Complete Explanation The word automat is the Latinization of the Greek word αὐτόματον, which means acting of one’s own will.

In the 17th century, the French philosopher René Descartes argued that animals were merely “material automata” — lacking souls or consciousness. Descartes believed that animals “can’t ...

Descartes led him into a sort of shed, and, drawing aside a curtain, displayed a dissecting-room full of bodies of animals in course of dissection, and said, “There is my library.” It would ...