Richard Saumarez

Richard Saumarez FRS FRSE FSA FRCS (13 November 1764 – 28 January 1835) was a British surgeon and medical author.

Saumarez was a prolific writer, with advanced ideas regarding the subject of medicine and medical education.

Coleridge identified and praised Saumarez for his "masterly force of reasoning, and the copiousness of induction, with which he has assailed, and (in my opinion) subverted the tyranny of the mechanic system in physiology; established not only the existence of final causes, but their necessity and efficiency to every system that merits the name of philosophical; and, substituting life and progressive power for the contradictory inert force, has a right to be known and remembered as the first instaurator of the dynamic philosophy in England."

Saumarez also praises Bacon for having set down a true method of approach to nature, through direct observation based on clear ideas, not just the collection of facts.

Saumarez distinguishes between the property of living matter that is general and diffused through the whole system, and active - materia vitae diffusa - and that which is particular and dormant.

Each system of matter "not only in the progress of its evolution, but in the actions it performs, is governed and impelled by laws, distinct and peculiar".

From all of his observations of the facts from previous experiments, Saumarez is led to the logical conclusion that "the process of digestion...is not a chemical, but a living, act."

And the essence of this living power is that it is able to overcome the chemical laws, so that they resist being reduced to the elements (entropy).

As with Coleridge, Saumarez sees mind and consciousness to be a creative function that is higher and greater than sense-experience, indeed, as Coleridge puts it, "in the mind's self-experience there are evidently two powers at work, which relatively to each other are active and passive; and this is not possible without an intermediate faculty, which is at once both active and passive."

Saumarez also sees that the nature of this living power is both sustentive and generative, and has been spoken of throughout history in different ways, including most recently by Dr. John Brown.

Thus, what we see in living organisms is simply an organisation of powers, forces and energies according to real prototypes or ideas in the non-material, super-sensible domain.

This living power exists prior to any "organic action" and this pre-existing state Saumarez terms 'pre-disposition'.

Like Brown, he also sees that the potential or dormant living power must be brought into action and motion.

The first is extensive throughout and the second is more limited in extent, as not all plants and animals have it, or it does not operate throughout the organism, absolutely or equally (in health).

Man is a reasoning and ideating being, not simply an instinctual one, and the development and evolution of consciousness allows him to direct and free himself from the compulsion of the instincts.

The objects of sense experience are there to help man perfect his self-awareness and self-consciousness and "perfect", that is, raise his mind and consciousness to higher levels, all the way up to spirit, the main concern of Romantic epistemology (to overcome the split between Nature and God or Spirit).