Fenelon said the following about laughing children (see:
laughing children rule) and people who would attribute feelings to stones: [1]
“Matter cannot think or feel and the people, even children, cannot be persuaded otherwise. People and children are far from believing that matter is capable of thinking and feeling in anyway, so that they could not help laughing if you told them that a stone, a piece of wood, a table, or their dolls felt pain or pleasure and joy or sadness.”
— Francois Fenelon (c.1690), On the Existence of God
Meslier rebuts this logic as follows: [1]
“Now that is a lovely argument for a person of such rank, merit, and erudition! People and even children could really have a reason to laugh and make fun of those who to amuse themselves would like to make them believe that stones, tables, boards, furniture, or dolls had knowledge and sentiment because they know, indeed, that these sorts of things cannot know or feel anything. But, their laughter would not come, as Fenelon would like to make them understand, from the fact that these kinds of things are only matter or made of matter, but because they would see that these things are not ‘animate’ and do not have life like animals and consequently they cannot think or feel.”
(add)
-1. Meslier, Jean. (1729).
Testament: Memoir of the Thoughts and Sentiments of Jean Meslier (translator: Michael Shreve; preface: Michel Onfray) (pgs. 560-61). Prometheus Books.
In existographies, Francois Fenelon (1651-1715) (IQ:180|#209) (Cattell 1000:102) (CR:6), aka "De Cambria" (Meslier, 1729), was a French Catholic theologian, poet, and writer, noted for []