Voltaire · 1764
Philosophical Dictionary, 'Animals'
- Original title
- Dictionnaire philosophique
- Language
- French
- Form
- Treatise
- Text
- Full text
- English
- No English translation · Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, Gutenberg #18569
- Source text
- gutenberg.org
- Wikidata
- Q656976
- Selected
- Ben Breen, 2026-09-29; suggested by Claude research agents, 29 Sep 2026
- Status
- Arguments unverified; quotations chosen by machine, unchecked
Q28PERSONHOOD
Would the capacity to suffer give an artificial being a claim to humane treatment?Yes. organs of feeling show animals suffer, so vivisection is barbarous. Attacks the Cartesian view of animals as machines: a dog dissected alive has all the organs of feeling, and nature did not give it nerves in order that it should not feel.
Bring the same judgment to bear on this dog which has lost its master, which has sought him on every road with sorrowful cries, which enters the house agitated, uneasy, which goes down the stairs, up the stairs, from room to room, which at last finds in his study the master it loves, and which shows him its joy by its cries of delight, by its leaps, by its caresses. Barbarians seize this dog, which in friendship surpasses man so prodigiously; they nail it on a table, and they dissect it alive in order to show the mesenteric veins. You discover in it all the same organs of feeling that are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the means of feeling in this animal, so that it may not feel? has it nerves in order to be impassible? Do not suppose this impertinent contradiction in nature.
Entry "Animals" (Bêtes) · Gutenberg #18569 English text; passage read.