184 DESCARTES' DISCOURSE ON METHOD iv 



And again still more strongly : 



"All the functions which I have attributed to this machine 

 (the body), as the digestion of food, the pulsation of the heart 

 and of the arteries ; the nutrition and the growth of the limbs ; 

 respiration, wakefulness, and sleep ; the reception of light, 

 sounds, odours, flavours, heat, and such like qualities, in the 

 organs of the external senses ; the impression of the ideas of 

 these in the organ of common sense and in the imagination ; 

 the retention, or the impression, of these ideas on the memory ; 

 the internal movements of the appetites and the passions ; and 

 lastly, the external movements of all the limbs, which follow so 

 aptly, as well the action of the objects which are presented to 

 the senses, as the impressions which meet in the memory, that 

 they imitate as nearly as possible those of a real man : 1 I desire, 

 I say, that you should consider that these functions in the 

 machine naturally proceed from the mere arrangement of its 

 organs, neither more nor less than do the movements of a clock, 

 or other automaton, from that of its weights and its wheels ; so 

 that, so far as these are concerned, it is not necessary to conceive 

 any other vegetative or sensitive soul, nor any other principle of 

 motion, or of life, than the blood andHhe spirits agitated by 

 the fire which burns continually in the heart, and which is no 

 wise essentially different from all the fires which exist in 

 inanimate bodies." 3 



The spirit of these passages is exactly that of 

 the most advanced physiology of the present day ; 

 all that is necessary to make them coincide Avith 

 our present physiology in form, is to represent the 

 details of the working of the animal machinery in 



1 1 1. <.'.-irt<-s pretends that he does not apply his views to the 

 human body, but only to an imaginary machine wliieh, if it 

 could be constructed, would do all that the human body does ; 

 throwing a sop to Cerberus unworthily : and uselessly, because 

 Cerberus was oy no means stupid enough to swallow it. 



- Tmitt dc flfomme, p. 427. 



