Treatise on the soul

Summary

Note on the text

The first printed version of this work was called the Natural History of the Soul, and indicated on the title page that it was translated from the English of ‘Mr Charp’ and that it was published by Jean Néaulme at the Hague. In fact it was printed clandestinely in Paris by David in June 1745, and most of the edition was seized. Another edition appeared, still as a translation from a work by ‘Charp’, in 1747, with the false address of Oxford. This edition was prefaced by a Critical Letter by M. de La Mettrie addressed to Madame du Châtelet. When La Mettrie revised the work extensively for publication in his Philosophical Works in 1750, where it was the second ‘Mémoire’ contributing to the natural history of man, he renamed the work the Treatise on the Soul (Traité de l'âme) which probably indicates his realisation that it was nearer to a philosophical treatise than any of his other essays; he attached to it an Abrégé des systèmes pour faciliter l'intelligence du Traité de l'âme (Abstract of Philosophical Systems to Facilitate an Understanding of the Treatise on the Soul). It is part of this Treatise, which is reproduced in all of the editions of La Mettrie's Philosophical Works and is the basis for Verbeek's critical edition, that is translated here.