objects present to our senses."[Footnote: Is not an intuitive knowledge
suspiciously like an innate idea? Locke's _Works_, i. 38, 39, 72,
82, 137, 145, 231; ii. 10, 11, 21, 331, 360, 372 (Book i. ch. 3, 4, Book
ii. ch. 1, 10, 11, 20, 23, Book iv. ch. 3).]

The eulogy of Locke in Voltaire's "Lettres Philosophiques" gave
especial offense to the French churchmen. Voltaire writes to a friend
that the censor might have been brought to give his approbation to all
the letters but this one. "I confess," he adds, "that I do not
understand this exception, but the theologians know more about it than
I do, and I must take their word for it."[Footnote: Voltaire, li. 356
(_Letter to Thieriot,_ 24 Feb. 1733).] The letter to which the censor
objected was principally taken up with the doctrine of the materiality
of the soul. "Never," says Voltaire, "was there perhaps a wiser or a
more methodical spirit, a more exact logician, than Locke."
... "Before him great philosophers had positively decided what is the
soul of man; but as they knew nothing at all about it, it is very
natural that they should all have been of different minds." And he
adds in another part of the letter, "Men have long disputed on the
nature and immortality of the soul. As to its immortality, that cannot
be demonstrated, since people are still disputing about its nature;
and since, surely, we must thoroughly know a created being to decide
whether it is immortal or not. Human reason alone is so unable to
demonstrate the immortality of the soul, that religion has been
obliged to reveal it to us. The common good of all men demands that we
should believe the soul to be immortal; faith commands it; no more is
needed, and the matter is almost decided. It is not the same as to its
nature; it matters little to religion of what substance is the soul,
if only it be virtuous. It is a clock that has been given us to
regulate, but the maker has not told us of what springs this clock is