 On one reading of Newton, his conception of active forces introduced back into life science a concept of “dynamic” matter that could be used as a warrant for a new vitalistic embryology and even a non-mechanistic conception of nature possessed of intrinsic powers (Schofield 1970: chp. 9). This option was followed out by many French medical writers who used Newtonian arguments to ground a “vitalistic” medical theory, an interpretation particularly developed at the University of Montpellier in the early decades of the eighteenth century (Wolfe 2014; Gaukroger 2010: chps. 10–11).