0"T' LAERT> "! - USP

384 RECENT TIMES.
"L'Homme Machine" to deduce from the material and
corporeal organism even the processes of thought, the
intellectual faculties, and the moral feelings. He disregarded
the transcendental character of the human soul,
appealing, amongst other things, to the fact of psychical
disturbances which depend upon changes in the brain.
Immortality he granted, but only in so far as he held that tj
matter, from which the things of this world are made, does
not perish, but only changes its form and participates afresh -j
in the formation of other bodies. Unfortunately LAMETTRIE
at the same time preached a philosophy of pleasure which
amounted to a shameless glorification of self-indulgence,;!!
and especially of venereal pleasures. The violent attacks^
which he had to sustain were provoked entirely by this circumstance
and were by no means the result of his more
serious philosophical theories. It may well be that during '
his life he did not practise the frivolous cynicism which he *
made so conspicuous a feature of his writings : but even F/ '
A. LANGE who undertook the vindication of LAMETTRIE was *
able to bring forward in his defence nothing more than the 1 ,
claims that he neither sent his children to the foundling
hospital like ROUSSEAU, nor married two brides like SWIFT,
that he had not like BACON been convicted of bribery, and
had never been suspected of forging documents like VOL­
TAIRE.* In any case LAMETTRIE by his teachings exerted
an injurious influence upon morals and poisoned many
pure spirits, and he was chiefly to blame if materialistic
philosophy was for a long time identified by ignorant.
people with an unlimited indulgence in sensual gratifica­
tions.
The other adherents of materialism, especially those
who have become known under the name of the Encyclopaedists,
sought not so much to secure a scientific founda-^
tion for their philosophical tenets as to wage war against
ecclesiastical and political authorities. The author of the
" Systeme de la Nature " developed the theory of the
i f
* F. A. LANGE : Geschichte des Materialism us, Iserlohn 1876, i, 349.