248 



ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 



equally to all, if the first impressions did not, so to speak, wind 

 uji the machine and decide its operations and its co; 



" The series of movements which this automaton could execute 

 would distinguish it from all others formed on the same model, 

 hut which, not having been placed in similar circumstances, 

 would not have experienced the same impressions, or would not 

 have experienced them in the same order. 



" The senses of the automaton, set in motion hy the objects 

 presented to it, would communicate their motion to the brain, 

 the chief motor apparatus of the machine. This would put in 

 action the muscles of the hands and feet, in virtue of their secret 

 connection with the senses. These muscles, alternately con- 

 tracted and dilated, would approximate or remove the automa- 

 ton from the objects, in the relation which they would bear to 

 the conservation or the destruction of the machine. 



" The motions of perception and sensation which the objects 

 would have impressed on the brain, would be preserved in it by 

 the energy of its mechanism. They would become more vivid 

 according to the actual condition of the automaton, considered in 

 itself and relatively to the objects. 



" "Words being only the motions impressed on the organ of 

 hearing and that of voice, the diversity of these movements, 

 their combination, the order in which they would succeed one 

 another, would represent judgments, reasoning, and all the 

 operations of the mind. 



"A close correspondence between the organs of the senses, 

 either by the opening into one another of their nervous ramifica- 

 tions, or by interposed springs (re-snorts), would establish such a 

 connection in their working, that, on the occasion of the move- 

 ments impressed on one of these organs, other movements would 

 be excited, or would become more vivid in some of the other 

 BBDM& 



"Give the automaton a soul which contemplates its move- 

 ments, which believes itself to be the author of them, which has 

 different volitions on the occasion of the different movements, 

 and you will on this hypothesis construct a man. 



"But would this man be free? Can the feeling of our liberty, 

 this feeling which is so clear and so distinct and so vivid as to 



