402 NEW ESSAYS 



Now this truth of the immateriality of the soul is un- 

 doubtedly of importance. For it is infinitely more helpful 

 to religion and morality, especially at the present day 

 (when many people have very little regard for revelation 

 by itself and for miracles) 185 , to show that souls are natur- 

 ally immortal and that it would be a miracle if they were 

 not. than to maintain that our souls would die in the 

 course of nature, and that it is in virtue of a miraculous 

 grace, founded on nothing but the promise of God, that 

 they do not die. Besides it has for some time been 

 generally known 18n that those who have tried to destroy 

 natural religion and to reduce all to revealed religion, as 

 if reason taught us nothing about it, have been counted 

 suspect, and not always without reason ' 87 . But our 

 author is not of their number. He upholds the demon- 

 stration of the existence of God 188 , and he attributes 

 probability in the highest degree to the immateriality of 

 the soul 189 , which may accordingly be accounted a moral 

 certainty ; and consequently it seems to me that, having 

 as much candour as penetration, he could quite well agree 

 with the doctrine I have expounded, which is fundamental 

 in every rational philosophy; for 190 otherwise I do not 

 see how we are to keep from falling back into fanatical 

 philosophy, such as the Mosaic philosophy of Fludd m , which 



185 E. omits the passage in brackets. 



186 E. reads ' it has for some time been the case.' 



187 In his Discours de la Conformite de la Foi avec la Raison (1710). 

 Leibniz gives, at considerable length, an account of those who 

 insisted on the opposition between reason and revelation, in which 

 he traces the origin of this view to the Averroists. He approves of 

 the condemnation of this position by the fifth Lateran Council, 

 under Leo X, in 1512. (See E. 483 sqq. ; G. vi. 56 sqq.) Cf. Nouveaux 

 Essais, bk. iv. ch. 17, 23 (E. 403 a; G. v. 477); also Bayle's 

 Dictionary, Appendix (vol. iv. p. 620, jjr" 16 Eclaircissemenf). 



188 See Essay, bk. iv. ch. 10, 10 (Eraser, vol. ii. pp. 306 sqq. 

 with notes). 



lf9 See Essay, bk. iv. ch. 3, 6 (Eraser, vol. ii. p. 194). 

 193 E. omits < for.' 



191 Robert Fludd (Eobertus de Fluctibus) was born at Milgate, 

 Kent, in 1574 (or 1571), and died at London in 1637. After 



