"Let us boldly conclude that Man is a Machine; and that in the whole universe there is only a single substance, modified in various ways."

In La Mettrie's thought, humans, animals, plants, and all that lives are equal: either all of them have souls (whatever is meant by that word) or none do. He emphasized the "uniformity of nature" and the analogies between so many organs in humans and other animals, including plants. He even developed an evolutionary hypothesis well ahead of Darwin.

This collection contains the following works, most of which have never been fully translated before now:

-The Natural History of the Soul
-Man Is a Machine (AKA Man-Machine or Man a Machine)
-Man Is a Plant
-Animals Are More than Machines
-An Epistle to My Mind
-The Little Man with a Long Tail