to the conclusion of Baron d'Holbach's _System of Nature_: "Break the
chains," says he, "which are binding men. Send back those gods who are
afflicting them to those imaginary regions from whence fear first drew
them forth. Inspire with courage the intelligent being; give him energy;
let him dare at length to love himself, to esteem himself, to feel his
own dignity; let him dare to emancipate himself, let him be happy and
free." Strange accents these, at the close of a large philosophical
treatise intended to prove that there is nothing in the universe but
matter. Whence proceeds the dignity of that fragment of matter which
calls itself man? Understand well what passes in the mind of these
philosophers. In proportion as man lowers his own origin, in the same
proportion,--if he does not wish to make himself a brute, in order to
live as do the animals,--he exalts himself in an inevitable sentiment of
pride. In vain does he give out that the material frame is everything;
he feels that thought is more than the material frame; and he accords to
himself the first place in the universe. The materialist ignores the
Eternal Mind in order to emancipate himself; and whatever he may say,
his real deity is not the atom, but himself. The encyclopedists, sons of
an age which yielded at once to noble influences and to guilty
seductions, united the worship of progress to a degrading philosophy.
Consider with what a feeling of pride they lowered man, and you will
understand why eternal nature gave place to sacred humanity. When
France had fallen into the delirium of irreligion, it was not a little
dust in an earthen vase which was offered for public adoration, but they
led in procession through the streets of Paris a woman who was called
the goddess Reason.

So it was that materialism ended in the adoration of man. Let us
endeavor to understand how the adoration of man turns again to
materialism. The mind endowed with intelligence and will is more