Adventures of Mr. X. III
...X was the son of a prosperous textile merchant. After attending the Collège du Plessis in Paris, he acquired a vocational interest in becoming a clergyman, but after studying theology in the Jansenist schools for some years, his interests turned away from the Church, and X decided to take up the profession of medicine.
For five years, X studied at faculty of medicine in Paris. In 1733, however, he departed for Leiden to study under the famous Herman Boerhaave. He married in 1739 but the marriage, which produced two children, proved an unhappy one. In 1742, X left his family and travelled to Paris, where he obtained the appointment of surgeon to the Gardes Francaises regiment, taking part in several battles during the War of the Austrian Succession. Much of his time, however, was spent in Paris.
It was in these years, during an attack of fever, that he made observations on himself with reference to the action of quickened blood circulation upon thought, which led him to the conclusion that mental processes were to be accounted for as the effects of organic changes in the brain and nervous system. This conclusion he worked out in his earliest philosophical work, the Histoire naturelle de l'âme. So great was the outcry caused by its publication that X was forced to quit his position with the French Guards, taking refuge in Leiden, where he developed his doctrines still more boldly and completely in L'Homme machine a hastily-written treatise based upon consistently materialistic and quasi-atheistic principles.
X's hedonistic and materialistic principles caused outrage even in the relatively tolerant Netherlands. So strong was the feeling against him that in 1748 he was compelled to leave for Berlin, where, thanks in part to the offices of Maupertuis, the Prussian king Frederick the Great not only allowed him to practise as a physician, but appointed him court reader. There X wrote the Discours sur le bonheur, which appalled leading Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire, Diderot and D'Holbach due to its explicitly hedonistic sensualist principles which prioritised the unbridled pursuit of pleasure above all other things.
In 1751, the French ambassador to Prussia, Tirconnel, grateful to X for curing him of an illness, held a feast in his honour. It was claimed that X wanted to show either his power of gluttony or his strong constitution by devouring a large quantity of pâte de faisan aux truffes. As a result, he developed a gastric illness of some sort, became delirious, and died.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julien_Offray_de_La_Mettrie
For five years, X studied at faculty of medicine in Paris. In 1733, however, he departed for Leiden to study under the famous Herman Boerhaave. He married in 1739 but the marriage, which produced two children, proved an unhappy one. In 1742, X left his family and travelled to Paris, where he obtained the appointment of surgeon to the Gardes Francaises regiment, taking part in several battles during the War of the Austrian Succession. Much of his time, however, was spent in Paris.
It was in these years, during an attack of fever, that he made observations on himself with reference to the action of quickened blood circulation upon thought, which led him to the conclusion that mental processes were to be accounted for as the effects of organic changes in the brain and nervous system. This conclusion he worked out in his earliest philosophical work, the Histoire naturelle de l'âme. So great was the outcry caused by its publication that X was forced to quit his position with the French Guards, taking refuge in Leiden, where he developed his doctrines still more boldly and completely in L'Homme machine a hastily-written treatise based upon consistently materialistic and quasi-atheistic principles.
X's hedonistic and materialistic principles caused outrage even in the relatively tolerant Netherlands. So strong was the feeling against him that in 1748 he was compelled to leave for Berlin, where, thanks in part to the offices of Maupertuis, the Prussian king Frederick the Great not only allowed him to practise as a physician, but appointed him court reader. There X wrote the Discours sur le bonheur, which appalled leading Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire, Diderot and D'Holbach due to its explicitly hedonistic sensualist principles which prioritised the unbridled pursuit of pleasure above all other things.
In 1751, the French ambassador to Prussia, Tirconnel, grateful to X for curing him of an illness, held a feast in his honour. It was claimed that X wanted to show either his power of gluttony or his strong constitution by devouring a large quantity of pâte de faisan aux truffes. As a result, he developed a gastric illness of some sort, became delirious, and died.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julien_Offray_de_La_Mettrie