 In several respects these developments are connected in some way to the introduction of more dynamic conceptions of matter that emerged in the interplay between Newtonianism and Leibnizianism in the early decades of the eighteenth century, particularly in French discussions (Shank 2008). As described in the previous section, Newton’s introduction in the Queries to the Opticks of the concept of active microforces that could explain microchemical and electrical phenomena opened up this discussion. The other great natural philosophy developed on the Continent by Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) and systematized and expanded into an influential systematic philosophical program by Christian Wolff (1679–1754), elaborated a more complex theory of matter that distinguished between the properties of phenomenal “matter” as conceived by Newton, and those of more fundamental active and teleologically-directed “substance”, grounded in force (vis). In physics this development played out on the Continent in the vis viva controversy, which was concerned initially with the conservation of force in collisions. It was then extended to more fundamental metaphysical issues that had a complex effect on the life sciences.