Preyer's view is that the essential condition for initiation is fatigue of the will-power under a prolonged effort of undivided attention.
Preyer has more recently investigated the matter and has given it the name "anabiosis."
Preyer has criticized such views, grouping them under the phrase "theory of cosmozoa," and has suggested that living matter preceded inorganic matter.
Preyer's view, however, enlarges the conception of life until it can be applied to the phenomena of incandescent gases and has no relation to ideas of life derived from observation of the living matter we know.