Riddle Jonathan D
Pepperdine University, California, USA.
J Hist Med Allied Sci. 2023 Jul 8;78(3):227-248. doi: 10.1093/jhmas/jrad021.
In the early nineteenth century, physiology became an increasingly popular and powerful science in the United States. Religious controversy over the nature of human vitality animated much of this interest. On one side of these debates stood Protestant apologists who wedded an immaterialist vitalism to their belief in an immaterial, immortal soul - and therefore to their dreams of a Christian republic. On the other side, religious skeptics argued for a materialist vitalism that excluded anything immaterial from human life, aspiring thereby to eliminate religious interference in the progress of science and society. Both sides hoped that by claiming physiology for their vision of human nature they might direct the future of religion in the US. Ultimately, they failed to realize these ambitions, but their contest posed a dilemma late nineteenth-century physiologists felt compelled to solve: how should they comprehend the relationship between life, body, and soul? Eager to undertake laboratory work and leave metaphysical questions behind, these researchers solved the problem by restricting their work to the body while leaving spiritual matters to preachers. In attempting to escape the vitalism and soul questions, late nineteenth-century Americans thus created a division of labor that shaped the history of medicine and religion for the following century.
在19世纪早期，生理学在美国成为一门越来越受欢迎且颇具影响力的科学。关于人类生命力本质的宗教争议激发了人们对这门学科的诸多兴趣。在这些争论中，一方是新教护教者，他们将非物质主义的活力论与对非物质、不朽灵魂的信仰相结合，进而与他们对基督教共和国的梦想联系在一起。另一方是宗教怀疑论者，他们主张物质主义的活力论，将任何非物质的东西排除在人类生活之外，从而渴望消除宗教对科学和社会进步的干扰。双方都希望通过宣称生理学符合他们对人性的看法，来引导美国宗教的未来走向。最终，他们未能实现这些抱负，但他们的争论给19世纪后期的生理学家们带来了一个不得不解决的困境：他们应该如何理解生命、身体和灵魂之间的关系？这些研究人员渴望从事实验室工作并抛开形而上学的问题，于是通过将工作局限于身体，而把精神层面的问题留给传教士，来解决这个问题。在试图逃避活力论和灵魂问题的过程中，19世纪后期的美国人因此创造了一种分工，这种分工塑造了接下来一个世纪医学和宗教的历史。
