vital force
Animating inner spark
Vital force is a hypothetical principle once believed to animate living organisms and distinguish them from inanimate matter.
The concept dominated early biology and medicine, suggesting life couldn't be explained by physics and chemistry alone.
Though abandoned by mainstream science, vital force persists in alternative medicine and spiritual traditions: Acupuncture claims to balance the body's vital force.
Also called life force or élan vital.
- animaInner personality essence
- spiritSoul, mood, or liquor
- pneumaGreek vital spirit
- divine sparkSacred essence within beings
- soulInnermost animating essence
animating spirit · prana · chi · qi flow · energy · vigor · dynamism · mana · breath of life · life breath · drive · élan · zest · life · verve · breath · lifeblood · pulse
- spiritghost, specter, phantom, apparition, soul
- obsolete sciencephlogiston, aether, phlogiston theory, ether, caloric
- Old Sciencephlogiston, aether, ether, caloric, miasma
- life forcechi, qi, life energy, ki, prana
- life sourcessun, air, oxygen, food, blood
- African spiritualityancestral spirits, ancestor veneration, traditional healers, spirit world, orishas
vital forcelifelessness
Quality of having no animation
torpor · lethargy · enervation · devitalization · inertia
vital forcemechanism
Means by which something operates
clockwork · reductionism · materialism · physicalism · chemical process
vital forcedeath
Cessation of life
decay · entropy · dissolution · mortification · necrosis
force, vital, vitality, vitamin, vitalize, vitally, vitalizing, nonvital, vitalized