An examination of its propositions was ordered.

It was pronounced pernicious, dangerous, and tending to deism, chiefly on account of some too suggestive comparisons between the miraculous healings in the New Testament, and those ascribed in the more ancient legend to AEsculapius.
Other grounds of vehement objection were found in the writer's maintenance of the Lockian theory of the origin of our ideas.

To deny the innateness of ideas was roundly asserted to be materialism and atheism.

The abbe de Prades was condemned, and deprived of his license (Jan 27, 1752).

As he was known to be a friend of Diderot, and was suspected of being the writer of articles on theology in the Encyclopaedia, the design of the Jesuit cabal in ruining De Prades was to discredit the new undertaking, and to induce the government to prohibit it.