impulse--are material--are placed in Nature--are indestructible;--that
consequently, if he cannot know them from themselves, he can form some
idea of them by analogy: thus he has done that intelligibly, which the
metaphysician would do unintelligibly: the latter, with a view to render
man immortal, finding difficulties to his wish, from seeing that the
body decayed--that it has submitted to the great, the universal law--
has, to solve the difficulty, to remove the impediment, given him a
soul, distinct from the body, which he says is exempted from the action
of the general law: to account for this, he has called it a spiritual
being, whose properties are the negation of all known properties,
consequently inconceivable: had he, however, had recourse to the atoms
of the former--had he made this substance the last possible term of the
division of matter--it would at least have been intelligible; it would
also have been immortal, since, according to the reasonings of all men,
whether metaphysicians, theologians, or natural philosophers, an atom is
an indestructible element, that must exist to all eternity.

All men are agreed in this position, that motion is the successive
change of the relations of one body with other bodies, or with the
different parts of space. If that which is called _spirit_ be
susceptible of communicating or receiving motion--if it acts--if it
gives play to the organs of body--to produce these effects, it
necessarily follows that this being changes successively its relation,
its tendency, its correspondence, the position of its parts, either
relatively to the different points of space, or to the different organs
of the body which it puts in action: but to change its relation with
space, with the organs to which it gives impulse, it follows of
necessity that this spirit most have extent, solidity, consequently
distinct parts: whenever a substance possesses these qualities, it is
what we call MATTER, it can no longer be regarded as a simple pure