Date: 1741

"But to make use of the allusion of a celebrated French author, the judgment may be compared to a clock or watch, where the most ordinary machine is sufficient to tell the hours; but the most elaborate alone can point out the minutes and seconds, and distinguish the smallest differences of time."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1742

"Like many subordinate artists, employed to form the several wheels and springs of a machine: Such are those who excel in all the particular arts of life."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1748, 1777

"They know, that a human body is a mighty complicated machine: That many secret powers lurk in it, which are altogether beyond our comprehension: That to us it must often appear very uncertain in its operations: And that therefore the irregular events, which outwardly discover themselves, can be ...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1748, 1749

"The former have explored and unravelled the labyrinth of Man. They alone have discovered to us those hidden springs concealed under a cover, which hides from us so many wonders."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"Man is a machine so compound, that it is impossible to form at first a clear idea thereof, and consequently to define it. This is the reason, that all the enquiries the philosophers have made a priori, that is, by endeavouring to raise themselves on the wings of the understanding have proved ine...

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"In proportion as the motion of the blood grows calm, a soft soothing sense of peace and tranquility spreads itself over the whole machine; the soul finds itself sweetly weighed down with slumber, and sinks with the fibres of the brain: it becomes thus paralytic as it were, by degrees, together w...

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"The human body is a machine that winds up its own springs: it is a living image of the perpetual motion."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"We think not, nay, we are not honest men, but as we are chearful, or brave; all depends on the manner of winding up the machine."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"Is there any further occasion, to prove that man is but an animal, made up of a number of springs, which are all put in motion by each other; and yet we cannot tell to which part of the human structure first set her hand. If these springs differ amongst themselves, this arises from their particu...

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"The body may be consider'd as a clock, and the fresh chyle we may look upon as the former of that clock."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)