{~} élan vital
élan vital is an idea proposed by Henri Bergson in his work dealing with the nature of perception, action, and memory. the concept was developed to explain the organisation of living things in increasingly complex manners. indeed, the question of how such amazingly particular arrangements as those of animals, plants, fungi, even an individual eukaryotic cell, demanded an explanation in the nineteenth century. the lack of empirical knowledge of biological systems, their emergence and replication, motivated the vitalist current, which explained the emergence of life as commanded by a mystical force which acted on inert matter from outside it. the original form of the idea is not given any credence nowadays, with knowledge in biology, genetics, and evolution, showing "life" as we understand it to be simply a continuous application of original, physical, material rules.