--a
spirit, of which they have no idea. Ask them how this spirit, which they
suppose to be like their God wholly void of extension, could combine
itself with their material bodies, and they will tell you, they know
nothing about it; that it is to them a mystery; that this combination is
an effect of the omnipotence of God. These are the ideas that men form of
the hidden, or rather imaginary substance, which they consider as the main
spring of all their actions!

If the soul is a substance essentially different from the body, and
can have no relation to it, their union would be, not a mystery, but an
impossibility. Besides, this soul being of a nature different from the
body, must necessarily act in a different manner; yet we see that this
pretended soul is sensible of the motions experienced by the body, and
that these two substances, essentially different, always acts in concert.
You will say that this harmony is also a mystery. But I will tell you,
that I see not my soul, that I know and am sensible of my body only, that
it is this body which feels, thinks, judges, suffers, and enjoys; and
that all these faculties are necessary results of its own mechanism, or
organization.

101.

Although it is impossible for men to form the least idea of the soul, or
the pretended spirit, which animates them; yet they persuade themselves
that this unknown soul is exempt from death. Every thing proves to them,
that they feel, that they think, that they acquire ideas, that they enjoy
and suffer, only by means of the senses, or material organs of the body.
Admitting even the existence of this soul, they cannot help acknowledging,
that it depends entirely upon the body, and undergoes, all its
vicissitudes; and yet it is imagined, that this soul has nothing, in
its nature, similar to the body; that it can act and feel without the
assistance of the body; in a word, that this soul, freed from the body,
and disengaged from its senses, can live, enjoy, suffer, experience
happiness, or feel excruciating torments. Upon such a tissue of
absurdities is built the marvellous opinion of the _immortality of the
soul_. If I ask, what are the motives for believing the soul immortal,
they immediately answer, that it is because man naturally desires to be
immortal: but, because you desire a thing ardently, can you infer that
your desire will be fulfilled? By what strange logic can we dare affirm,
that a thing cannot fail to happen, because we a