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It is not enough for a wise man to study nature and truth; he should dare state truth for the benefit of the few who are willing and able to think. As for the rest, who are voluntarily slaves of prejudice, they can no more attain truth, than frogs can fly. I reduce to two the systems of philosophy which deal with man's soul. The first and older system is materialism; the second is spiritualism. Julien Offray de La Mettrie Please Note:This book is easy to read in true text, not scanned images that can sometimes be difficult to decipher.The Microsoft eBook has a contents page linked to the chapter headings for easy navigation. The Adobe eBook has bookmarks at chapter headings and is printable up to two full copies per year.Both versions are text searchable. ... Read more

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Don't buy this edition.
Originally published in 1748, La Mettrie's philosophical work is noteworthy as one of the earliest affirmations of Enlightenment materialism and atheism.But please avoid this paperback reprint from Open Court -it's a facsimile of an out-of-date 1912 edition, and the Englishtranslation of the French text is much abridged. ... Read more

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This work is considered as one of the earliest regarding the affirmations of materialism and atheism. It presents the philosophical ideas of the author and provokes thought process. ... Read more

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Including Frederick the Great's "Eulogy" on La Mettrie and extracts fro La Mettrie's "The Natural History of the Soul" Philosophical and historiacl notes by Gertrude Carman Bussey M.A., Wellesley College. ... Read more

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This work is considered as one of the earliest regarding the affirmations of materialism and atheism. It presents the philosophical ideas of the author and provokes thought process. ... Read more

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MAN A MACHINE JULIEN OFFRAY DE LA METTRIE FRENCH-ENGLISH INCLUDING FREDERICK THE GREATS EULOGY ON LA METTRIE AND EX TRACTS FROM LA METTRIES THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SOUL PHILOSOPHICAL AND HISTORICAL NOTES BY GERTRUDE CARMAN BUSSEY M A , WCLLXSLBY COLLXGK THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY LA SALLE ILLINOIS 1943 COPYRIGHT BY OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 1912 Printed m the United States of America By PAOUH PHIXTBM, Chicago TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Preface. . . . v Frederic the Greats Eulogy on Julien Offray De La Mettne . i LHomme Machine n Man a Machine 83 The Natural History of the Soul Extracts ... 151 Appendix 163 La Mettries Relation to His Predecessors and to His Successors 165 Outline of La Mettries Metaphysical Doctrine . . .175 Notes 176 Works Consulted and Cited in the Notes ... 205 Index 209 PREFACE. PREFACE. E French text presented m this volume is taken from that of a Leyden edition of 1748, in other words, from that of an edition published in the year and in the place of issue of the first edition. The title page of this edition is reproduced in the present volume. The original was evidently the work of a Dutch compositor unschooled in the French language, and is full of imperfections, inconsistencies, and grammatical blun ders By the direction of the publishers these obviously typo graphical blunders have been corrected by M. Lucien Arreat of Paris, The translation is the work of several hands It is founded on a version made by Miss Gertrude C Bussey from the French text in the edition of J. Assezat and has been revised by Professor M. W, Calkins who is responsible for it in its present form. Mademoiselle M. Garret, of the Wellesley Col lege department of French, and Professor George Santayana, of Harvard University, have given valued assistance and this opportunity is taken to acknowledge their kindness in solving the problems of interpretation which have been submitted to them It should be added that the translation sometimes sub ordinates the claims of English structure and style in the effort to render La Mettnes meaning exactly. The paragraphing of the French is usually followed, but the italics and the capitals are not reproduced. The page-headings of the translation re fer back to the pages of the French text and a few words in serted by the translators are enclosed in brackets. The philosophical and historical Notes are condensed and adapted from a masters thesis on La Mettne presented by Miss Bussey to the faculty of Wellesley College. FREDERIC THE GREATS EULOGY ON JULIEN OFFRAY DE LA METTRIE. FREDERIC THE GREATS EULOGY ON JULIEN OFFRAY DE LA METTRIE. TULIEN Offray de la Mettrie was born in Saint J Malo, on the twenty-fifth of December, 1709, to Julien Offray de la Mettrie and Marie Gaudron, who were living by a trade large enough to provide a good education for their son. They sent him to the college of Coutance to study the humanities he went from there to Paris, to the college of Plessis he studied his rhetoric at Caen, and since he had much genius and imagination, he won all the prizes for eloquence. He was a born orator, and was pas sionately fond of poetry and belles-lettres, but his father thought that he would earn more as an ec clesiastic than as a poet, and destined him for the church. He sent him, the following year, to the college of Plessis where he studied logic under M. Cordier, who was more a Jansenist than a logician. It is characteristic of an ardent imagination to seize forcefully the objects presented to it, as it is characteristic of youth to be prejudiced in favor of the first opinions that are inculcated. Any other scholar would have adopted the opinions of his teacher but that was not enough for young La Mettrie he became a Jansenist, and wrote a work which had great vogue in that party. 4 MAN A MACHINE. In 1725, he studied natural philosophy at the college of Harcourt, and made great progress there. On his return to Brittany, M... ... Read more

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Of the two alternatives, only one is possible: either everything is illusion, nature as well as revelation, or experience alone can explain faith. But what can be more ridiculous than the position of our author! Can one imagine hearing a Peripatetic say, We ought not to accept the experiments of Torricelli, for if we should accept them, if we should rid ourselves of the horror of the void, what an astonishing philosophy we should have!''Download Description
Of the two alternatives, only one is possible: either everything is illusion, nature as well as revelation, or experience alone can explain faith. But what can be more ridiculous than the position of our author! Can one imagine hearing a Peripatetic say, We ought not to accept the experiments of Torricelli, for if we should accept them, if we should rid ourselves of the horror of the void, what an astonishing philosophy we should have!'' ... Read more

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BRAND NEW leather bound book accented with gilt! ! Facsimile reproduction of original work. ... Read more

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This work is considered as one of the earliest regarding the affirmations of materialism and atheism. It presents the philosophical ideas of the author and provokes thought process. ... Read more

Product Description
This work is considered as one of the earliest regarding the affirmations of materialism and atheism. It presents the philosophical ideas of the author and provokes thought process. ... Read more

Product Description
This work is considered as one of the earliest regarding the affirmations of materialism and atheism. It presents the philosophical ideas of the author and provokes thought process. ... Read more

Product Description
This work is considered as one of the earliest regarding the affirmations of materialism and atheism. It presents the philosophical ideas of the author and provokes thought process. ... Read more

Book Description
Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-51), author of Man a Machine (1747), was the most uncompromising of the materialists of the eighteenth century, and the provocative title of his work ensured it a succès de scandale in his own time. This fully annotated edition presents a new English translation of the text together with the most important of La Mettrie's other philosophical works, translated into English for the first time. Ann Thomson's introduction examines his aims and the scandalous moral consequences which he drew from his materialism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Boy has Society Come a Long Way.
This was a very interesting read.La Mettrie spends the course of two essays describing what for the most part may well be common knowledge now.What amazed me is that this was a banned book at one time and that he originally published it anonymously for fear of repercussions.Boy has society come a long way. ... Read more