BARON D'HOLBACH A STUDY OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY RADICALISM IN FRANCE
BY MAX PEARSON GUSHING SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, - TABLE OF
CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION i CHAPTER I. HOLBACH, THE MAN 5 Early
letters to John Wilkes 6 Holbach s family Relations with Diderot,
Rousseau, Hume, Garrick 12 and other important persons of the
century 15 Estimate of Holbach. His character and personality. 21
CHAPTER II. HOLBACH S WORKS 26 Miscellaneous Works 26 Translations
of German Scientific Works 27 Translations of English Deistical
Writers 31 Boulanger s Antiquite devoilee 36 Original Works Le
Christianisme devoilee 38 Theologie portative 43 La Contagion
sacree 46 Essai sur les prejuges 49 Le bon-sens 51 CHAPTER dill.
THE Systeme de la Nature AND ITS PHI- OSOPHY 54 Voltaire s
correspondence on the subject 56 Goethe s sentiment 58 Refutations
and criticisms 59 Holbach s philosophy 65 APPENDIX. HOLBACH S
CORRESPONDENCE . . . . 70 Five unpublished letters to John Wilkes
75 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Part I. Editions of Holbach s Works in
Chronological Order 85 Part II. General Bibliography 104 BARON D
HOLBACH A une extreme justesse d esprit il joignait une simplicite
de moeurs tout-d- fait antique et patriarcale. J. A. NAIGEON,
Journal de Paris, le 9 fev. 1789 INTRODUCTION DIDEROT, writing to
the Princess Dashkoff in 1771, thus analysed the spirit of his
century Chaque siecle a son esprit qui le caracterise. L esprit du
notre semble etre celui de la liberte. La premiere attaque centre
la superstition a ete violente, sans mesure. Une fois que les
hommes ont ose d une maniere quelconque donner 1 assaut a la
barriere de la religion, cette barriere la plusformid able qui
existe comme la plus respectee, il est impossible de s arreter. Des
qu ils ont tourne des regards menagants contre la majeste du ciel,
ils ne manqueront pas le moment d apres de les diriger contre la
souverainete de la terre. Le cable qui 1 une tient et comprime 1
humanite est forme de deux cordes, ne peut ceder sans que 1 autre
vienne a rompre. 1 The following study proposes to deal with this
attack on religion that preceded and helped to prepare the French
Revolution. Similar phenomena are by no means rare in the annals of
history eighteenth-century atheism, however, is of especial
interest, standing as it does at the end of a long period of
theological and ecclesiastical disintegration and prophesying a
reconstruction of society on a purely rational and naturalistic
basis. The anti-theistic movel- ment has been so obscured by the
less thoroughgoingtendency of deism and by subsequent romanticism
that the real issue in the eighteenth century has been largely lost
from view. Hence it has seemed fit to center this study about the
man who stated the situation with the most unmistakable and un
compromising clearness, and who still occupies a unique though
obscure position in the history of thought. 1 Diderot, Oeumes, ed.
Assezat et Tourneux, Vol. XX, p. 28. i 2 BARON DHOLBACH Holbach has
been very much neglected by writers on the eighteenth century. He
has no biographer. M. Walferdin wrote in an edition of Diderot s
Works, Paris, 1821, Vol. XII p. 115 quotNous nous occupons depuis
longtemps a rassembler les materiaux qui doivent servir a venger la
me- moire du philosophe de la patrie de Leibnitz, et dans 1 ouv-
sous le titreDHol- rage que nous nous proposons de publier bachjuge
par ses contemporains nous esperons faire juste- ment apprecier ce
savant si estimable par la profondeur et la variete de ses
connaissances, si precieux a sa famille et a ses amis par la purete
et la simplicite de ses moeurs, en qui la vertu etait devenue une
habitude et la bienfaisance un besoin.quot This work has never
appeared and M. Tourneux thinks that nothing of it was found among
M. Walferdin s papers. 2 In 1834 Mr...
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