Editing Vitalism (section)

== History ==

===Ancient times===
The notion that bodily functions are due to a vitalistic principle existing in all living creatures has roots going back at least to [[ancient Egypt]].<ref>Jidenu, Paulin (1996) ''African Philosophy, 2nd Ed.'' Indiana University Press, {{ISBN|0-253-21096-8}}, p.16.</ref> In [[Greek philosophy]], the [[Milesian school]] proposed natural explanations [[deductive argument|deduced]] from [[materialism]] and [[Mechanism (philosophy)|mechanism]]. However, by the time of [[Lucretius]], this account was supplemented, (for example, by the unpredictable ''[[clinamen]]'' of [[Epicurus]]), and in [[Stoic physics]], the ''[[pneuma]]'' assumed the role of ''[[logos]]''. [[Galen]] believed the lungs draw ''pneuma'' from the air, which the blood communicates throughout the body.<ref>{{harvnb|Birch|Cobb|1985|p=75}}</ref>

===Medieval===
In Europe, medieval physics was influenced by the idea of ''pneuma'', helping to shape later [[aether theories]].

===Early modern===
Vitalists included English anatomist [[Francis Glisson]] (1597–1677) and the Italian doctor [[Marcello Malpighi]] (1628–1694).<ref name="Charles Birch 1985, pp. 76">{{harvnb|Birch|Cobb|1985|pp=76–78}}</ref> [[Caspar Friedrich Wolff]] (1733–1794) is considered to be the father of [[Epigenesis (biology)|epigenesis]] in [[embryology]], that is, he marks the point when embryonic development began to be described in terms of the proliferation of cells rather than the incarnation of a preformed soul. However, this degree of empirical observation was not matched by a mechanistic philosophy: in his ''[[Theoria Generationis]]'' (1759), he tried to explain the emergence of the organism by the actions of a ''vis essentialis'' (an organizing, formative force). [[Carl Reichenbach]] (1788–1869) later developed the theory of [[Odic force]], a form of life-energy that permeates living things.

In the 17th century, modern science responded to [[Isaac Newton|Newton]]'s [[action at a distance]] and the mechanism of [[Cartesian dualism]] with vitalist theories: that whereas the chemical transformations undergone by non-living substances are reversible, so-called "organic" matter is permanently altered by chemical transformations (such as cooking).<ref name=Ede/>

As worded by [[Charles Birch]] and [[John B. Cobb]], "the claims of the vitalists came to the fore again" in the 18th century:<ref name="Charles Birch 1985, pp. 76"/> "[[Georg Ernst Stahl]]'s followers were active as were others, such as the physician genius [[Xavier Bichat|Francis Xavier Bichat]] of the Hotel Dieu."<ref name="Charles Birch 1985, pp. 76"/> However, "Bichat moved from the tendency typical of the French vitalistic tradition to progressively free himself from [[metaphysics]] in order to combine with hypotheses and theories which accorded to the scientific criteria of physics and chemistry."<ref>{{harvnb|''History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences''|p=238}}</ref> [[John Hunter (surgeon)|John Hunter]] recognised "a 'living principle' in addition to mechanics."<ref name="Charles Birch 1985, pp. 76"/>

[[Johann Friedrich Blumenbach]] was influential in establishing epigenesis in the life sciences in 1781 with his publication of ''Über den Bildungstrieb und das Zeugungsgeschäfte''. Blumenbach cut up freshwater ''[[Hydra (zoology)|Hydra]]'' and established that the removed parts would regenerate. He inferred the presence of a "formative drive" (''Bildungstrieb'') in living matter. But he pointed out that this name,
{{blockquote|like names applied to every other kind of vital power, of itself, explains nothing: it serves merely to designate a peculiar power formed by the combination of the mechanical principle with that which is susceptible of modification.}}

===19th century===
{{further|Alternatives to Darwinism}}
[[File:Sample of Urea.jpg|thumb|right|The synthesis of [[urea]] in the early 19th century from [[inorganic chemistry|inorganic compounds]] was [[counterevidence]] for the vitalist hypothesis that only organisms could make the components of living things.]]

[[Jöns Jakob Berzelius]], one of the early 19th century founders of modern [[chemistry]], argued that a regulative force must exist within living matter to maintain its functions.<ref name=Ede>Ede, Andrew. (2007) ''The Rise and Decline of Colloid Science in North America, 1900–1935: The Neglected Dimension'', p. 23</ref> Berzelius contended that compounds could be distinguished by whether they required any organisms in their [[Biosynthesis|synthesis]] ([[organic compounds]]) or whether they did not ([[inorganic compounds]]).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Wilkinson|first=Ian|date=10 June 2002|title=History of Clinical Chemistry|journal=EJIFCC|volume=13|issue=4|pages=114–118|issn=1650-3414|pmc=6208063}}</ref> Vitalist chemists predicted that organic materials could not be synthesized from inorganic components, but [[Friedrich Wöhler]] synthesised [[urea]] from inorganic components in 1828.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/13463|title=Vitalism and Synthesis of Urea|first1=E.|last1=Kinne-Saffran|first2=R. K. H.|last2=Kinne|date=August 7, 1999|journal=American Journal of Nephrology|volume=19|issue=2|pages=290–294|via=www.karger.com|doi=10.1159/000013463|pmid=10213830|s2cid=71727190}}</ref> However, contemporary accounts do not support the common belief that vitalism died when Wöhler made urea. This ''Wöhler Myth'', as historian Peter Ramberg called it, originated from a popular history of chemistry published in 1931, which, "ignoring all pretense of historical accuracy, turned Wöhler into a crusader who made attempt after attempt to synthesize a natural product that would refute vitalism and lift the veil of ignorance, until 'one afternoon the miracle happened{{'"}}.<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1179/amb.2000.47.3.170|pmid=11640223|title=The Death of Vitalism and the Birth of Organic Chemistry: Wohler's Urea Synthesis and the Disciplinary Identity of Organic Chemistry.|journal=Ambix|volume=47|issue=3|pages=170–195|year=2000|last1=Ramberg|first1=Peter J.|s2cid=44613876}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Schummer |first1=Joachim |title=The notion of nature in chemistry |journal=Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A |date=December 2003 |volume=34 |issue=4 |pages=705–736 |doi=10.1016/S0039-3681(03)00050-5|bibcode=2003SHPSA..34..705S |url=http://www.joachimschummer.net/papers/2003_NatureChemistry_SHPS.pdf}}</ref>{{efn|In 1845, [[Adolph Kolbe]] succeeded in making acetic acid from inorganic compounds, and in the 1850s, [[Marcellin Berthelot]] repeated this feat for numerous organic compounds. In retrospect, Wöhler's work was the beginning of the end of Berzelius's vitalist hypothesis, but only in retrospect, as Ramberg had shown.}}

Between 1833 and 1844, [[Johannes Peter Müller]] wrote a book on [[physiology]] called ''Handbuch der Physiologie'', which became the leading textbook in the field for much of the nineteenth century. The book showed Müller's commitments to vitalism; he questioned why organic matter differs from inorganic, then proceeded to chemical analyses of the blood and lymph. He describes in detail the circulatory, lymphatic, respiratory, digestive, endocrine, nervous, and sensory systems in a wide variety of animals but explains that the presence of a [[soul]] makes each organism an indivisible whole. He claimed that the behaviour of light and sound waves showed that living organisms possessed a life-energy for which physical laws could never fully account.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Otis |first1=Laura |title=Johannes Peter Müller (1801-1858) |url=https://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/pdfgen/essays/enc22.pdf |website=Virtual Laboratory: Essays and Resources on the Experimentalization of Life (Max Planck Institute) |date=October 2004}}</ref>

[[Louis Pasteur]] (1822–1895) after his famous rebuttal of [[spontaneous generation]], performed several experiments that he felt supported vitalism. According to Bechtel, Pasteur "fitted fermentation into a more general programme describing special reactions that only occur in living organisms. These are irreducibly vital phenomena." Rejecting the claims of Berzelius, [[Liebig]], [[Moritz Traube|Traube]] and others that fermentation resulted from chemical agents or catalysts within cells, Pasteur concluded that fermentation was a "vital action".<ref name=Bechtel/>

===20th century===

[[Hans Driesch]] (1867–1941) interpreted his experiments as showing that life is not run by physicochemical laws.<ref name="DevBio">{{Cite web|url=http://7e.devbio.com/article.php?ch=10&id=110|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20061031180529/http://7e.devbio.com/article.php?ch=10&id=110|url-status=dead|title=Developmental Biology 8e Online: A Selective History of Induction|archivedate=October 31, 2006}}</ref> His main argument was that when one cuts up an embryo after its first division or two, each part grows into a complete adult. Driesch's reputation as an experimental biologist deteriorated as a result of his vitalistic theories, which scientists have seen since his time as pseudoscience.<ref name="DevBio" /><ref name=ps>{{cite book |last=Dyde |first=Sean |editor1-last=Normandin |editor1-first=Sebastian |editor2-last=Wolfe |editor2-first= T. Charles |title=Vitalism and the Scientific Image in Post-Enlightenment Life Science, 1800–2010 |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=EQVAAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA104 |year=2013 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-94-007-2445-7 |page=104 |chapter=Chapter 5: Life and the Mind in Nineteenth-Century Britain |quote=In medicine and biology, vitalism has been seen as a philosophically-charged term, a pseudoscientific gloss that corrupted scientific practice …}}</ref> Vitalism is a superseded scientific hypothesis, and the term is sometimes used as a [[pejorative]] [[epithet]].<ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=aop.004.0041a|title=Psychic Energy: A Historical Perspective|first=R. M.|last=Galatzer-Levy|date=August 7, 1976|journal=Ann. Psychoanal.|volume=4|pages=41–61|via=PEP Web}}</ref> [[Ernst Mayr]] (1904–2005) wrote:
{{quote|It would be ahistorical to ridicule vitalists. When one reads the writings of one of the leading vitalists like Driesch one is forced to agree with him that many of the basic problems of biology simply cannot be solved by a philosophy as that of Descartes, in which the organism is simply considered a machine... The logic of the critique of the vitalists was impeccable.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Mayr|first1=Ernst|date=2002|url= http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e01_2/autonomy.htm |title=BOTANY ONLINE: Ernst MAYR: Walter Arndt Lecture: The Autonomy of Biology |access-date=2006-09-24 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060926210457/http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e01_2/autonomy.htm |archive-date=2006-09-26 }}</ref>}}
{{quote|Vitalism has become so disreputable a belief in the last fifty years that no biologist alive today would want to be classified as a vitalist. Still, the remnants of vitalist thinking can be found in the work of [[Alistair Hardy]], [[Sewall Wright]], and [[Charles Birch]], who seem to believe in some sort of nonmaterial principle in organisms.<ref>Ernst Mayr ''Toward a new philosophy of biology: observations of an evolutionist'' 1988, p. 13. {{ISBN|978-0674896666}}.</ref>}}

Other vitalists included [[Johannes Reinke]] and [[Oscar Hertwig]]. Reinke used the word ''neovitalism'' to describe his work, claiming that it would eventually be verified through experimentation, and that it was an improvement over the other vitalistic theories. The work of Reinke influenced [[Carl Jung]].<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/6789277|title=Jung's concept of die Dominanten (the Dominants) (1997)|first=Richard|last=Noll|via=www.academia.edu}}</ref>

[[John Scott Haldane]] adopted an anti-mechanist approach to biology and an [[idealist]] philosophy early on in his career. Haldane saw his work as a vindication of his belief that [[teleology]] was an essential concept in biology. His views became widely known with his first book ''Mechanism, life and personality'' in 1913.<ref name="Peter J. Bowler 2001, pp. 168">Bowler, Peter J. Reconciling science and religion: the debate in early-twentieth-century Britain, 2001, pp. 168–169. {{ISBN|978-0226068589}}.</ref> Haldane borrowed arguments from the vitalists to use against mechanism; however, he was not a vitalist. Haldane treated the organism as fundamental to biology: "we perceive the organism as a self-regulating entity", "every effort to analyze it into components that can be reduced to a mechanical explanation violates this central experience".<ref name="Peter J. Bowler 2001, pp. 168" /> The work of Haldane was an influence on [[organicism]]. Haldane stated that a purely mechanist interpretation could not account for the characteristics of life. Haldane wrote a number of books in which he attempted to show the invalidity of both vitalism and mechanist approaches to science. Haldane explained:

{{quote|We must find a different theoretical basis of biology, based on the observation that all the phenomena concerned tend towards being so coordinated that they express what is normal for an adult organism.|<ref name="Mark A. Bedau 2010, p. 95" />}}

By 1931, biologists had "almost unanimously abandoned vitalism as an acknowledged belief."<ref name="Mark A. Bedau 2010, p. 95">{{cite book |title=The Nature of Life: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives from Philosophy and Science|editor1-first=Mark A. |editor1-last=Bedau|editor1-link=Mark Bedau |editor2-first=Carol E.|editor2-last=Cleland |editor2-link= Carol Cleland |chapter=The Decline of Vitalism |first=Ernst |last=Mayr |author-link=Ernst Mayr |pages=93–95|quote=Yet considering how dominant vitalism was in biology and for how long a period it prevailed, it is surprising how rapidly and completely it collapsed. The last support of vitalism as a viable concept in biology disappeared about 1930." (p.&nbsp;94) From p.&nbsp;95: "Vitalism survived even longer in the writings of philosophers than it did in the writings of physicists. But so far as I know, there are no vitalists among the philosophers of biology who started publishing after 1965. Nor do I know of a single reputable living biologist who still supports straightforward vitalism. The few late twentieth-century biologists with vitalist leanings (A. Hardy, S. Wright, A. Portmann) are no longer alive. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L3ycvNfa320C&pg=PA93 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2010 |isbn=9781139488655}}</ref>