In the nineteenth century, farmers, doctors, and the wider public shared a family of questions and anxieties concerning heredity. Questions over whether injuries, mutilations, and bad habits could be transmitted to offspring had existed for centuries, but found renewed urgency in the popular and practical scientific press from the 1820s onwards. Sometimes referred to as “Lamarckism” or “the inheritance of acquired characteristics,” the potential for transmitting both desirable and disastrous traits to offspring was one of the most pressing scientific questions of the nineteenth century. As I argue in this paper, Carpenter’s religious commitments to abolition and the temperance movement shaped his understanding of heredity. But this also committed him to a body of evidence for the inheritance of acquired characteristics that was coming under criticism for being untrustworthy. Carpenter used his popular treatises on physiology to promote these older, familiar ideas about heredity because they provided vital means of arguing for the unity of mankind and the hereditary dangers of intemperance. While early nineteenth century physiology has been seen by some historians as a challenge to religious authority, given its potentially materialist accounts of the body and the actions of the soul, this paper demonstrates how the missionary and institutional activities of the Unitarian church were ideologically supported by Carpenter’s publications.

中文翻译：

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威廉·本杰明·卡彭特和新兴的遗传科学

在 19 世纪，农民、医生和更广泛的公众都对遗传有一系列的疑问和焦虑。几个世纪以来，关于伤害、残害和坏习惯是否会遗传给后代的问题一直存在，但从 1820 年代起，流行和实用的科学媒体又重新燃起了紧迫感。有时被称为“拉马克主义”或“后天特征的继承”，将理想和灾难性特征传递给后代的可能性是 19 世纪最紧迫的科学问题之一。正如我在本文中所论证的，卡彭特对废除死刑和节制运动的宗教承诺塑造了他对遗传的理解。但这也让他获得了一系列证据，证明后天遗传的特征因不可信而受到批评。卡彭特用他的流行生理学论文来宣传这些古老的、熟悉的关于遗传的观点，因为它们为论证人类的统一性和不节制的遗传危险提供了重要的手段。虽然 19 世纪早期的生理学被一些历史学家视为对宗教权威的挑战，鉴于其对身体和灵魂的行为的潜在唯物主义解释，本文展示了一神教教会的传教和机构活动如何在意识形态上得到支持木匠的出版物。人们熟悉关于遗传的观念，因为它们提供了论证人类统一和不节制的遗传危险的重要手段。虽然 19 世纪早期的生理学被一些历史学家视为对宗教权威的挑战，鉴于其对身体和灵魂的行为的潜在唯物主义解释，本文展示了一神教教会的传教和机构活动如何在意识形态上得到支持木匠的出版物。人们熟悉关于遗传的观念，因为它们提供了论证人类统一和不节制的遗传危险的重要手段。虽然 19 世纪早期的生理学被一些历史学家视为对宗教权威的挑战，鉴于其对身体和灵魂的行为的潜在唯物主义解释，本文展示了一神教教会的传教和机构活动如何在意识形态上得到支持木匠的出版物。