Always felt Descartes kind of cheated himself with his very categorical denounciation of the body and the animals as mere thoughtless automatons.

Leibniz and Spinoza (the other 2 of the 3 great 16th century rationalists) have more nuanced views, esp Spinoza who in his Ethica said something like: Descartes was a very bright man who non the less fooled himself with the idea of the pineal gland as seat of the soul. Etc