Date: 1748, 1749

"If reason is the slave of depraved, or distracted sense, how then can it be expected, that at that time it should be governor?"

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"The sun, the air, the water, the organization and form of bodies, are all rang'd in order in the eye, as in a looking-glass, which represents to the imagination the pictures of all the objects painted there, according to the laws of vision, which prevail amongst that numberless variety of partic...

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"The eye is, in reality, a sort of peep-hole, thro' which the soul can view the images of objects, according as they are represented from different bodies."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"'Tis this which is the source of all our sentiments, of all our pleasures, passions, and thoughts; for the brain has its proper muscles for thinking, as well as the legs have theirs for walking."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"I mean that invigorating and impetuous principle which Hypocrates calls ενοϱμον or the soul. This principle exists and is seated in the brain at the point of origin of the nerves through which it exercises its rule over all the rest of the body."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"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 imaginat...

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"It is ridiculous to exclaim against the dominion of the will. For one order which it gives, a hundred times does it come under the yoke."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"And where is the wonder that the body when in health should be subservient, for how can it resist that torrent of blood, and all those spirits which are ready to force obedience, the will having for its ministers an invisible army of fluids, always ready to receive its orders, and as quick as li...

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"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 particu...

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"The body may be consider'd as a clock, and the fresh chyle we may look upon as the former of that clock."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)