Systême de la Nature.

Rare and genuine first edition. This famous work, one of the most radical in Enlightenment philosophy, well deserves its common appellation as the "bible of materialism". It caused a great scandal upon its publication and was not favorably received, as one might have expected, by all philosophers, who were still attached to the defense of a sui generis religion. Resolutely atheist, hostile to the half-measure of deism, an unrepentant materialist, mechanist, and determinist, Holbach (1723-1789), who had borrowed some of his theses from Hobbes, Locke, and La Mettrie, managed to shock almost everyone, including Voltaire and Frederick II. The work was published under the false name of Jean-Baptiste Mirabaud. Ex-libris of M. Dupleix de Bacquencourt, Conseiller d'Etat.