528f BIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT 



bination under the direction of the Wits and Philosophers; 

 who used to meet at the house of Baron D'Holbach, having 

 for its object the dissection of the brains of Hving children, 

 purchased from poor parents, in order to discover the prin- 

 ciple of vitality. The police, he adds, interposed to put a 

 stop to these bloody experiments, but the authors of them 

 were protected by the credit of Turcot. 



All this is asserted on the authority, it should seem, of some 

 anonymous German publication. I will not enter on the re- 

 futation of a calumny with the fabrication of which Mr Robi- 

 soN is not chargeable, though culpable without doubt, for ha- 

 ving allowed his writin^js to become the vehicle of it. Truth 

 and justice require this acknowledgment; and, in making it, I 

 think that I am discharging a duty both to Mr Robison and 

 myself: — It is a duty to Mr Robison, in as much as a conces- 

 sion made by a friend, is better than one extorted by an ad- 

 versary ; it is a duty to myself, because I should feel that I was 

 doing wrong, were I even by silence to acquiesce in a I'epre- 

 sentation which I believed to be so ill-founded and unjust. 



The Proofs of the Conspiracy, notwithstanding these imper- 

 fections, or perhaps on account of them, were extremely po- 

 pular, and carried the name of the author into places where 

 his high attainments in science had never gained admission for 

 it. In the course of two years, the book underwent no less 

 than four editions. It is a strong proof of the effect on the 

 minds of men produced by the French Revolution ; and of 

 the degree in which it engrossed their thoughts, that the his- 

 tory of a few obscure enthusiasts in Bavaria or Wirtemberg, 

 when it became associated with that Revolution, was read in 

 Britain with so much avidity and attention. 



The 



