His book, consequently, has not lived, and we need not waste more words upon it.

_Chaque esprit a sa lie_, wrote one who for a while had sat at Diderot's feet;[57] and we may dismiss this tale as the lees of Diderot's strong, careless, sensualised understanding.

He was afterwards the author of a work, La Religieuse, on which the superficial critic may easily pour out the vials of affected wrath.

There, however, he was executing a profound pathological study in a serious spirit.

If the subject is horrible, we have to blame the composition of human character, or the mischievousness of a human institution.