"Since there are evident commmunications betwixt the mother and the infant, and it is almost impossible to deny the facts produced by Tulpius and other authors of equal credit with him, we will therefore believe that it is by the same means that the foetus feels the force of the mother's imagination, in the same manner as soft wax receives all sort of impressions; and that the same traces, or longings of the mother, may be imprinted on the foetus, tho' this cannot be comprehended, notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary by Blondel and his adherents."
— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)
Work Title
Date
1748, 1749
Metaphor
"Since there are evident commmunications betwixt the mother and the infant, and it is almost impossible to deny the facts produced by Tulpius and other authors of equal credit with him, we will therefore believe that it is by the same means that the foetus feels the force of the mother's imagination, in the same manner as soft wax receives all sort of impressions; and that the same traces, or longings of the mother, may be imprinted on the foetus, tho' this cannot be comprehended, notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary by Blondel and his adherents."
Metaphor in Context
Since there are evident commmunications betwixt the mother and the infant, and it is almost impossible to deny the facts produced by Tulpius and other authors of equal credit with him, we will therefore believe that it is by the same means that the foetus feels the force of the mother's imagination, in the same manner as soft wax receives all sort of impressions; and that the same traces, or longings of the mother, may be imprinted on the foetus, tho' this cannot be comprehended, notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary by Blondel and his adherents. [...]
(pp. 61-2)
(pp. 61-2)
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
