 Pierre Desmaizeaux knew Collins for some 26 years and was his friend and collaborator. Desmaizeaux played an important role in raising Collins’ reputation both in England and on the continent. Collins discussed Clarke’s response to his book on determinism with Desmaizeaux and Desmaizeaux kept Collins in contact with the intellectual life on the continent and also served as a publicist for Collins. He had Collins’ Inquiry translated into French and handled the printing of his other books. In 1720, under Collins’ direction, Desmaizeaux published A collection of several pieces of Mr. John Locke, never before printed, or not extant in his works. Pub. by the author of the Life of the ever-memorable Mr. John Hales, &amp;c which contained a number of Locke’s letters to Collins. There was considerable interest on the continent in the thinking-matter controversy. There is a certain amount of debate about the influence of Collins’ book on free will and determinism on Voltaire. O’Higgins accepts the evidence produced by Torrey in Voltaire and the English Deists that Voltaire was converted to determinism by reading Collins (O’Higgins 1970: 219–20). As time passed free-thinking came out into the open in France and Collins’ name was associated with it. Finally, his works on the materiality of the soul, determinism and free will and the prophecies influenced the group around Baron d’Holbach. (For a detailed treatment of Collins’ influence on the continent, see O’Higgins 1970: Chapter XI.) Whether Collins would have been happy with this depends on whether we view him as a deist with O’Higgins, or as an atheist with David Berman and Jacopo Agnesina. This disagreement over whether to regard Collins as a deist or as an atheist (or someone whose views changed over time or were unclear even to himself) is our most serious unresolved problem in determining Collins’ proper place in the history of ideas.