X40 THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



subject that he made his own. What his writings seek to create is a general 

 cosmic view based entirely upon "philosophical" — that is to say, natural- 

 scientific — principles, for to him philosophy and natural science are iden- 

 tical. In contrast to the teachings of theology, politics, and the morality 

 that is based on them, he wished to create another ideal of justice and virtue 

 based on "natural" principles, and in contrast to the explanation of life 

 and nature which priests (and "philosophers" dependent upon them) have 

 given in support of ancient authorities, he would set up another explana- 

 tion, founded upon direct observation of the phenomena of life. He is thus 

 the first to enunciate a purely natural-scientific view of life, and in doing 

 so became the precursor of many similar endeavours in our own time. Herein 

 lies his greatest originality, for in most of his subjects he merely sets forth 

 in detail observations recorded by others, and his writings can hardly be 

 said to possess scientific form in the stricter sense of the term; they are pam- 

 phlets published for agitational purposes, often more likely to persuade than 

 to prove. Of these the two which have been cited above won the greatest 

 notoriety; among his other publications there is really only one — entitled 

 Systeme d' Epicure — that is of any great interest.^ His work on the natural 

 history of the soul, published before he had finally broken with his native 

 country, maintains a somewhat cautious tone and is therefore written in 

 a more scientific form. UHomme machine, again, is nothing but a piece of 

 agitation, and Systmie d' Epicure is a collection of aphoristic contributions 

 to a general knowledge of nature. The view of the functions of the human 

 body on which La Mettrie bases his speculations is by no means a new one; 

 it is the mechanistic theory of the bodily functions, which, founded by 

 Descartes, had been developed by Borelli and Perrault, by Hoffmann and 

 Boerhaave. To their observations La Mettrie has but little to add; the most 

 valuable contribution is an exposition of the independence of the vital func- 

 tions in the various parts of the body, confirmed by observations of the 

 manifestations of life in detached organs and bodily parts even in the highest 

 animal forms. His theory of fertilization may be worthy of mention; he 

 believes that one single " j-^^^rw^-animal " penetrates each ^gg and is there 

 further developed into a new individual; he thus belongs to the animal- 

 culist party. But it is not the life of the body that interests La Mettrie most; 

 it is the functions of the soul that forms the chief subject of his literary pro- 

 duction. With regard to the soul his views are quite clear; it does not exist, 

 or at any rate not in a form that the theologians and suchlike would have 

 it. As a matter of fact. La Mettrie is not quite certain what the soul is; 



■* There would be no point in dealing herewith La Mettrie's strictly medical writings; of his 

 philosophical treatises, L'Hommt plantt is a development, driven to absurd lengths, of the com- 

 parison between the vegetable and animal organs which Linnasus had already arawn up; again, Lts 

 Animaux plus que machines contains little more than answers to his opponents' accusations. 



