La Mettrie's L'Homme Machine

July 1, 1748

The French physician Julien Offray de La Mettrie, exiled to Berlin by Frederick the Great after his writings scandalized Paris, published a book arguing that human beings were entirely material, thinking machines, no soul required. Even atheist philosophes were alarmed. La Mettrie drank himself to death on a pheasant pate within three years.