Chang Ku-ming
Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, 130 Academia Road, Section 2, Nankang District, Taipei City, 11529, Taiwan.
Isis. 2011 Jun;102(2):322-9. doi: 10.1086/660141.
Early modern alchemy studied both matter and life, much like today's life sciences. What material life is and how it comes about intrigued alchemists. Many found the answer by assuming a vital principle that served as the source and cause of life. Recent literature has presented important cases in which vitalist formulations incorporated corpuscular or mechanical elements that were characteristic of the New Science and other cases in which vitalist thinking influenced important figures of the Scientific Revolution. Not merely speculative, vitalist ideas also motivated chymical practice. The unity of life science and material science that is found in many formulations of Renaissance alchemy disintegrated in Georg Ernst Stahl's version of post-Cartesian vitalism.
早期现代炼金术既研究物质也研究生命，这与当今的生命科学非常相似。物质生命是什么以及它是如何产生的，这引起了炼金术士们的兴趣。许多人通过假定一种作为生命之源和起因的生命原理找到了答案。最近的文献展示了重要的案例，其中活力论的表述纳入了新科学所特有的微粒或机械元素，还有一些案例中活力论思想影响了科学革命的重要人物。活力论思想不仅是思辨性的，还推动了化学实践。在文艺复兴时期炼金术的许多表述中所发现的生命科学与物质科学的统一，在格奥尔格·恩斯特·施塔尔的笛卡尔后活力论版本中瓦解了。
