Note 3 — LA METTRIE’S RELATION TO HIS PREDECESSORS AND TO HIS SUCCESSORS.

It should be noted that La Mettrie did justice to Descartes, and realized how much all philosophers owed to him. He insisted moreover that Descartes’s errors were due to his failure to follow his own method.3 Yet La Mettrie’s method was different from that of Descartes, for La Mettrie was an empiricist4 without rationalistic leaning. As regards doctrine: La Mettrie differed from Descartes in his opinion of matter. Since he disbelieved in any spiritual reality, he gave matter the attributes of motion and thought, while Descartes insisted that the one attribute of matter is extension.5 It was a natural consequence of La Mettrie’s disbelief in spiritual substance that he could throw doubt on the existence of God.6 On the other hand the belief in God was one of the foundations of Descartes’s system. La Mettrie tried to show that Descartes’s belief in a soul and in God was merely designed to hide his true thought from the priests, and to save himself from persecution.7