See p. 66.

Chiefly from Pensées Diverses.—Faugère’s ed., vol. i. pp. 177–242.

The following passage from Fontaine’s Memoirs, quoted by Cousin (B. Pascal, p. 132), gives an interesting and lively glimpse of the philosophical discourses at Port Royal. It may not be without some application to the modern no less than the original Cartesian doctrine. “How many little agitations raised themselves in this desert touching the human science of philosophy and the new opinions of M. Descartes! As M. Arnauld in his hours of relaxation conversed on these subjects with his more intimate friends, the excitement spread on every side, and the solitude, in the hours of social intercourse, resounded with these discussions. There was hardly a solitary who did not talk of ‘automata.’  To beat a dog was no longer a matter of any moment. The stick was laid on with the utmost indifference, and a great fool was made of those who pitied the animals, as if they had any feeling. They said they were only clockwork, and that the cries they uttered when they were beaten were no more than the noise of some little spring that had been moved, and that all this involved no sensation. They nailed the poor animals upon boards by the fore-paws, in order to dissect them while still alive, and to see the circulation of the blood, which was a great subject of discussion.