"Such is the chaos, such the rapid and continual succession of our ideas; they drive one another successively, as one wave impels another; so that it the imagination does not employ a part of its muscles, poised as it were in an equilibrium upon the strings of the brain, so as to sustain itself some time on a fleeting object, and to avoid falling upon another, which it is not yet proper time to contemplate, it will never be worthy of the beautiful name judgment."
L'Homme machine [Man a Machine]
4 entries in the ESTC. Published anonymously, translated into English in 1749 with printings in 1750 and 1752.<br>
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Text from <u>Man a Machine. Translated from the French of the Marquiss D'Argens.</u> (London: Printed for W. Owen, 1749). &lt;<a href="http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=viva_uva&tabID=T001&docId=CW107352679&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE">Link to ECCO</a>&gt;<br>
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Reading <u>Man a Machine and Man a Plant</u>, trans. Richard A. Watson and Maya Rybalka (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994). Translation based on version from La Mettrie's <u>Oeuvres philosophiques</u> (Berlin: 1751).