Note 24 — NOTES.1
Gertrude Carman Bussey translation
Holbach later emphasizes this close connection between body and soul, which is so insisted upon by La Mettrie. “If freed from our prejudices we wish to see our soul, or the moving principle which acts in us, we shall remain convinced that it is part of our body, that it can not be distinguished from the body except by an abstraction, that it is but the body itself considered relatively to some of the functions or faculties to which its nature and particular organization make it susceptible. We shall see that this soul is forced to undergo the same changes as the body, that it grows and develops with the body.... Finally we can not help recognizing that at some periods it shows evident signs of weakness, sickness, and death.”24