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