Note 7 — NOTES.1

“Let us then take in our hands the staff of experience.” La Mettrie repeatedly emphasizes the belief that knowledge must come from experience. Moreover he confines this experience to sense experience, and concludes “L’histoire naturelle de l’âme” with these words: “No senses, no ideas. The fewer senses there are: the fewer ideas. No sensations experienced, no ideas. These principles are the necessary consequence of all the observations and experiences that constitute the unassailable foundation of this work.”