"Have we one argument of this sort to convince us that man alone is enlighten'd with the rays of reason, from which all other creatures are excluded?"
— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)
Work Title
Date
1748, 1749
Metaphor
"Have we one argument of this sort to convince us that man alone is enlighten'd with the rays of reason, from which all other creatures are excluded?"
Metaphor in Context
But is this objection, or rather assertion, founded upon experience? for without this a philosopher may reject every thing. Have we one argument of this sort to convince us that man alone is enlighten'd with the rays of reason, from which all other creatures are excluded? If we have not, we can no more know what passes within them, or even within men, than we can form an idea of the inward part of our own being. We know that we think, and that we are stung with remorse after we have done any guilty action; inward reflection makes us feel the force of this truth [...]
(p. 37)
(p. 37)
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
