Man a Machine · Julien Offray de La Mettrie
NOTES ON MAN A MACHINE.
1. "Matter may well be endowed with the faculty of thought." Although La Mettrie attempts to "avoid this reef," by refraining from the use of these words, yet he asserts throughout his work that sensations, consciousness, and the soul itself are modifications of matter and motion. The possibility of matter being endowed with the faculty of thought, is denied by Elie Luzac, the publisher of "L'homme machine," in his work "L'homme plus que machine." In this work he tries to disprove the conclusions of "L'homme machine." He says: "We have therefore proved by the idea of the inert state of matter, by that of motion, by that of relations, by that of activity, by that of extension, that matter can not be possessed of the faculty of thinking".... "To be brief, I say, that if, by a material substance, we understand that matter which falls under the cognizance of our senses, and which is endowed with the qualities we have mentioned, the soul can not be material: so that it must be immaterial, and, for the same reason, God could not have given the faculty of thinking to matter, since He can not perform contradictions." [58]
2. "How can we define a being whose nature is absolutely unknown to us?" La Mettrie uses this as an argument against the belief in a soul, and yet he later admits that the "nature of motion is as unknown to us as the nature of matter." It is difficult then to see why there is more reason to doubt the existence of spirit, than to doubt the existence of matter. Locke makes this point very well. "It is for want of reflection that we are apt to think that our senses show us nothing but material things. Every act of sensation, when duly considered, gives us an equal view of both parts of nature, the corporeal and spiritual." [59]... "If this notion of immaterial spirit may have, perhaps, some difficulties in it not easy to be explained, we have therefore no more reason to deny or doubt the existence of such spirits, than we have to deny or doubt the existence of body because the notion of body is cumbered with some difficulties, very hard and perhaps impossible to be explained or understood by us." [60] 3. "Author of the 'Spectacle de la nature.'" Noel Antoine Pluche (1688-1761) was a Jansenist author. He was Director of the College of Laon, but was deprived of his position on account of his refusal to adhere to the bull "Unigenitus." Rollin then recommended him to Gasville, intendant of Normandy, who entrusted him with his son's education. He finally settled in Paris. His principal works are: "Spectacle de la nature," (Paris, 1739); "Mécanique des langues et l'art de les enseigner," (Paris, 1751); "Harmonie des Psaumes et de l'Evangile," (Paris, 1764); "Concorde de la géographie des différents ages," (Paris, 1765). [61]
La Mettrie describes Pluche in the "Essais sur l'esprit et les beaux esprits" thus: "Without wit, without taste, he is Rollin's pedant. A superficial man, he had need of the work of M. Réaumur, of whom he is only a stale and tiresome imitator in the flat little sayings scattered in his dialogues. It was with the works of Rollin as with the 'Spectacle de la Nature,' one made the fortune of the other: Gaçon praised Person, Person praised Gaçon, and the public praised them both." [62] This quotation from La Mettrie occurs in Assézat's edition of La Mettrie's "L'homme machine," which was published as the second volume of the series "Singularités physiologiques" (1865). Assézat was a French publisher and writer. He was at one time Secretary of the Anthropological Society, and collaborated with other writers in the publication of "La Revue Nationale," "La Revue de Paris," and "La Pensée nouvelle." His notes to "L'Homme Machine" show great knowledge concerning physiological subjects. He intended to publish a complete edition of Diderot's works, but overwork on this undermined his health, so that he was unable to complete it. [63]
4. Torricelli was a physicist and mathematician who lived from 1608 to 1647. He was a disciple of Galileo, and acted as his amanuensis for three months before Galileo's death. He was then nominated as grand-ducal mathematician and professor of mathematics in the Florentine Academy. In 1643, he made his most famous discovery. He found that the height to which a liquid will rise in a closed tube, depends on the specific gravity of the liquid, and concludes from this that the column of liquid is sustained by atmospheric pressure. This discovery did away with the obscure idea of a fuga vacui, and laid bare the principle on which mercurial barometers are constructed. For a long time the mercurial thermometer was called the "Torricellian tube," and the vacuum which the barometer includes is still known as a "Torricellian vacuum." [64] 5. "Only the physicians have a right to speak on this subject." Luzac says: "'Tis true that if the materiality of the soul was proved, the knowledge of her would be an object of natural philosophy, and we might with some appearance of reason reject all arguments to the contrary which are not drawn from that science. But if the soul is not material, the investigation of its nature does not belong to natural philosophy, but to those who search into the nature of its faculties, and are called metaphysicians." [65]
6. "Man is ... a machine." This is the first clear statement of this theory, which as the title of the work indicates, is the central doctrine of this work. Descartes had strongly denied the possibility of conceiving man as a machine. "We may easily conceive a machine to be so constructed that it emits vocables, and even that it emits some correspondent to the action upon it of external objects which cause a change in its organs,... but not that it should emit them variously so as appositely to reply to what is said in its presence, as men of the lowest grade of intellect can do." [66] 7. "Let us then take in our hands the staff of experience." La Mettrie repeatedly emphasizes the belief that knowledge must come from experience. Moreover he confines this experience to sense experience, and concludes "L'histoire naturelle de l'âme" with these words: "No senses, no ideas. The fewer senses there are: the fewer ideas. No sensations experienced, no ideas. These principles are the necessary consequence of all the observations and experiences that constitute the unassailable foundation of this work." This doctrine is opposed to the teaching of Descartes, who insists that "neither our imagination nor our senses can give us assurance of anything unless our understanding intervene." [67] Moreover Descartes believes that the senses are fallacious, and that the ideal method for philosophy is a method corresponding to that of mathematics. [68] Condillac and Holbach agree with La Mettrie's opinion. Thus, Condillac teaches that man is nothing more than what he has become by the use of his senses. [69] And Holbach says: "As soon as we take leave of experience, we fall into the chasm where our imagination leads us astray." [70]
8. "Galen (Galenus) Claudius, 130 to circa 210 A. D. An eminent Greek physician and philosopher. Born at Pergamus, Mysia, he studied both the Platonic and Peripatetic systems of philosophy. Satyrus instructed him in anatomy. He traveled extensively while young to perfect his education. About 165 A. D. he moved to Rome, and became very celebrated as a surgeon and practising physician, attending the family of Marcus Aurelius. He returned to Pergamus, but probably visited Rome three or four times afterwards. He wrote in philosophy, logic, and medicine. Many, probably most, of his works are lost. He was the one medical authority for thirteen centuries, and his services to logic and to philosophy were also great." [71] 9. The author of "L'histoire de l'âme" is La Mettrie himself. 10. Hippocrates is often termed the "father of medicine." He was born in Cos in 460 B. C. He studied medicine under his father, Heraclides, and Herodicus of Selymbria; and philosophy under Gorgias and Democritus. He was the first to separate medicine from religion and from philosophy. He insisted that diseases must be treated by the physician, as if they were governed by purely natural laws. The Greeks had such respect for dead bodies that Hippocrates could not have dissected a human body, and consequently his knowledge of its structure was limited, but he seems to have been an acute and skilful observer of conditions in the living body. He wrote several works on medicine, and in one of them showed the first principles on which the public health must be based. The details of his life are hidden by tradition, but it is certain that he was regarded with great respect and veneration by the Greeks. [72]
11. "The different combinations of these humors...." Compare this with Descartes's statement that the difference in men comes from the difference in the construction and position of the brain, which causes a difference in the action of the animal spirits. [73] 12. "This drug intoxicates, like wine, coffee, etc., each in its own measure, and according to the dose." Descartes also speaks of the effect of wine. "The vapors of wine, entering the blood quickly, go from the heart to the brain, where they are converted into spirits, which being stronger and more abundant than usual are capable of moving the body in several strange fashions." [74] 13. The quotation from Pope is from the "Moral Essays," published 1731 to 1735, Epistle I, 1, 69. 14. Jan Baptista Van Helmont (1578-1644) was a Flemish physician and chemist. He is noted for having demonstrated the necessity of the balance in chemistry, and for having been among the first to use the word "gas." His works were published as "Ortus Medicinae," 1648. [75] 15. The author of "Lettres sur la physiognomie" was Jacques Pernety or Pernetti. He was born at Chazelle-sur-Lyon, was for some years canon at Lyons, and died there in 1777. [76] 16. Boerhaave. See Note 78. 17. Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698-1759) was a French mathematician, astronomer and philosopher. He supported the Newtonian theory against the Cartesians. In 1740 he became president of the Academy of Berlin. He was the head of the expedition which was sent by Louis XV to measure a degree of longitude in Lapland. Voltaire satirized Maupertuis in the "Diatribe du Docteur Akakia." [77]
18. Luzac sums up the preceding facts by saying: "Here are a great many facts, but what is it they prove? only that the faculties of the soul arise, grow, and acquire strength in proportion as the body does; so that these same faculties are weakened in the same proportion as the body is.... But from all these circumstances it does not follow that the faculty of thinking is an attribute of matter, and that all depends on the manner in which our machine is made, that the faculties of the soul arise from a principle of animal life, from an innate heat or force, from an irritability of the finest parts of the body, from a subtil ethereal matter diffused through it, or in a word, from all these things taken together." [78] 19. "The diverse states of the soul are therefore always correlative with those of the body." This view is in diametrical opposition to the teaching of Descartes, who says: "The soul is of a nature wholly independent of the body." [79] Yet Descartes also states that there is an intimate connection between the two. "The Reasonable Soul ... could by no means be educed from the power of matter ... it must be expressly created; and it is not sufficient that it be lodged in the human body, exactly like a pilot in a ship, unless perhaps to move its members, but ... it is necessary for it to be joined and united more closely to the body, in order to have sensations and appetites similar to ours, and thus constitute a real man." [79]
Holbach later emphasizes this close connection between body and soul, which is so insisted upon by La Mettrie. "If freed from our prejudices we wish to see our soul, or the moving principle which acts in us, we shall remain convinced that it is part of our body, that it can not be distinguished from the body except by an abstraction, that it is but the body itself considered relatively to some of the functions or faculties to which its nature and particular organization make it susceptible. We shall see that this soul is forced to undergo the same changes as the body, that it grows and develops with the body.... Finally we can not help recognizing that at some periods it shows evident signs of weakness, sickness, and death." [80] 20. "Peyronie (François Gigot de la), a French surgeon, born in Montpellier, the fifteenth of January, 1678, died the twenty-fifth of April, 1747. He was surgeon of the hospital of Saint-Eloi de Montpellier and instructor of anatomy to the Faculty; then, in 1704, served in the army. In 1717 he became reversioner of the position of first surgeon to Louis XV; in 1731, steward of the Queen's palace; in 1735, a doctor of the King; in 1736, first surgeon of the King, and chief of the surgeons of the kingdom. The greatest merit of La Peyronie is for having founded the Academy of Surgery in Paris, and for having gained special protection for surgery and surgeons in France. He wrote little." [81]
21. "Willis, Thomas (1621-1675), English physician, was born at Great Bedwin, Wiltshire, on 27th January, 1621. He studied at Christ Church, Oxford; and when that city was garrisoned for the king he bore arms for the Royalists. He took the degree of bachelor of medicine in 1646, and after the surrender of the garrison applied himself to the practice of his profession. In 1660, shortly after the Restoration, he became Sedleian professor of natural philosophy in place of Dr. Joshua Cross, who was ejected, and the same year he took the degree of doctor of physic.... He was one of the first members of the Royal Society, and was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1664. In 1666, ... he removed to Westminster, on the invitation of Dr. Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury.... He died at St. Martin's on 11th November, 1675, and was buried in Westminster Abbey." [82] 22. "Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de. Born at Rouen, France, February 11, 1657; died at Paris, January 9, 1757. A French advocate, philosopher, poet, and miscellaneous writer. He was the nephew (through his mother) of Corneille, and was 'one of the last of the Précieux, or rather the inventor of a new combination of literature and gallantry which at first exposed him to not a little satire' (Saintsbury). He wrote 'Poésies pastorales' (1688), 'Dialogues des morts' (1683), 'Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes' (1686), 'Histoire des oracles' (1687), 'Eloges des académiciens' (delivered 1690-1740)." [83]
23. "In a word, would it be absolutely impossible to teach the ape a language? I do not think so." Compare with this Haeckel's statement of the relation between man's speech and that of apes. "It is of especial interest that the speech of apes seems on physiological comparison to be a stage in the formation of articulate human speech. Among living apes there is an Indian species which is musical; the hylobates syndactylus sings a full octave in perfectly pure harmonious half-tones. No impartial philologist can hesitate any longer to admit that our elaborate rational language has been slowly and gradually developed out of the imperfect speech of our Pliocene simian ancestors." [84] 24. Johann Conrad Amman was born at Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, in 1669. After his graduation at Basle, he practised medicine at Amsterdam. He devoted most of his attention to the instruction of deaf mutes. He taught them by attracting their attention to the motion of his lips, tongue, and larynx, while he was speaking, and by persuading them to imitate these motions. In this way, they finally learned to articulate syllables and words, and to talk. In his works "Surdus Loquens," and "Dissertatio de Loquela," he explained the mechanism of speech, and made public his method of instruction. From all accounts it seems that his success with the deaf mutes was remarkable. He died about 1730. [85]
25. "... the great analogy between ape and man...." Compare Haeckel: "Thus comparative anatomy proves to the satisfaction of every unprejudiced and critical student the significant fact that the body of man and that of the anthropoid ape are not only peculiarly similar, but they are practically one and the same in every important respect." [86] 26. Sir William Temple was born in London in 1628. He attended the Puritan College of Emmanuel, Cambridge, but left without taking his degree. After an extensive tour on the continent, he settled in Ireland in 1655. His political career began with the accession of Charles II in 1660. He is particularly noted for concluding "The Triple Alliance" between England, the United Netherlands, and Sweden, and for his part in bringing about the marriage of William and Mary, which completed the alliance of England and the Netherlands. Temple was not as successful in political work at home as abroad, for he was too honest to care to be concerned in the intrigues in English affairs, at that time. He retired from politics and died at Moor Park in 1699. Temple wrote several works on political subjects. His "Memoirs" were begun in 1682; the first part was destroyed before it was published, the second part was published without his consent, and the third part was published by Swift after Temple's death. His fame rests more on his diplomatic work than on his writings. [87]
27. "Trembley (Abraham) a Swiss naturalist, born in Geneva, the third of September, 1700, died in Geneva, the twelfth of May, 1784. He was educated in his native city, and in the Hague, where he became tutor of the son of an English resident, and later the tutor of the young duke of Richmond, with whom he traveled in Germany and Italy. In 1760, he obtained the position of librarian at Geneva, and gained a seat in the council of the 'Two Hundred.' His admirable works on the fresh-water snake procured for him his election as member of the Royal Society of London, and as correspondent of the Academy of Sciences in Paris. From 1775 to 1782 he published several works on natural religion, and articles on natural history in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' 1742-57. His most important work is 'Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire d'un genre de polype d'eau douce' (Leyden, 1744; Paris, 2 volumes)." [88] 28. "What was man before the invention of words and the knowledge of language? An animal." Compare this with the statement of Hobbes: "The most noble and profitable invention of all others was that of Speech, consisting of names or appellations, and their connexion, ... without which there had been amongst men neither commonwealth, nor society, nor contract, nor peace, no more than amongst lions, bears, and wolves." [89]
29. Fontenelle. See note 22. 30. "All the faculties of the soul can be correctly reduced to pure imagination." Compare with this La Mettrie's statement in "L'histoire naturelle de l'âme": "The more one studies all the intellectual faculties, the more convinced one remains, that they are all included in the faculty of sensation, upon which they all depend so essentially that without it the soul could never perform any of its functions." [90] This resembles Condillac's doctrine of sensation: "Judgment, reflexion, desires, passions, etc., are nothing but sensation itself which is transformed in diverse ways." [91] Helvetius also says: "All the operations of the mind are reducible to sensation." [92] 31. "See to what one is brought by the abuse of language, and by the use of those fine words (spirituality, immateriality, etc.)." Compare Hobbes, "Though men may put together words of contradictory signification, as spirit and incorporeal; yet they can never have the imagination of anything answering to them." [93] 32. "Man's preëminent advantage is his organism." Luzac says: "This no more proves that organization is the chief merit of man, than that the form of a musical instrument constitutes the chief merit of the musician. In proportion to the goodness of the instrument, the musician charms by his art, and the case is the same with the soul. In proportion to the soundness of the body, the soul is in better condition to exert her faculties." [94]
33. "Such is, I think, the generation of intelligence." Luzac argues against this statement thus: "But if thought and all the faculties of the soul depended only on the organization as some pretend, how could the imagination draw a long chain of consequences from the objects it has embraced?" [95] 34. Pyrrhonism is "the doctrine of Pyrrho of Elis which has been transmitted chiefly by his disciple Timon. More generally, radical Scepticism in general." [96] 35. Pierre Bayle was born at Carlat in 1647. Although the child of Protestant parents, he was converted by the Jesuits. After his reconversion to Protestantism, he was driven out of France, and took refuge first in Geneva, and then in Holland. In 1675 he became professor of philosophy at the Protestant College of Sedan, and in 1681 professor of philosophy and history at Rotterdam. In 1693 he was forced to resign from his position on account of his religious views. Bayle was one of the leading French sceptics of the time. He was a Cartesian, but questioned both the certainty of one's own existence, and the knowledge derived from it. He declared that religion is contrary to the human reason, but that this fact does not necessarily destroy faith. He distinguished religion not only from science, but also from morality, and vigorously opposed those who considered a certain religion necessary for morality. He did not openly attack Christianity, yet all that he wrote awakened doubt, and his work exerted an extensive influence for scepticism.
His principal work is the "Dictionnaire historique et critique," published 1695-1697, and containing a vast amount of knowledge, expressed in a piquant and popular style. This fact made the book widely read both by scholars and by superficial readers. 36. Arnobius the Elder was born at Sicca Venerea in Numidia, in the latter part of the third century A. D. He was at first an opponent of Christianity, but was afterwards converted, and wrote "Adversus Gentes" as an apology for Christianity. In this work, he tries to answer the complaints made against Christians on the ground that the disasters of the time were due to their impiety; vindicates the divinity of Christ; and discusses the nature of the human soul. He concludes that the soul is not immortal, for he believes that the belief in the immortality of the soul would have a deteriorating influence on morality. For translation of his work compare Vol. XIX of the "Ante-Nicene Christian Library." [97] 37. "There exists no soul or sensitive substance without remorse." Condillac had said: "There is something in animals besides motion. They are not pure machines: they feel." [98] La Mettrie also attributed remorse to animals, but believed that they are none the less machines. Luzac said in comment: "What renders these systems completely ridiculous, is, that the persons who pronounce men machines, give them properties which belie their assertion. If beings are but machines, why do they grant a natural law, an internal sense, a kind of dread? These are ideas which can not be excited by objects which operate on our senses." [99]
38. "Nature has created us solely to be happy." This is a statement of the doctrine, which La Mettrie develops in his principal ethical work "Discours sur le Bonheur." He teaches that happiness rests upon bodily pleasure and pain. In "L'histoire naturelle de l'âme," La Mettrie states that all the passions can be developed from two fundamental passions, of which they are but modifications, love and hatred, or desire and aversion. [100] Like La Mettrie, Helvetius makes corporeal pleasure and pain the ruling motives for man's conduct. Thus he writes: "Pleasure and pain are and always will be the only principles of action in man." [101]... "Remorse is nothing more than a foresight of bodily pain to which some crime has exposed us." [102] He definitely makes happiness the end of human action. "The end of man is self-preservation and the attainment of a happy existence.... Man, to find happiness, should save up his pleasures, and refuse all those which might change into pains.... The passions always have happiness as an object: they are legitimate and natural, and can not be called good or bad except on account of their influence on human beings. To lead men to virtue, we must show them the advantages of virtuous actions." [103] Holbach, finally, goes further than La Mettrie or Helvetius, and makes purely mechanical impulses the motives of man's action. "The passions are ways of being or modifications of the internal organs, attracted or repulsed by objects, and are consequently subject in their own way to the physical laws of attraction and repulsion." [104]
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.