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FREEDOM of Thinking, and propagating the most extraordinary Opinions and Notions, in order to attack Mankind in the moft fenfible and honourable Parts, muft needs rouze up the Faculties of all those who are not fo cowardly as to fuffer themselves to be reduced to a Level with Brutes, and deprived of the joyful Hope of a happy Eternity. A Man must be a Traitor, to remain an indifferent Spectator of Attempts which fhake the facred Bafis of Thrones, dry up the Source, destroy the Srength, and materialize the Spirit of Laws; and which, if they could once prevail in the World, would fuddenly unhinge and overthrow human Society.

TH

CHA P. II.

HERE needs no great Efforts to demolith the Syftem of M. de la Mettrie, which belongs to him by no better Right and Title than his Boldness to publish it, and by the Ornaments with which he has endeavoured to fill up its Emptinefs and cover its Weaknefs: Its horrid Afpect, difcoverable at the first View, is alone fufficient to ftartle the most

in

indifferent Reader. Who can, without fhuddering, conclude with that Author, that a Nero, a Caligula, a Domitian, a Commodus, are neither better nor worse than a Titus, a Trajan, a Marcus Aurelius; fince each of them was no more than a Machine put together exprefsly to do what he did, without being able to do otherwife? The delightful Gardens of Verfailles are no more anfwerable for the Pleasure they give Mankind, than the Wheels and Gibbets in the Place, de Greve at Paris for the Torments they inflict on Malefactors. The more the first Tyrants fignalized themselves by their Cruelties and deteftable Diffolutenefs, fo much the more worthy they are of general Applaufe, as having better answered the End and Design of their Mechanism. The greater Restraint the other Emperors laid on their particular Paffions, and the more they devoted themselves to the publick Good, the less Freedom of Action, they allowed their Machine, and therefore deferve the Contempt and Hatred of Men wound up to the Tone of M. de la Mettrie. Is not this fufficient to fhew how abominable his Syftem is?

Is it not mocking Mankind, to mix with all thefe vile Drugs a Dofe of focial Virtue, in B 4

order

order to make the deadly Poifon go down? Without growing grey in Philofophy, a Man may easily conceive, that if all the particular Machines are mounted and fet relatively to each other, in order to form a complete Whole, that is to fay, a general Machine, of which every Individual is but a Member and a Part; this must needs totally overthrow the whole System. Each Part ought neceffarily to have a Connection with the contiguous ones, as well as an effential Relation with all the Parts, and with the universal Form, which fets every one in its Place, and puts the main Spring in Action, from whence Motion and Direction are inceffantly and reciprocally communicated. And then each Machine is no longer fet in Motion for itself, but for all the reft put together, which compose the total Form, and which immediately manifest a Defign and a fuperior Law, to which the whole Machine is to correspond and obey, in order to preserve itself, and produce its Effect, by an admirable Harmony. Without this it would deftroy itself; and each Part that did not exactly correfpond therewith, would disturb and stop the Motion that inclines all the Parts to perform their Function and Miniftry; and thus it would prove defective

fective in regard to Individuals and to the Whole.

THE more perfect the Invention of the Machine is, the fewer useless Parts it ought to contain, and not one useless Part without fuch a Neceffity and fuch an Activity as may at the fame Time render it fufficient to itself and to the Whole. But this Sufficiency is to be taken only in common, and understood of the Reaction of all the Parts, even the remotest Members; none being fingly fufficient for itself, but only by the Concurrence and the Influence of the others, as we fo plainly fee it in the human Body and in Society.

THEREFORE We cannot fufficiently wonder, that a modern Phyfician, who cannot reafon about the human Body on any other Principles than these, should be ignorant of them, or depart from them all on a fudden, even whilft he will acknowledge nothing else but Body in Man. Perhaps M. de la Mettrie was not infenfible, that in acknowledging an Idea, a Defign, and a general Law for the whole Machine, it would impose on all the Parts it confifts of, and to each of them in particular, an Office and an indifpenfible Duty,

the

the Neglect of which would be imputed as a Crime. It behoved him to beware of ever

fuppofing, that any Part might fometimes act in a manner repugnant to the general Object of the whole Machine, and employ all the Force and Activity it receives therefrom, towards overturning the Order whereby it fubfifts, and deftroying itself along with the Whole.

NEITHER could he be ignorant, that this general Law, no more than the Defign and the admirable Projection of the vast Machine of the Universe, cannot be the Machine itself, which always remains fuch as it is: That, without falling into a Contradiction, we could not help acknowledging it to be anterior and of a Nature quite different from the corporal and machinal one, which conftantly obeys: That this Law, by a neceffary Superiority, has no lefs Influence over the whole Machine than in the Government of each of the smallest Parts it confifts of. All this is fully demonftrated by every Machine in the World; and we must even renounce all mathematical and phyfical Principles, before we can imagine one univerfal Machine compofed of an infinite Number, all equally free, inde

pendent