is single consideration ought, then, to
determine those hazarders of conjectures, if they have really good
intentions, to wrap in the inmost folds of their hearts whatever
suspicions they may entertain concerning the author, however true or
false they may be, and to turn their inquiring spirits to a use more
beneficial for both themselves and others.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

In 1819 an anonymous translation of the LETTERS TO EUGENIA was
published in London by Richard Carlile. This translation in some of
its parts was sufficiently complete and correct, but in others it was
at absolute variance with the original work; in other parts, also, it
was interlarded with matter not written by d'Holbach; and in others,
large portions of the original Letters were entirely omitted, as were
likewise a number of notes and the whole of the preliminary
observations, with which the volume was introduced to the public by
Naigeon, so long the intimate friend of both d'Holbach and Diderot. In
again presenting the work in an English dress, the London translation
has been made the foundation of this, but the whole has been
thoroughly revised and collated with the original. The omitted
portions have been translated and inserted in their proper places, and
though some passages of the London work, not entirely faithful to the
original, have been allowed to stand, yet the book, as it now
appears, is essentially a new one, and is the most accurate and
complete translation of the LETTERS TO EUGENIA which has ever been
made into the English language.

The work at first came anonymously from the press, and the mystery of
its authorship was sedulously maintained in the introductory
observations of Naigeon, in consequence of the danger which then
attended the issue of Infidel productions, not only in France but
throughout Christendom. The book was printed in Amsterdam, at
d'Holbach's own expense, by Marc-Michael Rey, a noble printer, to whom
the world is greatly indebted for the inestimable aid he rendered the
philosophers. But bold as he was, and then living in a country the
most free of any in the world, he dared not openly send these LETTERS
from his own press. They were issued in 1768, in two duodecimo
volumes, without any publisher's name, and with the imprint of
_London_ on the title page, in order to set those persecutors at bay
who were prowling for victims, and who sought to burn author, printer,
and book at the same pile. The prude