The End of the Soul: Scientific Modernity, Atheism and Anthropology in France [Hardcover]

I purchased this book thinking it was a study of the death of an idea, namely the idea that human beings have an immortal soul. This is not that book. Rather, this book attempts to distill into a single narrative all the complex political, scientific, and philosophical issues surrounding atheism and anthropology in late nineteenth-century France. No small task, to be sure. Unfortunately, I cannot say it is successful.

Hecht deserves praise for her thorough research and her willingness to tackle such an ambitious project. That is about where my praise for the book ends, however. Ultimately, I found this study to be poorly reasoned, extremely unorganized, dryly written, and offensively unsympathetic to its subject. At times, it reads more as a polemic against atheism than as a sober evaluation of any moment in history. This is quite surprising, since Hecht is herself an atheist.

She makes repeated assertions that the primary subject of her study, the passionately atheistic Society of Mutual Autopsy, founded their own religion. Yet, she doesn't provide the reader with a definition of "religion," so we have no way of knowing what qualifies as a religion in her book. For most scholars and lay people, religions are based around a belief in the supernatural. That means the atheists studied in this book were not in any way religious, a detail Hecht overlooks. When she then offers phrases like "evangelical atheism" without any justification or explanation, Hecht seems set on diminishing her Society's values. As an atheist myself, I found this extremely annoying.

There are many other unsupported conjectures and highly questionable conclusions offered here (and even a number of blatant misrepresentations of the facts), and none are intended to give her subjects the benefit of the doubt. For no apparent reason, she mocks the Society's interest in brains and skulls, and suggestively emphasizes the lack of useful scientific information garnered by their research. She claims that they were not truly interested in science because they failed to further our understanding of neurology, as if success were a mark of sincerity.

Another one of her ideas is that atheism is not caused by scientific discoveries, but that science is rather more likely to be influenced by atheism. This claim is not supported by anything close to a compelling argument, however. Ultimately, Hecht offers very little insight into the end of the soul or atheism. Her views seem to be based on questionable assumptions about human psychology, and there is a sore lack of coherent argument throughout.

Worst of all, the book does not seem to be organized around a main idea, and the reader is likely to wonder why one chapter or section is followed by the next. The entire book is greatly lacking in focus, a truly tragic flaw considering the breadth of material Hecht covers. The whole thing feels like something of a mess.

Again, the research that went into this book is impressive. There is a wealth of information here for anyone interested in the subject matter. However, wading through it--and separating the facts from Hecht's questionable assertions--is not an enjoyable task. I could not finish the book, and I would not suggest anyone try.

This writer is as even handed and fair as she is brilliant. I read Doubt: A History and was left feeling the same way. In addition to being a history of French anthropology this book is an example of the very finest writing.