The invention of the “machines of nature”: Physics and Theology L'invention des "machines de la nature": physique et théologie En Fr

Résumé En

This article focuses on Leibniz’s letter to Bossuet of 8/18 April 1692, a text gener- ally neglected by commentators who write on the history of Leibniz’s concept of “machines of nature”. This letter, wherein “machines of nature” appear for the first time to be defined as “machines everywhere, no matter how small their parts”, forms an important step between the theoretical achievements in the correspondence with Arnauld (1686-1690) and the “New System” (1695). The concept of “machines of nature” as machines composed of other machines to infinity instances an apologetic use of physics, and proves to be particularly useful toward an a posteriori demonstration of the existence of God. The idea of organic bodies as such machines fits with a critique of the mechanism of the “Moderns”: the latter is found to be both metaphysically insufficient and practically dangerous, since it presupposes excluding all finality, entails abolishing the distinction between the natural and the artificial, and finally, promotes atheism.