24.DiscourseonMethod,vol.5;seealsohislettertoHenry
More,February5,1649.Ihavegiventhestandardreadingof
Descartes,thewayinwhichhispositionwasunderstoodat
thetime,andhasbeenunderstoodbymostofhisreadersup
toandincludingthepresent;butithasbeenclaimedrecently
thatthisstandardreadingisamistake,inthatDescartesdid
not intend to deny that animals could suffer. For further
details, see John Cottingham, “‘A Brute to the Brutes?’
Descartes’TreatmentofAnimals,”Philosophy53: 551–559
(1978).
25.JohnPassmoredescribesthequestion“whydoanimals
suffer?” as “for centuries, the problem of problems. It
engenderedfantasticallyelaboratesolutions.Malebranche[a
contemporaryofDescartes]isquiteexplicitthat forpurely
theologicalreasonsitisnecessarytodeny thatanimalscan
suffer,sinceallsufferingistheresultofAdam’ssinandthe
animals do not descendfrom Adam.”See John Passmore,
Man’s Responsibility for Nature, p. 114n.
26.Letter to Henry More, February 5, 1649.
27.NicholasFontaine,Memoriespourserviral’histoirede
Port-Royal (Cologne, 1738), 2: 52–53; quoted in L.
Rosenfield,From
Beast-MachinetoMan-Machine:TheThemeofAnimalSoul
inFrenchLettersfromDescartestoLaMettrie(NewYork:
Oxford University Press, 1940).
28.Dictionnaire Philosophique, s.v. “Bêtes.”
29.Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, chapter 3.