man, one material and the other spiritual,
just as he afterwards repudiates the analogous hypothesis of a double
energy in nature, one of the two being due to a spiritual mover outside
of the external phenomena of the universe. Consistently with this
renunciation of a separate spiritual energy in man, Holbach will listen
to no talk of a spiritual energy surviving the destruction of the
mechanical framework. To say that the soul will feel, think, enjoy,
suffer, after the death of the body, is to pretend that a clock broken
into a thousand pieces can continue to strike or to mark the hours. And
having emphatically proclaimed his own refusal to share the common
belief, he proceeds with good success to carry the war into the country
of those who profess that belief, and defend it as the safeguard of
society. We need not go through his positions. They are substantially
those which are familiar to everybody who has read the Third Book of
Lucretius's poem, and remembers those magnificent passages which are not
more admirable in their philosophy than they are noble and moving in
their poetic expression:--

Nam veluti pueri trepidant atque omnia caecis
In tenebris metuunt, sic nos in luce timemus
Interdum, nilo quae sunt metuenda magis quam
Quae pueri in tenebris pavitant finguntque futura.
Hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest
Non radii solis neque lucida tela diei
Discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque.

And so forth, down to the exquisite lines--

"Jam jam non domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxoi
Optima nec dulces occurrent oscula nati
Praeripere, et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent.
Non poteris factis florentibus esse, tuisque
Praesidium. Misero misere," aiunt, "omnia ademit
Una dies infesta tibi tot praemia vitae."
Illud in his rebus non addunt, "nec tibi earum
Jam desiderium rerum super insidet una."
Quod bene si videant animo dictisque sequantur,
Dissolvant animi magno se angore metuque.
"Tu quidem ut es leto sopitus, sic eris aevi
Quod superest cunctis privatu' doloribus aegris:
At nos horrifico cinefactum te prope busto
Insatiabiliter deflevimus, aeternumque
Nulla dies nobis maerorem e pectore demet."
Illud ab hoc igitur quaerendum est, quid sit amari
Tanto opere, ad somnum si res redit atque quietem,
Cur quisquam aeterno possit tabescere luctu.

We may regret that Holbach, in dealing with these solem