aticism. Its author is always terribly in earnest -sometimes, it must be confessed, ludicrously so. He never betrays any signs of want of confidence in his own conclusions. His generalisations are frequently imposing. His argumentation is often not wanting in acuteness, subtilty, or plausibility. The book which perplexed for a time the mind of Chalmers, has, doubtless, fatally perverted the judgment of many an average intellect.

A distinctive feature of the work is the explicitness with which the idea of God is assailed-with which His existence is denied. Epicurus and Lucretius, even, in spite of their anxiety to throw off the yoke of religion, did not refuse to believe that there were gods, but only that they acted on the world or were interested in human affairs. All the materialists of England stopped short of a denial of the Divine Existence. La Mettrie himself affirmed the probability of the Divine Existence, although he proceeded forthwith to show its non- probability. In the System of Nature' there is no compromise or indecision on this point. The denial of the Divine Existence is open and absolute. The belief in His existence. is directly, vehemently, elaborately attacked. The origin of religion is traced to fear, ignorance, and the experience of misery, and described as irrational and mischievous in all its forms. The only notion of God which is not absurd is held

to be that which identifies Him with the moving power in nature. Deism is rejected as untenable in itself, and as leading to superstition. Atheism is maintained to be the truth, the true system, the true philosophy, which must be accepted wherever nature is rightly understood.

This truth, Von Holbach seriously assures us, is not calculated for the vulgar, not suitable to the great mass of mankind. "Atheism," he writes, supposes reflection; requires intense study; demands extensive knowledge; exacts a long series of experiences; includes the habit of contemplating nature; the faculty of observing her laws, which, in short, embraces the comprehensive study of the causes producing her various phenomena -her multiplied combinations, together with the diversified actions of the beings she contains, as well as their numerous properties. In order to be an atheist, or to be assured of the capabilities of nature, it is imperative to have meditated on her profoundly: a superficial glance of the eye will not bring man acquainted with her resources; optics but little practised on her powers will be unceasingly deceived; the ignorance of actual causes will always induce the supposition of those which are imaginary; credulity will thus reconduct the natural philosopher himself to the feet of superstitious phantoms, in which either his limited vision or his habitual sloth will make him believe he shall find

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the solution of every difficulty." While Holbach was writing these words history was falsifying them by showing that atheism was a creed which the vulgarest of the vulgar could easily learn. The masses whom the philosophers despised were overhearing them, and finding no difficulty in understanding the propositions, There is no God, There is no soul, There is nothing in the universe which may not be resolved into matter and motion. These propositions have never been. proved by any one; but the stupidest of men may understand them without difficulty, and believe them and act on them to his own ruin and his neighbours' injury. Our atheistical men of science need not suppose that atheistical materialism is a kind of wisdom which they can keep to themselves, so that it will not get into the possession of the dangerous classes, who may make a frightful use of it. The dangerous classes, explain it how you may, are just those who have always shown a special aptitude for believing it. Holbach, to do him justice, although he thought the masses unqualified to understand and appreciate atheism, did not wish or endeavour to conceal it from them; on the contrary, he wished and zealously strove to propagate it among them. The result amply proved that the task was not a difficult one.

What Holbach substitutes for God is matter

and motion. These two, he holds, are inseparable. Matter is not dead but essentially active. Observation and reflection, he says, ought to convince us that everything in nature is in continual motion; that there is not one of its parts, however minute, that enjoys true repose; that nature acts in all; that she would cease to be nature if she did not act. To the obvious question, Whence did nature receive her motion? he answers, "We do not know, neither do you; we never shall, you never will." It is a most unreasonable answer to a most reasonable question. Those who put the question are men who offer reasons for believing that the materials and the motions of the universe are so fashioned, combined, and arranged as to point back to a true and intelligent cause; and no one can have a right to set aside their reasons by merely asserting that it can never be known whence motion comes. The contention of the theist is, that it may be perfectly well known that both matter and motion come from a Supreme and Intelligent Will. Further, to affirm that matter moves of its own peculiar energies-that it is essentially active and alive-is contrary to a truth which all experience confirms, and on which all physical and mechanical calculations are based, -namely, that matter moves only as it is moved -that if not acted on it will never move-and that if once set in motion it will only cease mov

ing through being resisted. He who believes in the activity of matter must abandon belief in its inertia. Like all materialists, Holbach had to ascribe to matter more than he had right to do, in order to be able to deduce the more from it. This is also to be observed, that Holbach's heart had at least as much to do as his head with ascribing activity and life to nature. It craved for more than a merely material universe. It had affections and aspirations which could only have been satisfied by a very different answer to the problem of existence than that which materialism had to offer, and although they never were satisfied they exerted some influence. Speculative atheist although he was, Holbach unconsciously felt the need of having a being to worship. He denied nature's God, but the soul within him worked through his imagination, and transformed nature until he could adore it as his god. All through his book he is ever and again vindicating, glorifying, and invoking nature as a kind of deity. What is this, for example, but prayer to nature as to a god, but worship of an unenlightened and inconsistent kind? "O nature, sovereign of all beings! and ye, her adorable daughters, virtue, reason, and truth! remain for ever our revered protectors: it is to you that belong the praises of the human race; to you appertains the homage of the earth. Show us then, O nature, that which man ought