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ABSTRACT
The international debate on the animal machine was initiated by the preface that the Dutch philosopher and later professor of medicine Florentius Schuyl in 1662 added to his Latin translation of Descartes’ Treatise on Man. Schuyl defended the animal machine in reaction to the vehement attacks, mostly in the vernacular, against the philosophy of Descartes in the Dutch Republic in the 1650s, wherein the theory of the animal machine had become one of the flashpoints. These polemics were part of a power struggle, not a quest for philosophical truth. Schuyl focused on the points that had appeared as controversial in these debates: biblical exegesis, arguments from common sense, and to some extent physiology, but ignored wider philosophical questions. Questions about the soul and human uniqueness came to the fore only when his work was picked up in a new context, the international republic of letters. Schuyl's preface is therefore an interesting example of knowledge taking shape by circulation.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 In the Discours de la méthode; see Descartes, Oeuvres, Charles Adam and Paul Tannery ed. (further: AT), VI (Paris: Vrin, 1965), 46, 55–60.
2 For a general overview, L.C. Rosenfield, From Beast-Machine to Man-Machine. Animal Soul in French Letters from Descartes to La Mettrie, 2nd ed. (New York: Octagon books, 1968) is still useful. For Schuyl's role, see 31–32 and 245–249. On the general debate, see further A. Vartanian, Diderot and Descartes. A Study of Scientific Naturalism in the Enlightenment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953). See also Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World. A History of the Modern Sensibility (New York: Pantheon Book, 1983), 122, who argues that the debates were part of a more general change of the status of animals.
3 Rosenfield, From Beast-Machine, 64–65. Paul Dibon, ‘Le problême de l'âme des bêtes chez Descartes et ses premiers disciples néerlandais’, in idem, Regards sur la Hollande du siècle d'or (Napels: Vivarium 1990), 659–692. (This essay was originally published in: Mens en dier. Een bundel opstellen.. aangeboden aan Mgr.prof.dr. F.D.L.R. Sassen (Amsterdam & Antwerpen: Standaard-Boekhandel, 1954), 187–221.) C.L. Thijssen-Schoute, Nederlands cartesianisme (Amsterdam 1954, reprint Utrecht: HES, 1989), 185–209.
4 For a judicious analysis of the points of conflict between Voetius and Descartes, see J.A. van Ruler, The Crisis of Causality. Voetius and Descartes on God, Nature, and Change (Leiden: Brill, 1995). See in particular 143–145, 167–168, 190–192.
5 Theo Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch. Early Reactions to Cartesian Philosophy 1637–1650 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 13–33.
6 Dibon, ‘Le problême de l'âme’, 679–680.
7 I used the French translation in Theo Verbeek ed., La querelle d'Utrecht (Paris: Les Impressions Nouvelles, 1988), 245–248, 279.
8 The theologian Jacob Revius in 1650 also devoted a few pages to a denouncement of the theory of animal machines in his Statera philosophiae cartesianae, see Dibon, ‘Le problême de l'âme’, 681–682.
9 Henricus Regius, Fundamenta physices (Amsterdam: Louis Elsevier, 1646), 242–243. See Dibon, ‘Le problême de l'âme’, 672–674, 682; Rosenfield, From Beast-Machine, 30; Lloyd Strickland, ‘The Use of Scripture in the Beast-Machine Controversy’, in Knowing Nature in Early Modern Europe, ed. David Beck (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2015), 69, 75.
10 Dibon, ‘Le problême de l'âme’, 668; Strickland, ‘Use of Scripture’, 68–69. It should be noted that the King James version has ‘life’ instead of ‘soul’. The Latin Vulgate however has ‘anima’, and the authoritative Dutch version of the period also speaks of a soul (ziel). I am borrowing the English translation from Strickland's article.
11 Regius gives the number of the Psalm as 146. Apparently, he is using the Vulgate version, which gives the first part of Psalm 147 as Psalm 146.
12 For the background, see Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic. Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477–1806 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995) 595–609, 690–699, 889–896, and more in detail M.Th. uit den Boogaard, De Gereformeerden en Oranje tijdens het Eerste Stadhouderloze Tijdperk (Groningen and Djakarta, 1955).
13 On these debates, Rienk Vermij, The Calvinist Copernicans. The Reception of the New Astronomy in the Dutch Republic, 1575–1750 (Amsterdam: Edita KNAW, 2002), 272–313; Wiep van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza. An Essay on Philosophy in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 74–85.
14 The debate on animal machines in these pamphlets has been noticed by R.H. Vermij, ‘Dieren als machines. Een stok om de hond te slaan’, Groniek 28 (1994), issue 126, 50–63, esp. 60–62; Antonella Del Prete, ‘Lire la bible en cartésien. Lambert van Velthuysen et le mouvement de la terre’, in Chemins du cartésianisme, eds. A. Del Prete and R. Carbone (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2017), 19–34, esp. 23, 24. Del Prete bases herself on the Latin version of Velthuysen's pamphlets in his Opera omnia.
15 [Lambert van Velthuysen], Bewys dat het gevoelen van die genen, die leeren der sonne stilstandt, en des aertrycks beweging niet strydich is met Godts-woort ([Utrecht] 1655), 29–30.
16 Jacobus du Bois, Naecktheyt van de cartesiaensche philosophie (Utrecht: J. van Waesberge, 1655), 21–23, 33–35. See 23 for the ‘nose of wax’.
17 Lambert van Velthuysen, Bewys dat noch de leere van der sonne stilstant … noch de gronden vande philosophie van Renatus Descartes strijdig sijn met Godts woort. Gestelt tegen een tractaet van J. du Bois … (Utrecht, 1656) 8–10, 113–120.
18 AT, VI, 59–60.
19 Jacob du Bois, Schadelickheyt van de cartesiaensche philosophie (Utrecht: J. van Waesberge, 1656), 68–71.
20 Lambert van Velthuysen, Nader bewys, dat noch de leere van der sonne stilstant … strijdig sijn met Godts woort (Utrecht: D. van Ackersdijck and G. van Zijll, 1657), 105–114.
21 Ibid., 105, 106.
22 Ibid., 106–107, see also 112–113.
23 Ibid., 108.
24 See ibid., 111, for the exegetical points.
25 Liberius Modestinus Philosophus, Specimen philosophiae cartesianae thesibus aliquot expressum (Utrecht: J. van Waesberge, 1656) 20: ‘Num animalium motus omnes sint automatici, & ipsa instar [automatōn] & horologiorum sese habeant?’ 24: ‘Num bestiae destituantur omni sensu, cognitione, & aestimatione?’
26 Suetonius Tranquillus, Staat des geschils over de cartesiaansche philosophie (Utrecht: J. van Waesberge, 1656), 7 (point 5).
27 Irenaeus Philalethius, Bedenckingen, op den staet des geschils (Rotterdam: J. Benting, 1656), 84–86.
28 Suetonius Tranquillus, Nader openinge van eenige stucken in de cartesiaensche philosophie (Leiden: C. Banheining, 1656), 8–9 (quote on p. 8).
29 Irenaeus Philalethius, De overtuigde quaetwilligheidt van Suetonius Tranquillus (Leiden: A. van Wijngaerden, 1656), 46.
30 Suetonius Tranquillus, Den overtuyghden cartesiaen (Leiden: C. Banheining, 1656), 29–30 (quotes on p. 30). See on this debate Vermij, Calvinist Copernicans, 304–309; Thijssen-Schoute, Nederlands cartesianisme, 35–38.
31 Velthuysen, Bewys dat noch de leere, 113: ‘Hier op gaet Dom: du Bois seer breet wayen/ en meent daer sijn party open/ en ontbloot gevonden te hebben om hem een wisse steeck te brengen.’
32 For a detailed investigation on Voetius’ views, see Aza Goudriaan, Reformed Orthodoxy and Philosophy, 1625–1750. Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus van Mastricht, and Anthonius Driessen (Leiden: Brill, 2006).
33 F.G.M. Broeyer, ‘De Tweedracht van Voetianen en Coccejanen in Politiek Perspectief’, in Een Richtingenstrijd in de Gereformeerde Kerk. Voetianen en Coccejanen 1650–1750, eds. F.G.M. Broeyer and E.G.E. van der Wall (Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum, 1994), 74–94.
34 Vermij, Calvinist Copernicans, 323–331.
35 Lambertus van Velthuysen, Tractatus duo medico-physici unus de liene, alter de generatione (Utrecht: D. van Ackersdijck & G. van Zijll, 1657). The two treatises have separate pagination. The treatise on generation is briefly discussed by Dibon, ‘Le problême de l'âmeֺ’, 675–676.
36 Velthuysen, De generatione, 81–112. The table of contents at the beginning of the book gives the chapter title as: ‘Operationes in brutis non proficisci ab anima, à corpore, naturæ proprietate, distincta’. The chapter title itself (81) omits ‘in brutis’. For a statement on the animal machine, see also p. 74–78 of chapter three.
37 Ibid., 81–82.
38 Velthuysen, De generatione, 21–23, 29, 71.
39 Velthuysen, Bewys dat noch de leere, 108:
En seecker kan Son en Maen en andere lichamelicke oorsaecken sulcke wonderlicke schepselen voortbrengen uyt de verrottinge/ dewelcken in konst/ orde/ en volmaecktheyt niet en wijcken aen de dieren/ die uyt andere dieren gegenereert worden; waerom sou een lichaem so niet konnen ghewrocht sijn/ dat daer uyt ontstont sulck een harmonieuse kracht; waer uyt voortquamen alle die wonderlicke werckinghen; dewelcke wy in de beesten bespeuren.
40 Literature on Schuyl is scant. See above all the entry, by Han van Ruler, in Dictionary of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Dutch Philosophers, 2 vol. (Bristol, 2003), II, 905–909. Most detailed is G.A. Lindeboom, Florentius Schuyl (1619–1669) en zijn betekenis voor het cartesianisme in de geneeskunde (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974). See also Thijssen-Schoute, Nederlands cartesianisme, 261–262. On Schuyl's philosophical views, see Han van Ruler, ‘Substituting Aristotle: Platonic Themes in Dutch Cartesianism’, in Platonism at the Origins of Modernity. Studies on Platonism and Early Modern Philosophy, eds. Douglas Hedley and Sarah Hutton (Dordrecht: Springer, 2008), 159–175; also Henri Krop, ‘Medicine and Philosophy in Leiden around 1700: Continuity or Rupture?’, in The Early Enlightenment in the Dutch Republic, 1650–1750, ed. Wiep van Bunge (Leiden etc.: Brill, 2003), 173–196, on 178–179.
41 D. Nauta, Samuel Maresius (Amsterdam: H.J. Paris, 1935).
42 Letter by Schuyl to De Wilhem, 1653 Dec. 10, published in Lindeboom, Florentius Schuyl, 111–112. See also Schuyl's letter of 31 March 1656 to De Wilhem's wife (Constantia Huygens, a sister of Descartes' patron Constantijn Huygens), who had lent him some letters by Descartes, Ibid., 114–115. Most of Schuyl's disputations from his time in 's Hertogenbosch appear to be lost.
43 [Florentius Schuyl], Raedt voor de scheer-siecke hair-cloovers (Utrecht: David van Hoogenhuysen, 1644); Florentius Schuyl, Raedt voor de scheer-siecke hayrcloovers. Het tweede deel ('s Hertogenbosch: J. van Dockum, 1644). See also Lindeboom, Florentius Schuyl, 24–27.
44 René Descartes, De homine (Leiden: Pieter Leffen and Franciscus Moyaerd, 1662). A second edition was published at Leiden in 1664 by the brothers Hackius. This edition has been newly typeset, but the pages correspond to the first edition.
45 Lindeboom, Florentius Schuyl, 67–80. Eleanor Chan, ‘Beautiful Surfaces: Style and Substance in Florentius Schuyl's Illustrations for Descartes’ Treatise on Man’, Nuncius 31 (2016): 251–287, claims that Schuyl published the book with an eye to obtaining the professorship at Leiden (p. 256, 280). This seems probable, but there is no direct evidence.
46 Schuyl, ‘Ad lectorem’, sig. b4v: ‘ut docet Author noster tum in hoc libello, cum … ’ The indication ‘Author noster’ for Descartes also on sig. b2. Schuyl talks about the treatise only from sig. d4 onward.
47 Schuyl, ‘Ad lectorem’, in Descartes, De homine (Leiden, 1662), sig. d2v: ‘uti aliàs Disputationibus nostris de forma substantiali, & in animarum prodigos, ex professo probavimus.’
48 Most detailed in van Ruler, ‘Substituting Aristotle’, 159–164. Lindeboom, Florentius Schuyl, 76–79. Rosenfield, From Beast-Machine, discusses the preface in her appendix, 245–249. Thijssen-Schoute, Nederlands cartesianisme, 188, relies entirely on Rosenfield.
49 Schuyl, ‘Ad lectorem’, sig. a3: ‘profligare voluit teterrimam illam opinionem, quae incorpoream atque incorruptibilem Mentem, cujus ratione homo speciali praerogativâ dicitur imago Dei, nimiâ brutorum affinitate profanando, hominem in bruta, brutaque in homines, nefandâ quâdam metamorphosi & Metempsychosi commutare satagit.’
50 Schuyl, ‘Ad lectorem’, sig. a3v: ‘Quae profectò haeresis … tantò exactiùs refellenda, quantò proclivior in illam lapsus.’
51 Ibid., sig. a4-b1.
52 Ibid., sig. b1v.
53 Ibid., sig. b2-b2v.
54 Ibid., ‘Ad lectorem’, sig. b2v-b3v. Schuyl's list of automata is discussed in Minsoo Kang, Sublime Dreams of Living Machines. The Automaton in the European Imagination (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2022), 97. The dove of Archytas and the speaking statue of Albertus Magnus had already been mentioned by Schoock (1642) as models for the Cartesian view of animals, see La querelle d'Utrecht, 246.
55 Schuyl, ‘Ad lectorem’, sig. b3v-b4.
56 AT, VI, 58–59. Velthuysen, De generatione, 74.
57 Schuyl, ‘Ad lectorem’, sig. b4v-c2. Cf. Descartes, AT, VI, 57–58.
58 This section has been discussed by Strickland, ‘Use of Scripture’, 75–76.
59 Schuyl, ‘Ad lectorem’, sig. c2-c2v.
60 Ibid., sig. c2v-c3.
61 Ibid., sig. [c4].
62 Ibid., sig. [c4]: ‘quae sponte orta vocantur’.
63 Ibid., sig. [c4]v: ‘scolopendra, quae uti mihi constat experientiâ, capite à reliquo suo corpore resecto, per mensem & ultrà vita trahere videtur’.
64 Ibid., sig. d1v-d2: ‘Etenim pars altera stylo tacta contorquet sese ad locum affectum, alterâ interim nihil sentiente, suosque motus alibi tranquillè peragente.’
65 There is a long quote from Pereira: Ibid., sig. d3v-[d4]. On sig. b4, Schuyl refers for Pereira to Vossius, ‘De idololatria’ (lib III, cap. 41), clearly a reference to Vossius’ De theologia gentili (Amsterdam 1641–1642).
66 Comparisons between Schuyl's and Clerselier's editions of the 'Treatise on man' have mostly focused on their respective illustrations. Claus Zittel, ‘Conflicting Pictures. Illustrating Descartes’ Traité de l'Homme’, in Silent Messengers. The Circulation of Material Objects of Knowledge in the Early Modern Low Countries, eds. Sven Dupré and Christoph Lüthy (Münster: LIT, 2011), 217–260; see also Chan, ‘Beautiful Surfaces’.
67 Florentius Schuyl, ‘Version de la préface que Monsieur Schuyl a mise au deuant de la version Latine’, in: L'homme de René Descartes et un traitté de la formation du foetus du mesme autheur. Avec les remarques de Louys de La Forge (Paris: Charles Angot, 1664). Ibid., ‘Version de la préface que Monsieur Schuyl a mise au deuant de la version Latine’, in L'homme de René Descartes, et la formation du foetus, avec les remarques de Louis de La Forge. A quoy l'on a ajouté Le Monde ou Traité de la Lumière du mesme autheur (Paris: Charles Angot, 1677). However, the preface is not included in the edition Amsterdam 1680, although it is still announced in Clerselier's own preface. My references are to the first edition.
68 Schuyl, ‘Ad lectorem’, sig. b4; ‘Version du préface’, 425.
69 Ibid., sig. c2; ‘Version du préface’, 430.
70 Strickland, ‘Use of Scripture’, 196 note 55, found it curious that the French translation ‘omits all of his [Schuyl's] scriptural references bar Leviticus 17:14 and Deuteronomy 12:23’, but this is an overstatement.
71 Schuyl, ‘Ad lectorem’, sig. b4v; ‘Version du préface’, 425.
72 Ibid., sig. c; ‘Version du préface’, 427.
73 Schuyl, ‘Ad lectorem’, sig. c. The omitted words are: ‘velute voluptatem, libidinem, dolorem, iram, spem, similesque affectus rugitu, balatu, mugitu, aliave voce (de quâ videsis Aristotelem lib. IV. de Hist. Animal. cap. 9. & Ovidium ub Luscinia).’ Cf. Schuyl, ‘Version du préface’, 426.
74 Ibid., ‘Ad lectorem’, sig. c4, d1v, c4v; ‘Version du préface’, 433, 435, 437.
75 Schuyl, ‘Ad lectorem’, sig. c2v: ‘Neque etiam aliam, uti opinor, Deus nobis injungit misericordiam erga jumenta, quàm quâ hortulanus ille Euangelicus commotus fuit erga ficum: benevolentiam nimirum erga creaturas quaslibet, & imprimis erga digniores: quo sensu & sepelire mortuos opus misericordiae dici & videtur’. Du Bois, Naecktheyt, 21. Cf. Schuyl, ‘Version du préface’, 431. The gardener refers to Luke 13: 6–9.
76 Unlike in some other cases of early modern translations. See a.o. Peter Burke, Lost (and Found) in Translation. A Cultural History of Translators and Translating in Early Modern Europe (Wassenaar: NIAS, 2005); Karen Newman and Jane Tylus, ed., Early Modern Cultures of Translation (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015); for translations of scientific works see especially the focus section, edited by Sven Dupré, of Isis 109 (2018): 302–345.
77 Irenaeus Philalethius, Bedenckingen, 85: ‘den beesten, welckers ziel met haar lichaam groeit en vergaat, en daerom van Moyses in het bloet gestelt wort … ’
78 Strickland, ‘Use of Scripture’, argued that the use of Scripture in Schuyl's work (as in most other works on the animal soul that referred to Scripture) was corroborative rather than reconciliatory. This distinction is an important one, but, if one takes account of the polemical context, less clear-cut than it would appear at first sight.
79 Thomas, Man and the Natural World, 92–142, esp. 124–128.
80 Velthuysen, Bewys dat noch de leere, 118. Idem, Nader bewys, 107. Idem, De generatione, 86: ‘Et cum à plantis vitales operationes sine anima perficiantur, temere eam requirimus in animalibus’.
81 Velthuysen, De Generatione, 74.
82 Ibid., 87–89, see also 85.
83 Ibid., 87.
84 Interestingly, Schuyl's 1664 doctoral dissertation discusses the spleen, the topic of one of Velthuysen's two 1657 treatises.
85 On Descartes’ ideas, see a.o. Dibon, ‘Le problême de l'âme’, 662–671; Rosenfield, From Beast-Machine, 3–26; Katherine Morris, ‘Bêtes-machines’, in Descartes' Natural Philosophy, eds. Steven Gaukroger, John Schuster, and John Sutton (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 401–419; Stephen Gaukroger, Descartes' System of Natural Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 213–214.