The Problem of Soul in the "Little Machines" of Reaumur and Charles Bonnet

Abstract

DESPITE NEWTON, THE CARTESIAN IDEA OF A CLOCK-LIKE UNIVERSE governed by natural law, popularized by Bernard de Fontenelle in his Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes, remained a central concept of eighteenth-century continental thought. However, as Leonora Cohen Rosenfield demonstrated in her classic book, From Beast-Machine to Man-Machine, by the early decades of the century, the once tightly woven fabric of the Cartesian system had become a ragged cloth, torn not only by its detractors, but even by those who supported its basic premises. One example of this late Cartesianism can be found in the natural history of Rene-Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur (1683-1757). Best known in the eighteenth century for his six-volume work Memoires pour servir 'a l'histoire des insectes, published between 1734 and 1742, Reaumur remained faithful to the basic dualism intrinsic to Cartesian philosophy. However, Charles Bonnet, often regarded as Reaumur's disciple, deviated so far from basic Cartesian tenets that he can but tenuously be considered a Cartesian at all. A careful study of both their published works and their letters on insects in the early years of their long correspondence reveals not only similarities, but also basic differences in their outlooks. On two fundamental points both agreed in their rejection of Cartesian biological explanations. The first was Descartes' belief that the