Dieu." At the end he shifts the argument from the base of necessity to
that of utility. Which is the more consoling doctrine? If the idea of
God has prevented ten crimes I hold that the entire world should embrace
it (p. 27). As Morley has said, such arguments could scarcely have
convinced Voltaire himself.

Frederick was surprised that Voltaire and D'Alembert had found anything
good in the book. His refutation was more methodical than that of
Voltaire, who called it a "homage to the Divinity" but wrote to D'Alembert
that it was written in the style of a notary. Two other refutations
emanating from the Academy of Berlin were those of Castillon and Holland.
The first of these is a very heavy and learned work, formidable and
forbidding in its logic. Castillon reduces Holbach's propositions to
three. The self-existence of matter, the essential relation of movement
to it, and the possibility of deriving everything from it or some mode of
it. Castillon concludes after five hundred pages of reasoning that matter
is contingent, movement not inherent in it, and that purely spiritual beings
exist in independence of it. Hence the _Systeme de la Nature_ is a "long
and wicked error." Holland's is a still more serious work, which the
Sorbonne recommended strongly as an antidote against Holbach's _Systeme_
which it qualified as "une malheureuse production que notre siecle doit
rougir d'avoir enfantee." But when it was discovered that Holland was a
Protestant his work was condemned forthwith, Jan. 17, 1773.

Bergier's refutation is interesting as an attack from a churchman of
extraordinary keenness and insight into the progress of the new
philosophy. In the _Systeme de la Nature_ he recognized the hand
of the author of _La Contagion sacree_ and the _Essai sur les prejuges_
and dealt with it as he did the _Christianisme devoile_. Buzonniere,
Rochfort and Fangouse are milder and more naive in their demonstrations