Note 8 — LA METTRIE’S RELATION TO HIS PREDECESSORS AND TO HIS SUCCESSORS.

In the first place, both Hobbes and La Mettrie are thoroughgoing materialists. They both believe that body is the only reality, and that anything spiritual is unimaginable.8 Furthermore their conceptions of matter are very similar. According to La Mettrie, matter contains the faculty of sensation and the power of motion as well as the quality of extension.9 This same conception of matter is held by Hobbes, for he specifically attributes extension and motion to matter, and then reduces sensation to a kind of internal motion.10 Thus sensation also may be an attribute of matter. Moreover Hobbes and La Mettrie are in agreement on many smaller points, and La Mettrie elaborates much that is suggested in Hobbes. They both believe that the passions are dependent on bodily conditions.11 They agree in the belief that all the differences in men are due to differences in the constitution and organization of their bodies.12 They both discuss the nature and importance of language.13