ngthen? how weaken
itself, get out of order, and grow old with your body? In reply to all
these questions, you say that they are mysteries; but if they are
mysteries, you understand nothing about them. If you do not understand
anything about them, how can you positively affirm anything about them?
In order to believe or to affirm anything, it is necessary at least to
know what that consists of which we believe and which we affirm. To
believe in the existence of your immaterial soul, is to say that you are
persuaded of the existence of a thing of which it is impossible for you
to form any true idea; it is to believe in words without attaching any
sense to them; to affirm that the thing is as you claim, is the highest
folly or assumption.

CIV.--THE ABSURDITY OF SUPERNATURAL CAUSES, WHICH THEOLOGIANS CONSTANTLY

CALL TO THEIR AID.

Are not theologians strange reasoners? As soon as they can not guess the
natural causes of things, they invent causes, which they call
supernatural; they imagine them spirits, occult causes, inexplicable
agents, or rather words much more obscure than the things which they
attempt to explain. Let us remain in nature when we desire to understand
its phenomena; let us ignore the causes which are too delicate to be
seized by our organs; and let us be assured that by seeking outside of
nature we can never find the solution of nature's problems. Even upon
the theological hypothesis--that is to say, supposing an Almighty motor
in matter--what right have theologians to refuse their God the power to
endow this matter with thought? Would it be more difficult for Him to
create combinations of matter from which results thought, than spirits
which think? At least, in supposing a substance endowed with thought, we
could form some idea of the object of our thoughts, or of what thinks in
us; while attributing thought to an immaterial being, it is impossible
for us to form the least idea of it.

CV.--IT IS FALSE THAT MATERIALISM CAN BE DEBASING TO THE HUMAN RACE.

Materialism, it is objected, makes of man a mere machine, which is
considered very debasing to the human race. But will the human race be
more honored when it can be said that man acts by the secret impulsions
of a spirit, or a certain something which animates him without his
knowing how? It is easy to perceive that the superiority which is given
to mind over matter, or to the soul over the body, is based upon the
ignorance of the