La Mettrie Quotes

“Everything is always changing in nature, writes La Mettrie; everything is subject to the vicissitudes of fate. Suddenly, the clouds can obscure the warmth of the sun, but also, conversely, in the darkest night a star can appear at the horizon to bring joy to us mortals: 'It is hope, whose soft rays sometimes pierce adversity itself, and come to raise up within the downcast soul a dismayed and withered courage' [DB, 209, (third edition); DB, 227 (second edition)]. If everything is subject to change, then so too is adversity. Things can always get worse, but also, things can always get better, and it is in this knowledge that we may find our hope. That which makes life tragic is also what makes it comic; that which takes away our hope is also what gives it back to us. This kind of hope may seem but a feeble one, it is true, but from La Mettrie's point of view at least it is a solid hope, a true hope (like many pessimists, he is averse to 'false' hope), which it can only be for him because it is also, crucially, a secular hope. And it is this notion of hope as well as consolation, that makes La Mettrie not only a pessimistic optimist, but also a hopeful pessimist.”
― Mara Van Der Lugt, Dark Matters: Pessimism and the Problem of Suffering

“La "mécanisation du raisonnement" et du coup son transfert possible à des êtres différents de l'homme trouva un singulier renfort dans les nouvelles conceptions produites par les XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles et développées en France par Descartes (1596-1650) et plus tard La Mettrie (1709-1751) dans L'Homme-Machine, ouvrage qui influencera profondément les philosophes matérialistes des Lumières. L'homme y est désormais tout entier décrit comme un automate. Descartes avait lui-même construit un automate à figure humaine, qu'il appelait "sa fille Francine" et qui fut détruit lors d'un voyage en mer par le capitaine du bateau qui pensait avoir affaire à une figure diabolique.”
― Philippe Breton, Une histoire de l'informatique