rdently desire it? Are
desires, begotten by the imagination, the measure of reality? The impious,
you say, deprived of the flattering hope of another life, wish to be
annihilated. Very well: may they not then as justly conclude, from _their_
desire, that they shall be annihilated, as you may conclude from _your_
desire, that you shall exist for ever.

102.

Man dies, and the human body after death is no longer anything but a mass
incapable of producing those motions, of which the sum total constituted
life. We see, that it has no longer circulation, respiration, digestion,
speech, or thought. It is pretended, that the soul is then separated from
the body; but to say, that this soul, with which we are unacquainted, is
the principle of life, is to say nothing, unless that an unknown power is
the hidden principle of imperceptible movements. Nothing is more natural
and simple, than to believe, that the dead man no longer lives: nothing
is more extravagant, than to believe, that the dead man is still alive. We
laugh at the simplicity of some nations, whose custom is to bury provision
with the dead, under an idea that it will be useful and necessary to them
in the other life. Is it then more ridiculous or absurd to suppose, that
men will eat after death, than to imagine, that they will think, that they
will be actuated by agreeable or disagreeable ideas, that they will enjoy
or suffer, and that they will experience repentance or delight, after the
organs, adapted to produce sensations or ideas, are once dissolved. To say
that the souls of men will be happy or unhappy after death, is in other
words to say, that men will see without eyes, hear without ears, taste
without palates, smell without noses, and touch without hands. And
persons, who consider themselves very reasonable, adopt these ideas!

103.

The dogma of the immortality of the soul supposes the soul to be a simple
substance; in a word, a spirit. But I ask again, what is a spirit? "It
is," say you, "a substance void of extension, incorruptible, having
nothing common with matter." If so, how is your soul born, and how does it
grow, how does it strengthen or weaken itself, how does it get disordered
and grow old, in the same progression as your body?

To all these questions you answer, that these are mysteries. If so, you
cannot understand them. If you cannot understand them, why do you decide
about a thing, of which you are unable to form the least ide