Foreword

Summary

None of La Mettrie's works appeared under his own name, and the precise attribution of works to him still presents problems. The texts which here accompany Machine Man represent the most important of his philosophical works, and are beyond doubt by La Mettrie. Machine Man is given here complete (but without the polemical dedication to Haller), as are the shorter works, Man as Plant, The System of Epicurus and Preliminary Discourse. As for the two longer works, Treatise on the Soul and Anti-Seneca, the first half of each is included here, as in both cases it provides the essential arguments. La Mettrie's Philosophical Works contained one other, partly satirical text, Animals More than Machines, which has been omitted from the present volume.

Apart from Machine Man, which was translated into English soon after its publication, and retranslated in 1912, together with extracts from the Natural History of the Soul (Treatise on the Soul), the other works have never before appeared in English.

The translation of the title L'Homme machine since the eighteenth century has been Man a Machine, but it was felt by the series editor that a modern translation was called for. Machine Man corresponds most closely to La Mettrie's provocative French title; for L'Homme plante, however, Man as Plant was considered to be more appropriate, as here the author is making a fanciful comparison, which is not the case in the former work.