Conversing with his friend Durtal, a writer, Des Hermies opens La&grave.-Bas with a criticism of naturalism's purely materialist perspective: it treats man, he says, as a creature of {deadGuys}. 
Since naturalism conceives of human impulses as <tag "515648">deriving</> exclusively from sensation and the flesh, mankind is closed off from any suprasensual experience, from the realm of dream and the spirit.   

