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)

Date: 1748, 1749

"As the string of a violin or harpsichord trembles and vibrates, so the fibres or strings of the brain struck by the undulating rays of sound, are excited to return or repeat the words that touched them."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1751

"True philosophy was not known till that time; and it is but justice to say, that commencing from the last year of Cardinal Richelieu, and proceeding to those which immediately succeeded the death of Louis XIV. there came to pass in our arts, in our minds, in our manners, as well as in our govern...

— Arouet, François-Marie [known as Voltaire] (1694-1778)

Date: 1755

"The sovereign power represents the head; the laws and customs are the brain, the source of the nerves and seat of the understanding, will and senses, of which the Judges and Magistrates are the organs: commerce, industry, and agriculture are the mouth and stomach which prepare the common subsist...

— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)