Letters to Eugenia; Or, A Preservative Against Religious PrejudicesHolbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'
Religion
Letters to Eugenia; Or, A Preservative Against Religious Prejudices
Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'
Christianity -- Controversial literature
Thus every thing conspires to prove that the soul is the same thing as
the body, viewed relatively to some of its functions, which are more
obscure than others. Every thing serves to convince us that without
the body the soul is nothing, and that all the operations which are
attributed to the soul cannot be exercised any longer when the body is
destroyed. Our body is a machine, which, so long as we live, is
susceptible of producing the effects which have been designated under
different names, one from another; sentiment is one of these effects,
thought is another, reflection a third. This last passes sometimes by
other names, and our brain appears to be the seat of all our organs;
it is that which is the most susceptible. This organic machine once
destroyed or deranged, is no longer capable of producing the same
effects, or of exercising the same functions. It is with our body as
it is with a watch which indicates the hours, and which goes not if
the spring or a pinion be broken.
Cease, Eugenia, cease to torment yourself about the fate which shall
attend you when death will have separated you from all that is dear on
earth. After the dissolution of this life, the soul shall cease to
exist; those devouring flames with which you have been threatened by
the priests will have no effect upon the soul, which can neither be
susceptible then of pleasures nor pains, of agreeable or sorrowful
ideas, of lively or doleful reflections.
It is only by means of the bodily organs that we feel, think, and are
merry or sad, happy or miserable; this body once reduced to dust, we
will have neither perceptions nor sensations, and, by consequence,
neither memory nor ideas; the dispersed particles will no longer have
the same qualities they possessed when united; nor will they any
longer conspire to produce the same effects. In a word, the body being
destroyed, the soul, which is merely a result of all the parts of the
body in action, will cease to be what it is; it will be reduced to
nothing with the life's breath.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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