Chapter XI: Appendix: Outlines and Notes (2)

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.

82. "The nature of motion is as unknown to us as that of matter." Unlike La Mettrie, Toland holds that it is possible to know the nature of matter, and declares that motion and matter can not be defined, because their nature is self-evident. [151] Holbach, resembling La Mettrie, teaches that it is futile to seek to know the ultimate nature of matter, or the cause for its existence. "Thus if any one shall ask whence matter came, we shall say that it has always existed. If any one ask, whence came movement in matter, we shall answer that for this same reason matter must have moved from eternity, since motion is a necessary consequence of its existence, its essence, and of its primitive properties, such as extent, weight, impenetrability, shape, etc.... The existence of matter is a fact; the existence of motion is another fact." [152]

83. Huyghens (Christian) was born at The Hague, 1629, and died there in 1695. He was a Dutch physicist, mathematician, and astronomer. He is celebrated for the invention of the pendulum clock which could measure the movements of the planets, for the improvement of the telescope, and for the development of the wave-theory of light. His principal work is "Horologium Oscillatorium" (1673). [153]

84. Julien Leroy (1686-1759) was a celebrated French watchmaker. He excelled in the construction of pendulums and of large clocks. Some have attributed the construction of the first horizontal clock to him, but this is doubtful. Among many other inventions and improvements of clocks, he invented the compensating pendulum which bears his name. [154]

85. Jacques de Vaucanson (1709-1782) was a French mechanist. From his childhood he was always interested in mechanical contrivances. In 1738 he presented to the French Academy his remarkable flute player. Soon after, he made a duck which could swim, eat, and digest, and an asp which could hiss and dart on Cleopatra's breast. He later held the position of inspector of the manufacture of silk. In 1748 he was admitted to the Academy of Sciences. His machines were left to the Queen, but she gave them to the Academy, and in the disturbances which followed the pieces were scattered and lost. Vaucanson published: "Mécanisme d'un flûteur automate" (Paris, 1738). [155]

86. "[Descartes] understood animal nature; he was the first to prove completely that animals are pure machines." Contrast this with La Mettrie's former reference in "L'histoire naturelle de l'âme" to "this absurd system 'that animals are pure machines.' Such a laughable opinion," he adds, "has never gained admittance among philosophers.... Experience does not prove the faculty of feeling any less in animals than in men." [156] It is evident that La Mettrie's opposition to this 'absurd system' was based upon his insistence on the similarity of men and animals. In "L'homme machine" he argues from the same premiss, that animals are machines, that men are like animals, and that therefore men also are machines.

NOTES ON THE EXTRACTS FROM "L'HISTOIRE NATURELLE DE L'AME."

87. Matter, according to La Mettrie, is endowed with extensity, the power of movement, and the faculty of sensation. As La Mettrie says, this conception was not held by Descartes, who thought that the essential attribute of matter is extension. "The nature of body consists not in weight, hardness, color, and the like but in extension alone--in its being a substance extended in length, breadth and height." [157] Hobbes's conception of matter is very similar to that of La Mettrie. He specifically attributes motion to matter: "Motion and magnitude are the most common accidents of all bodies." [158] He does not name sensation as an attribute of matter, but he reduces sensation to motion. "Sense is some internal motion in the sentient." [159] Since motion is one of the attributes of matter, and since matter is the only reality in the universe, sensation must be attributed to matter.

88. La Mettrie always insists that matter has the power of moving itself, and resents any attempt to show that the motion is due to an outside agent. In this opinion he is in agreement with Toland. Toland says that those who have regarded matter as inert have had to find some efficient cause for motion; and to do this, they have held that all nature is animated. This pretended animation, however, is utterly useless, since matter is itself endowed with motion.

89. "This absurd system ... that animals are pure machines." (See Note 86.)

WORKS CONSULTED AND CITED IN THE NOTES.

(An asterisk indicates the edition to which reference is made.)

JULIEN OFFRAY DE LA METTRIE.

1745 "L'histoire naturelle de l'âme." The Hague. (This
work appears as "Traité de l'âme" in La Mettrie's
collected works.)
1748 "L'homme machine." Leyden.
"L'homme machine par La Mettrie, avec une
introduction et des notes." J. Assézat. Paris,
1865.
1751 "OEuvres philosophiques." London (Berlin).
1764 * "OEuvres philosophiques de Monsieur de la
Mettrie," Amsterdam. Besides "L'homme machine"
and "Traité de l'âme," the "OEuvres
philosophiques" contain the following (dates of
first publication added in parentheses):

"Abrégé des systèmes."
"L'homme plante" (1748).
"Les animaux plus que machines" (1750).
"L'Anti-Sénèque" (1748).
"L'art de jouir" (1751).
"Système d'Epicure."

ELIE LUZAC.

1748 "L'homme plus que machine." London (Leyden).
* "Man More than a Machine," translated from the
French of Elie Luzac, and printed with the
translation of "Man a Machine" for G. Smith,
1750.

RENÉ DESCARTES.

1637 "Essais philosophiques," including "Discours de
la méthode."
* "The Discourse on Method," translated by John
Veitch. Open Court Publishing Co., 1903.
1641 "Meditationes de prima philosophia."
1644 "Principia philosophiae."
* "The Meditations and Selections from the
Principles of Philosophy," translated by John
Veitch. Open Court Publishing Co., 1905.
1650 "Les passions de l'âme."
* "OEuvres de Descartes," Vol. IV. Edited by Victor
Cousin, Paris, 1824.

JOHN TOLAND.

1704 * "Letters to Serena." London. Printed for Bernard
Lintot.

THOMAS HOBBES.

1650 "Human Nature or the Fundamental Elements of
Policie." London.
1651 "Leviathan; Or the Matter, Form, and Power of a
Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical & Civil." London.
1655 "Elementorum Philosophiae Sectio Prima: De
Corpore." London.
* English Works edited by Sir William Molesworth,
1839-45. Volume III. Leviathan.
Volume IV. Human Nature.

JOHN LOCKE.

1690 "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding."
London.
* Edition of Books II and IV (with omissions)
preceded by the English version of Le Clerc's
"Eloge historique de feu Mr. Locke," ed. M. W.
Calkins. Open Court Publishing Co., 1905.

ETIENNE BONNOT DE CONDILLAC.

1754 "Traité des sensations." Paris and London.
1755 "Traité des animaux." Paris and London.
* "OEuvres complètes," 23 vols. Edited by Guillaume
Arnoux and Mousnier. Paris, 1798. Vol. III.
"Traité des sensations." "Traité des animaux."

BARON P. H. D. VON HOLBACH.

1770 "Système de la nature," par M. Mirabaud [really
Von Holbach].
* Nouvelle edition avec des notes et des
corrections par Diderot. Paris, 1821.

C. A. HELVETIUS.

1758 "De l'esprit." Paris.
* "De l'esprit, or Essays on the mind and its
several faculties," translated from the French by
William Mulford. London, 1810.
1772 "De l'homme, de ses facultés, et de son
éducation." 2 vols. London.
* "A Treatise on Man; His Intellectual Faculties
and His Education," translated from the French,
with notes, by W. Hooper, M. D., 1810.

FREDERICK THE GREAT.

* "OEuvres de Frederic II., Roi de Prusse, publiées
du vivant de l'auteur." Berlin, 1789: "Eloge de
Julien Offray de la Mettrie," Vol. III, pp. 159
ff.

FRANCIS BACON.

* "Sylva Sylvarum, sive Historia Naturalis,"
transcripta a J. Grutero Lug. Batavor. 1648.

F. A. LANGE.

* "History of Materialism," translated by Ernest
Chester Thomas, Boston, 1877.

W. WINDELBAND.

* "History of Philosophy," translated by J. H.
Tufts, New York, 1898.

A. W. BENN.

* "History of English Rationalism in the Nineteenth
Century." London, 1906.
"La Grande Encyclopédie. Inventaire Raisonné des
Sciences, des Lettres, et des Arts, par une
Société de Savants et de Gens de Lettres." Paris,
1885-1903.
"The Encyclopaedia Britannica. A Dictionary of
Arts, Sciences, and General Literature." Ninth
Edition.
"The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia." New
York.
"Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology," edited
by J. M. Baldwin. London and New York, 1901.

NOTES

[1] Il péche evidemment par une pétition de principe.

[2] L'histoire des animaux et des hommes prouve l'empire de la semence des pères sur l'esprit et le corps des enfants.

[3] L'auteur de l'Histoire naturelle de l'âme etc.

[4] L'auteur de l'Hist. de l'âme.

[5] Il y a encore aujourd'hui des peuples, qui, faute d'un plus grand nombre de signes, ne peuvent compter que jusqu'à 20.

[6] Dans un cercle, ou à table, il lui fallait toujours un rempart de chaises, ou quelqu'un dans son voisinage du côté gauche, pour l'empêcher de voir des abîmes épouvantables dans lesquels il craignait quelquefois de tomber, quelque connaissance qu'il eut de ces illusions. Quel effrayant effet de l'imagination, ou d'une singulière circulation dans un lobe du cerveau! Grand homme d'un côté, il était à moitié fou de l'autre. La folie et la sagesse avaient chacun leur département, ou leur lobe, séparé par la faux. De quel côté tenait-il si fort à Mrs. de Port-Royal? J'ai lu ce fait dans un extrait du traité du vertige de Mr. de la Mettrie.

[7] Au moins par les vaisseaux. Est-il sûr qu'il n'y en a point par les nerfs?

[8] Haller dans les Transact. Philosoph.

[9] Boerhaave, Inst. Med. et tant d'autres.

[10] He evidently errs by begging the question.

[11] The history of animals and of men proves how the mind and the body of children are dominated by their inheritance from their fathers.

[12] The author of "The Natural History of the Soul."

[13] The author of "The History of the Soul."

[14] There are peoples, even to-day, who, through lack of a greater number of signs, can count only to 20.

[15] In a company, or at table, he always required a rampart of chairs or else some one close to him at the left, to prevent his seeing horrible abysses into which (in spite of his understanding these illusions) he sometimes feared that he might fall. What a frightful result of imagination, or of the peculiar circulation in a lobe of the brain! Great man on one side of his nature, on the other he was half-mad. Madness and wisdom, each had its compartment, or its lobe, the two separated by a fissure. Which was the side by which he was so strongly attached to Messieurs of Port Royal? (I have read this in an extract from the treatise on vertigo by M. de la Mettrie.)

[16] Haller in the Transact. Philosoph.

[17] "L'histoire naturelle de l'âme," chapters XI, VIII.

[18] "Man a Machine," p. 142. Cf. La Mettrie's commentary on Descartes's teaching in "Abrégé des systèmes philosophiques," OEuvres, Tome 2.

[19] "Abrégé des systèmes, Descartes," p. 6, OEuvres Philosophiques, Tome 2.

[20] "Man a Machine," page 89. Cf. "L'histoire naturelle de l'âme" (or "Traité de l'âme"), OEuvres, 1746, p. 229.

[21] Descartes, "Principles," Part II, Prop. 4.

[22] "Man a Machine," pp. 122-126.

[23] Ibid., p. 142.

[24] Hobbes, "Leviathan," Part III, Chap. 34; Part I, Chap. XII, Open Court Edition, p. 169.

[25] "L'histoire naturelle de l'âme," Chapters III, V, and VI.

[26] "Leviathan," Part I, Chap. I. Cf. "Concerning Body," Part IV, Chap. XXV, 2.

[27] "Man a Machine," pp. 90-91.

[28] "Leviathan," Part I, Chap. VI, Molesworth Ed., p. 40. Cf. "Man a Machine," p. 90.

[29] Ibid., Part I, Chap. IV. Cf. "Man a Machine," p. 103.

[30] Ibid., Part I, Chap. XII.

[31] "Letters to Serena," V, p. 168.

[32] Ibid., p. 196.

[33] Ibid., p. 203.

[34] Ibid., p. 199.

[35] "L'histoire naturelle de l'âme," Chap. V, p. 94.

[36] "Man a Machine," p. 139.

[37] "Man a Machine," p. 140.

[38] "Letters to Serena," V, p. 227.

[39] Ibid., V, p. 234.

[40] John Locke, "Essay Concerning Human Understanding," Book I,