"Man is fram'd of materials, not exceeding in value those of other animals; nature has made use of one and the same paste, she has only diversify'd the ferment in working it up."
— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)
Work Title
Date
1748, 1749
Metaphor
"Man is fram'd of materials, not exceeding in value those of other animals; nature has made use of one and the same paste, she has only diversify'd the ferment in working it up."
Metaphor in Context
[...] In fine then, let us suppose, that the law of nature has not been given to other animals, what are the consequences which will thence follow? Man is fram'd of materials, not exceeding in value those of other animals; nature has made use of one and the same paste, she has only diversify'd the ferment in working it up. If then animals do not feel an inward repentance after the violation of that inward consciousness which I have been mentioning, or rather, if they are entirely destitute of it, then of necessity must man be reduc'd to the same situation: then farewell to the law of nature, and all those elaborate treatises which have been wrote upon this subject! The whole animal kingdom will then be in the same state. [...]
(p. 41)
(p. 41)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
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).
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).
Date of Entry
07/16/2013
