y personally the happy
improvement of human affairs, at the conclusion of the eighteenth century,
the glorious star of reason was culminating. He was known to be a
materialist, consequently very naturally taken for an atheist, or at least
a naturalist, if I may use the expression, and the arms of the fraternity
were open to receive a man so highly distinguished for his chemical
discoveries. They eagerly entered into discourse with one, who had denied
man a soul, and, after pouring forth their own sublime theories of eternal
sleep and energies of nature, they gave him a pause to utter _his_
sublimities; and presently the room echoed with laughter and information
that the doctor _believes: Le docteur croit, le docteur Priestley croit_.
Some, who had not heard the conversation, ran to inquire what he believed.
_Comment! croit-il l'immortalite de l'ame? Point de tout; il convient que
l'homme n'a point d'ame. Bien! que croit-il donc? Il croit, l'immortalite
du corp. Que diable! quelle bizarerie! Mais, chez docteur, expliquez nous
cela_. The doctor discoursed on matter, and necessity, and of Jesus Christ
as a mere man. Finding that he believed _something_ their astonishment was
great; and, for some time, _le docteur croit_ was a bye-word.

[92] Genie du Christianisme, tom. viii.

[93] By his edicts on this subject, the youth of France were to be brought
up at his schools throughout the empire; these schools, in every town and
village, were all dignified with the appellation of university, the masters
of which were appointed by the principal of the school at Paris, and to be
under his control. The mathematics and a military spirit were ordered to be
the chief things attended to: all boys, of whatever age, wore uniforms and
immense cornered hats.

[94] A writer in the Times, cited in the Quarterly Review of Oct. 1811, p.
302.

[95] The Jansenistical apostate monk, Le Courayer, alleges a powerful
motive to enforce this doctrine: it is this; "By destroying the credit and
reputation of the Jesuits, Rome must be subverted: and when this is once
effected, Religion will reform itself."--_Hist. du Conc. de Trente, ed.
d'Amsterdam_, 1751, p. 63.

[96] That the ministers Pombal, Choiseul, Aranda, Tanucci, &c. should have
adopted this summary mode of execution at Lisbon, Paris, Madrid, Naples,
&c. creates now little surprise, devoted as they were to the views of the
philosophers.

[97] It will be readily allowed, that the form of l