"Whether the soul occupies only a particular point or a circuit we do not know, but as all nerves do not meet in one point in the brain, the former supposition is improbable. All knowledge is in the soul only at the moment in which it is affected by it; all preservation of it is to be resolved into organic conditions. Thus the 'Natural History of the Soul,' starting from ordinary notions, gradually leads us on into Materialism, and it is concluded that... which feels must also be material. How this comes about Lamettrie too does not know; but why should we (according to Locke) limit the omnipotence of the Creator because of our ignorance? Memory, imagination, passions, and so on, are then explained in a thoroughly materialistic way."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Atheism activistsAtheists from FranceAcademics from FrancePhilosophers from FrancePhysicians from France
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Julien_Offray_de_La_Mettrie
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
1709 – 1751
französischer Arzt und [[w:Radikalaufklärung|Radikalaufklärer]]
70 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Julien Offray de La Mettrie →
Related Quotes
"Descartes, a genius made to blaze new paths and to go astray in them, supposed with some other philosophers that God …"
"We have now but to prove a third attribute: I mean the faculty of feeling which the philosophers of all centuries hav…"
"[B]efore Descartes, some of the ancients made the essence of matter consist in solid extension. But this opinion, of …"
"[I]f we demonstrate this moving principle, if we show that matter, far from being as indifferent as it is supposed to…"
"The ancients, persuaded that there is no body without a moving force, regarded the substance of bodies as composed of…"
"The Christian Scholastics... might have shown that God Himself said that He had "imprinted an active principle in the…"
"[E]ither everything is illusion, nature as well as revelation, or experience alone can explain faith."
"A good prescription is still more profitable than an ."
"Write as if thou wert alone in the universe and hadst nothing to fear from the jealousies and prejudices of the peopl…"
"There comes up another difficulty which more nearly concerns our vanity: namely, the impossibility of our conceiving …"