D'ALEMBERT. 483 



aussi bien qu'il ecrit, il faudroit le plaindre ; mats personue 

 n'est en droit d'interroger sa conscience." The detestation 

 which D'Aleinbert expresses, even in his private letters, 

 of the 'Systeme de la Nature/ (XLI. 371. XVII. 225,) 

 may be cited with the same view, as may the horror of 

 Atheism which he repeatedly testifies/"' And if in 

 reality he was a zealous adversary of religion, it has been 

 justly observed by La Harpe, that his hostility was far 

 more directed against its ministers than against the 

 system itself "*. Nor ought we even to express our con- 

 demnation of such conduct, or our regret for its injustice, 

 which view soever we may take of this subject, without 

 considering the extreme provocation which the French 

 philosophers of that age had to endure. Galas, old and 

 infirm, broken on the wheel as the murderer of his son, a 

 robust young man, in the presence of many of his family, 

 to prevent him from abjuring Catholicism ; La Barre con- 

 demned to have his tongue cut out, and dying in agony, 

 because while a boy he made faces at the procession of 

 the priests; a poor creature condemned to the galleys 

 and pillory, and dying of the fright the day after, for 

 having offered a bookseller a book which he knew no- 

 thing of and had received in payment of a debt : these 

 were the scenes that passed before the eyes of D'Aleinbert 

 and Voltaire; nor let us, who have no such excuse for 

 hating the establishment, visit too severely the senti- 

 ments which scenes like these not unnaturally raised in 



* See especially in the Hist, de la Destruction cles Jesuites, CEuv. v. 

 134. " Ce malheureux (1'athee) tres-coupable aux yeux de Dieu et de 

 raison, n'est nuisible qu'a lui-meme." It is clear from all he says 

 of the ' Systeme de la Nature,' that he never could believe Diderot 

 to be the author ; perhaps not even D'Holbach. 



2 I 2 



