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Pardies and the Cartesian Beast-Machine
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The Jesuit father Ignace-Gaston Pardies, mathematician and physicist of some renown in his time, published in 1672 a Discours de la Connoissance des Bestes, famous then, but little known today. Amidst the mass of material on the general controversy of the souls of beasts, this work is outstanding for its brilliance, literary charm, and degree of originality. It is well worth examination, for its own merits and its bearings on the dispute in which it proved an influential contribution, and because of the curious fate to which the book was destined. For the Discourse, which went through numerous editions and caused considerable stir in the Republic of Letters was, although purporting to be a refutation of the Cartesian mechanistic view, reputed to be intended as a defense of that system. From Pardies' own day to the present age, uncertainty has existed as to how the treatise is to be classified.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1937
References
1 To the knowledge of the author, there has been no modern work devoted to Pardies.
2 Paris: Mabre-Cramoisy, in 12, privilège du 11 mars. Later editions included those of 1678 (2 ed.), 1689 (3 ed.), 1696 (4 ed.). Busson writes of the work, “Sept éditions antérieures à 1724 (dont deux en 1672) n'en épuisèrent pas la vogue et il fut traduit en italien et en latin.” (“La Fontaine et l'âme des bêtes,” in Rev. d'hist. lit., janv.-mars, 1935, 1–32.) The Discours was included in Œuvres de Pardies (Lyon: Bachelus fils, 1696, in 12); and in his Œuvres de Mathématiques, 5 éd. (Amsterdam: P. de Coup, 1725, in 12, and Lyon: chez les Frères Bruyset, 1725, in 12).
3 A controversy which (although growing out of an age-old question) from the time of Descartes' formulation of strict animal automatism took on fresh vitality and was waged among philosophers and scientists throughout the seventeenth and a good part of the eighteenth centuries. Each philosophical school published its doctrine on the subject. Those who disagreed with the hypothesis that beasts were machines, could maintain with Hildrop in England that animals have spiritual, immortal souls. This view was rare, and many writers favored intermediate positions. One could hold with the Peripatetics that the animal soul is a substantial material form; with Gassendi and Willis that it is composed of flame-like atoms; with the neo-Platonists that it is part of the anima mundi; or with David-Renaud Boullier that it is spiritual but not immortal, although this by no means exhausted the possibilities. The Pyrrhonians such as Bayle argued that the sole difference between man and the beasts is one of degree, not of kind. Finally, by 1747, man was included among the automata, with the appearance of La Mettrie's L'Homme-Machine. It should be made clear from the start that the debate as to whether animals have souls was rephrased by Descartes on the basis of whether they have reason. Although anima and res cogilans were synonymous for the French philosopher, to avoid ambiguity he preferred the use of the latter formula.
4 “. . . peut-être n'avons-nous rien de mieux écrit que .. . son traité de la connoissance des bêtes.” (Eloge du P. Pardies, p. 688, in Mémoires de Trévoux, cii, avril 1726.)
5 Thus, Pardies is treated as a Cartesian by some modern authorities. Cf. Brett, History of Psychology, ii, 217; G. Boas, The Happy Beast in French Thought of the Seventeenth Century, pp. 106, 107; Hoefer, Nouvelle Biographie générale, art. “Pardies”; and Michaud, Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne, art. “Pardies.” The others suspend judgment.
6 Cited in Mémoires de Trévoux, loc. cit., p. 672.
7 “Tout le monde a soupçonné le P. Pardies, d'avoir voulu établir adroitement l'opinion de M. Descartes, en faisant semblant de la réfuter. Et en effet, il répond si bien lui-même à ses objections, et celles qu'il laisse sans réponse sont si foibles . . . qu'il n'est pas mal-aisé de deviner ce que cela signifie.” Nouvelles de la république des lettres, mars, art. ii, p. 25.
8 In his Nouvelles Difficultez proposées par un Peripatelicien a l'auteur du Voyage du Monde de Descartes (Paris: chez la Veuve de S. Bernard, in 12). “Il n'y a rien de plus séduisant que les expositions que fait le Pere Pardies dans son Livre … où mettant le cartésianisme dans toute sa force sur ce point, il va presque jusqu'à convaincre ses lecteurs que non seulement il n'est point besoin d'ame pour marcher, . . . mais encore pour parler … Ce Livre a fait passer son auteur parmi les Péripateticiens pour un prévaricateur qui étoit Cartesien dans l'ame, quelque application qu'il ait apportée, à réfuter le Cartésianisme dans la seconde partie de son Livre et à défendre l'ancienne Philosophie sur le chapitre de l'ame des bestes,” pp. 13–14.
9 Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des hommes illustres (1729), i, 202–208.
10 Nouveau dictionnaire historique et critique, etc. (Amsterdam et La Haye, 1753), art. “Pardies.”
11 Op. cit. supra, note 4.
12 The author takes care to add that despite Pardies' reasons in his first section proving beasts automata, “ce sentiment n'est pas dominant aujourd'hui.” Note C.
13 Here Bayle criticizes his own article in the Nouvelles and makes apology for a “fausseté” therein committed (a point about the date of Descartes' initial interest in animal automatism). In note C, Bayle writes, “On pourroit mettre le Livre du Pere Pardies sur la connoissance des bêtes parmi ceux qui ont été faits pour l'opinion de Monsr. Des Cartes, car on y trouve les raisons des Cartésiens proposées très-fortement, et réfutées très-foiblement. Je crois néanmoins qu'il ne se néglige point dans la ii Partie de son Ouvrage, et qu'il y fit tout ce qu'il put pour soutenir l'ancienne opinion: mais aiant fait aussi tout ce qu'il pouvoit pour représenter fidélement le beau côté de la nouvelle, il a donné lieu à quelques-uns de soupçonner qu'il n'avoit pas eu un véritable dessein de combatre Mr. Des Cartes.” In note F, Bayle quotes Pardies' Discourse, referring to its author as a “fort habile Peripatéticien.”
14 Thus, a single sentence is taken from Bayle's Dictionary, which, isolated from what follows, deforms the real meaning: “On pourroit mettre cet ouvrage parmi ceux qui ont été faits pour l'opinion de Descartes.” Cf. note 13 supra for the rest of the citation.
15 Unfortunately, we have not been able to find out anything about their identity.
16 The expression is Pardies', Discours, ed. 1678, p. 3.
17 For an account of this period, cf. F. Bouillier, Histoire de la Philosophie Cartésienne, especially i, chapters xxxvi and xxxvii.
18 Trévoux, loc. cit., p. 693.
19 No. 82, vii, 4054.
20 Lyon: Anisson et Posuel, 1676, in-12.
21 Disserlationes Academicae selectae olim in Academia Tolosana pronunciatae (Paris: Michallet, in 8, next to last dissertation, “De Praecip. cart.”).
22 Institutiones Physicae ad usum scholarum accomodatae (Toulouse: Douladore, 3 vols., in 4, ii, 656, Part ii, Tract. 1, Art. iii).
23 Entelechia, seu Anima sensitiva brutorum demonstrata contra Cartesium (Bononiae: Pisarri, in 4, dis. i, cap. i, sect. ii, pp. 26–27).
24 Pardies “suivoit en effet, tout ce que tout le monde prend aujourd'hui sans scrupule de la Physique cartesienne,” C II, 668.
25 “On ne peut rien ajouter aux raisons que Le Pere Pardies allégue en leur faveur ni à la manière de les exposer,” ibid., p. 669.
26 Granted Descartes' dichotomy, his definition of soul as mens alone and his theory that all body operates according to strictly mechanical laws, the case for animal automatism is clear cut and surprisingly convincing, although the beast-machine is not a necessary corollary of Descartes' metaphysics, as D. R. Boullier and others were to show.
27 Part 1, ch. 5, ed., 1728 and 1737, at Amsterdam, Fr. Changuion, in 12. For accounts of the essay, cf. Balz, “Cartesianism and the Animal Soul” (in Columbia University Studies in the History of Ideas (1935), iii, 117–177) and the Journal des Sçavans (nov. 1729, lxxxix, 308–322; juin 1737, cxii, 175–197; juillet 1737, cxii, 400–418; sept. 1737, cxiii, 53–79).
28 ii, chap. 3,207-208 in Histoire Critique de l'âme des bêtes, etc., 2 vols. in 1, Amsterdam, Changuion, 1749. Guer frequently refers to Pardies and quotes him at some length.
29 1670, in 12. The second edition (Paris: Martin, 1674, in 12) contains remarks on “le mouvement de la lumière.”
30 Traité sur la Nature de l'Instinct in Œuvres, ix (Paris: P. Brunet, 1758).
31 De Mente Humana etc. (Groningen, 1726, in 12); “De Anima Brutorum,” pp. 247–251.
32 Op. cit. BouUier's second edition is dedicated to Fontenelle. Boullier's view, shared by Crousaz, that the animal soul is spiritual but not immortal was attacked by Roche in his Traité de la Nature de l'Ame, etc., 2 vols. in 12 (Amsterdam, 1759).
33 Descartes' letter to Henry More. (Adam-Tannéry's Œuvres de Descartes, v, 275, letter 537, Feb. 5, 1649). Translation from the author's “Descartes and Henry More on the Beast-Machine” in Annals of Science, i (1936), no. 1, pp. 48–61.
34 Such as digestion, the circulation of the blood, etc.
35 Such as winking, movements to retain equilibrium, etc.
36 Such as the motions of playing the lute, after the initial volitional act.
37 Defined by Pardies as “une simple perception d'un objet sans cette réflexion” (pp. 171–172) and again as “un principe, qui connoist et qui distingue les objets” (pp. 245–246). Leibniz's theory of “petites perceptions” bears some resemblance to this doctrine of perception.
38 Among others, Digby Two Treatises, etc., 1644; Clauberg Physica, 1664; Cordemoy Discernement de l'Ame et du Corps, 1666; La Forge Traitté de l'Esprit de l'Homme, 1666; Rohault Entretiens sur la Philosophie, 1671.
39 “Cette idée féconde et presqu'infinie des possibilités mécaniques, des combinaisons de la figure et du mouvement, jointe à celle de la puissance du Créateur, est comme le fort inexpugnable du Cartésianisme.” Written by someone who was attacking the beast-machine, in the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des Arts, des Sciences, et des Métiers, i (1751), art. “Ame des bêtes,” p. 345. The sentence is copied textually from Boullier, Part i, chap. v, p. 58, ed. 1728.
40 Discours, éd. cit., pp. 154–155.
41 Summa supremae partis Philosophiae bipartita, seu de Homine (Gennes: Casamare, 1713, in 4).
42 Part 2. Paris, 1729,3 vols., in 12.
43 Pardies is reputed to have retorted to his accusers, “Si vous avez quelque chose de mieux sur l'ame des bêtes, faites m'en part, je suis prêt de le mettre en œuvre dans une nouvelle Edition.” Trévoux, loc. cit., p. 674.
44 He was in the habit of protesting to those who suspected him that no one had refuted Cartesianism more than he had. Trévoux, loc. cit., p. 669.
45 First published in 1673, Paris: Michallet, in 12. Like Pardies, Du Hamel starts by examining the reasons for animal automatism, “uti nec ab optimo et doctissimo viro P. Pardies dissimulatae; aut ullâ ex parte sunt imminutae” (De Corp. anim., lib. iii, cap. 1, p. 609 in the 1681 edition of Du Hamel's philosophical works).
46 Op. cit., p. 3.
47 There has been some disagreement as to whether Descartes did or did not grant sensation in animals. To quote his own words, “nec denego etiam sensum, quatenus ab organo corporeo dependet” (p. 278 of the letter cited in footnote 29, supra).
48 Discours à Mme. de la Sablière, v. 63–64.