



Produced by David Ross and Richard Farris








BARON D'HOLBACH

A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France



By Max Pearson Cushing




     Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements
     for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in
     the Faculty of Political Science,
     Columbia University

     New York

     1914


     Press of
     The New Era Printing Company
     Lancaster, PA




TABLE OF CONTENTS


  Introduction.

  CHAPTER I.  HOLBACH THE MAN.

     Early Letters to John Wilkes.

     Holbach's family.

     Relations with Diderot, Rousseau, Hume, Garrick
       and other important persons of the century.

     Estimate of Holbach.  His character and personality.


  CHAPTER II.  HOLBACH'S WORKS.

     Miscellaneous Works.

     Translations of German Scientific Works.

     Translations of English Deistical Writers.

     Boulanger's _Antiquité dévoilée_.

     Original Works: _Le Christianisme devoilé_.
     _Théologie portative_.
     _La Contagion sacrée_.
     _Essai sur les préjugés_.
     _Le bons-sens_.


  CHAPTER III.  THE _Système de la Nature_ AND ITS PHILOSOPHY.

     Voltaire's correspondence on the subject.

     Goethe's sentiment.

     Refutations and criticisms.

     Holbach's philosophy.


  APPENDIX.  HOLBACH'S CORRESPONDENCE.

     Five unpublished letters to John Wilkes.


  [ENDNOTES]


  BIBLIOGRAPHY.

    Part I.  Editions of Holbach's works in Chronological Order.

    Part II.  General Bibliography.





BARON D'HOLBACH


     A une extréme justesse d'esprit il joignait une simplicité
     de moeurs tout-à-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 siècle a son esprit qui le caractérise. L'esprit du nôtre semble
être celui de la liberté. La première attaque contre la superstition a
été violente, sans mesure. Une fois que les hommes ont osé d'une manière
quelconque donner l'assaut à la barrière de la religion, cette barrière
la plus formidable qui existe comme la plus respectée, il est impossible
de s'arrêter. Dès qu'ils ont tourné des regards menaçants contre la
majesté du ciel, ils ne manqueront pas le moment d'après de les diriger
contre la souveraineté de la terre. Le câble qui tient et comprime
l'humanité est formé de deux cordes, l'une ne peut céder sans que
l'autre vienne à rompre. [Endnote 1:1]

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 movement has been so obscured by
the less thoroughgoing tendency 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 uncompromising
clearness, and who still occupies a unique though obscure position in
the history of thought.

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): "Nous nous occupons
depuis longtemps à rassembler les matériaux qui doivent servir à venger
la mémoire du philosophe de la patrie de Leibnitz, et dans l'ouvrage
que nous nous proposons de publier sous le titre "D'Holbach jugé par
ses contemporains" nous espérons faire justement apprécier ce savant
si estimable par la profondeur et la variété de ses connaissances, si
précieux à sa famille et à ses amis par la pureté et la simplicité
de ses moeurs, en qui la vertu était devenue une habitude et la
bienfaisance un besoin." This work has never appeared and M. Tourneux
thinks that nothing of it was found among M. Walferdin's papers. [2:2]
In 1834 Mr. James Watson published in an English translation of the
_Système de la Nature_, _A Short Sketch of the Life and the Writings
of Baron d'Holbach_ by Mr. Julian Hibbert, compiled especially for
that edition from Saint Saurin's article in Michaud's _Biographie
Universelle_ (Paris, 1817, Vol. XX, pp. 460-467), from Barbier's _Dict.
des ouvrages anonymes_ (Paris, 1822) and from the preface to the Paris
edition of the _Système de la Nature_ (4 vols., 18mo, 1821). This sketch
was later published separately (London, 1834, 12mo, pp. 14) but on
account of the author's sudden death it was left unfinished and is of no
value from the point of view of scholarship. Another attempt to publish
something on Holbach was made by Dr. Anthony C. Middleton of Boston in
1857. In the preface to his translation to the _Lettres à Eugenia_
he speaks of a "Biographical Memoir of Baron d'Holbach which I am
now preparing for the press." If ever published at all this _Memoir_
probably came to light in the _Boston Investigator_, a free-thinking
magazine published by Josiah P. Mendum, 45 Cornhill, Boston, but it is
not to be found. Mention should also be made of the fact that M. Assézat
intended to include in a proposed study of Diderot and the philosophical
movement, a chapter to be devoted to Holbach and his society; but this
work has never appeared. [3:3]

Of the two works bearing Holbach's name as a title, one is a piece of
libellous fiction by Mme. de Genlis, _Les Diners du baron d'Holbach_
(Paris, 1822, 8vo), the other a romance pure and simple by F. T. Claudon
(Paris, 1835, 2 vols., 8vo) called _Le Baron d'Holbach_, the events of
which take place largely at his house and in which he plays the rôle
of a minor character. A good account of Holbach, though short and
incidental, is to be found in M. Avézac-Lavigne's _Diderot et la Société
du Baron d'Holbach_ (Paris, 1875, 8vo), and M. Armand Gasté has a little
book entitled _Diderot et le cure de Montchauvet, une Mystification
littéraire chez le Baron d'Holbach_ (Paris, 1895, 16vo). There are
several works which devote a chapter or section to Holbach. [3:4]