; it is intermittent and interrupted by periods of sleep; finally, it is the origin of understanding and will.

This important distinction, considered by Maine de Biran, Auguste Comte and Ravaisson, had an influence on the destiny of psychology, in removing it from the monism of ideologues, undoubtedly much greater than that of eclectic spiritualism.

Source: Émile Bréhier(1951). Histoire de la philosophie, Presses Universitaires de France. Translation and adaptation by © 2025 Nicolae Sfetcu

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