Essay on the Art of Crawling

"Serpents and reptiles reach the heights of mountains and rocks, while the most fiery of steeds can never climb there."

Baron d'Holbach's 1776 Essay on the Art of Crawling is a delicious satire on the sycophancy and self-abasement rife in the courts of Europe. A penetrating account of the workings of power that applies as much to today's courtiers as it did to those of the eighteenth century, it also makes a compelling case for the value of moral independence and personal dignity.