--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: As a special branch of general…" description: "\"“As a special branch of general philosophy, pathogenesis had never been explored. In my opinion it had never been approached in a strictly scientific f..." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/37b/blaise-cendrars-17769_death_as-a-special-branch-of-general-philosoph_4524.jpg" --- # As a special branch of general philosophy, pathogenesis… ![“As a special branch of general philosophy, pathogenesis had never been explored. In my opinion it had never been approached in a strictly scientific fashion--that is to say, objectively, amorally, intellectually. All those who have written on the subject are filled with prejudice. Before searching…” quote by Blaise Cendrars](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/37b/blaise-cendrars-17769_death_as-a-special-branch-of-general-philosoph_4524.jpg) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/37b/blaise-cendrars-17769_death_as-a-special-branch-of-general-philosoph_4524.jpg) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/37b/blaise-cendrars-17769_death_as-a-special-branch-of-general-philosoph_4524.jpg) > ““As a special branch of general philosophy, pathogenesis had never been explored. In my opinion it had never been approached in a strictly scientific fashion--that is to say, objectively, amorally, intellectually. All those who have written on the subject are filled with prejudice. Before searching out and examining the mechanism of causes of disease, they treat of 'disease as such', condemn it as an exceptional and harmful condition, and start out by detailing the thousand and one ways of combating it, disturbing it, destroying it; they define health, for this purpose, as a 'normal' condition that is absolute and immutable. Diseases ARE. We do not make or unmake them at will. We are not their masters. They make us, they form us. They may even have created us. They belong to this state of activity which we call life. They may be its main activity. They are one of the many manifestations of universal matter. They may be the principal manifestation of that matter which we will never be able to study except through the phenomena of relationships and analogies. Diseases are a transitory, intermediary, future state of health. It may be that they are health itself. Coming to a diagnosis is, in a way, casting a physiological horoscope. What convention calls health is, after all, no more than this or that passing aspect of a morbid condition, frozen into an abstraction, a special case already experienced, recognized, defined, finite, extracted and generalized for everybody's use. Just as a word only finds its way into the Dictionary Of The French Academy when it is well worn stripped of the freshness of its popular origin or of the elegance of its poetic value, often more than fifty years after its creation (the last edition of the learned Dictionary is dated 1878), just as the definition given preserves a word, embalms it in its decrepitude, but in a pose which is noble, hypocritical and arbitrary--a pose it never assumed in the days of its vogue, while it was still topical, living and meaningful--so it is that health, recognized as a public Good, is only the sad mimic of some illness which has grown unfashionable, ridiculous and static, a solemnly doddering phenomenon which manages somehow to stand on its feet between the helping hands of its admirers, smiling at them with its false teeth. A commonplace, a physiological cliche, it is a dead thing. And it may be that health is death itself. Epidemics, and even more diseases of the will or collective neuroses, mark off the different epochs of human evolution, just as tellurian cataclysms mark the history of our planet.”” [Blaise Cendrars](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/blaise-cendrars/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. Diseases are presented as fundamental, shaping forces of life rather than merely pathological anomalies, urging a scientific, unbiased study of their origins and roles. **In simple terms:** Diseases as essential life processes Key Takeaway Health and disease are interdependent Themes philosophy biology ontology health disease science Mood inquisitive thought‑provoking Type theoretical essay scientific manifesto When to use this quote - medical research design - public health policy - educational curricula Key Concepts pathogenesis conceptual frameworks Practical Applications - interdisciplinary disease modeling - health philosophy seminars Questions to Reflect On - What does viewing disease as a creative force imply for treatment? - How might this perspective reshape medical ethics? A Different Perspective Some argue that disease is a deviation from optimal function, not a constitutive element of life ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet [Analogies Diseases](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/analogies-diseases-291755/) [Death](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/death/) [Disease](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/disease/) [Doctor](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/doctor/) [Health](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/health/) [Helping hands](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/helping-hands/) [Human evolution](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/human-evolution/) [Immutable Diseases](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/immutable-diseases-291756/) [Manifestation](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/manifestation/) [Pathogenesis](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/pathogenesis-291754/) [Pathogenesis Explored](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/pathogenesis-explored-291753/) [Philosophy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/philosophy/) [Philosophy Pathogenesis](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/philosophy-pathogenesis-291752/) [Psychology](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/psychology/) ## Related quotes > [“-We need more love, to supersede hatred, -We need more strength, to resist our weaknesses, -We need more inspiration, to lighten up our innermind.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michael-bassey-johnson/we-need-more-love-to-supersede-hatred-we-need-more-strength-to-resist/) [Michael Bassey Johnson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michael-bassey-johnson/) > [“Life’s good when it’s lived for oneself; it’s great when lived for others. 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That someone cares and understands.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/nate/the-gift-of-friendship-a-willingness-to-listen-a-pair-of-helping/) [Nate](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/nate/) > [Helping hands are better than Praying Lips](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mother-teresa/helping-hands-are-better-than-praying-lips/) [Mother Teresa](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mother-teresa/) > [“Lift up your two hands; remember one is for helping others while the other is for helping you. 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People in them days just helped—no questions asked.” ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/john-neal-phillips/w-d-jones-later-commented-that-people-frequently-helped-them-not/) [John Neal Phillips](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/john-neal-phillips/) ## More by Blaise Cendrars > [Writing is to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose dubious brightness…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/blaise-cendrars/writing-is-to-descend-like-a-miner-to-the-depths-of-the-mine-with-a/) [Blaise Cendrars](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/blaise-cendrars/) > [The single fact of existing is already a true happiness.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/blaise-cendrars/the-single-fact-of-existing-is-already-a-true-happiness/) [Blaise Cendrars](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/blaise-cendrars/) > [“and only much later, when Mascha wanted a child, did I realize that love is a deadly poison, a vice, a vice that one…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/blaise-cendrars/and-only-much-later-when-mascha-wanted-a-child-did-i-realize-that/) [Blaise Cendrars](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/blaise-cendrars/) > [I used the word 'prose' in the Trans-Siberian in the early Latin sense of prosa dictu. Poem seemed to me too pretentious, too narrow.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/blaise-cendrars/i-used-the-word-prose-in-the-trans-siberian-in-the-early-latin-sense/) [Blaise Cendrars](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/blaise-cendrars/) > [“Feelings flake off and fall in dust. The senses, vitrified, can no longer experience pleasure; they crack at the least provocation. Each of us,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/blaise-cendrars/feelings-flake-off-and-fall-in-dust-the-senses-vitrified-can-no/) [Blaise Cendrars](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/blaise-cendrars/) > [“Do not forget that when the heart petrifies there is no progress. All science must be like a fruit, so ordered that it may…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/blaise-cendrars/do-not-forget-that-when-the-heart-petrifies-there-is-no-progress-all/) [Blaise Cendrars](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/blaise-cendrars/) > [“Each of us attempted to stem & hold fast the unending flood of his thoughts which tended to trickle off into that inner void.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/blaise-cendrars/each-of-us-attempted-to-stem-hold-fast-the-unending-flood-of-his/) [Blaise Cendrars](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/blaise-cendrars/) > [Only a soul full of despair can ever attain serenity and, to be in despair, you must have loved a good deal and still…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/blaise-cendrars/only-a-soul-full-of-despair-can-ever-attain-serenity-and-to-be-in/) [Blaise Cendrars](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/blaise-cendrars/) > [Photogenic is a stupid, nonsensical word, but it is also a great mystery.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/blaise-cendrars/photogenic-is-a-stupid-nonsensical-word-but-it-is-also-a-great-mystery/) [Blaise Cendrars](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/blaise-cendrars/) > [“you make me laugh, with your metaphysical anguish, its just that you're scared silly, frightened of life, of men of action, of action itself,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/blaise-cendrars/you-make-me-laugh-with-your-metaphysical-anguish-its-just-that-you-re/) [Blaise Cendrars](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/blaise-cendrars/) > [“Modern man has a need for simplification that tends to find its expression one way or another. And this artificial monotony which he takes…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/blaise-cendrars/modern-man-has-a-need-for-simplification-that-tends-to-find-its/) [Blaise Cendrars](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/blaise-cendrars/) > [One's life, from being an exterior thing, grows inwards. 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Powers](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/alan-w-powers/) > [“You must understand the pain and grief of losing someone is nothing more than a function of survival.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/steven-cooper/you-must-understand-the-pain-and-grief-of-losing-someone-is-nothing/) [Steven Cooper](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/steven-cooper/) > [I am not a depressive person at all, but I reflect a lot on my life, and life in general, from the perspective of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu/i-am-not-a-depressive-person-at-all-but-i-reflect-a-lot-on-my-life/) [Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu/) > [“Death is a reality that calls the rest of life and all of our assorted strivings into sharp relief.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/craig-d-lounsbrough/death-is-a-reality-that-calls-the-rest-of-life-and-all-of-our/) [Craig D. Lounsbrough](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/craig-d-lounsbrough/) > [I love life. I love life to death.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/emmanuelle-riva/i-love-life-i-love-life-to-death/) [Emmanuelle Riva](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/emmanuelle-riva/) > [I think when you’re dying you start looking for important things in the corners. You can’t let anything that seems even semi-important pass, because…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/chris-crutcher/i-think-when-you-re-dying-you-start-looking-for-important-things-in/) [Chris Crutcher](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/chris-crutcher/) [Browse all 39,127 Death quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/death/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“As a special branch of general philosophy, pathogenesis had never been explored. In my opinion it had never been approached in a strictly scientific fashion--that is to say, objectively, amorally, intellectually. All those who have written on the subject are filled with prejudice. Before searching out and examining the mechanism of causes of disease, they treat of 'disease as such', condemn it as an exceptional and harmful condition, and start out by detailing the thousand and one ways of combating it, disturbing it, destroying it; they define health, for this purpose, as a 'normal' condition that is absolute and immutable. Diseases ARE. We do not make or unmake them at will. We are not their masters. They make us, they form us. They may even have created us. They belong to this state of activity which we call life. They may be its main activity. They are one of the many manifestations of universal matter. They may be the principal manifestation of that matter which we will never be able to study except through the phenomena of relationships and analogies. Diseases are a transitory, intermediary, future state of health. It may be that they are health itself. Coming to a diagnosis is, in a way, casting a physiological horoscope. What convention calls health is, after all, no more than this or that passing aspect of a morbid condition, frozen into an abstraction, a special case already experienced, recognized, defined, finite, extracted and generalized for everybody's use. Just as a word only finds its way into the Dictionary Of The French Academy when it is well worn stripped of the freshness of its popular origin or of the elegance of its poetic value, often more than fifty years after its creation (the last edition of the learned Dictionary is dated 1878), just as the definition given preserves a word, embalms it in its decrepitude, but in a pose which is noble, hypocritical and arbitrary--a pose it never assumed in the days of its vogue, while it was still topical, living and meaningful--so it is that health, recognized as a public Good, is only the sad mimic of some illness which has grown unfashionable, ridiculous and static, a solemnly doddering phenomenon which manages somehow to stand on its feet between the helping hands of its admirers, smiling at them with its false teeth. A commonplace, a physiological cliche, it is a dead thing. And it may be that health is death itself. Epidemics, and even more diseases of the will or collective neuroses, mark off the different epochs of human evolution, just as tellurian cataclysms mark the history of our planet.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Blaise Cendrars" }, "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/blaise-cendrars/as-a-special-branch-of-general-philosophy-pathogenesis-had-never-been/", "about": { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Death" }, "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/blaise-cendrars/as-a-special-branch-of-general-philosophy-pathogenesis-had-never-been/#quotation", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/37b/blaise-cendrars-17769_death_as-a-special-branch-of-general-philosoph_4524.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/37b/blaise-cendrars-17769_death_as-a-special-branch-of-general-philosoph_4524.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/37b/blaise-cendrars-17769_death_as-a-special-branch-of-general-philosoph_4524.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“As a special branch of general philosophy, pathogenesis had never been explored. 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