Using a chronological structure, this paper aims to understand the connections between Coleridge’s Theory of Life, Blumenbach’s concept of formative force and Coleridge’s later writings on humans, animals, and race. Blumenbach’s nisus appealed to Coleridge for obvious reasons but he resisted the idea of the functional adaptation of individuals to the circumstances of nature. Coleridge’s later writings, and especially his contributions to Joseph Henry Green’s lectures in 1828, attempted to reconcile a dynamic anthropological conception of life with the Christian interpretation of the origin of mankind. These writings not only refract the debates of the 1820s on biological life and racial theories, they also show us how they were intricately connected. They throw a fascinating light on the paradox of the ‘new sciences’ (anthropology, biology, chemistry) which, against a corpuscular mechanic understanding of the world, shaped a dynamic perception of nature that could have healed the ‘bifurcation of nature’ but for the enlightened scientist’s over-confidence in man’s superiority over nature.