Named in memory of the French medical doctor and philosopher Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709–1751). After publishing Traité de l’Ame in 1745, he had to flee to Holland, where he published L’Homme-Machine (1748). “Soul’ is just an empty word. Matter by its own has the faculty of perception.” In his last work Discours préliminaire (1751), he wrote: “How can one possibly think that reasoning is dangerous? It has never led to fanatics, sects or even theologians.” (M 29672) _ _.