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Julien Offray de La Mettrie Quotes (1709-1751)
Philosopher
About Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie (November 23, 1709 β November 11, 1751) was a French physician and philosopher, and one of the earliest of the French materialists of the Enlightenment. He is best known for his work L'homme machine (Man a Machine).
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βWrite as if thou wert alone in the universe and hadst nothing to fear from the jealousies and prejudices of the people. Otherwise thou wilt miss thy purpose.β
βWe know in bodies only matter, and we observe the faculty of feeling only in bodies: on what foundation then can we erect an ideal being, disowned by all our knowledge?β
βThere comes up another difficulty which more nearly concerns our vanity: namely, the impossibility of our conceiving this property [the faculty of feeling] as a dependence or attribute of matter.β
βThe Christian Scholastics... might have shown that God Himself said that He had "imprinted an active principle in the elements of matter (Gen. i; Is. lxvi).β
βAncient philosophy will always hold its own among those who are worthy to judge it, because it forms... a system that is solid and well articulated like the body, whereas all these scattered members of modern philosophy form no system.β
β[B]efore Descartes, some of the ancients made the essence of matter consist in solid extension. But this opinion, of which all the Cartesians have made much, has at all times been victoriously combated...β
β[I]f we demonstrate this moving principle, if we show that matter, far from being as indifferent as it is supposed to be, to movement and to rest, ought to be regarded as an active, as well as a passive substance, what resource can be left to those who have made its essence consist in extension?β
βThe ancients, persuaded that there is no body without a moving force, regarded the substance of bodies as composed of two primitive attributes. It was held that, through one of these attributes, this substance has the capacity for moving and, through the other, the capacity for being moved.β
βDescartes, a genius made to blaze new paths and to go astray in them, supposed with some other philosophers that God is the only efficient cause of motion, and that every instant He communicates motion to all bodies. But this opinion is but an hypothesis which he tried to adjust to the light of faith; and in so doing he was no longer attempting to speak as a philosopher or to philosophers. Above all he was not addressing those who can be convinced only by the force of evidence.β
βWe have now but to prove a third attribute: I mean the faculty of feeling which the philosophers of all centuries have found in this same substance. ...[T]he Cartesians have made, in vain, to rob matter of this faculty. But in order to avoid insurmountable difficulties, they have flung themselves into a labyrinth from which they have thought to escape by this absurd system "that animals are pure machines."
An opinion so absurd has never gained admittance among philosophers... Experience gives us no less proof of the faculty of feeling in animals than of feeling in men.β
An opinion so absurd has never gained admittance among philosophers... Experience gives us no less proof of the faculty of feeling in animals than of feeling in men.β
β[W]e must admit, with the same frankness, that we are ignorant whether matter has in itself the faculty of feeling, or only the power of acquiring it by those modifications or forms to which matter is susceptible; for it is true that this faculty of feeling appears only in organic bodies.
This is then another new faculty which might exist only potentially in matter, like all the others which have been mentioned; and this was the hypothesis of the ancients, whose philosophy, full of insight and penetration, deserves to be raised above the ruins of the philosophy of the moderns.β
This is then another new faculty which might exist only potentially in matter, like all the others which have been mentioned; and this was the hypothesis of the ancients, whose philosophy, full of insight and penetration, deserves to be raised above the ruins of the philosophy of the moderns.β
Julien Offray de La Mettrie Quotes by Topic
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Julien Offray de La Mettrie on Animal cognition 2 quotes
βAmong animals, some learn to speak and sing; they remember tunes, and strike the notes as exactly as a musician. Others, for instance the ape, show more intelligence, and yet can not learn music. What is the reason for this... would it be absolutely impossible to teach the ape a language? I do not think so.β
Julien Offray de La Mettrie on Imagination 2 quotes
β[H]e who has the most imagination should be regarded as having the most intelligence or genius, for all these words are synonymous; and again, only by a shameful abuse [of terms] do we think that we are saying different things, when we are merely using different words, different sounds, to which no idea or real distinction is attached.β
Julien Offray de La Mettrie on Soul
β[T]he diverse states of the soul are always correlative with those of the body.β
Julien Offray de La Mettrie on Experience
βLet us then take in our hands the staff of experience... To be blind and to think that one can do without this staff is the worst kind of blindness.β
Julien Offray de La Mettrie on Algebra
β[T]he sciences that are expressed by numbers or by other small signs, are easily learned; and... this facility rather than its demonstrability is what has made the fortune of algebra.β
Julien Offray de La Mettrie on Thought
β[T]hought is so little incompatible with organized matter, that it seems to be one of its properties on a par with electricity, the faculty of motion, impenetrability, extentension, etc.β
Julien Offray de La Mettrie on Passion
Julien Offray de La Mettrie on Truth
βIt is not enough for a wise man to study nature and truth; he should dare state truth for the benefit of the few who are willing and able to think. As for the rest, who are voluntarily slaves of prejudice, they can no more attain truth, than frogs can fly.β
Julien Offray de La Mettrie on Geometry
βA geometrician has learned to perform the most difficult demonstrations and calculations, as a monkey has learned to take his little hat off and on... All has been accomplished through signs, every species has learned what it could understand, and in this way men have acquired symbolic knowledge...β
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Julien Offray de La Mettrie on Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle
βA mere nothing, a tiny fibre, something that could never be found by the most delicate anatomy, would have made of Erasmus and Fontenelle two idiots, and Fontenelle himself speaks of this very fact in one of his best dialogues.β
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Source on Julien Offray de La Mettrie 18 quotes
βJulien Offray de la Mettrie, or simply Lamettrie... is one of the most abused, but one of the least read, authors in the history of literatureβan author known even superficially to but few of those who thought proper to abuse him when it suited them.β
M. Desormes on Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Frederick the Great on Julien Offray de La Mettrie
βLa Mettrie was born with a fund of natural and inexhaustible gaiety; he had a quick mind, and such a fertile imagination that it made flowers grow in the arid field of medicine. Nature had made him an orator and a philosopher; but a yet more precious gift which he received from her was a pure soul and an obliging heart. All those who are not imposed upon by the pious insults of the theologians mourn in La Mettrie a good man and a wise physician.β
Hermann Theodor Hettner on Julien Offray de La Mettrie
βLamettrie is a bold libertine who sees in materialism only the justification of his profligacy.β
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing on Julien Offray de La Mettrie
βLa Mettrie who had himself painted and engraved as a second Democritus laughs only the first time one looks at him. Repeated contemplation changes the philosopher into a fool, his laughter changes into a grin.β
About Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie (November 23, 1709 β November 11, 1751) was a French physician and philosopher, and one of the earliest of the French materialists of the Enlightenment. He is best known for his work L'homme machine (Man a Machine).