Man a Machine · Julien Offray de La Mettrie
NOTES ON MAN A MACHINE.
39. "Ixions of Christianity." Ixion, for his treachery, stricken with madness, was cast into Erebus, where he was continually scourged while bound to a fiery wheel, and forced to cry: "Benefactors should be honored." 40. "Who can be sure that the reason for man's existence is not simply the fact that he exists?" Luzac opposes this by saying: "If the reason of man's existence was in man himself, this existence would be a necessary consequence of his own nature; so that his own nature would contain the cause or reason of his existence. Now since his own nature would imply the cause of his existence, it would also imply his existence itself, so that man could no more be considered as non-existent than a circle can be considered without radii or a picture without features or proportions.... If the existence of man was in man himself, he would then be an invariable being." [105] 41. "Fénelon (François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon), born at Château de Fénelon, Dordogne, France, August 6, 1651, died at Cambrai, France, January 7, 1715. A celebrated French prelate, orator, and author. He became preceptor of the sons of the dauphin in 1689, and was appointed archbishop of Cambrai in 1695. His works include 'Les aventures de Télémaque' (1699), 'Dialogues des morts' (1712), 'Traité de l'éducation des filles' (1688), 'Explication des maximes des saints' (1697), etc. His collected works were edited by Leclère (38 vols., 1827-1830)." [106]
42. "Nieuwentyt (Bernard), a Dutch mathematician, born in West-Graftdijk the tenth of August 1654, died at Purmerend the thirtieth of May, 1718. An unrelenting Cartesian, he combated the infinitesimal calculus, and wrote a polemic against Leibnitz, concerning this subject. He wrote a theological dissertation translated into French under the title "L'existence de Dieu démontrée par les merveilles de la nature" (Paris, 1725)." [107] 43. "Abadie, James (Jacques), born at Nay, Basse-Pyrénées, probably in 1654; died at London, September 25, 1725. A noted French Protestant theologian. He went to Berlin about 1680 as minister of the French church there, and thence to England and Ireland; was for a time minister of the French church in the Savoy; and settled in Ireland as dean of Killaloe in 1699. His chief work is the 'Traité de la vérité de la religion chrétienne' (1684), with its continuation 'Traité de la divinité de nôtre Seigneur Jesus-Christ' (1689)." [108] 44. "Derham (William), English theologian and scholar, born in Stoughton, near Worcester, in 1657, died at Upminster in 1735. Pastor of Upminster in the county of Essex, he could peacefully devote himself to his taste for mechanics and natural history. Besides making studies of watch-making, and of fish, birds, and insects, published in part in the Transactions of the Royal Society, he wrote several works on religious philosophy. The most important, which was popular for a long time and was translated into French (1726), has as title 'Physico-Theology, or the Demonstration of the Existence and the Attributes of God, by the Works of His Creation' (1713). He wrote as complement, in 1714, his 'Astro-Theology, or the Demonstration of the Existence and Attributes of God by the Observation of the Heavens.'" [109]
45. Rais, or Cardinal de Retz (1614-1679), was a French politician and author. From his childhood he was intended for the church. He took an active part in the movement against Cardinal Mazarin, and later became cardinal, but lost his popularity, and was imprisoned at Vincennes. After escaping from there he returned to France and settled in Lorraine, where he wrote his 'Mémoires,' which tell of the court life of his time. [110] 46. Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694) was a renowned Italian anatomist and physiologist. He held the position of lecturer on medicine at Bologna in 1656, a few months later became professor at Pisa, was made professor at Bologna in 1660, went from there to Messina, though he later returned to Bologna. In 1691 he became physician to Pope Innocent XII. Malpighi is often known as the founder of microscopic anatomy. He was the first to see the marvelous spectacle of the circulation of the blood on the surface of a frog's lung. He discovered the vesicular structure of the human lung, the structure of the secreting glands, and the mucous character of the lower stratum of the epidermis. He was the first to undertake the finer anatomy of the brain, and he accurately described the distribution of grey matter, and of the fibre tracts in the cord. His works are: "De pulmonibus" (Bologna, 1661), "Epistolae anatomicae narc. Malpighi et Car. Fracassati" (Amsterdam, 1662), "De Viscerum Structura" (London, 1669), "Anatome Plantarum" (London, 1672), "De Structura Glandularum conglobatarum" (London, 1689). [111]
47. Deism is a system of thought which arose in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Its most important representatives in England were Toland, Collins, Chubb, Shaftsbury, and Tindal. They insisted on freedom of thought and speech, and claimed that reason is superior to any authority. They denied the necessity of any supernatural revelation, and were consequently vigorously opposed by the church. Partly because of this opposition by the church, many of them argued against Christianity, and tried to show that an observance of moral laws is the only religion necessary for man. They taught that happiness is man's chief end, and that, since man is a social being, his happiness can best be gained by mutual helpfulness. Although they declared that nature is the work of a perfect being, they had a mechanical conception of the relation of God to the world, and did not, like later theists, find evidence of God's presence in all the works of nature. [112] 48. "Vanini, Lucilio, self-styled Julius Cæsar. Born at Taurisano, kingdom of Naples, about 1585; burned at the stake at Toulouse, France, February 19, 1619. An Italian free thinker, condemned to death as an atheist and magician. He studied at Rome and Padua, became a priest, traveled in Germany and the Netherlands, and began teaching at Lyons, but was obliged to flee to England, where he was arrested. After his release he returned to Lyons, and about 1617 settled at Toulouse. Here he was arrested for his opinions, condemned, and on the same day executed. His chief works are: 'Amphitheatrum aeternae Providentiae' (1615), 'De admirandis naturae reginae deaeque mortalium arcanis' (1616)." [113]
49. Desbarreaux (Jacques Vallée). A French writer, born at Paris in 1602, who died at Chalon-sur-Saône the ninth of May, 1673. He wrote a celebrated sonnet on penitence, but was rather an unbeliever and sceptic than a penitent. Guy Patin, hearing of his death, said: "He infected poor young people by his licence. His conversation was very dangerous and destructive to the public." [114] 50. Boindin (Nicolas), French scholar and author, born the twenty-ninth of May 1676 at Paris, where he died the thirtieth of November 1751. He was in the army for a while, but retired on account of ill health. He then gave himself up to literature, and wrote several plays. In 1706 he was elected Royal censor and associate of the Academy of Inscriptions. His liberty, or, as it was then called, license of mind, shut the doors of the French Academy to him, and would have caused his expulsion from the Academy of Inscriptions if he had not been so old. He died without retracting his opinions. [115] 51. Denis Diderot (1713-1784) was one of the leaders of the intellectual movement of the eighteenth century. He was at first influenced by Shaftsbury, and was enthusiastic in his support of natural religion. In his "Pensées philosophiques" (1746) he tries to show that the discoveries of natural science are the strongest proofs for the existence of God. The wonders of animal life are enough to destroy atheism for ever. Yet, while he opposes atheism, he also opposes vigorously the intolerance and bigotry of the church. He claims that many of the attributes ascribed to God are contrary to the very idea of a just and loving God.
Later, Diderot was influenced by La Mettrie and by Holbach, and became an advocate of materialism which he set forth in "Le rêve d'Alembert" and in the passages contributed to the "Système de la nature." Diderot was the editor of the "Encyclopédie." [116] 52. Trembley. See note 27. 53. "Nothing which happens, could have failed to happen." An enunciation of the doctrine so insisted upon by Holbach. "The whole universe ... shows us only an immense and uninterrupted chain of cause and effect." [117]... "Necessity which regulates all the movements of the physical world, controls also those of the moral world." [118] 54. "All these evidences of a creator, repeated thousands ... of times ... are self-evident only to the anti-Pyrrhonians." La Mettrie holds an opinion contrary not only to that of Descartes and Locke, but also to that of Toland, Hobbes, and Condillac. Descartes, for instance, says: "Thus I very clearly see that the certitude and truth of all science depends on the knowledge alone of the true God." [119] Hobbes asserts: "For he that from any effect he seeth come to pass should reason to the next and immediate cause thereof, and from thence to the cause of that cause, ... shall at last come to this, that there must be, as even the heathen philosophers confessed, one first mover, that is a first and an eternal cause of all things, which is that which men mean by the name of God." [120] Toland's words are: "All the jumbling of atoms, all the Chances you can suppose for it, could not bring the Parts of the Universe into their present Order, nor continue them in the same, nor cause the Organization of a Flower or a Fly.... The Infinity of Matter ... excludes ... an extended corporeal God, but not a pure Spirit or immaterial Being." [121] Condillac writes: "A first cause, independent, unique, infinite, eternal, omnipotent, immutable, intelligent, free, and whose providence extends over all things: that is the most perfect notion of God that we can form in this life." [122] Locke declares: "From what has been said it is plain to me we have a more certain knowledge of the existence of a God than of anything our senses have not immediately discovered to us. Nay I presume I may say, that we more certainly know that there is a God, than that there is anything else without us." [123]
55. "Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus). Born at Rome, probably about 96 B.C., died October 15, 55 B.C. A celebrated Roman philosophical poet. He was the author of 'De rerum natura,' a didactic and philosophical poem in six books, treating of physics, of psychology, and (briefly) of ethics from the Epicurean point of view. He committed suicide probably in a fit of insanity. According to a popular but doubtless erroneous tradition, his madness was due to a love-philter administered to him by his wife." [124] 56. "Lamy (Bernard) was born in Mans in the year 1640. He studied first in the college of this city. He later went to Paris, and at Saumar studied philosophy under Charles de la Fontenelle, and theology under André Martin and Jean Leporc. He was at length called to teach philosophy in the city of Angers. He wrote a great many books on theological subjects. His philosophical works are: 'L'art de parler' (1675), 'Traité de méchanique, de l'équilibre, des solides et des liqueurs' (1679), 'Traité de la grandeur en général' (1680), 'Entretiens sur les sciences' (1684), 'Eléments de géométrie,' (1685)." [125] 57. "The eye sees only because it is formed and placed as it is." La Mettrie doubts whether there is any purpose in the world. Condillac, on the other hand, teaches that purpose and intelligence are shown forth in the universe. "Can we see the order of the parts of the universe, the subordination among them, and notice how so many different things compose such a permanent whole, and remain convinced that the cause of the universe is a principle without any knowledge of its effects, which without purpose, without intelligence, relates each being to particular ends, subordinated to a general end?" [126]
58. "Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites." Vergil, Eclogue III, line 108. 59. "The universe will never be happy unless it is atheistic." Although La Mettrie calls this a "strange opinion" it is clear that he secretly sympathizes with it. Holbach affirms this doctrine very emphatically. "Experience teaches us that sacred opinions were the real source of the evils of human beings. Ignorance of natural causes created gods for them. Imposture made these gods terrible. This idea hindered the progress of reason." [127] "An atheist ... is a man who destroys chimeras harmful to the human race, in order to lead men back to nature, to experience, and to reason, which has no need of recourse to ideal powers, to explain the operations of nature." [128] 60. "The soul is therefore but an empty word." Contrast this with Descartes's statement: "And certainly the idea I have of the human mind ... is incomparably more distinct than the idea of any corporeal object." [129] Compare this doctrine, also, with Holbach's assertion: "Those who have distinguished the soul from the body seem to have only distinguished their brains from themselves. Truly the brain is the common center, where all the nerves spread in all parts of the human body, terminate and join together.... The more experience we have, the more we are convinced that the word 'spirit' has no meaning even to those who have invented it, and can be of no use either in the physical or in the moral world." [130]
61. William Cowper (1666-1709) was an English anatomist. He was drawn into a controversy with Bidloo, the Dutch physician, by publishing under his own name Bidloo's work on the anatomy of human bodies. His principal works are: "Myotamia reformata" (London, 1694) and "Glandularum descriptio" (1702). [131] 62. William Harvey (1578-1657), an English physician and physiologist, is renowned for his discovery of the circulation of the blood. He was educated at Canterbury and Cambridge, and took his doctor's degree at Cambridge in 1602. During his life he held the position of Lumleian lecturer at the College of Physicians, and of physician extraordinary to James I. His principal works are: "Exercitatio de motu cordis et sanguinis" (1628), and "Exercitationes de generatione animalium" (1651). [132] 63. Francis Bacon (1551-1626) was one of the first to revolt against scholasticism and to introduce a new method into science and philosophy. He claimed that to know reality, and consequently to gain new power over reality, man must stop studying conceptions, and study matter itself. Yet he did not himself know how to gain a more accurate knowledge of nature, so that he could not put into practice the method which he himself advocated. His works are full of scholastic conceptions, though many of the implications of his system are materialistic. Lange claims, [133] indeed, that if Bacon had been more consistent and daring, he would have reached strictly materialistic conclusions. The account of the motion of the heart of the dead convict is found in "Sylva Sylvarum." [134] This book, published in 1627, a year after Bacon's death, contains the account of Bacon's experiments, and of his theories in matters of physiology, physics, chemistry, medicine, and psychology.
64. Robert Boyle, one of the greatest natural philosophers of his age, studied at Eton for three years, and then became the private pupil of the rector of Stalbridge. He traveled through France, Switzerland, and Italy, and while at Florence, studied the work of Galileo. He decided to devote his life to scientific work, and in 1645 became a member of a society of scientific men, which later grew into the Royal Society of London. His principal work was the improvement of the air-pump, and by that the discovery of the laws governing the pressure and volume of gases. Boyle was also deeply interested in theology. He gave liberally for the work of spreading Christianity in India and America, and by his will endowed the "Boyle Lectures" to demonstrate the Christian religion against atheists, theists, pagans, Jews, and Mohammedans. [135] 65. Nicolas Sténon was born at Copenhagen, 1631, and died at Schwerin in 1687. He studied at Leyden and Paris, and then settled in Florence, where he became the physician of the grand duke. In 1672 he became professor of anatomy at Florence, but three years later he gave up this position and entered the church. In 1677 he was made Bishop of Heliopolis and went to Hanover, then to Munster, and finally to Schwerin. His principal work is the "Discours sur l'anatomie du cerveau" (Paris, 1669). [136]
66. La Mettrie's account of involuntary movements is much like that of Descartes. Descartes says: "If any one quickly passes his hand before our eyes as if to strike us, we shut our eyes, because the machinery of our body is so composed that the movement of this hand towards our eyes excites another movement in the brain, which controls the animal spirits in the muscles that close the eyelids." [137] 67. "The brain has its muscles for thinking, as the legs have muscles for walking." Neither Condillac nor Helvetius go so far. Helvetius explicitly states that it is an open question whether sensation is due to a material or to a spiritual substance. [138] 68. Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608-1670) was the head of the so-called iatro-mathematical sect. He tried to apply mathematics to medicine in the same way in which it had been applied to the physical sciences. He was wise enough to restrict the application of his system to the motion of the muscles, but his followers tried to extend its application and were led into many absurd conjectures. Borelli was at first professor of mathematics at Pisa, and later professor of medicine at Florence. He was connected with the revolt of Messina and was obliged to leave Florence. He retired to Rome, where he was under the protection of Christina, Queen of Sweden, and remained there until his death in 1679. [139]
69. "For one order that the will gives, it bows a hundred times to the yoke." Descartes, on the other hand, teaches that the soul has direct control over its voluntary actions and thoughts, and indirect control over its passions. [140] La Mettrie goes further than to limit the extent of the will, and questions whether it is ever free: "The sensations which affect us decide the soul either to will or not to will, to love or to hate these sensations according to the pleasure or the pain which they cause in us. This state of the soul thus determined by its sensations is called the will." [141] Holbach insists on this point and contends that all freedom is a delusion: "[Man's] birth depends on causes entirely outside of his power; it is without his permission that he enters this system where he has a place; and without his consent that, from the moment of his birth to the day of his death, he is continually modified by causes that influence his machine in spite of his will, modify his being, and alter his conduct. Is not the least reflexion enough to prove that the solids and fluids of which the body is composed, and that the hidden mechanism that he considers independent of external causes, are perpetually under the influence of these causes, and could not act without them? Does he not see that his temperament does not depend on himself, that his passions are the necessary consequences of his temperament, that his will and his actions are determined by these same passions, and by ideas that he has not given to himself?... In a word, everything should convince man that during every moment of his life, he is but a passive instrument in the hands of necessity." [142]
70. The theory of animal spirits, held by Galen and elaborated by Descartes, is that the nerves are hollow tubes containing a volatile liquid, the animal spirits. The animal spirits were supposed to circulate from the periphery to the brain and back again, and to perform by their action all the functions of the nerves. 71. Berkeley uses the fact that the color of objects varies, as one argument for his idealistic conclusion. [143] 72. It is hard to tell what Pythagoras himself taught, but it is certain that he taught the kinship of animals and men, and upon this kinship his rule for the abstinence from flesh was probably based. Among the writings of the later Pythagoreans we find strange rules for diet which are plainly genuine taboos. For example they are commanded "to abstain from beans, not to break bread, not to eat from a whole loaf, not to eat the heart, etc." [144] 73. Plato forbade the use of wine in his ideal republic. [145] 74. "Nature's first care, when the chyle enters the blood, is to excite in it a kind of fever." Thus, warmth is the first necessity for the body. Compare with this, Descartes's statement: "There is a continual warmth in our heart, ... this fire is the bodily principle of all the movements of our members." [146] This is one of the many instances in which La Mettrie's account of the mechanism of the body is similar to that of Descartes.
75. "Stahl (George Ernst), born at Ansbach, Bavaria, October 21, 1660; died at Berlin, May 14, 1734. A noted German chemist, physician of the King of Prussia from 1716. His works include: 'Theoria medica vera' (1707), 'Experimenta et observationes chemicae' (1731), etc." [147] 76. Philip Hecquet (1661-1737) was a celebrated French physician. He studied at Rheims, and in 1688 became the physician of the nuns of Port Royal des Champs. He returned to Paris in 1693 and took his doctor's degree in 1697. He was twice dean of the faculty of Paris. In 1727 he became the physician of the religious Carmelites of the suburb of Saint Jacques, and remained their physician for thirty-two years. [148] 77. The quotation: "All men may not go to Corinth," is translated from Horace, Ep. 1, 19, 36. "Non cuivis homini contigit adire Corinthum."
78. Hermann Boerhaave was born at Voorhout near Leyden, on December 31, 1668. His father, who belonged to the clerical profession, destined his son for the same calling and so gave him a liberal education. At the University of Leyden, he studied under Gronovius, Ryckius and Frigland. At the death of his father, Boerhaave was left without any provision and supported himself by teaching mathematics. Vandenberg, the burgomaster of Leyden, advised him to study medicine, and he decided to devote himself to this profession. In 1693 he received his degree and began to practice medicine. In 1701 he was made "Lecturer on the Institutes of Medicine" at the University of Leyden. Thirteen years later he was appointed Rector of the University, and the same year became Professor of Practical Medicine there. He introduced into the university the system of clinical instruction. Boerhaave's merit was widely recognized, and his fame attracted many medical students from all Europe to the University of Leyden. Among these was La Mettrie whose whole philosophy was profoundly influenced by the teaching of Boerhaave. In 1728 Boerhaave was elected into the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, and two years later he was made a member of the Royal Society of London. In 1731 his health compelled him to resign the Rectorship at Leyden. At this time he delivered an oration, "De Honore, Medici Servitute." He died after a long illness on April 23, 1738. The city of Leyden erected a monument to him in the Church of St. Peter, and inscribed on it: "Salutifero Boerhaavii genio Sacrum."
Boerhaave was a careful and brilliant student, an inspiring teacher, and a skilful practitioner. There are remarkable accounts of his skill in discovering symptoms, and in diagnosing diseases. His chief works are: "Institutiones Medicae" (Leyden, 1708); "Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis Morbis" (Leyden, 1709), "Libellus de Materia Medica et Remediorum Formulis" (Leyden, 1719), "Institutiones et Experimentae Chemicae" (Paris, 1724). [149] 79. Willis. (See Note 21.) 80. Claude Perrault (1613-1688) was a French physician and architect. He received his degree of doctor of medicine at Paris and practised medicine there. In 1673 he became a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. Although he never abandoned his work in mathematics, in the natural sciences, and in medicine, he is more noted as an architect than as a physician or scientist. He was the architect of one of the colonnades of the Louvre, and of the Observatory. [150] 81. "Matter is self-moved." In "L'histoire naturelle de l'âme" La Mettrie claims that motion is one of the essential properties of matter. See "L'histoire naturelle de l'âme," Chap. V.
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