"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 particular situation, from their different degrees of strength, and not from their nature; consequently the soul is only the first principle of motion, or a sensible material part of the brain, which we may certainly look upon as the original spring of the whole machine, which influences the rest, and appears to have been first form'd, so that all the other springs seem to derive their motions from thence, as we may easily perceive from some observations I shall make and which have been made upon many different embrios."
— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)
Metaphor
"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 particular situation, from their different degrees of strength, and not from their nature; consequently the soul is only the first principle of motion, or a sensible material part of the brain, which we may certainly look upon as the original spring of the whole machine, which influences the rest, and appears to have been first form'd, so that all the other springs seem to derive their motions from thence, as we may easily perceive from some observations I shall make and which have been made upon many different embrios."
Metaphor in Context
Need I say any more, (why indeed should I go further to lose myself in the history of the passions, all which are comprehended in what Hippocrates calls ενοϱμων.) 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 particular situation, from their different degrees of strength, and not from their nature; consequently the soul is only the first principle of motion, or a sensible material part of the brain, which we may certainly look upon as the original spring of the whole machine, which influences the rest, and appears to have been first form'd, so that all the other springs seem to derive their motions from thence, as we may easily perceive from some observations I shall make and which have been made upon many different embrios.
(p. 65-6)
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).
