ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 247 



"ANOTHER HYPOTHESIS CONCERNING THE MECHANISM 



OF IDEAS 1 



"Philosophers accustomed to judge of things by that which 

 they are in themselves, and not by their relation to received 

 ideas, would not be shocked if they met with the proposition 

 that the soul is a mere spectator of the movements of its body ; 

 that the latter performs of itself all that series of actions which 

 constitutes life : that it moves of itself : that it is the body alone 

 which reproduces ideas, compares and arranges them ; which 

 forms reasonings, imagines and executes plans of all kinds, etc. 

 This hypothesis, though perhaps of an excessive boldness, never- 

 theless deserves some consideration. 



" It is not to be denied that Supreme Power could create an 

 automaton which should exactly imitate all the external and 

 internal actions of man. 



" I understand by external actions, all those movements which 

 pass under our eyes : I term internal actions, all the motions 

 which in the natural state cannot be observed because they take 

 place in the interior of the body such as the movements of 

 digestion, circulation, sensation, etc. Moreover, I include in 

 this category the movements which give rise to ideas, whatever 

 be their nature. 



"In the automaton which we are considering everything 

 would be precisely determined. Everything would occur ac- 

 cording to the rules of the most admirable mechanism : one 

 state would succeed another state, one operation would lead to 

 another operation, according to invariable laws ; motion would 

 become alternately cause and effect, effect and cause ; reaction 

 would answer to action, and reproduction to production. 



" Constructed with definite relations to the activity of the 

 beings which compose the world, the automaton would receive 

 impressions from it, and, in faithful correspondence thereto, it 

 would execute a corresponding series of motions. 



" Indifferent towards any determination, it would yield 



1 Essai dc Psychologic, chap, xxvii. 



