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LAMETTRIE, JULIEN OFFRAY DE (1709-1751)

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Originally appearing in Volume V16, Page 130 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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LAMETTRIE, See also:JULIEN OFFRAY DE (1709-1751) , See also:French physician and philosopher, the earliest of the materialistic writers of the See also:Illumination, was See also:born at St Maio on the 25th of See also:December 1709. After studying See also:theology in the Jansenist See also:schools for some years, he suddenly decided to adopt the profession of See also:medicine. In 1733 he went to See also:Leiden to study under See also:Boerhaave, and in 1742 returned to See also:Paris, where he obtained the See also:appointment of surgeon to the See also:guards. During an attack of See also:fever he made observations on himself with reference to the See also:action of quickened circulation upon thought, which led him to the conclusion that psychical phenomena were to be accounted for as the effects of organic changes in the See also:brain and See also:nervous See also:system. This conclusion he worked out in his earliest philosophical See also:work, the Histoire naturelle de l'dme, which appeared about 1745. So See also:great was the outcry caused by its publication that Lamettrie was forced to take See also:refuge in Leiden, where he See also:developed his doctrines still more boldly and completely, and with great originality, in L'Homme See also:machine (Eng. trans., See also:London, 1750; ed. with introd. and notes, J. Assezat, 1865), and L'Homme Plante, See also:treatises based upon principles of the most consistently materialistic See also:character. The See also:ethics of these principles were worked out in Discours sur le See also:bonheur, La Volupte, and L'See also:Art de jouir, in which the end of See also:life is found in the pleasures of the senses, and virtue is reduced to self-Iove. See also:Atheism is the only means of ensuring the happiness of the See also:world, which has been rendered impossible by the See also:wars brought about by theologians. The soul is only the thinking See also:part of the See also:body, and with the body it passes away. When See also:death comes, the See also:farce is over (la farce est jouee), therefore let us take our See also:pleasure while we can. Lamettrie has been called " the See also:Aristippus of See also:modern See also:materialism." So strong was the feeling against him 2t that in 1748 he was compelled to quit See also:Holland for See also:Berlin, where See also:Frederick the Great not only allowed him to practise as a physician, but appointed him See also:court reader.

He died on the 11th of See also:

November 1751. His collectedtEuvres philosophiques appeared after his death in several See also:editions, published in London, Berlin and See also:Amsterdam respectively. The See also:chief authority for his life is the Eloge written by Frederick the Great (printed in Assezat's ed. of Homme machine). In modern times Lamettrie has been judged less severely; see F.A. See also:Lange, Geschichte See also:des Materialismus (Eng. trans. by E. C. See also:Thomas, ii. 1880) ; Neree Quepat (i.e. Rene Paquet), La Mettrie, sa See also:vie et ses ceuvres (1893, with See also:complete See also:history of his See also:works) ; J. E. Poritzky, J. 0. de Lamettrie, Sein Leben and See also:seine Werke (1900) ; F.

Picavet, "La Mettrie et la critique See also:

allemande," in Compte rendu des seances de l'Acad. des Sciences morales et politiques, xxxii. (1889), a reply to See also:German re-habilitations of Lamettrie.

End of Article: LAMETTRIE, JULIEN OFFRAY DE (1709-1751)

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