I here entered, in conclusion, upon the subject of the soul at
considerable length, because it is of the greatest moment: for after the
error of those who deny the existence of God, an error which I think I
have already sufficiently refuted, there is none that is more powerful in
leading feeble minds astray from the straight path of virtue than the
supposition that the soul of the brutes is of the same nature with our
own; and consequently that after this life we have nothing to hope for or
fear, more than flies and ants; in place of which, when we know how far
they differ we much better comprehend the reasons which establish that the
soul is of a nature wholly independent of the body, and that consequently
it is not liable to die with the latter and, finally, because no other
causes are observed capable of destroying it, we are naturally led thence
to judge that it is immortal.
PART VI
Three years have now elapsed since I finished the treatise containing all
these matters; and I was beginning to revise it, with the view to put it
into the hands of a printer, when I learned that persons to whom I greatly
defer, and whose authority over my actions is hardly less influential than
is my own reason over my thoughts, had condemned a certain doctrine in
physics, published a short time previously by another individual to which
I will not say that I adhered, but only that, previously to their censure
I had observed in it nothing which I could imagine to be prejudicial
either to religion or to the state, and nothing therefore which would have
prevented me from giving expression to it in writing, if reason had
persuaded me of its truth; and this led me to fear lest among my own
doctrines likewise some one might be found in which I had departed from
the truth, notwithstanding the great care I have always taken not to
accord belief to new opinions of which I had not the most certain
demonstrations, and not to give expression to aught that might tend to the
hurt of any one.
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