Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

L'Homme machine [Man a Machine]

1748, 1749

"I mean that invigorating and impetuous principle which Hypocrates calls ενοϱμον or the soul. This principle exists and is seated in the brain at the point of origin of the nerves through which it exercises its rule over all the rest of the body."

I shall not consider further those inferiour springs or principles, which are known to every body. But there is another more pure and fine, which infuses life into all the rest. 'Tis this which is the source of all our sentiments, of all our pleasures, passions, and thoughts; for the brain has its proper muscles for thinking, as well as the legs have theirs for walking. I mean that invigorating and impetuous principle which Hypocrates calls ενοϱμον or the soul. This principle exists and is seated in the brain at the point of origin of the nerves through which it exercises its rule over all the rest of the body. It is the explanatory principle of all that can be explained, including even the surprising effects of the maladies of the imagination.
(p. 62)

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Reading

4 entries in the ESTC. Published anonymously, translated into English in 1749 with printings in 1750 and 1752.

Text from Man a Machine. Translated from the French of the Marquiss D'Argens. (London: Printed for W. Owen, 1749). <Link to ECCO>

Reading Man a Machine and Man a Plant, trans. Richard A. Watson and Maya Rybalka (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994). Translation based on version from La Mettrie's Oeuvres philosophiques (Berlin: 1751).

07/16/2013