Note 145 — Chapter XV · FRENCH AND DUTCH FREETHOUGHT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Not printed till 1743, in the Nouvelles libertés de penser; and still read in MS. by Grimm in 1754. Fontenelle was also credited with a heretical letter on the resurrection, and an essay on the Infinite, pointing to disbelief. It should be noted, however, that he stands for deism in his essay, De l’existence de Dieu, which is a guarded application of the design argument against what was then assumed to be the only alternative—the “fortuitous concourse of atoms.” ↑