 From the perspective of the history of philosophy, a critique of monism amounts to a critique of most philosophies, and Henry recognizes only a few precursors as having a presentiment of the immanence pertaining to life as self-appearing. One clear case is French philosopher Maine de Biran (1766–1824), whose work inspired Henry’s second book Philosophy and Phenomenology of the Body (1965), explicitly subtitled: Essay in Biranian Ontology. Through Biran’s “sense of effort”, Henry connects the theme of the original essence of manifestation to that of the subjective body as locus of immanent affectivity (see Kühn 1992). Although it appeared after the Essence of Manifestation, it is interesting to note that the Biran-book was outlined before the Essence and originally planned as a part of this more comprehensive work. Considering Biran’s influence on Henry, especially in the light of Henry’s handwritten notes (now available at the Henry-Archive at the University of Louvain-la-Neuve), the phenomenology of life has been conceived of as “phenomenological vitalism” (see Jean 2015). This thesis, however, has not been widely echoed by Henry scholars (for a critique: see Kühn 2019), in part because it relies on notes that Henry himself chose not to publish. 