Diderot and Descartes: A Study of Scientific Naturalism in the Enlightenment

345 Pages·1953·13.19 MB·English

by  Aram Vartanian

HISTORY OF IDEAS SERIES
No. 6
THE HISTORY OF IDEAS SERIES
Under the editorial sponsorship and direction of the
Editorial Committee, The Journal of the History of
IdeaAt John Herman Randall, Jr., chairman, George
Boas, Gilbert Chinard, Paul O. Kristeller, Arthur O.
Lovejoy, Marjorie H. Nicolson, Philip P. Wiener.
1. ROUSSEAU-KANT-GOETHE: Two Essays. By Ernst Cas-
sirer, translated from the German by James Gutman,
Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John Herman Randall, Jr.
2. NEWTON DEMANDS THE MUSE: Newton's "Opticks" and
the Eighteenth Century Poets. By Marjorie H. Nicolson
3. THE IDEA OP USUBY : From Tribal Brotherhood to
Universal Otherhood. By Benjamin N. Nelson
4. TOLSTOY AND CHINA. By Derk Bodde, with the collab­
oration of Galia Speshneff Boddc
5. MOKE'S UTOPIA: The Biography of an Idea. By J. H.
Hexter
6. DIDEROT AND DESCABTES: A Study of Scientific Natural­
ism, in the Enlightenment. By Aram Vartanian
DIDEROT
AND DESCARTES
A Study of Scientific Naturalism
in the Enlightenment
BY ARAM VARTANIAN
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
1953
Copyright, 1953, by Princeton University Press
London: GeofFrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press
l. c. CABB 52-8781
Printed in the United States of America
by Princeton University Press at Princeton, New Jersey
P R E F A C E
THE history of ideas deals primarily with ideas that have,
in the proper sense, a history. Perhaps the eISos does not
quite enjoy that changeless and absolute status which Plato
ascribed to it outside time and space; but there are, nonethe­
less, ideas whose successive development, or life cycle, may be
viewed as in itself constituting a form of organic existence in
relation to which places, periods^ and persons, however im­
portant or significant, remain subordinate. The "historical
transcendence" of certain ideas must often be a tacit assump­
tion on the part of their biographer.
This book is concerned with such an idea: namely, that
matter and its inherent modes of behavior have brought about
all things, or at least (for the restriction is pertinent to our
study), that all things are to be explained by recourse to
matter and its properties. The career of this notion, since its
rise at the dawn of classical antiquity, has almost wholly con­
sisted in progressively more exacting definitions of matter
and in more rigorously verifiable theories about its operations.
In that still continuing history, we shall here focus our at­
tention on certain events, originating with the thought of
Descartes and culminating in that of Diderot, which stretched
over the years (more or less) from 1650 to 1750, and which
represent a particularly critical phase in the maturing, or
modernizing, of the general concept in question.
In tracing the evolution of materialist science from its
Cartesian sources to Diderot and his contemporaries, a defi­
nite method has been observed. This is to give, unlike many
scholars who have already examined Descartes's influence on
the Enlightenment, the fullest scope and weight to the testi­
mony and other materials (in some cases unpublished) pro­
vided by actual eyewitnesses and participants, even when
these latter are no longer remembered on their own merits.
»
PREFACE
In the historiography of ideas, the judgments of the "great,"
which in part trespass onto the future, must frequently be
integrated with those of the "less than great," which are
more firmly implanted in their own times, in order to avoid
anachronistic distortion of the past. With all this, the pres­
ent work does not pretend to an exhaustive treatment of its
subject. It has been thought preferable, in a first discussion
of so broad a topic, to range freely over the field, rather than
to labor too intensively any one of its many areas. Moreover,
several ramifications of the main problem, which have had to
be considered somewhat summarily, in themselves suggest
separate studies.
It is a pleasure to take this occasion to acknowledge the
criticisms, suggestions, and encouragement that I have re­
ceived from various persons. My chief debt in this regard is
to Professor Norman L. Torrey, of Columbia University. I
should like also to express here my thanks to other members
of the Columbia Faculty: to Professors Nathan Edelman
and Otis Fellows, of the Department of French; to Professor
Charles Frankel, of the Department of Philosophy; and to
Professor Marjorie Nicolson, of the Department of English
and Comparative Literature. Finally, I would like to state
my special gratitude to Professor John Herman Randall, Jr.,
for the very sympathetic and helpful interest that he has
shown in my efforts.
Á. V.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
October, 1952
CONTENTS
PREFACE
(cid:237)
CHAPTER I:
AN ASPECT OF THE CARTESIAN HERITAGE
3
CHAPTER II:
FROM DESCARTES’S MONDE TO THE WORLDS OF
DIDEROT AND MATERIALIST SCIENCE
47
CHAPTER III:
SCIENTIFIC METHOD FROM DESCARTES
TO THE PHILOSOPHES
135
CHAPTER IV:
FROM THE CARTESIAN MECHANISTIC BIOLOGY
TO THE MAN-MACHINE AND EVOLUTIONARY
MATERIALISM
203
CHAPTER V:
SUMMATION
291
BIBLIOGRAPHY
323
INDEX
333

CHAPTER I
AN ASPECT OF THE CARTESIAN
HERITAGE