ical, metaphysical. To say that the
argument is one-sided, is only to say that it is an attack. But the fact
that the writer omits the contributions made under the temporal shelter
of theology to morality and civilisation, does not alter the other fact
that he states with unsurpassed vigour all that can be said against the
intellectual absurdities and moral obliquities that theology has
nourished and approved, and only too firmly planted.

Of the elaborate examination of the proofs of the existence of a God
adduced by Descartes, Samuel Clarke, Malebranche, and Newton (ch. iv.
and v.), we need only say that its whole force might have been summed up
in the single proposition that the author once for all repudiates any _a
priori_ basis for any beliefs whatever. It would have been sufficient
for philosophic purposes if he had contented himself with justifying
and establishing that position. The fabric of orthodox demonstration
would have fallen to the ground after the destruction of its
foundations. Holbach rejected the whole _a priori_ system; it was a
matter of course therefore that he rejected each one of the twelve
propositions which Clarke had invented by the _a priori_ method. Holbach
held that experience is the source and limit of knowledge, reasoning,
and belief, and rejected as a fantastic impertinence of dreamy
metaphysicians the assumption that our conceptions measure the
necessities of objective existence. From that point of view, merely to
state was to empty of all demonstrating quality such assertions as that
something has existed from all eternity; an independent and immutable
Being has existed from all eternity; this immutable and independent
Being exists by himself, and is incomprehensible; the Being existing
necessarily is necessarily single and unique--and so forth. Even if we
accept this _a priori_ method, and accept the first assumption that
something must have existed from all eternity, it was open to Holbach to
say, as Locke said on setting himself to examine Descartes' proof of a
God: "I found that, by it, senseless matter might be the first eternal
being and cause of all things, as well as an immaterial intelligent
spirit." But what we feel is that the whole controversy is being
conducted between two disputants on two different planes of thought,
between two creatures dwelling in different elements. To apply to
Clarke's propositions, or to the slightly different propositions of
Malebranche, the test