Seemingly driven by a divine hand yet wholly the product of their makers' skill, automata stimulated philosophical discussions on the human ability to create machines that mimic our movement or react intelligently to commands. Many theorists described God as the greatest of all clockmakers, who set the vast mechanism of the cosmos in motion. Debates circulated about how their use of clockwork to imitate life placed artisans on par with the divine. Automata contributed to the development of a mechanistic theory of human life popularized by thinkers such as René Descartes during the early Enlightenment.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
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