Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net LETTERS TO EUGENIA; OR, A PRESERVATIVE AGAINST RELIGIOUS PREJUDICES. BY BARON D'HOLBACH, AUTHOR OF THE SYSTEM OF NATURE, THE SOCIAL SYSTEM, GOOD SENSE, CHRISTIANITY UNVEILED, ECCE HOMO, UNIVERSAL MORALITY, 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. NAIGEON'S PREFACE. 1768. For many years this work has been known under the title of _Letters to Eugenia_. The secretive character of those, however, into whose hands the manuscript at first fell; the singular and yet actual pleasure that is caused generally enough in the minds of all men by the exclusive possession of any object whatever; that kind of torpor, servitude, and terror in which the tyrannical power of the priests then held all minds--even those who by the superiority of their talents ought naturally to be the least disposed to bend under the odious yoke of the clergy,--all these circumstances united 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 be lost; so much did those who possessed it keep it carefully concealed, and so constantly did they refuse to allow a copy to be taken. The manuscripts, indeed, were so scarce, even in the libraries of the curious, that the late M. De Boze, whose pleasure it was to collect the rarest works belonging to every species of literature, could never succeed in acquiring a copy of the _Letters to Eugenia_, and in his time there were only three in Paris; it may have been from design, _propter metum Judæorum_;[1] it may have been there were actually no more known. [1] _On account of fear of the Jews_, or, in other words, the intolerant clergy of the despotic government.