Overview

Physiological studies from ancient times to the present have been guided implicitly or explicitly by a philosophical framework that has been either mechanistic or vitalistic. The mechanistic philosophy asserts that all life phenomena can be completely explained in terms of the physical-chemical laws that govern the inanimate world. Vitalist philosophy claims that the real entity of life is the soul, or vital force, and that the body exists for and through the soul, which is incomprehensible in strictly scientific terms. The triumph of Newtonian physics is reflected in the mechanistic materialism of the French philosophes of the Enlightenment and the mechanical philosophy adopted by many naturalists. Among the eighteenth-century naturalists who applied the concepts of mechanical philosophy to their scientific research and writings were Julien de la Mettrie (1709-51); Georges Louis...