y suppose the
matter important, or when they would defend the cause of their own
self-love, from thence their passions sharpen, they grow angry, quarrels
are provoked, they hate each other, and end by reciprocal injury. It
is thus that for opinions, which no man can demonstrate, we see the
Brachman despised; the Mahomedan hated; the Pagan held in contempt; that
they oppress and disdain each with the most raucorous animosity: the
Christian burns the Jew at what is called an _Auto-da-fe_, because he
clings to the faith of his fathers; the Roman Catholic condemns the
Protestant to the flames, and makes a conscience of massacreing(sp.) him
in cold blood; this re-acts in his turn; sometimes the various sects
of Christians league together against the incredulous Turk, and for
a moment suspend their own bloody disputes that they may chastise the
enemies to the true faith: then, having glutted their revenge, return
with redoubied fury, to wreak over again their infuriated vengeance on
each other."

The thirteenth chapter argues as follows, against the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul and a future state:--

"In old age, man extinguishes entirely, his fibres become rigid, his
nerves lose their elasticity, his senses are obtunded, his sight grows
dim, his ears lose their quickness, his ideas become unconnected, his
memory fails, his imagination cools,--what, then, becomes of his soul.
Alas! it sinks down with the body, it gets benumbed as this loses its
feeling, becomes sluggish as this decays in activity; like it, when
enfeebled by years, it fulfils its functions with pain; this substance,
which is deemed spiritual, which is considered immaterial, which it is
endeavored to distinguish from matter, undergoes the same revolutions,
experiences the same vicissitudes, submits to the name modifications as
does the body itself. In despite of this proof of the materiality of the
soul, of its identity with the body so convincing to the unprejudiced,
some thinkers have supposed that although the latter is perishable, the
former does not perish; that this portion of man enjoys the especial
privilege of immortality; that it is exempt from dissolution; free from
those changes of form all the beings in nature undergo: in consequence
of this, man is persuaded himself that this privileged soul does not
die.

"It will be asked, perhaps, by what road has man been conducted to form
to himself gratuitous ideas of another world. I reply, th