Paul Henri Thiry d\' Holbach

Biography

Born in a catholic rich person family, of made Holbach of the studies of right to Leyde and in Paris in 1749 settles. It becomes French then.

It takes part in the encyclopedia of Diderot and of Alembert starting from 1751 and writes treating articles of Métallurgie, Géologie, Médecine, of Minéralogie and Chimie.

He becomes lawyer with the Parlement.

Starting from 1760, it starts to write philosophical works, often under a name of loan or that of a death (Jean-Baptiste Mirabaud, perpetual secretary of the Académie, Bernier abbot, Boulanger, etc) to avoid the troubles with the capacity, because its writings are anticlericals, antichrétiens, and explicitly atheists, materialists and fatalists (i.e. it thinks that the need is at the base of the actions of the men, as it is at the base of the “movement” of nature).

It is one of the first atheistic authors (Jean Meslier was undoubtedly its single predecessor), without concession with a Déisme (Voltaire) or a Panthéisme. He dies in a few months of the Storming of the Bastille , whereas he is one of the actors of the Age of Enlightenment.

D' Holbach employed several people famous for the drafting of its works. Some of its works were re-examined and corrected by Diderot, it is the case of the Système of the nature which Diderot will annotate then and supplement by a final chapter entitled Abrégé code of nature . Diderot writes finally a complete summary, chapter by chapter, of the work under the name of the true direction of the system of nature (published in the edition of 1820).

Recognized scientist, of Holbach is member of the academies of Berlin (1752), of Mannheim (1766), of Saint-Pétersbourg (1780), inter alia. He was a regular guest of the cabin of the Last nine sisters. He Marie, on the insistence of his friends, and becomes widowed the year of his marriage. In love with his sister-in-law Charlotte-Suzanne of Groin (deceased on June 16th, 1814 with eighty one years), he marries it, thanks to a license obtained of the Church, realizing finances. They had two boys and two girls. The elder one will be to advise at the Parliament, the second captain of dragons. One of the girls married with the marquis de Chastenay and the other with a count de Nolivos.

It held open table every Thursday and Sunday, these dinners were very famous, for his friends among whom Buffon, of Alembert, J-J. Rousseau, Helvétius, Draper, Naigeon (its editor), Marmontel, the Toothing-stone, Marie-Therese Geoffrin, Louise d' Épinay, Sophie d' Houdetot and from abroad such Nickel silver Grimm, Adam Smith, David Hume, Laurence Tern, Ferdinando Galiani, Cesare Beccaria, Joseph Priestley, Horace Walpole, Edward Gibbon, David Garrick (essentially quoted in the rapid biography of the second editor of the System of nature , edition published in 1820). During receptions, articles of the Encyclopédie are prepared and written. D' Holbach itself writes 376 of them.

Work

D' Holbach places the reasonable man in the center of all and bases its philosophy on nature. Its ultimate goal is to detach the morals of any religious principle to deduce it from the only natural principles. In its synthesis, Système of the nature , which is presented sometimes in the form of a compilation of a little contradictory arguments between them, it supports atheism against any religious design or deist, the materialism and fatalism (scientific determinism).

The publication of sound Système of nature had an enormous repercussion: the government submits it at the Parliament which condemns the book, on August 18th, 1770, with being flaring with the foot of the large staircase of the palate. The crowned Contagion is as burned at the same time as four others of its works. Many books will be then published to refute the theses of the Système of nature :

Bergier: Examination of the materialism , or Refutation of the system of nature , 1771
Denesle: Prejudged the old ones and new philosophers on the human heart , Paris, 1775
Castillon, of Berlin: Observations on the system of nature
Jean-Baptiste Duvoisin publishes three works in 1775, 1778 and 1780 to refute, like Holland, Guillaume Rochefort (in 1771) or Saint Martin's day (in 1775).
Voltaire the critic in an ambiguous way, it speaks in praise of the book, as a critic the style and makes two articles of refutation ( God and Style ), without disputing fatalism, in its philosophical Dictionnaire.

D' Holbach was lord of Heeze, Leende and Zesgehuchten (the Brabant) and owner of the Château of Heeze.

In the bibliography given in the edition of 1820 of the System of nature , 50 works are allotted to him, with, moreover, one participation in the philosophical Histoire of India , by the Abbé Raynal.

Among them, in addition to the philosophical works and of critical theology, are titles concerning chemistry ( Traité sulfur ), of physics, metallurgy, geology (the Art of the mines and a test on the Natural history of the layers of the ground , translated of Lehmann, 1759), but also of policy and right ( Principes of the universal legislation , Amsterdam, 1773).

Works

List works which are allotted to him in an unquestionable way:

Christianity revealed , or Examination of the principles & the effects of the Christian religion 1761
crowned Contagion , or Natural history of the superstition 1768
Letters with Eugenie , or Preventive against the prejudices 1768
Portable Theology, or Dictionary shortened of the Christian religion 1768
Test on the prejudices , or Of the influence of the opinions on manners & the happiness of the men 1770
System of Nature , or Of the laws of the physical world & the world moral 1770
critical History of Jesus-Christ , or Rationale of the Gospels 1770
Table of the Saints , or Examination of the spirit, control, the maxims & the merit of the characters whom Christianity révère & proposes for models 1770
the Good sense , or natural Idées opposed to the supernatural ideas 1772
Natural Politique , or Discours on truths principles of the Government 1773
Social system , or natural Principes of morals and the Policy, with an examination influence of the government on manners 1773
Éthocratie , or the government based on morals 1776
Universal Morals '', or '' duties of the man based on Nature '' 1776

Elements of universal morals , or Catechism of Nature 1790

Letter with a lady of a certain age on the state present of the opera , Paris 1752

System of the nature or the loix of the physical world & the moral world

The majority of these works are available on Gallica

External bonds

D' Holbach or fatalism materialist of the Lights

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