or,
A Preservative
Against Religious Prejudices.
Author of The System of Nature, The Social System, GoodSense, Christianity Unveiled, Ecce Homo, UniversalMorality, Religious Cruelty, &c., &c., &c.
Translated from the French, by
Anthony C. Middleton, M. D.
... "Arctis
Religionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo."
Lucretii De Rerum Natura, lib. iv. v. 6, 7.
Boston:
Published By Josiah P. Mendum,
At The Office Of The Boston Investigator.
1857.
1768.
For many years this work has been knownunder the title of Letters to Eugenia. The secretivecharacter of those, however, into whose handsthe manuscript at first fell; the singular and yetactual pleasure that is caused generally enough inthe minds of all men by the exclusive possessionof any object whatever; that kind of torpor, servitude,and terror in which the tyrannical power ofthe priests then held all minds—even those whoby the superiority of their talents ought naturallyto be the least disposed to bend under the odiousyoke of the clergy,—all these circumstancesunited contributed so much to stifle in its birth,if I may so express myself, this important manuscript,that for a long time it was supposed to belost; so much did those who possessed it keep itcarefully concealed, and so constantly did theyrefuse to allow a copy to be taken. The manuscripts,[Pg iv]indeed, were so scarce, even in the librariesof the curious, that the late M. De Boze, whosepleasure it was to collect the rarest works belongingto every species of literature, could neversucceed in acquiring a copy of the Letters to Eugenia,and in his time there were only three inParis; it may have been from design, proptermetum Judæorum;[1] it may have been there wereactually no more known.
It is not till within five or six years that MSS.of these letters have become more common; andthere is reason to believe that they are now considerablymultiplied, since the copy from whichthis edition is printed has been revised and correctedby collation with six others, that have beencollected without any great difficulty. Unhappily,all these copies swarm with faults, which corruptthe sense, and comprehend many variations, butwhich also, to use the language of the Biblicalcritics, have served sometimes to discover and tofix the true reading! More often, however, theyhave rendered it more uncertain than it was beforewhat one ought to be fo