Although it is impossible for men to form the least idea of the soul, or the pretended spirit, which animates them; yet they persuade themselves that this unknown soul is exempt from death. Every thing proves to them, that they feel, that they think, that they acquire ideas, that they enjoy and suffer, only by means of the senses, or material organs of the body. Admitting even the existence of this soul, they cannot help acknowledging, that it depends entirely upon the body, and undergoes, all its vicissitudes; and yet it is imagined, that this soul has nothing, in its nature, similar to the body; that it can act and feel without the assistance of the body; in a word, that this soul, freed from the body, and disengaged from its senses, can live, enjoy, suffer, experience happiness, or feel excruciating torments. Upon such a tissue of absurdities is built the marvellous opinion of the _immortality of the soul_. If I ask, what are the motives for believing the soul immortal, they immediately answer, that it is because man naturally desires to be immortal: but, because you desire a thing ardently, can you infer that your desire will be fulfilled? By what strange logic can we dare affirm, that a thing cannot fail to happen, because we ardently desire it? Are desires, begotten by the imagination, the measure of reality? The impious, you say, deprived of the flattering hope of another life, wish to be annihilated. Very well: may they not then as justly conclude, from _their_ desire, that they shall be annihilated, as you may conclude from _your_ desire, that you shall exist for ever. 102.