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    <h1>
      BARON D'HOLBACH
    </h1>
    <h3>
      A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France
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      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      By Max Pearson Cushing
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      <br /><br />
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     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
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     Press of
     The New Era Printing Company
     Lancaster, PA
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    <h2>
      Contents
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    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
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        <td>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_TOC"> (DETAILED) TABLE OF CONTENTS </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>BARON D'HOLBACH</b> </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_INTR"> INTRODUCTION </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. HOLBACH, THE MAN. </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. HOLBACH'S WORKS. </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. THE SYSTÈME DE LA NATURE. </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_APPE"> APPENDIX </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> [ENDNOTES] </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_BIBL"> BIBLIOGRAPHY&mdash;PART I. </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_BIBL2"> BIBLIOGRAPHY PART II. </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> VITA </a>
          </p>
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    <h2>
      (DETAILED) TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Introduction. <br /> CHAPTER I. HOLBACH THE MAN. <br /> Early Letters to
        John Wilkes. <br /> Holbach's family. <br /> Relations with Diderot,
        Rousseau, Hume, Garrick <br /> and other important persons of the
        century. <br /> Estimate of Holbach. His character and personality. <br />
        CHAPTER II. HOLBACH'S WORKS. <br /> Miscellaneous Works. <br />
        Translations of German Scientific Works. <br /> Translations of English
        Deistical Writers. <br /> Boulanger's <i>Antiquité dévoilée</i>. <br />
        Original Works: <i>Le Christianisme devoilé</i>. <br /> <i>Théologie
        portative</i>. <br /> <i>La Contagion sacrée</i>. <br /> <i>Essai sur les
        préjugés</i>. <br /> <i>Le bons-sens</i>. <br /> CHAPTER III. THE <i>Système
        de la Nature</i> AND ITS PHILOSOPHY. <br /> Voltaire's correspondence on
        the subject. <br /> Goethe's sentiment. <br /> Refutations and criticisms.
        <br /> Holbach's philosophy. <br /> APPENDIX. HOLBACH'S CORRESPONDENCE.
        <br /> Five unpublished letters to John Wilkes. <br /> [ENDNOTES] <br />
        BIBLIOGRAPHY. <br /> Part I. Editions of Holbach's works in Chronological
        Order. <br /> Part II. General Bibliography. <br />
      </p>
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    <h1>
      BARON D'HOLBACH
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     A une extréme justesse d'esprit il joignait une simplicité
     de moeurs tout-à-fait antique et patriarcale.

              J. A. Naigeon, <i>Journal de Paris</i>, le 9 fev. 1789
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    <h2>
      INTRODUCTION
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    <p>
      Diderot, writing to the Princess Dashkoff in 1771, thus analysed the
      spirit of his century:
    </p>
    <p>
      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]
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>Système de la Nature</i>, <i>A Short Sketch
      of the Life and the Writings of Baron d'Holbach</i> by Mr. Julian Hibbert,
      compiled especially for that edition from Saint Saurin's article in
      Michaud's <i>Biographie Universelle</i> (Paris, 1817, Vol. XX, pp.
      460-467), from Barbier's <i>Dict. des ouvrages anonymes</i> (Paris, 1822)
      and from the preface to the Paris edition of the <i>Système de la Nature</i>
      (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 <i>Lettres
      à Eugenia</i> he speaks of a "Biographical Memoir of Baron d'Holbach which
      I am now preparing for the press." If ever published at all this <i>Memoir</i>
      probably came to light in the <i>Boston Investigator</i>, 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]
    </p>
    <p>
      Of the two works bearing Holbach's name as a title, one is a piece of
      libellous fiction by Mme. de Genlis, <i>Les Diners du baron d'Holbach</i>
      (Paris, 1822, 8vo), the other a romance pure and simple by F. T. Claudon
      (Paris, 1835, 2 vols., 8vo) called <i>Le Baron d'Holbach</i>, 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 <i>Diderot et la Société du Baron
      d'Holbach</i> (Paris, 1875, 8vo), and M. Armand Gasté has a little book
      entitled <i>Diderot et le cure de Montchauvet, une Mystification
      littéraire chez le Baron d'Holbach</i> (Paris, 1895, 16vo). There are
      several works which devote a chapter or section to Holbach. [3:4] The
      French critics and the histories of philosophy contain slight notices;
      Rosenkranz's "Diderot's Leben" devotes a chapter to Granval, Holbach's
      country seat, and life there as described by Diderot in his letters to
      Mlle. Volland; and he is included in such histories of ideas as Soury, J.,
      "Bréviaire de l'histoire de Matérialisme" (Paris, 1881) and Delvaille, J.,
      <i>Essai sur l'histoire de l'idée de progrès</i> (Paris, 1910); but
      nowhere else is there anything more than the merest encyclopedic account,
      often defective and incorrect.
    </p>
    <p>
      The sources are in a sense full and reliable for certain phases of his
      life and literary activity. His own publications, numbering about fifty,
      form the most important body of source material for the history and
      development of his ideas. Next in importance are contemporary memoirs and
      letters including those of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Grimm, Morellet,
      Marmontel, Mme. d'Epinay, Naigeon, Garat, Galiani, Hume, Garrick, Wilkes,
      Romilly and others; and scattered letters by Holbach himself, largely to
      his English friends. In addition there is a large body of contemporary
      hostile criticism of his books, by Voltaire, Frederick II, Castillon,
      Holland, La Harpe, Delisle de Sales and a host of outraged ecclesiastics,
      so that one is well informed in regard to the scandal that his books
      caused at the time. Out of these materials and other scattered documents
      and notices it is possible to reconstruct&mdash;though somewhat
      defectively&mdash;the figure of a man who played an important rôle in his
      own day; but whose name has long since lost its significance&mdash;even in
      the ears of scholars. It is at the suggestion of Professor James Harvey
      Robinson that this reconstruction has been made. If it shall prove of any
      interest or value he must be credited with the initiation of the idea as
      well as constant aid in its realization. For rendering possible the
      necessary investigations, recognition is due to the administration and
      officers of the Bibliothèque Nationale, the British Museum, the Library of
      Congress, the Libraries of Columbia and Harvard Universities, Union and
      Andover Theological Seminaries, and the Public Libraries of Boston and New
      York.
    </p>
    <p>
      M. P. C. NEW YORK CITY,
    </p>
    <p>
      July, 1914.
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER I. HOLBACH, THE MAN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Paul Heinrich Dietrich, or as he is better known, Paul-Henri Thiry, baron
      d'Holbach, was born in January, 1723, in the little village of Heidelsheim
      (N.W. of Carlsruhe) in the Palatinate. Of his parentage and youth nothing
      is known except that his father, a rich parvenu, according to Rousseau,
      [5:5] brought him to Paris at the age of twelve, where he received the
      greater part of his education. His father died when Holbach was still a
      young man. It may be doubted if young Holbach inherited his title and
      estates immediately as there was an uncle "Messire Francois-Adam, Baron
      d'Holbach, Seigneur de Héeze, Léende et autres Lieux" who lived in the rue
      Neuve S. Augustin and died in 1753. His funeral was held at Saint-Roch,
      his parish church, Thursday, September 16th, where he was afterward
      entombed. [5:6] Holbach was a student in the University of Leyden in 1746
      and spent a good deal of time at his uncle's estate at Héeze, a little
      town in the province of North Brabant (S.E. of Eindhoven). He also
      traveled and studied in Germany. There are two manuscript letters in the
      British Museum (Folio 30867, pp. 14, 18, 20) addressed by Holbach to John
      Wilkes, which throw some light on his school-days. It is interesting to
      note that most of Holbach's friends were young Englishmen of whom there
      were some twenty-five at the University of Leyden at that time. [6:7]
      Already at the age of twenty-three Holbach was writing very good English,
      and all his life he was a friend of Englishmen and English ideas. His
      friendship for Wilkes, then a lad of nineteen, lasted all his life and
      increased in intimacy and dignity. The two letters following are of
      interest because they are the only documents we have bearing on Holbach's
      early manhood. They reveal a certain sympathy and feeling&mdash;rather
      gushing to be sure&mdash;quite unlike anything in his later writings, and
      quite out of line with the supposedly cold temper of a materialist and an
      atheist.
    </p>
    <p>
      [Footnote: These letters, contrary to modern usage, are printed with all
      the peculiarities of eighteenth century orthography. It was felt that they
      would lose their quaintness and charm if Holbach's somewhat fantastic
      English were trifled with or his spelling, capitalization and punctuation
      modernized.]
    </p>
    <p>
      HOLBACH TO WILKES
    </p>
    <p>
      HÉEZE Aug. 9, 1746
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Dearest Friend</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      I should not have felt by half enough the pleasure your kind letter gave
      me, If I had words to express it; I never doubted of your friendship, nor
      I hope do you know me so little as to doubt of mine, but your letter is
      full of such favorable sentiments to me that I must own I cannot repay
      them but by renewing to you the entire gift of my heart that has been
      yours ever since heaven favour'd me with your acquaintance. I need not
      tell you the sorrow our parting gave me, in vain Philosophy cried aloud
      nature was still stronger and the philosopher was forced to yield to the
      friend, even now I feel the wound is not cur'd. Therefore no more of that&mdash;<i>Hope</i>
      is my motto. Telling me you are happy you make me so but in the middle of
      your happiness you dont forget your friend, What flattering thought to me!
      Such are the charms of friendship every event is shar'd and nothing nor
      even the greatest intervals are able to interrupt the happy harmony of
      truly united minds. I left Leyden about 8 or 10 days after you but before
      my departure I thought myself obliged to let Mr Dowdenwell know what you
      told me, he has seen the two letters Mr Johnson had received and I have
      been mediator of ye peace made betwixt the 2 parties, I don't doubt but
      you have seen by this time Messrs Bland &amp; Weatherill who were to set
      out for Engelland the same week I parted with them. When I was leaving
      Leyden Mr Vernon happen'd to tell me he had a great mind to make a trip to
      Spa. So my uncles' estate being on ye road I desir'd him to come along
      with me, he has been here a week and went on afterwards in his journey, at
      my arrival here, I found that General Count Palfi with an infinite number
      of military attendants had taken possession of my uncles' house, and that
      the 16 thousd men lately come from Germany to strengthen the allies army,
      commanded by Count Bathiani and that had left ye neighborhood of Breda a
      few days before and was come to Falkenswert (where you have past in your
      journey to Spa) one hour from hence. Prince Charles arrived here the same
      day from Germany to take ye command of the allies, the next Day the whole
      army amounting to 70thd men went on towards the county of Liège to prevent
      the French from beseiging Namur, I hear now that the two armies are only
      one hour from another, so we expect very soon the news of a great battle
      but not without fear, Count Saxes army being, by all account of hundred
      ten thoud. men besides. Prince Counti's army of 50 thd. this latter
      General is now employ'd at the siege of Charleroy, that can't resist a
      long while, it is a report that the King of France is arrived in his army,
      I hope this long account will entertain you for want of news papers: Mr.
      Dowdeswell being left alone of our club at Leyden I Desir'd him to come
      and spend with me the time of his vacations here, which proposal I hope he
      will accept and be here next week. What happy triumvirat would be ours if
      you were to join: but that is impossible at present; however those who
      cant enjoy reality are fond of feeding their fancies with agreable Dreams
      and charming pictures; that helps a little to sooth the sorrow of absence
      and makes one expect with more pati[ence] till fortune allows him to put
      in execution the cherish'd systems he has been fed upon fore some [time] I
      shall expect with great many thanks the books you are to send me; it will
      be for me a dubble pleasure to read them, being of your choice which I
      value as much as it deserves, and looking at them as upon a new proof of
      your benevolence, as to those I design'd to get from Paris for you, I
      heard I could not get them before my uncles' return hither all commerce
      being stopt by the way betwixt this country and France.
    </p>
    <p>
      A few days before my departure from Leyden I receiv'd a letter from Mr
      Freeman from Berlin, he seams vastly pleas'd with our Germany, and chiefly
      with Hambourg where a beautiful lady has taken in his heart the room of
      poor Mss. Vitsiavius, my prophesy was just; traveling seems to have
      alter'd a good deal his melancholy disposition as I may conjecture by his
      way of writing. He desired his service to you. As to me, Idleness renders
      me every day more philosopher every passion is languishing within me, I
      retain but one in a warm degree, viz, friendship in which you share no
      small part. I took a whim to study a little Physic accordingly I purchased
      several books in that Way, and my empty hours here are employ'd with them.
      I am sure your time will be much better employ'd at Alesbury you'll find
      there a much nobler entertainment Cupid is by far Lovlier than Esculapius,
      however I shall not envy your happiness, in the Contrary I wish that all
      your desires be crown'd with success, that a Passion that proves fatal to
      great many of men be void of sorrow for you, that all the paths of love be
      spred over with flowers in one Word that you may not address in vain to
      the charming Mss. M. I am almost tempted to fall in love with that unknown
      beauty, 't would not be quite like Don Quixotte for your liking to her
      would be for me a very strong prejudice of her merit, which the poor
      Knight had not in his love for Dulcinea.
    </p>
    <p>
      I shall not ask your pardon for the length of this letter I am sure
      friendship will forgive the time I steal to Love however I cannot give up
      so easily a conversation with a true friend with whom I fancy to speak yet
      in one of those delightfull evening walks at Leyden. It is a dream, I own
      it, but it is so agreable one to me that nothing but reality could be
      compared to the pleasure I feel: let me therefore insist a little more
      upon't and travel with my Letter, we are gone! I think to be at Alesbury!
      there I see my Dear Wilkes! What a Flurry of Panions! Joy! fear of a
      second parting! what charming tears! what sincere Kisses!&mdash;but time
      flows and the end of this Love is now as unwelcome to me, as would be to
      another to be awaken'd in the middle of a Dream wherein he is going to
      enjoy a beloved mistress; the enchantment ceases, the delightfull images
      vanish, and nothing is left to me but friendship, which is of all my
      possessions the fairest, and the surest, I am most sincerely Dear Wilkes
    </p>
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 Your affectionate friend and humble servant
 DE HOLBACH
Heze the 9th august 1746 N. S.
</pre>
    <p>
      I shall expect with impatience the letter you are to write me from
      Alesbury. Will it be here very soon!
    </p>
    <p>
      HOLBACH TO WILKES [HÉEZE Dec. 3rd. 1746]
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Dearest Wilkes</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      During a little voyage I have made into Germany I have received your
      charming letter of the 8th. September O. S. the many affairs I have been
      busy with for these 3 months has hindered me hitherto from returning to
      you as speedy an answer as I should have done. I know too much your
      kindness for me to make any farther apology and I hope you are enough
      acquainted with the sincerety of my friendship towards you to adscribe my
      fault to forgetfulness or want of gratitude be sure, Dear friend, that
      such a disposition will allways be unknown to me in regard to you. I don't
      doubt but you will be by this time returned at London, the winter season
      being an obstacle to the pleasures you have enjoyed following ye Letter at
      Alesbury during the last Autumn. I must own I have felt a good deal of
      pride when you gave me the kind assurance that love has not made you
      forget an old friend, I need not tell you my disposition. I hope you know
      it well enough and like my friendship for you has no bounds I want
      expressions to show it. Mr Dowdeswell has been so good as to let me enjoy
      his company here in the month of August, and returned to Leyden to pursue
      his studies in the middle of September. We often wished your company and
      made sincere libations to you with burgundy and Champaigne I had a few
      weeks there after I set out for Germany where I expected to spend the
      whole winter but the sudden death of my Uncle's Steward has forced me to
      come back here to put in order the affairs of this estate, I don't know
      how long I shall be obliged to stay in the meanwhile I act pretty well the
      part of a County Squire, id est, hunting, shooting, fishing, walking every
      day without to lay aside the ever charming conversation of Horace Virgil
      Homer and all our noble friends of the Elysian fields. They are allways
      faithfull to me, with their aid I find very well how to employ my time,
      but I want in this country a true bosom friend like my dear Wilkes to
      converse with, but my pretenssions are too high, for every abode with such
      a company would be heaven for me.
    </p>
    <p>
      I perceive by your last letter that your hopes are very like to succeed by
      Mss Mead, you are sure that every happines that can befall to you will
      make me vastly happy. I beseech you therefore to let me know everytime how
      far you are gone, I take it to be a very good omen for you, that your
      lovely mistress out of compliance has vouchsafed to learn a harsh
      high-dutch name, which would otherwise have made her starttle, at the very
      hearing of it. I am very thankful for her kind desire of seeing me in
      Engelland which I dont wish the less but you know my circumstances enough,
      to guess that I cannot follow my inclinations. I have not heard hitherto
      anything about the books you have been so kind as to send me over by the
      opportunity of a friend. I have wrote about it to Msrs Conrad et Bouwer of
      Rotterdam, they answered that they were not yet there. Nevertheless I am
      very much oblided to you for your kindness and wish to find very soon the
      opportunity of my revenge. Mr Dowderswell complains very much of Mrs Bland
      and Weatherill, having not heard of them since their departure from
      Leyden. I desire my compliments to Mr Dyer and all our old acquaintances.
      Pray be so good as to direct your first letter under the covert of Mr
      Dowderwell at Ms Alliaume's at Leyden he shall send it to me over
      immediately, no more at Mr Van Sprang's like you used to do. I wish to
      know if Mr Lyson since his return to his native country, continues in his
      peevish cross temper. If you have any news besides I'll be glad to hear
      them by your next which I expect very soon.
    </p>
    <p>
      About politicks I cannot tell you anything at present, you have heard
      enough by this time the fatal battle fought near Liège in 8ber last;
      everybody has little hopes of the Congress of Breda, the Austrian and
      Piedmontese are entered into provence, which is not as difficult as to
      maintain themselves therein, I wish a speedy peace would enable us both to
      see the rejoicings that will attend the marriage of the Dauphin of France
      with a Princess of Saxony. I have heard that peace is made between England
      and Spain, which you ought to know better than I. We fear very much for
      the next campaign the siege of Maestrich in our neighborhood. These are
      all the news I know. I'll tell you another that you have known a long
      while viz. that nobody is with more sincerity My Dear Wilkes
    </p>
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 Your faithfull humble Servant and Friend
 HOLBACH
Heeze the 3 d Xber 1746 ns
</pre>
    <p>
      By 1750 Holbach was established in Paris as a young man of the world. His
      fortune, his learning, his sociability attracted the younger literary set
      toward him. In 1749 he was already holding his Thursday dinners which
      later became so famous. Among his early friends were Diderot, Rousseau and
      Grimm. With them he took the side of the Italian <i>Opera buffa</i> in the
      famous musical quarrel of 1752, and published two witty brochures
      ridiculing French music. [12:9] He was an art connoisseur and bought
      Oudry's <i>Chienne allaitant ses petits</i>, the <i>chef d'oeuvre</i> of
      the Salon of 1753. [12:10] During these years he was hard at work at his
      chosen sciences of chemistry and mineralogy. In 1752 he published in a
      huge volume in quarto with excellent plates, a translation of Antonio
      Neri's <i>Art of Glass making</i>, and in 1753 a translation of Wallerius'
      <i>Mineralogy</i>. On July 26, 1754, the Academy of Berlin made him a
      foreign associate in recognition of his scholarly attainments in Natural
      History, [12:11] and later he was elected to the Academies of St.
      Petersburg and Mannheim.
    </p>
    <p>
      All that was now lacking to this brilliant young man was an attractive
      wife to rule over his salon. His friends urged him to wed, and in 1753 he
      married Mlle. Basile-Genevieve-Susanne d'Aine, daughter of "Maître
      Marius-Jean-Baptiste Nicolas d'Aine, conseiller au Roi en son grand
      conseil, associé externe de l'Acad. des sciences et belles letters de
      Prusse." [12:12] M. d'Aine was also Maître des Requêtes and a man of
      means. Mme. d'Holbach was a very charming and gracious woman and Holbach's
      good fortune seemed complete when suddenly Mme. d'Holbach died from a most
      loathsome and painful disease in the summer of 1754. Holbach was
      heart-broken and took a trip through the provinces with his friend Grimm,
      to whom he was much attached, to distract his mind from his grief. He
      returned in the early winter and the next year (1755) got a special
      dispensation from the Pope to marry his deceased wife's sister, Mlle.
      Charlotte-Susanne d'Aine. By her he had four children, two sons and two
      daughters. The first, Charles-Marius, was born about the middle of August,
      1757, and baptized in Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, Aug. 22. He inherited the
      family title and was a captain in the regiment of the Schomberg-Dragons.
      [13:13] The first daughter was born towards the end of 1758 and the second
      about the middle of Jan., 1760. [13:14] The elder married the Marquis de
      Châtenay and the younger the Marquis de Nolivos, "Captaine au régiment de
      la Seurre, Dragons." Their Majesties the King and Queen and the Royal
      Family signed their marriage contract May 27, 1781. [13:15] Of the second
      son there seem to be no traces. Holbach's mother-in-law, Madame d'Aine,
      was a very interesting old woman as she is pictured in Diderot's <i>Mémoires</i>,
      and there was a brother-in-law, "Messire Marius-Jean-Baptiste-Nicholas
      d'Aine, chevalier, conseiller du roi en ses conseils, Maître des requêtes
      honoraire de son hôtel, intendant de justice, police, et finances de la
      généralité de Tours," who lived in rue Saint Dominique, paroisse
      Saint-Sulpice. There was in Holbach's household for a long time an old
      Scotch surgeon, a homeless, misanthropic old fellow by the name of Hope,
      of whom Diderot gives a most interesting account. [14:16] These are the
      only names we have of the personnel of Holbach's household. His town house
      was in the rue Royale, butte Saint-Roch. It was here that for an almost
      unbroken period of forty years he gave his Sunday and Thursday dinners.
      The latter day was known to the more intimate set of encyclopedists as the
      <i>jour du synagogue</i>. Here the <i>église philosophique</i> met
      regularly to discuss its doctrines and publish its propaganda of
      radicalism.
    </p>
    <p>
      Holbach had a very pleasant country seat, the château of Grandval, now in
      the arrondisement of Boissy St. Léger at Sucy-en-Brie. It is pleasantly
      situated in the valley of a little stream, the Morbra, which flows into
      the Marne. The property was really the estate of Mme. d'Aine who lived
      with the Holbachs. Here the family and their numerous guests passed the
      late summer and fall. Here Diderot spent weeks at a time working on the
      Encyclopedia, dining, and walking on the steep slopes of the Marne with
      congenial companions. To him we are indebted for our intimate knowledge of
      Grandval and its inhabitants, their slightest doings and conversations;
      and as Danou has well said, if we were to wish ourselves back in any past
      age we should choose with many others the mid-eighteenth century and the
      charming society of Paris and Grandval. [14:17]
    </p>
    <p>
      Holbach's life, in common with that of most philosophers, offers no
      events, except that he came near being killed in the crush and riot in the
      rue Royale that followed the fire at the Dauphin's wedding in 1770.
      [15:18] He was never an official personage. His entire life was spent in
      study, writing and conversation with his friends. He traveled very little;
      the world came to him, to the <i>Café de l'Europe</i>, as Abbé Galiani
      called Paris. From time to time Holbach went to Contrexéville for his gout
      and once to England to visit David Garrick; but he disliked England very
      thoroughly and was glad to get back to Paris. The events of his life in so
      far as there were any, were his relations with people. He knew intimately
      practically all the great men of his century, except Montesquieu and
      Voltaire, who were off the stage before his day. [15:19] Holbach's most
      intimate and life-long friend among the great figures of the century was
      Diderot, of whom Rousseau said, "À la distance de quelques siècles du
      moment où il a vécu, Diderot paraîtra un homme prodigieux; on regardera de
      loin cette tête universelle avec une admiration mêlée d'étonnement, comme
      nous regardons aujourd'hui la tête des Platon et des Aristote." [15:20]
      All his contemporaries agreed that nothing was so charged with divine fire
      as the conversation of Diderot. Gautherin, in his fine bronze of him on
      the Place Saint-Germain-des-Près, seems to have caught the spirit of his
      talk and has depicted him as he might have sat in the midst of Holbach's
      society, of which he was the inspiration and the soul. Holbach backed
      Diderot financially in his great literary and scientific undertaking and
      provided articles for the Encyclopedia on chemistry and natural science.
      Diderot had a high opinion of his erudition and said of him, "Quelque
      système que forge mon imagination, je suis sur que mon ami d'Holbach me
      trouve des faits et des autorités pour le justifier." [16:21] Opinions
      differ in regard to the intellectual influence of these men upon each
      other. Diderot was without doubt the greater thinker, but Holbach stated
      his atheism with far greater clarity and Diderot gave his sanction to it
      by embellishing Holbach's books with a few eloquent pages of his own.
      Diderot said to Sir Samuel Romilly in 1781, "Il faut <i>sabrer</i> la
      théologie," [16:22] and died in 1784 in the belief that complete
      infidelity was the first step toward philosophy. Five years later Holbach
      was buried by his side in the crypt of the Chapel of the Virgin behind the
      high altar in Saint-Roch. No tablet marks their tombs, and although
      repeated investigations have been made no light has been thrown on the
      exact position of their burial place. According to Diderot's daughter,
      Mme. Vandeuil, their entire correspondence has been destroyed or lost.
      [16:23]
    </p>
    <p>
      Holbach's relations with Rousseau were less harmonious. The account of
      their mutual misunderstandings contained in the <i>Confessions</i>, in a
      letter by Cerutti in the <i>Journal de Paris</i> Dec. 2, 1789, and in
      private letters of Holbach's to Hume, Garrick, and Wilkes, is a long and
      tiresome tale. The author of <i>Eclaircissements relatifs à la publication
      des confessions de Rousseau...</i> (Paris, 1789) blames the <i>club
      holbachique</i> for their treatment of Rousseau, but the fault seems to
      lie on both sides. According to Rousseau's account, Holbach sought his
      friendship and for a few years he was one of Holbach's society. But, after
      the success of the <i>Devin du Village</i> in 1753, the <i>holbachiens</i>
      turned against him out of jealousy of his genius as a composer. Visions of
      a dark plot against him rose before his fevered and sensitive imagination,
      and after 1756 he left the Society of the Encyclopedists, never to return.
      Holbach, on the other hand, while admitting rather questionable treatment
      of Rousseau, never speaks of any personal injury on his part, and bewails
      the fact that "l'homme le plus éloquent s'est rendu ainsi l'homme le plus
      anti-littéraire, et l'homme le plus sensible s'est rendu le plus
      anti-social." [17:24] He did warn Hume against taking him to England, and
      in a letter to Wilkes predicted the quarrel that took place shortly after.
      In writing to Garrick [17:25] he says some hard but true things about
      Rousseau, who on his part never really defamed Holbach but depicted him as
      the virtuous atheist under the guise of Wolmar in the <i>Nouvelle Heloïse</i>.
      Their personal incompatibility is best explained on the grounds of the
      radical differences in their temperaments and types of mind and by the
      fact that Rousseau was too sensitive to get on with anybody for any great
      length of time.
    </p>
    <p>
      Two other great Frenchmen, Buffon and d'Alembert, were for a time members
      of Holbach's society, but, for reasons that are not altogether clear,
      gradually withdrew. Grimm suggests that Buffon did not find the young
      philosophers sufficiently deferential to him and to the authorized powers,
      and feared for his dignity,&mdash;and safety, in their company.
      D'Alembert, on the other hand, was a recluse by nature, and, after giving
      up his editorship on the Encyclopedia, easily dropped out of Diderot's
      society and devoted himself to Mlle. Lespinasse and Mme. Geoffrin. Holbach
      and Helvetius were life-long friends and spent much time together reading
      at Helvetius's country place at Voré. After his death in 1774, Holbach
      frequented Mme. Helvetius' salon where he knew and deeply influenced
      Volney, Cabanis, de Tracy, and the first generation of the Ideologists who
      continued his and Helvetius' philosophical doctrines. Among the other
      Frenchmen of the day who were on intimate relations with Holbach and
      frequented his salon were La Condamine, Condillac, Condorcet, Turgot,
      Morellet, Raynal, Grimm, Marmontel, Colardeau, Saurin, Suard,
      Saint-Lambert, Thomas, Duclos, Chastellux, Boulanger, Darcet, Roux,
      Rouelle, Barthès, Venel, Leroy, Damilaville, Naigeon, Lagrange and lesser
      names,&mdash;but well known in Paris in the eighteenth century,&mdash;d'Alinville,
      Chauvelin, Desmahis, Gauffecourt, Margency, de Croismare, de Pezay, Coyer,
      de Valory, Charnoi, not to mention a host of others.
    </p>
    <p>
      Among Holbach's most intimate English friends were Hume, Garrick, Wilkes,
      Sterne, Gibbon, Horace Walpole, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin, Dr.
      Priestley, Lord Shelburne, Gen. Barré, Gen. Clark, Sir James MacDonald,
      Dr. Gem, Messrs. Stewart, Demster, Fordyce, Fitzmaurice, Foley, etc.
      Holbach addressed a letter to Hume in 1762, before making his
      acquaintance, in which he expressed his admiration of his philosophy and
      the desire to know him personally. [18:26] In 1764 Hume came to Paris as
      secretary of the British Embassy and immediately called on Holbach and
      became a regular frequenter of his salon. It was to Holbach that he wrote
      first on the outbreak of his quarrel with Rousseau and they corresponded
      at length in egard to the publication of the <i>Exposé succinct</i>, which
      was to justify Hume in the eyes of the French. Hume and Holbach had much
      in common intellectually, although the latter was far more thoroughgoing
      in his repudiation of Theism.
    </p>
    <p>
      David Garrick and his wife were frequent visitors at the rue Royale on
      their trips to Paris where they were very much liked by Holbach's society.
      Nothing is more cordial or gracious than the compliments passed between
      them in their subsequent correspondence. There are two published letters
      from Holbach in Mr. Hedgecock's recent study of Garrick and his French
      friends, excellent examples of the happy spontaneity and sympathy that
      were characteristic of French sociability in the eighteenth century.
      [19:27] Holbach in turn spent several months with Garrick at Hampton.
    </p>
    <p>
      Holbach's early friendship for Wilkes has already been mentioned. Wilkes
      spent a great deal of time in Paris on the occasion of his exiles from
      England and became very intimate with Holbach. They corresponded up to the
      very end of Holbach's life and there was a constant interchange of
      friendly offices between them. [19:28] Miss Wilkes, who spent much time in
      Paris, was a very good friend of Mme. Holbach and Mlle. Helvetius. Adam
      Smith often dined at Holbach's with Turgot and the economists; Gibbon also
      found his dinners agreeable except for the dogmatism of the atheists;
      Walpole resented it also and kept away. Priestley seems to have gotten on
      very well, although the philosophers found his materialism and
      unitarianism a trifle inconsistent. It was at Holbach's that Shelburne met
      Morellet with whom he carried on a long and serious correspondence on
      economics. There seem to be no details of Holbach's relations with
      Franklin, who was evidently more assiduous at the salon of Mme. Helvetius
      whom he desired to marry.
    </p>
    <p>
      Holbach's best friend among the Italians was Abbé Galiani, secretary of
      the Neapolitan Embassy, who spent ten years in the salons of Paris. After
      his return to Naples his longing for Paris led him to a voluminous
      correspondence with his French friends including Holbach. A few of their
      letters are extant. Beccaria also came to Paris at the invitation of the
      translator of his <i>Crimes and Punishments</i>, Abbé Morellet, made on
      behalf of Holbach and his society. Beccaria and his friend Veri, who
      accompanied him, had long been admirers of French philosophy, and the
      Frenchmen found much to admire in Beccaria's book. One <i>avocat-général</i>,
      M. Servan of the Parlement of Bordeaux, a friend of Holbach's, tried to
      put his reforms in practice and shared the fate of most reformers. Holbach
      was also in correspondence with Beccaria, and one of his letters has been
      published in M. Landry's recent study of Beccaria.
    </p>
    <p>
      Among the other Italians whom Holbach befriended were Paulo Frizi, the
      mathematician; Dr. Gatti; Pincini, the musician; and Mme. Riccoboni,
      ex-actress and novelist; whose lively correspondence with Garrick whom she
      met at Holbach's sheds much light on the social relations of the century.
    </p>
    <p>
      Among the other foreigners who were friends or acquaintances of Holbach
      were his fellow countrymen, Frederich Melchon Grimm, like himself a
      naturalized Frenchman and the bosom friend of Diderot; Meister, his
      collaborator in the <i>Literary Correspondence</i>; Kohant, a Bohemian
      musician, composer, of the <i>Bergère des Alpes</i> and Mme. Holbach's
      lute-teacher; Baron Gleichen, Comte de Creutz, Danish and Scandinavian
      diplomats; and a number of German nobles; the hereditary princes of
      Brunswick and Saxe Gotha, Baron Alaberg, afterwards elector of Mayence,
      Baron Schomberg and Baron Studitz.
    </p>
    <p>
      Among the well known women of the century Holbach was most intimate with
      Mme. d'Epinay, who became a very good friend of Mme. Holbach's and was
      present at the birth of her first son, and, in her will, left her a
      portrait by Rembrandt. He was also a friend of Mme. Geoffrin, attended her
      salon, and knew Mlle. de Lespinasse, Mme. Houderot and most of the
      important women of the day.
    </p>
    <p>
      There are excellent sources from which to form an estimate of this man
      whose house was the social centre of the century. Just after Holbach's
      death on January 21, 1789, Naigeon, his literary agent, who had lived on
      terms of the greatest intimacy with him for twenty-four years, wrote a
      long eulogy which filled the issue of the <i>Journal de Paris</i> for Feb.
      9. There was another letter to the <i>Journal</i> on Feb. 12. Grimm's <i>Correspondance
      Littéraire</i> for March contains a long account of him by Meister, and
      there are other notices in contemporary memoirs such as Morellet's and
      Marmontel's. All these accounts agree in picturing him as the most
      admirable of men.
    </p>
    <p>
      It must be remembered that Holbach always enjoyed what was held to be a
      considerable fortune in his day. From his estates in Westphalia he had a
      yearly income of 60,000 <i>livres</i> which he spent in entertaining. This
      freedom from economic pressure gave him leisure to devote his time to his
      chosen intellectual pursuits and to his friends. He was a universally
      learned man. He knew French, German, English, Italian and Latin extremely
      well and had a fine private library of about three thousand works often of
      several volumes each, in these languages and in Greek and Hebrew. The
      catalogue of this library was published by Debure in 1789. It would be
      difficult to imagine a more comprehensive and complete collection of its
      size. He had also a rich collection of drawings by the best masters, fine
      pictures of which he was a connoisseur, bronzes, marbles, porcelains and a
      natural history cabinet, so in vogue in those days, containing some very
      valuable specimens. He was one of the most learned men of his day in
      natural science, especially chemistry and mineralogy, and to his
      translations from the best German scientific works is largely due the
      spread of scientific learning in France in the eighteenth century. Holbach
      was also very widely read in English theology and philosophy of the
      seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and derived his anti-theological
      inspiration from these two sources. To this vast fund of learning, he
      joined an extreme modesty and simplicity. He sought no academic honors,
      published all his works anonymously, and, had it not been for the pleasure
      he took in communicating his ideas to his friends, no one would have
      suspected his great erudition. He had an extraordinary memory and the
      reputation of never forgetting anything of interest. This plenitude of
      information, coupled with his easy and pleasant manner of talking, made
      his society much sought after. Naigeon said of him (in his preface to the
      works of Lagrange):
    </p>
    <p>
      Personne n'était plus communicatif que M. le baron d'Holbach; personne ne
      prenait aux progrès de la raison un intérêt plus vif, plus sincère, et ne
      s'occupait avec plus de zèle et l'activité des moyens de les accélérer.
    </p>
    <p>
      Également versé dans la plupart des matières sur lesquelles il importe le
      plus à des êtres raisonnables d'avoir une opinion arrêtée, M. le baron
      d'Holbach portait dans leur discussion un jugement sain, une logique
      sévère, et une analyse exacte et précise. Quelque fut l'objet de ses
      entretiens avec ses amis, ou même avec des indifférens, tels qu'en offrent
      plus ou moins toutes les sociétés; il inspirait sans effort à ceux qui
      l'écoutaient l'enthousiasme de l'art ou de la science dont il parlait; et
      on ne le quittait jamais sans regretter de n'avoir pas cultivé la branche
      particulière de connaissances qui avait fait le sujet de la conversation,
      sans désirer d'être plus instruit, plus éclairé, et surtout sans admirer
      la claret, la justesse de son esprit, et l'ordre dans lequel il savait
      présenter ses idées.
    </p>
    <p>
      This virtue of communicativeness, of <i>sociabilité</i>, Holbach carried
      into all the relations of life. He was always glad to lend or give his
      books to anyone who could make use of them. "Je suis riche," he used to
      say, "mais je ne vois dans la fortune qu'un instrument de plus pour opérer
      le bien plus promptement et plus efficacement." In fact Holbach's whole
      principle of life and action was to increase the store of human well
      being. And he did this without any religious motive whatsoever. As Julie
      says of Wolmar in <i>La Nouvelle Heloïse</i>, "Il fait le bien sans espoir
      de récompense, il est plus vertueux, plus désintéressé que nous." There
      are many recorded instances of Holbach's gracious benevolence. As he said
      to Helvetius, "Vous êtes brouillé avec tous ceux que vous avez obligé,
      mais j'ai gardé tous mes amis." Holbach had the faculty of attaching
      people to him. Diderot tells how at the Salon of 1753 after Holbach had
      bought Oudry's famous picture, all the collectors who had passed it by
      came to him and offered him twice what he paid for it. Holbach went to
      find the artist to ask him permission to cede the picture to his profit,
      but Oudry refused, saying that he was only too happy that his best work
      belonged to the man who was the first to appreciate it. Instances of
      Holbach's liberality to Kohant, a poor musician, and to Suard, a poor
      literary man, are to be found in the pages of Diderot and Meister, and his
      constant generosity to his friends is a commonplace in their Memoirs and
      Correspondence. Only Rousseau was ungrateful enough to complain that
      Holbach's free-handed gifts insulted his poverty. His kindness to
      Lagrange, a young literary man whom he rescued from want, has been well
      told by M. Naigeon in the preface to the works of Lagrange (p. xviii).
    </p>
    <p>
      But perhaps the most touching instances of Holbach's benevolence are his
      relations with the peasants of Contrexéville, one of which was published
      in the <i>Journal de Lecture</i>, 1775, the other in an anonymous letter
      to the <i>Journal de Paris</i>, Feb. 12, 1789. The first concerns the
      reconciliation of two old peasants who, not wanting to go to court,
      brought their differences to their respected friend for a settlement.
      Nothing is more simple and beautiful than this homely tale as told in a
      letter of Holbach's to a friend of his. The second, which John Wilkes said
      ought to be written in letters of gold, deserves to be reproduced as a
      whole.
    </p>
    <p>
      L'éloge funèbre que M. Naigeon a consacré à la mémoire de M. le Baron
      d'Holbach suffit pour donner une idée juste de ses lumières, mais le
      hasard m'a mis à portée de les juger encore mieux. J'ai vu M. le Baron
      d'Holbach dans deux voyages que j'ai faits aux eaux de Contrexéville.
      S'occuper de sa souffrance et de sa guérison, c'est le soin de chaque
      malade. M. le Baron d'Holbach devenait le médecin, l'ami, le consolateur
      de quiconque venait aux eaux et il semblait bien moins occupé de ses
      infirmités que de celles des autres. Lorsque des malades indigens
      manquaient de secours, ou pécuniaires ou curatifs, il les leur procurait
      avec un plaisir qui lui faisait plus de bien que les eaux. Je me promenais
      un soir avec lui sur une hauteur couverte d'un massif de bois qui fait
      perspective de loin et près duquel s'élève un petit Hermitage. Là, demeure
      un cénobite qui n'a de revenu que les aumônes de ceux dont il reçoit les
      visites. Nous acquittâmes chacun notre dette hospitalière. En prenant
      congé de l'Hermite, M. le Baron d'Holbach me dit de le précéder un instant
      et qu'il allait me suivre. Je le précédai, et comme il ne me suivait pas
      je m'arrêtai, pour l'attendre sur un terte exhaussé d'où l'on découvre
      tout le pays. Je contemplais le canton que je dominais, plongé dans une
      douce rêverie. J'en fus tiré par des cris et je me retournai vers
      l'endroit d'òu ils partaient. Je vis M. le Baron d'Holbach environné d'une
      vieille femme et de deux villageois, l'un vieux comme elle et l'autre
      jeune. Tous trois, les larmes aux yeux, l'embrassaient hautement. Allez
      vous-en donc, s'écrait M. le Baron d'Holbach; laissez moi, on m'attend, ne
      me suivez pas, adieu; je reviendrai l'année prochaine. En me voyant
      arriver vers eux, les trois personnes reconnaissantes disparurent. Je lui
      demandai le sujet de tant de bénédictions. Ce jeune paysan que vous avez
      vu s'etait engagé, j'ai obtenu de son colonel sa liberté en payant les
      cents écus prescrits par l'ordonnance. Il est amoureux d'une jeune
      paysanne aussi pauvre que lui, je viens d'acheter pour eux un petit bien
      qui m'a coûté huit cent francs. Le vieux père est perclus, aux deux bras,
      de rhumatismes, je lui ai fourni trois boîtes du baume des Valdejeots, si
      estimé en ce pays-ci. La vieille mère est sujetté à des maux d'estomac, et
      je lui ai apporté un pot de confection d'hyacinthe. Ils travaillaient dans
      le champ, voisin du bois, je suis allé les voir tandis que vous marchiez
      en avant. Ils m'ont suivi malgré moi. Ne parlez de cela à personne. On
      dirait que je veux faire le généreux et le bon philosophe, mais je ne suis
      que humain, et mes charités sont la plus agréable dépense de mes voyages.
    </p>
    <p>
      This humanity of Holbach's is the very keynote of his character and of his
      intellectual life as well. As M. Walferdin has said, the denial of the
      supernatural was for him the base of all virtue, and resting on this
      principle, he exemplified social qualities that do the greatest honor to
      human nature. He and Madame Holbach are the only conspicuous examples of
      conjugal fidelity and happiness among all the people that one has occasion
      to mention in a study of the intellectual and literary circles of the
      eighteenth century. They were devoted to each other, to their children and
      to their friends. Considering the traits of Holbach's character that have
      been cited, there can scarcely be two opinions in regard to completeness
      with which he realized his ideal of humanity and sociability. M. Naigeon
      has well summed up in a few words Holbach's relation to the only duties
      that he recognized, "He was a good husband, a good father and a good
      friend."
    </p>
    <p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER II. HOLBACH'S WORKS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Holbach's published works, with the exception of a few scattered ones, may
      be divided into three classes, viz., translations of German scientific
      works, translations of English deistical writings, and his own works on
      theology, philosophy, politics and morals. Those which fall into none of
      these categories can be dealt with very summarily. They are:
    </p>
    <p>
      1. Two pamphlets on the musical dispute of 1752; <i>Lettre à une dame d'un
      certain âge sur l'état présent de l'Opéra</i>, (8vo, pp. 11) and <i>Arrêt
      rendu à l'amphithéâtre de l'Opéra</i>, (8vo, pp. 16,) both directed
      against French music and in line with Grimm's <i>Petit Prophète</i> and
      Rousseau's <i>Lettre sur la musique française</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      2. A translation in prose of Akenside's <i>The Pleasures of Imagination</i>
      (Paris, 1759, 8vo).
    </p>
    <p>
      3. A translation of Swift's <i>History of the Reign of Queen Anne</i> in
      collaboration with M. Eidous (Amsterdam, 1765, 12mo, pp. xxiv + 416).
    </p>
    <p>
      4. Translations of an <i>Ode on Human Life</i> and a <i>Hymn to the Sun</i>
      in the <i>Variétés littéraires</i> (1768).
    </p>
    <p>
      5. Articles on natural science in the <i>Encyclopédie</i> and article <i>Prononciation
      des langues</i> in the <i>Dictionnaire de Grammaire</i> of the <i>Encyclopédie
      méthodique</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      6. Translation of Wallerius' <i>Agriculture reduced to its true principles</i>
      (Paris, 1774, 12mo).
    </p>
    <p>
      7. Two <i>Facéties philosophiques</i> published in Grimm's <i>Correspondence
      Littéraire. L'Abbé et le Rabbin</i>, and <i>Essai sur l'art de ramper, à
      l'usage des courtisans</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      8. Parts of Raynal's <i>Histoire philosophique des deux Indes</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      9. Notes to Lagrange's <i>Vie de Senèque</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      Holbach's translations of German scientific works are as follows:
      (Complete titles to be found in Bibliography, Pt. I.)
    </p>
    <p>
      1. <i>Art de la Verrerie de Neri, Merret, et Kunckel</i> (Paris, Durand,
      1752). Original work in Italian. Latin translation by Christopher Merret.
      German translation by J. Kunckel of Löwenstern. Holbach's translation
      comprises the seven books of Antionio Neri, Merret's notes on Neri,
      Kunckel's observations on both these authors, his own experiments and
      others relative to glass-making. The translation was dedicated to
      Malesherbes who had desired to see the best German scientific works
      published in French. In his <i>Préface du Traducteur</i> Holbach writes:
    </p>
    <p>
      L'envie de me rendre utile, dont tout citoyen doit être animé, m'a fait
      entreprendre l'ouvrage que je présente au Public. S'il a le bonheur de
      mériter son approbation, quoiqu'il y ait peu de gloire attachée au travail
      ingrat et fastidieux d'un Traducteur, je me déterminerai à donner les
      meilleurs ouvrages allemands, sur l'Histoire Naturelle, la Minéralogie, la
      Métallurgie et la Chymie. Tout le monde sait que l'Allemagne possede en ce
      genre des trésors qui ont été jusqu'ici comme enfouis pour la France.
    </p>
    <p>
      2. <i>Minéralogie ou Description générale du règne mineral par J. G.
      Wallerius</i> (Paris, Durand, 1753) followed by <i>Hydrologie</i> by the
      same author. Second edition, Paris, Herrissant, 1759. Originally in
      Swedish (Wallerius was a professor of chemistry in the University of
      Upsala). German translation by J. D. Denso, Professor of Chemistry,
      Stargard, Pomerania. Holbach's translation was made from the German
      edition which Wallerius considered preferable to the Swedish. He was
      assisted by Bernard de Jussien and Rouelle, and the work was dedicated to
      a friend and co-worker in the natural sciences, Monsieur d'Arclais de
      Montamy.
    </p>
    <p>
      3. <i>Introduction à la Minéralogie... oeuvre posthume de M. J. F. Henckel</i>,
      Paris, Cavelier, 1756, first published under title <i>Henckelius in
      Mineralogiâ redivivus</i>, Dresden, 1747, by his pupil, M. Stephani, as an
      outline of his lectures. Holbach's translation made from a German edition,
      corrected, with notes on new discoveries added.
    </p>
    <p>
      4. <i>Chimie métallurgique... par M. C. Gellert</i>. Paris, Briasson,
      1758, translated earlier. Approbation May 1, 1753, Privilege Dec. 21,
      1754. Originally a text written by Gellert for four artillery officers
      whom the King of Sardinia sent to Freyburg to learn mining-engineering.
    </p>
    <p>
      5. <i>Traités de physique, d'histoire naturelle, de mineralogy et de
      métallurgie</i>. Paris, Herrissant, 1759, by J. G. Lehmann, three vols. I.
      L'Art des Mines, II. Traité de la formation des métaux, III. Essai d'une
      histoire naturelle des couches de la terre. In his preface to the third
      volume Holbach has some interesting remarks about the deluge, the irony of
      which seems to have escaped the royal censor, Millet, <i>Docteur en
      Théologie</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      "La description si précise et si détaillée que Moïse fait du Deluge dans
      la Genèse, ayant une autorité infaillible, puis qu'elle n'est autre que
      celle de Dieu même, nous rend certains de la réalité et de l'universalité
      de ce châtiment terrible. Il s'agit simplement d'examiner si les
      naturalistes, tels que Woodward, Schenchzer, Buttner et M. Lehmann
      lui-même ne se sont points trompés, lorsqu'ils ont attribué à cet
      événement seul la formation des couches de la terre et lorsqu'ils s'en
      sont servis pour expliquer l'état actuel de notre globe. Il semble que
      rien ne doit nous empêcher d'agiter cette question; l'Ecriture sainte se
      contente de nous apprendre la voie miraculeuse dont Dieu s'est servi pour
      punir les crimes du genre humain; elle ne dit rien qui puisse limiter les
      sentiments des naturalistes sur les autres effets physiques que le déluge
      a pu produire. C'est une matière qu'elle paroît avoir abandonnée aux
      disputes des hommes." He then proceeds to question whether the deluge
      could have produced the results attributed to it and argues against
      catastrophism which, it must be remembered, was the received geological
      doctrine down to the days of Lyell. "Les causes les plus simples sont
      capables de produire au bout des siècles les effets les plus grands,
      surtout lorsqu'elles agissent incessament; et nous voyons toutes ces
      causes réunies agir perpétuellement sous nos yeux. Concluons, donc, de
      tout ce qui précède, que le déluge, seul et les feux souterrains seuls ne
      suffisent point pour expliquer la formation des couches de la terre. On
      risquera toujours de se tromper, lorsque par l'envie de simplifier on
      voudra dériver tous les phénomènes de la nature d'une seule et unique
      cause."
    </p>
    <p>
      6. <i>Pyritologie</i> by J. F. Henkel, Paris, Herrissant, 1760, a large
      volume in quarto, translated by Holbach. It contains <i>Flora Saturnisans</i>
      (translated by M. Charas and reviewed by M. Roux), Henkel's <i>Opuscules
      Minéralogiques</i> and other treatises. Original editions: <i>Pyritologia</i>,
      Leipzig, 1725, 1754; <i>Flora Saturnisans</i>, Leipzig, 1721; <i>De
      Appropriatione Chymica</i>, Dresden, 1727, and <i>De Lapidum origine</i>,
      Dresden, 1734, translated into German, with excellent notes, Dresden,
      1744, by M. C. F. Zimmermann, a pupil of M. Henkel. Holbach's translations
      seem to have been well received because he writes in this preface: "Je
      m'estimerai heureux si mon travail peut contribuer à entretenir et
      augmenter le goût universel qu'on a conçu pour le saine physique."
    </p>
    <p>
      7. <i>Oeuvres métallurgiques</i> de M. J. C. Orschall, Paris, Hardy, 1760.
      Orschall still accepted the old alchemist tradition but was sound in
      practice and was the best authority on copper. Holbach does not attempt to
      justify his physics which was that of the preceding century. Orschall was
      held in high esteem by Henckel and Stahl.
    </p>
    <p>
      8. <i>Recueil des mémoires des Académies d'Upsal et de Stockholm</i>,
      Paris, Didot, 1764. These records of experiments made in the Royal
      Laboratories of Sweden, founded in 1683 by Charles XI, had already been
      translated into German and English. Holbach's translation was made from
      the German and Latin. He promises further treatises on Agriculture,
      Natural History and Medicine.
    </p>
    <p>
      9. <i>Traité du Soufre</i> by G. E. Stahl, Paris, Didot, 1766. In speaking
      of Stahl's theories Holbach says: "Il ne faut pas croire que ces
      connaissances soient des vérités stériles propres seulement à satisfaire
      une vaine curiosité, elles ont leur application aux travaux de la
      métallurgie qui leur doivent la perfection où on les a portés depuis
      quelques temps." Holbach understood very clearly the utility of science in
      his scheme of increasing the store of human well-being, and would
      doubtless have translated other useful works had not other interests
      prevented. There is a MSS. note of his in the Bibliothèque Nationale to M.
      Malesherbes, then Administrateur de la Librairie Royale; suggesting other
      German treatises that might well be translated. (MSS. 22194).
    </p>
    <p>
      HOLBACH TO MALESHERBES
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Monsieur</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      J'ai l'honneur de vous envoyer ci-joint la liste des ouvrages dont M.
      Liège fils pourrait entreprendre la traduction. Je n'en connais
      actuellement point d'autres qui méritent l'attention du public. M. Macquer
      m'a écrit une lettre qui a pour objet les mêmes choses dont vous m'avez
      fait l'honneur de me parler, et je lui fais la même réponse.
    </p>
    <p>
      J'ai l'honneur d'être avec respect, Monsieur,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 Votre très obéissant serviteur
 D'HOLBACH
à Paris ce 6 d'avril 1761
</pre>
    <p>
      The list of books was as follows:
    </p>
    <p>
      1. Johann Kunckel's <i>Laboratorium Chymicum</i>, 8vo.
    </p>
    <p>
      2. Georg Ernest Stahl's <i>Commentary on Becher's Metallurgy</i>, 8vo.
    </p>
    <p>
      3. <i>Concordantia Chymica Becheri</i>, 40º, published by Stahl.
    </p>
    <p>
      4. <i>Cadmologia</i>, or the <i>Natural History of Cobalt</i>, by J. G.
      Lehmann, Berlin, 1760, 4°.
    </p>
    <p>
      After 1760 Holbach became interested in another line of intellectual
      activity, namely the writing and translation of anti-religious literature.
      His first book of this sort really appeared in 1761 although no copies
      bear this date. From 1767 on however he published a great many works of
      this character. It is convenient to deal first with his translations of
      English deistical writers. They are in chronological order.
    </p>
    <p>
      1. <i>Esprit du clergé, ou le Christianisme primitif vengé des entreprises
      et des excès de nos Prêtres modernes</i>. Londres (Amsterdam), 1767. This
      book appeared in England in 1720 under the title of <i>The Independent
      Whig</i>; its author was Thomas Gordon (known through his Commentaries on
      Sallust and Tacitus) who wrote in collaboration with John Trenchard. The
      book was partially rewritten by Holbach and then touched up by Naigeon,
      who, according to a manuscript note by his brother, "atheised it as much
      as possible." It was sold with great secrecy and at a high price&mdash;a
      reward which the colporters demanded for the risk they ran in peddling
      seditious literature. The book was a violent attack on the spirit of
      domination which characterized the Christian priesthood at that time.
    </p>
    <p>
      2. <i>De L'imposture sacerdotale, ou Recueil de Pièces sur le clergé</i>,
      Londres (Amsterdam), 1767. Another edition 1772 under title <i>De la
      Monstruosité pontificale</i> etc.
    </p>
    <p>
      Contains translations of various pamphlets including Davisson, <i>A true
      picture of Popery</i>; Brown, <i>Popery a Craft</i>, London 1735; Gordon,
      <i>Apology for the danger of the church</i>, 1719; Gordon, <i>The Creed of
      an Independent Whig</i>, 1720.
    </p>
    <p>
      3. <i>Examen des Prophéties qui servent de fondement à la religion
      Chrétienne</i>, Londres (Amsterdam), 1768. Translation of Anthony Collins,
      <i>A Discourse on the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion</i>,
      London, 1724. Contains also <i>The Scheme of literal Prophecy considered</i>,
      1727, also by Collins in answer to the works of Clarke, Sherlock,
      Chandler, Sykes, and especially to Whiston's <i>Essay towards restoring
      the text of the Old Testament</i>, one of the thirty-five works directed
      against Collins' original <i>"Discourse"</i>. Copies of this work have
      become very rare.
    </p>
    <p>
      4. <i>David, ou l'histoire de l'homme selon le coeur de Dieu</i>. Londres
      (Amsterdam), 1768. This work appeared in England in 1761 and is attributed
      to Peter Annet, also to John Noorthook. Some English eulogists of George
      II, Messrs. Chandler, Palmer and others, had likened their late King to
      David, "the man after God's own heart." The deists, struck by the
      absurdity of the comparison, proceeded to relate all the scandalous facts
      they could find recorded of David, and by clever distortions painted him
      as the most execrable of Kings, in a work entitled <i>David or the Man
      after God's Own Heart</i>, which formed the basis of Holbach's
      translation.
    </p>
    <p>
      5. <i>Les prêtres démasqués ou des iniquités du clergé chrétien</i>.
      Londres, 1768. Translation of four discourses published under the title <i>The
      Ax laid to the root of Christian Priestcraft by a layman</i>, London, T.
      Cooper, 1742. A rare volume.
    </p>
    <p>
      6. <i>Lettres philosophiques...</i> Londres (Amsterdam, 1768). Translation
      of J. Toland's <i>Letters to Serena</i>, London, 1704. The book, which had
      become very rare in Holbach's time, had caused a great scandal at the time
      of its publication and was much sought after by collectors. It contains
      five letters, the first three of which are by Toland, the other two and
      the preface by Holbach and Naigeon. The matters treated are, the origin of
      prejudices, the dogma of the immortality of the soul, idolatry,
      superstition, the system of Spinoza and the origin of movement in matter.
    </p>
    <p>
      Diderot said of these works, in writing to Mlle. Volland Nov. 22, 1768 (<i>Oeuvres</i>,
      Vol. XVIII, p. 308): "Il pleut des bombes dans la maison du Seigneur. Je
      tremble toujours que quelqu'un de ces téméraires artilleurs-là ne s'en
      trouve mal. Ce sont les <i>Lettres philosophiques</i> traduites, ou
      supposées traduites, de l'anglais de Toland; c'est <i>l'Examen des
      prophéties</i>; c'est la <i>Vie de David ou de l'homme selon là coeur de
      Dieu</i>, ce sont mélle diables déchainés.&mdash;Ah! Madame de Blacy, je
      crains bien que le Fils de l'Homme ne soit à la porte; que la venue d'Elie
      ne soit proche, et que nous ne touchions au règne de l'Anti-christ. Tous
      les jours, quand je me lève, je regarde par ma fenêtre, si la grande
      prostituée de Babylone ne se promène point déjà dans les rues avec sa
      grande coupe à la main et s'il ne se fait aucun des signes prédits dans le
      firmament."
    </p>
    <p>
      7. <i>De la Cruauté religieuse</i>, Londres (Amsterdam). <i>Considerations
      upon war, upon cruelty in general and religious cruelty in particular</i>,
      London, printed for Thomas Hope, 1761.
    </p>
    <p>
      8. <i>Dissertation critique sur les tourmens de l'enfer</i> printed in an
      original work, <i>L'Enfer détruit</i>, Londres (Amsterdam), 1769. A
      translation of Whitefoot's <i>The Torments of Hell, the foundation and
      pillars thereof discover'd, search'd, shaken and remov'd</i>. London,
      1658.
    </p>
    <p>
      9. In the <i>Recueil philosophique</i> edited by Naigeon, Londres
      (Amsterdam), 1770. I. Dissertation sur l'immortalité de l'âme. Translated
      from Hume. II. Dissertation sur le suicide (Hume). III. Extrait d'un livre
      Anglais qui a pour titre le Christianisme aussi ancien que le monde.
      (Tindal, Christianity as old as Creation.)
    </p>
    <p>
      10. <i>Esprit de Judaïsme, ou Examen raisonné de la Loi de Moyse</i>.
      Londres (Amsterdam), 1770 (1769), translated from Anthony Collins. With
      the exception of some of Holbach's own works this is one of the fiercest
      denunciations of Judaism and Christianity to be found in print. In fact,
      it is very much in the style of Holbach's anti-religious works and shows
      beyond a doubt that Holbach derived his inspiration from Collins and the
      more radical of the English school. The volume has become exceedingly
      rare.
    </p>
    <p>
      After outlining the history of Judaism the book ends thus:
    </p>
    <p>
      Ose, donc enfin, ô Europe! secouer le joug insupportable des préjugés qui
      t'affligent. Laisse à des Hébreux stupides, à des frénétiques imbéciles, à
      des Asiatiques lâches et dégradés, ces superstitions aussi avilissantes
      qu'insensées: elles ne sont point faites pour les habitans de ton climat.
      Occupe-toi du soin de perfectionner tes gouvernemens, de corriger tes
      lois, de réformer tes abus, de régler tes moeurs, et ferme pour toujours
      les yeux à ces vraies chimères, qui depuis tant de siècles n'ont servi
      qu'à retarder tes progrès vers la science véritable et à t'écarter de la
      route du bonheur.
    </p>
    <p>
      11. <i>Examen critique de la vie et des ouvrages de Saint Paul</i>,
      Londres (Amsterdam), 1770. A free translation of Peter Annet's <i>History
      and character of St. Paul examined</i>, written in answer to Lyttelton.
      New edition 1790 and translated back into English "from the French of
      Boulanger," London, R. Carlile, 1823. A rather unsympathetic account, but
      with flashes of real insight into "le système religieux des Chrétiens dont
      S. Paul fut évidemment le véritable architecte." (Epître dédicatoire.)
    </p>
    <p>
      Annet said of Paul's type of man "l'enthousiaste s'enivre, pour l'ainsi
      dire, de son propre vin, il se persuade que la cause de ses passions est
      la cause de Dieu (p. 72), mais quelque violent qu'ait pu être
      l'enthousiasme de S. Paul, il sentait très bien que la doctrine qu'il
      prêchait devait paraître bizarre et insensée à des êtres raisonnables" (p.
      141).
    </p>
    <p>
      12. <i>De la nature humaine, ou Exposition des facultés, des actions et
      des passions de l'âme</i>, Londres (Amsterdam), 1772. (Thomas Hobbes.)
      Reprinted in a French Edition of Hobbes' works by Holbach and Sorbière,
      1787. Appeared first in English in 1640, omitted in a Latin Edition of
      Hobbes printed in Amsterdam. In spite of its brevity, Holbach considered
      this one of Hobbes' most important and luminous works.
    </p>
    <p>
      13. <i>Discours sur les Miracles de Jesus Christ</i> (Amsterdam, 1780?).
      Translated from Woolston, whom Holbach admired very much for his
      uncompromising attitude toward truth. He suffered fines and imprisonments,
      but would not give up the privilege of writing as he pleased. The present
      discourse was the cause of a quarrel with his friend Whiston. He died Jan.
      27, 1733, "avec beaucoup de fermeté... il se ferma les yeux et la bouche
      de ses propres mains, et rendit l'esprit." This work exists in a
      manuscript book of 187 pages, written very fine, in the Bibliothèque
      Nationale (Mss. français 15224) and was current in France long before
      1780. In fact it is mentioned by Grimm before 1770, but the dictionaries
      (Barber, Quérard) generally date it from 1780.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before turning to Holbach's original works mention should be made of a
      very interesting and extraordinary book that he brought to light,
      retouched, and later used as a kind of shield against the attacks of the
      parliaments upon his own works.
    </p>
    <p>
      In 1766 he published a work entitled <i>L'Antiquité dévoilée par ses
      usages, ou Examen critique des principales Opinions, Cérémonies et
      Institutions religieuses et politiques des différens Peuples de la Terre</i>.
      Par feu M. Boulanger, Amsterdam, 1766. This is a work based on an original
      manuscript by Boulanger, who died in 1759, preceded by an excellent letter
      on him by Diderot, published also in the <i>Gazette Littéraire</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      The use made by Holbach of Boulanger's name makes it necessary to consider
      for a moment this almost forgotten writer. Nicholas Antoine Boulanger was
      born in 1722. As a child he showed so little aptitude for study that later
      his teachers could scarcely believe that he had turned out to be a really
      learned man. As Diderot observes, "ces exemples d'enfans, rendus ineptes
      entre les mains des Pédans qui les abrutissent en dépit de la nature la
      plus heureuse, ne sont pas rares, cependant ils surprennent toujours" (p.
      1). Boulanger studied mathematics and architecture, became an engineer and
      was employed by the government as inspector of bridges and highways. He
      passed a busy life in exacting outdoor work but at the same time his
      active intellect played over a large range of human interests. He became
      especially concerned with historical origins and set himself to learn
      Latin and Greek that he might get at the sources. Not satisfied that he
      had come to the root of the matter he learned Arabic, Syriac, Hebrew and
      Chaldean. Diderot says "Il lisait et étudiait partout, je l'ai moi-même
      rencontré sur les grandes routes avec un auteur rabinnique à la main." He
      made a <i>mappemonde</i> in which the globe is divided in two hemispheres,
      one occupied by the continents, the other by the oceans, and by a singular
      coincidence he found that the meridian of the continental hemisphere
      passed through Paris. Some such rearrangement of hemispheres is one of the
      commonplaces of modern geography. He furnished such articles as, <i>Deluge,
      Corvée, Société</i> for the Encyclopedia and wrote several large and
      extremely learned books, among them <i>Recherches sur l'origine du
      Despotisme oriental</i> and <i>Antiquité dévoilée</i>. He died from
      overwork at the age of thirty-seven.
    </p>
    <p>
      Boulanger's ideas on philosophy, mythology, anthropology and history are
      of extraordinary interest today. Diderot relates his saying&mdash;"Que si
      la philosophie avait trouvé tant d'obstacles parmi nous c'était qu'on
      avait commencé par où il aurait fallu finir, par des maximes abstraites,
      des raisonnemens généraux, des réflexions subtiles qui ont révolté par
      leur étrangeté et leur hardiesse et qu'on aurait admises sans peine si
      elles avaient été précédées de l'histoire des faits." He carried over this
      inductive method into realm of history, which he thought had been
      approached from the wrong side, i.e., the metaphysical, "par consulter les
      lumières de la raison" (p. 8). He continues, "j'ai pensé qu'il devait y
      avoir quelques circonstances <i>particulières</i>. Un fait et non une
      spéculation métaphysique m'a toujours semblé devoir être et tribut naturel
      et nécessaire de l'histoire." Curiously enough the central fact in history
      appeared to Boulanger to be the deluge, and on the basis of it he
      attempted to interpret the <i>Kulturgeschichte</i> of humanity. It is a
      bit unfortunate that he took the deluge quite as literally as he did; his
      idea, however, is obviously the influence of environmental pressure on the
      changing beliefs and practices of mankind. Under the spell of this new
      point of view, he writes, "Ce qu'on appelle l'histoire n'en est que la
      partie la plus ingrate, la plus uniforme, la plus inutile, quoi qu'elle
      soit la plus connue. La véritable histoire est couverte par le voile des
      temps" (p. 7). Boulanger however was not to be daunted and on the firm
      foundation of the fact of some ancient and universal catastrophe, as
      recorded on the surface of the earth and in human mythology, he proceeds
      to inquire into the moral effects of the changes in the physical
      environment back to which if possible the history of antiquity must be
      traced. Man's defeat in his struggle with the elements made him religious,
      <i>hinc prima mali labes</i>. "Son premier pas fut un faux pas, sa
      première maxime fut une erreur" (p. 4 sq). But it was not his fault nor
      has time repaired the evil moral effects of that early catastrophe. "Les
      grandes révolutions physiques de notre globe sont les véritables époques
      de l'histoire des nations" (p. 9). Hence have arisen the various
      psychological states through which mankind has passed. Contemporary
      savages are still in the primitive state&mdash;Boulanger properly
      emphasizes the relation of anthropology to history&mdash;"On aperçoit
      qu'il y a une nouvelle manière de voir et d'écrire l'histoire des hommes"
      (p. 12) and with a vast store of anthropological and folklorist learning
      he writes it so that his assailant, Fabry d'Autrey, in his <i>Antiquité
      justifiée</i> (Paris, 1766) is obliged to say with truth, "Ce n'est point
      ici un tissus de mensonges grossiers, de sophismes rebattus et bouffons,
      appliqués d'un air méprisant aux objets les plus intéressants pour
      l'humanité. C'est une enterprise sérieuse et réfléchie" (p. 11).
    </p>
    <p>
      In 1767 Holbach published his first original work, a few copies of which
      had been printed in Nancy in 1761. This work was <i>Le Christianisme
      dévoilé ou Examen des principes et des effets de la religion Chrétienne</i>.
      Par feu M. Boulanger. Londres (Amsterdam), 1767. There were several other
      editions the same year, one printed at John Wilkes' private press in
      Westminster. It was reprinted in later collections of Boulanger's works,
      and went through several English and Spanish editions. The form of the
      title and the attribution of the work to Boulanger were designed to set
      persecution on the wrong track. There has been some discussion as to its
      authorship. Voltaire and Laharpe attributed it to Damilaville, at whose
      book shop it was said to have been sold, but M. Barbier has published
      detailed information given him by Naigeon to the effect that Holbach
      entrusted his manuscript to M. De Saint-Lambert, who had it printed by
      Leclerc at Nancy in 1761. Most of the copies that got to Paris at that
      time were bought by several officers of the King's regiment then in
      garrison at Nancy, among them M. de Villevielle, a friend of Voltaire and
      of Condorcet. Damilaville did not sell a single copy and even had a great
      deal of trouble to get one for Holbach who waited for it a long time. This
      circumstantial evidence is of greater value than the statement of Voltaire
      who was in the habit of attributing anonymous works to whomever he
      pleased. [39:2]
    </p>
    <p>
      The edition of 1767 was printed in Amsterdam as were most of Holbach's
      works. We have the details of their publication from Naigeon <i>cadet</i>,
      a copyist, whose brother, J. A. Naigeon, was Holbach's literary factotum.
      In a manuscript note in his copy of the <i>Système de la Nature</i> he
      tells how he copied nearly all Holbach's works, either at Paris or at
      Sedan, where he was stationed, and where his friend Blon, the postmaster,
      aided him, passing the manuscripts on to a Madame Loncin in Liège, who in
      turn was a correspondent of Marc-Michel Rey, the printer in Amsterdam.
      Sometimes they were sent directly by the diligence or through travellers.
      This account agrees perfectly with information given M. Barbier orally by
      Naigeon <i>aîné</i>. After being printed in Holland the books were
      smuggled into France <i>sous le manteau</i>, as the expression is, and
      sold at absurd rates by colporters. [40:3]
    </p>
    <p>
      Diderot writing to Falconet early in 1768 [40:4] says: "Il pleut des
      livres incrédules. C'est un feu roulant qui crible le sanctuaire de toutes
      parts... L'intolérance du gouvernment s'accroit de jour en jour. On dirait
      que c'est un projet formé d'éteindre ici les lettres, de ruiner le
      commerce de librairie et de nous réduire à la besace et à la stupidité...
      <i>Le Christianisme dévoilé</i> s'est vendu jusqu'à quatre louis."
    </p>
    <p>
      When caught the colporters were severely punished. Diderot gives the
      following instance in a letter to Mlle. Volland Oct. 8, 1768
      (Avézac-Lavigne, <i>Diderot</i>, p. 161): "Un apprenti avait reçu, en
      payment ou autrement, d'un colporteur appelé Lécuyer, deux exemplaires du
      <i>Christianisme dévoilé</i> et il avait vendu un de ces exemplaires à son
      patron. Celui-ci le défère au lieutenant de police. Le colporteur, sa
      femme et l'apprenti sont arrêtés tous les trois; ils viennent d'être
      piloriés, fouettés et marqués, et l'apprenti condamné à neuf ans de
      galères, le colporteur à cinq ans, et la femme à l'hôpital pour toute sa
      vie."
    </p>
    <p>
      There are two very interesting pieces of contemporary criticism of <i>Le
      Christianisme dévoilé</i>, one by Voltaire, the other by Grimm. Voltaire
      writes in a letter to Madame de Saint Julien December 15, 1766 (<i>Oeuvres</i>,
      XLIV, p. 534, ed. Garnier): "Vous m'apprenez que, dans votre société, on
      m'attribue <i>Le Christianisme dévoilé</i> par feu M. Boulanger, mais je
      vous assure que les gens au fait ne m'attribuent point du tout cet
      ouvrage. J'avoue avec vous qu'il y a de la clarté, de la chaleur, et
      quelque fois de l'éloquence; mais il est plein de répétitions, de
      négligences, de fautes contre la langue et je serais très-fâché de l'avoir
      fait, non seulement comme académicien, mais comme philosophe, et encore
      plus comme citoyen.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Il est entièrement opposé à mes principes. Ce livre conduit à l'athéisme
      que je déteste. J'ai toujours regardé l'athéisme comme le plus grand
      égarement de la raison, parce qu'il est aussi ridicule de dire que
      l'arrangement du monde ne prouve pas un artisan suprême qu'il serait
      impertinent de dire qu'une horloge ne prouve pas un horloger.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Je ne réprouve pas moins ce livre comme citoyen; l'auteur paraît trop
      ennemi des puissances. Des hommes qui penseraient comme lui ne formeraient
      qu'une anarchie: et je vois trop, par l'example de Genève, combien
      l'anarchie est à craindre. Ma coutume est d'écrire sur la marge de mes
      livres ce que je pense d'eux, vous verrez, quand vous daignerez venir à
      Ferney, les marges de <i>Christianisme dévoilé</i> chargés de remarques
      qui montrent que l'auteur s'est trompé sur les faits les plus essentiels."
      These notes may be read in Voltaire's works (Vol. XXXI, p. 129, ed.
      Garnier) and the original copy of <i>Le Christianisme dévoilé</i> in which
      he wrote them is in the British Museum (c 28, k 3) where it is jealously
      guarded as one of the most precious autographs of the Patriarch of Ferney.
    </p>
    <p>
      Grimm's notice is from the <i>Correspondance Littéraire</i> of August 15,
      1763 (Vol. V, p. 367). "Il existe un livre intitulé <i>le Christianisme
      dévoilé ou Examen des principes et des effets de la religion Chrétienne</i>,
      par feu M. Boulanger, volume in 8º. On voit d'abord qu'on lui a donné ce
      titre pour en faire le pendant de <i>l'Antiquité dévoilée</i>; mais il ne
      faut pas beaucoup se connaître en manière pour sentir que ces deux
      ouvrages ne sont pas sortis de la même plume. On peut assurer avec la même
      certitude que celui dont nous parlons ne vient point de la fabrique de
      Ferney, parce que j'aimerais mieux croire que le patriache eût pris la
      lune avec ses dents; cela serait moins impossible que de guetter sa
      manière et son allure si complètement qu'il n'en restât aucune trace
      quelconque. Par la même raison, je ne crois ce livre d'aucun de nos
      philosophes connus, parce que je n'y trouve la manière d'aucun de ceux qui
      ont écrit. D'òu vient-il donc? Ma foi, je serais fâché de le savoir, et je
      crois que l'auteur aura sagement fait de ne mettre personne dans son
      secret. C'est le livre le plus hardi et le plus terrible qui ait jamais
      parti dans aucun lieu du monde. La préface consiste dans une lettre où
      l'auteur examine si la réligion est reéllement nécessaire ou seulement
      utile au maintien ou à la police des empires, et s'il convient de la
      respecter sous ce point de vue. Comme il établit la négative, il
      entreprend en conséquence de prouver, par son ouvrage, l'absurdité et
      l'incohérence du dogme Chrétien et de la mythologie qui en résulte, et
      l'influence de cette absurdité sur les têtes et sur les âmes. Dans la
      seconde partie, il examine la morale chrétienne, et il prétend prouver que
      dans ses principes généraux elle n'a aucun avantage sur toutes les morales
      du monde, parce que la justice et la bonté sont recommandées dans tous les
      catéchismes de l'univers, et que chez aucun peuple, quelque barbare qu'il
      fut, on n'a jamais enseigné qu'il fallût être injuste et méchant. Quant à
      ce que la morale chrétienne a de particulier, l'auteur pretend démontrer
      qu'elle ne peut convenir qu'à des enthousiastes peu propres aux devoirs de
      la société, pour lesquels les hommes sont dans ce monde. Il entreprend de
      prouver, dans la troisième partie, que la religion chrétienne a eu les
      effets politiques les plus sinistres et les plus funestes, et que le genre
      humain lui doit tous les malheurs dont il a été accablé depuis quinze à
      dix-huit siècles, sans qu'on en puisse encore prévoir la fin.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ce livre est écrit avec plus de véhémence que de véritable éloquence; il
      entraine. Son style est châtié et correct, quoique un peu dur et sec; son
      ton est grave et soutenu. On n'y apprend rien de nouveau, et cependant il
      attache et intéresse. Malgré son incroyable témérité, on ne peut refuser à
      l'auteur la qualité d'homme de bien fortement épris du bonheur de sa race
      et de la prospérité des sociétés; mais je pense que ses bonnes intentions
      seraient une sauvegarde bien faible contre les mandements et les
      réquisitions." This is a clear and fair account of a book that is without
      doubt the severest criticism of the theory and practice of historical
      Christianity ever put in print.
    </p>
    <p>
      The church very naturally did not let such a book pass unanswered. Abbé
      Bergier, a heavy person, triumphantly refuted Holbach in eight hundred
      pages in his <i>Apologia de la Religion Chrétienne contre l'Auteur du
      Christianisme dévoilé</i>, Paris, 1769, which finishes with the fatal
      prophecy, "Nous avons de surs garans de nos espérances: tant que le sang
      auguste de S. Louis sera sur le trône, <i>il n'y a point de révolutions à
      craindre ni dans la Religion ni dans la politique</i>. La religion
      Chrétienne fondée sur la parole de Dieu... triomphera des nouveaux
      Philosophes. Dieu qui veille sur son ouvrage n'a pas besoin de nos faibles
      mains pour le soutenir" (Psaume 32, vs. 10, 11).
    </p>
    <p>
      2. There already existed in 1767 another work by Holbach entitled <i>Théologie
      portative ou Dictionnaire Abrégé de la Religion Chrétienne. Par Mr Abbé
      Bernier</i>. Londres (Amsterdam), 1768 (1767). This book went through many
      editions and was augmented by subsequent authors and editors. Voltaire was
      already writing to d'Alembert about it August 14, 1767. [44:5]
    </p>
    <p>
      In a letter to Damilaville, October 16, he writes (Vol. XIV, p. 406):
    </p>
    <p>
      Depuis trois mois il y a une douzaine d'ouvrages d'une liberté extrême,
      imprimés en Hollande. <i>La Théologie portative</i> n'est nullement
      théologique: ce n'est qu'une plaisanterie continuelle par ordre
      alphabétique; mais il faut avouer qu'il y a des traits si comiques que
      plusieurs théologiens mêmes ne pourront s'empêcher d'en rire. Les jeunes
      gens et les femmes lisent cette folie avec avidité. Les éditions de tous
      les livres dans ce goût se multiplient.
    </p>
    <p>
      And on February 8, 1768, he wrote:
    </p>
    <p>
      On fait tous les jours des livres contre la religion, dont je voudrais
      bien imiter le style pour la défendre. Y a-t-il de plus salé, que la
      plupart des traits qui se trouvent dans la <i>Théologie portative</i>? Y
      a-t-il rien de plus vigoreux, de plus profondément raisonné, d'écrit avec
      une éloquence plus audacieuse et plus terrible, que le <i>Militaire
      philosophe</i>, ouvrage qui court toute l'Europe? [by Naigeon and Holbach]
      Lisez la <i>Théologie portative</i>, et vous ne pourrez vous empêcher de
      rire, en condammant la coupable hardiesse de l'auteur. Lisez <i>l'Imposture
      sacerdotale</i>&mdash;vous y verrez le style de Démosthène. Ces livres
      malheuresement inondent l'Europe; mais quelle est la cause de cette
      inondation? Il n'y en a point d'autre que les querelles théologiques qui
      ont révolté les laïques. <i>Il s'est fait une révolution dans l'esprit
      humain que rien ne peut plus arrêter: les persécutions ne pourraient
      qu'irriter le mal</i>. [Footnote: the italics are mine.]
    </p>
    <p>
      It is to be noted however that Voltaire's sentiments varied according to
      the point of view of the person to whom he was writing. In a letter to
      d'Alembert, May 24, 1769 (Vol. LXV, p. 453), he calls the <i>Théologie
      portative</i> "un ouvrage à mon gré, très plaisant, auquel je n'ai
      assurément nulle part, ouvrage que je serais très fâché d'avoir fait, et
      que je voudrais bien avoir été capable de faire." But in a letter to the
      Bishop of Annecy June, 1769, he writes (Vol. XXVIII, p. 73): "Vous lui [M.
      de Saint Florentin] imputez, à ce que je vois par vos lettres, des livres
      misérables, et jusqu'à <i>la Theologie portative</i>, ouvrage fait
      apparemment dans quelque cabaret; vous n'êtes pas obligé d'avoir du goût,
      mais vous êtes obligé d'être juste" (Vol. XXVIII, p. 73). Diderot even
      said of the book: "C'est un assez bon nombre de bonnes plaisanteries
      noyées dans un beaucoup plus grand nombre de mauvaises" and this criticism
      is just. A few examples of the better jokes will suffice:
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Adam:</i> C'est le premier homme, Dieu en fait un grand nigaud, qui
      pour complaire à sa femme eut la bêtise de mordre dans une pomme que ses
      descendans n'ont point encore pu digérer.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Idées Innées:</i> Notions inspirées des Prêtres de si bonne heure, si
      souvent répétées, que devenu grand l'on croît les avoir eu toujours ou les
      avoir reçus dès le ventre de sa mère.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Jonas:</i> La baleine fut à la fin obligée de le vomir tant un Prophète
      est un morceau difficile à digérer.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Magie:</i> Il y en a de deux sortes, la blanche et la noire. La
      première est très sainte et se pratique journellement dans l'église.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Protestants:</i> Chrétiens amphibies.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Vierge:</i> C'est la mère du fils de Dieu et belle-mère de l'église.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Visions:</i> Lanternes magiques que de tout temps le Père Eternel s'est
      amusé à montrer aux Saintes et aux Prophètes.
    </p>
    <p>
      3. Holbach furnished the last chapter of Naigeon's book <i>Le Militaire
      philosophe, ou Difficulties sur la religion</i>, Londres (Amsterdam),
      1768. Voltaire ascribed the work to St. Hyacinthe. Grimm recognized that
      the last chapter was by another hand and considered it the weakest part of
      the book. It attempts to demonstrate that all supernatural religions have
      been harmful to society and that the only useful religion is natural
      religion or morals. The book was refuted by Guidi, in a "<i>Lettre a M. le
      Chevalier de... [Barthe] entraîné dans l'irreligion par un libelle
      intitulé Le Militaire philosophe</i> (1770, 12mo).
    </p>
    <p>
      4. Holbach's next book was <i>La Contagion sacrée ou l'Histoire naturelle
      de la Superstition</i>, Londres (Amsterdam), 1768. In his preface Holbach
      attributed the alleged English original of this work to John Trenchard but
      that was only a ruse to avoid persecution. The book is by Holbach. It has
      gone through many editions and been translated into English and Spanish.
      The first edition had an introduction by Naigeon. According to him
      manuscripts of this book became quite rare at one time and were supposed
      to have been lost. Later they became more common and this edition was
      corrected by collation with six others.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [PG transcriber's note: at this point there appears to be a break
     in the original text.  A sentence introducing the fifth book in
     this list, "Letters to Eugenie", has evidently been lost.]
</pre>
    <p>
      The letters were written in 1764, according to Lequinio (<i>Feuilles
      posthumes</i>), who had his information from Naigeon, to Marguerite,
      Marchioness de Vermandois in answer to a very touching and pitiful letter
      from that lady who was in great trouble over religion. Her young husband
      was a great friend of the Holbachs, but having had a strict Catholic
      bringing up she was shocked at their infidelity and warned by her
      confessor to keep away from them. "Yet in their home she saw all the
      domestic virtues exemplified and beheld that sweet and unchangeable
      affection for which the d'Holbachs were eminently distinguished among
      their acquaintances and which was remarkable for its striking contrast
      with the courtly and Christian habits of the day. Her natural good sense
      and love for her friends struggled with her monastic education and
      reverence for the priests. The conflict rendered her miserable and she
      returned to her country seat to brood over it. In this state of mind she
      at length wrote to the Baron and laid open her situation requesting him to
      comfort, console, and enlighten her." [47:7] His letters accomplished the
      desired effect and he later published them in the hope that they would do
      as much for others. They were carefully revised before they were sent to
      the press. All the purely personal passages were omitted and others added
      to hide the identity of the persons concerned. Letters of the sort to
      religious ladies were common at this time. Fréret's were preventive,
      Holbach's curative, but appear to be rather strong dose for a <i>dévote</i>.
      Other examples are Voltaire's <i>Epître à Uranie</i> and Diderot's <i>Entretien
      d'un Philosophe avec la Maréchale de...</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      6. In 1769 Holbach published two short treatises on the doctrine of
      eternal punishment which claimed to be translations from English, but the
      originals are not to be found. The titles are <i>De l'intolérance
      convaincue de crime et de folie</i> as it is sometimes given, and&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      7. <i>L'Enfer détruit ou Examen raisonné du Dogme de l'Eternité des Peines</i>.
      Londres, Amsterdam, 1769. This letter was translated into English under
      the title <i>Hell Destroyed!</i> "Now first translated from the French of
      d'Alembert without any mutilations," London 1823, which led Mr. J. Hibbert
      to say, "I know not why English publishers attribute this awfully sounding
      work to the cautious, not to say timid d'Alembert. It was followed by
      Whitefoot's <i>'Torments of Hell,'</i> now first translated from the
      French." [47:8]
    </p>
    <p>
      Of Holbach's remaining works on religion two, <i>Histoire critique de
      Jésus Christ</i> and <i>Tableau des Saints</i>, date from 1770 when he
      began to publish his more philosophical works.
    </p>
    <p>
      8. The <i>Histoire critique de Jésus Christ ou Analyse raisonnée des
      Evangiles</i> was published without name of place or date. It was preceded
      by Voltaire's <i>Epître à Uranie</i>. It is an extremely careful but
      unsympathetic analysis of the Gospel accounts, emphasizing all the
      inconsistencies and interpreting them with a literalness that they can ill
      sustain. From this rationalistic view-point Holbach found the Gospels a
      tissue of absurdities and contradictions. His method, however, would not
      be followed by the critique of today.
    </p>
    <p>
      9. The <i>Tableau des Saints</i> is a still more severe criticism of the
      heroes of Christendom. Holbach's proposition is "La raison ne connaît
      qu'une mesure pour juger et les hommes et les choses, c'est l'utilité
      réelle et permanente, qui en résulte pour notre espèce," (p. 111). Judged
      by this standard, the saints with their eyes fixed on another world have
      fallen far short. "Ils se flattèrent de mériter le ciel en se rendant
      parfaitement inutile à la terre" (p. xviii). Holbach much prefers the
      heroes of classical antiquity. The book is violent but learned throughout,
      and deals not only with the Jewish patriarchs from Moses on but with the
      church fathers and Christian Princes down to the contemporary defenders of
      the faith. After a rather one-sided account of the most dreary characters
      and events in Christian history, Holbach concludes: "Tel fut, tel est, et
      tel sera toujours l'esprit du Christianisme: il est aisé de sentir qu'il
      est incompatible avec les principes les plus évidens de la morale et de la
      saine politique" (p. 208).
    </p>
    <p>
      10. In <i>Recueil philosophique</i>, Londres (Amsterdam), 1770, edited by
      Naigeon. Réflexions sur les craintes de la Mort. Problème important&mdash;La
      Religion est-elle nécessaire à la morale et utile à la Politique. Par M.
      Mirabaud.
    </p>
    <p>
      11. <i>Essai sur les préjugés, ou De l'influence des opinions sur les
      moeurs et sur le bonheur des Hommes</i>. Londres (Amsterdam), 1770, under
      name of Dumarsais. The book pretended to be an elaboration of Dumarsais'
      essay on the <i>Philosophe</i> published in the <i>Nouvelles libertés de
      penser</i>, 1750.
    </p>
    <p>
      The special interest connected with it was the refutation Frederick the
      Great published under the title <i>Examen de l'Essai sur les préjugés</i>,
      Londres, Nourse, 1770 (16 mo). The King of Prussia writing from the point
      of view of a practical, enlightened despot, took special exception to
      Holbach's remarks on government. "Il l'outrage avec autant de grossièreté
      que d'indécence, il force le gouvernement de prendre fait et cause avec
      l'église pour s'opposer à l'ennemi commun. Mais, quand avec un acharnement
      violent et les traits de la plus âcre satire, il calomnie son Roi et le
      gouvernement de son pays, on le prend pour un frénétique echappé de ses
      chaînes, et livré aux transports les plus violens de sa rage. Quoi,
      Monsieur le philosophe, protecteur des moeurs et de la vertu, ignorez vous
      qu'un bon citoyen doit respecter la forme de gouvernement sous laquelle il
      vit, ignorez vous qu'il ne convient point à un particulier d'insulter les
      Puissances..." (p. 28).
    </p>
    <p>
      "Non content d'insulter à toutes les têtes couronnés de l'Europe, notre
      philosophe s'amuse, en passant, à répandre du ridicule sur les ouvrages de
      Hugo Grotius. J'oserais croire qu'il n'en sera pas cru sur sa parole, et
      que le <i>Droit de la guerre et de la paix</i> ira plus loin à la
      postérité que <i>l'Essai sur les préjugés</i>" (p. 39).
    </p>
    <p>
      Holbach in his anti-militaristic enthusiasm had used the words "bourreaux
      mercenaires"; "epithète élégante," continues Frederick, "dont il honore
      les guerriers. Mais souffrions nous qu'un cerveau brûlé insulte au plus
      noble emploi de la Societé?" (p.49). He goes on to defend war in good
      old-fashioned terms. "Vous déclamez contre la guerre, elle est funeste en
      elle-même; mais c'est un mal comme ces autres fléaux du ciel qu'il faut
      supposer nécessaires dans l'arrangement de cet univers parce qu'ils
      arrivent périodiquement et qu'aucun siècle n'a pu jusqu'à présent d'en
      avoir été exempt. J'ai prouvé que de tout temps l'erreur a dominé dans ce
      monde; et comme une chose aussi constante peut être envisagée comme une
      loi général de la nature, j'en conclus que ce qui a été toujours sera
      toujours le même" (p. 19).
    </p>
    <p>
      Frederick sent his little refutation to Voltaire for his compliments which
      were forthcoming. A few days after Voltaire wrote to d'Alembert:
    </p>
    <p>
      Le roi de Prusse vous a envoyé, sans doute, son petit écrit contre un
      livre imprimé cette année, intitulé <i>Essai sur les préjugés</i>, ce roi
      a aussi les siens, qu'il faut lui pardonner; on n'est pas roi pour rien.
      Mais je voudrais savoir quel est l'auteur de cet <i>Essai</i> contre
      lequel sa majesté prussienne s'amuse à écrire un peu durement. Serait-il
      de Diderot? serait-il de Damilaville? serait-il d'Helvetius? peut-être ne
      le connaissez-vous point, je le crois imprimé en Hollande (Vol. LXVI, p.
      304).
    </p>
    <p>
      D'Alembert answered:
    </p>
    <p>
      Oui, le roi de Prusse m'a envoyé son écrit contre <i>l'Essai sur les
      préjugés</i>. Je ne suis point étonné que ce prince n'ait pas goûté
      l'ouvrage; je l'ai lu depuis cette réfutation et il m'a paru bien long,
      bien monotone et trop amer. Il me semble que ce qu'il y de bon dans ce
      livre aurait pu et dû être noyé dans moins de pages et je vois que vous en
      avez porté à peu près le même jugement (Vol. LXVI, p. 324).
    </p>
    <p>
      In spite of these unfavorable judgments the <i>Essai</i> was reprinted as
      late as 1886 by the Bibliotheque Nationale in its <i>Collection des
      meilleurs auteurs anciens et modernes</i>, still attributed to Dumarsais
      with the account of his life by "le citoyen Daube" which graced the
      edition of the year I. (1792)
    </p>
    <p>
      12. Early in 1770 appeared Holbach's most famous book, the <i>Système de
      la Nature</i>, the only book that is connected with his name in the minds
      of most historians and philosophers. It seems wiser, however, to deal with
      this work in a chapter apart and continue the account of his later
      publications.
    </p>
    <p>
      13. The next of which was <i>Le bon-sens, ou idées naturelles opposées aux
      idées surnaturelles. Par l'Auteur du Système de la Nature</i>, Londres
      (Amsterdam), 1772. This work has gone through twenty-five editions or more
      and has been translated into English, German, Italian and Spanish. As
      early as 1791 it began to be published under the name of the curé Jean
      Meslier d'Etrépigny, made so famous by Voltaire's publication of what was
      supposed to be his last will and testament in which on his death bed he
      abjured and cursed Christianity. Some editions contain in the preface
      Letters by Voltaire and his sketch of Jean Meslier. The last reprint was
      by De Laurence, Scott &amp; Co., Chicago, 1910. The book is nothing more
      or less than the <i>Système de la Nature</i>, in a greatly reduced and
      more readable form.
    </p>
    <p>
      Voltaire, to whom it was attributed by some, said to d'Alembert, "Il y a
      plus que du bon sens dans ce livre, il est terrible. S'il sort de la
      boutique du <i>Système de la Nature</i>, l'auteur s'est bien
      perfectionné." D'Alembert answered: "Je pense comme vous sur le <i>Bon-sens</i>
      qui me paraît un bien plus terrible livre que le <i>Système de la Nature</i>."
      These remarks were inscribed by Thomas Jefferson on the title page of his
      copy of <i>Bon-sens</i>. The book has gone through several editions in the
      United States and was sold at a popular price. The German translation was
      published in Baltimore on the basis of a copy found in a second-hand book
      store in New Orleans. The most serious work written against it is a long
      and carefully written treatise against materialism by an Italian monk,
      Gardini, entitled <i>L'anima umana e sue proprietà dedotte da soli
      principi de ragione, dal P. lettore D. Antonmaria Gardini, monaco
      camaldalese, contro i materialisti e specialmente contro l'opera
      intitulata, le Bon-Sens, ou Idées Naturelles opposées aux idées
      Surnaturelles. In Padova MDCCLXXXI Nella stamperia del Seminario. Appresso
      Giovanni Manfré, Con Licenza de Superiori e Privilegio</i> (8vo, p. xx +
      284).
    </p>
    <p>
      14. In 1773 Holbach published his <i>Recherches sur les Miracles</i>, a
      much more sober work than his previous writings on religion. In this book
      he raises the well known difficulties with belief in miracles and brings a
      great deal of real learning and logic to bear on the question. The entire
      work is in a reasonable and philosophic spirit. His conclusion is that
      "une vraie religion doit avoir au défaut de bonnes raisons, des preuves
      sensibles, capables de faire impression sur tout ceux qui la cherchent de
      bonne foi. Ce ne sont pas les miracles." The same year he published two
      serious but somewhat tiresome works on politics.
    </p>
    <p>
      15. <i>La politique naturelle</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      16. <i>Système social</i> in which he attempts to reduce government to the
      naturalistic principles which were the basis of his entire philosophy. The
      first is also attributed to Malesherbes. There is a long and keen
      criticism of the <i>Système Social</i> by Mme. d'Epinay in a letter to
      Abbé Galiani Jan. 12, 1773 (Gal. <i>Corresp.</i>, Vol. II, p. 167).
    </p>
    <p>
      But the most interesting reaction upon it was that of the Abbé Richard who
      criticized it from point of view of the divine right of kings in his long
      and tiresome work entitled <i>La Défense de la religion, de la morale, de
      la vertu, de la politique et de la société, dans la réfutation des
      ouvrages qui ont pour titre, l'un Système Social etc. Vautre La Politique
      Naturelle par le R. P. Ch. L. Richard, Professeur de Théologie</i>, etc.,
      Paris, Moulard, 1775.
    </p>
    <p>
      In a preface of forty-seven pages the fears of the conservative old Abbé
      are well expressed. The aim of these modern philosophers who are poisoning
      public opinion by their writings is to "démolir avec l'antique édifice de
      la religion chrétienne, celui des moeurs, de la vertu, de la saine
      politique etc. rompre tous les canaux de communication entre la terre et
      le ciel, bannir, exterminer du monde le Dieu qui le tira du néant, y
      introduire l'impiété la plus complète, la licence la plus consomnée,
      l'anarchie la plus entière, la confusion la plus horrible."
    </p>
    <p>
      17. Holbach's next work, <i>Ethocratie ou Gouvernement fondé sur la Morale</i>,
      Amsterdam, Rey, 1776, is interesting mainly for its unfortunate dedication
      and peroration, inscribed to Louis XVI, who was hailed therein as a long
      expected Messiah.
    </p>
    <p>
      18. Holbach's last works dealt exclusively with morals. They are <i>La
      morale universelle ou les devoirs de l'homme fondés sur la nature</i>,
      Amsterdam, 1771, and
    </p>
    <p>
      19. A posthumous work, <i>Elements de la Morale universelle, ou catechisme
      de la nature</i>, Paris, 1790. This is a beautiful little book. It is
      simple and clear to the last degree. There have been several translations
      in Spanish for the purposes of elementary education in morals in the
      public schools. It was composed in 1765. Holbach's attitude towards morals
      is indicated by his <i>Avertissement</i>&mdash;"La morale est une science
      dont les principes sont susceptibles d'une démonstration aussi claire et
      aussi rigoureuse que ceux du calcul et de la géometrie."
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER III. THE SYSTÈME DE LA NATURE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Early in 1770 appeared the famous <i>Système de la Nature, ou Des Loix du
      Monde Physique et du Monde Morale, Par M. Mirabaud, Secrétaire Perpétuel
      et l'un des Quarante de l'Académie Française</i>, Londres (Amsterdam),
      1770. This work has gone through over thirty editions in France, Spain,
      Germany, England and the United States. No book of a philosophic or
      scientific character has ever caused such a sensation at the time of its
      publication, excepting perhaps Darwin's <i>Origin of Species</i>, the
      thesis of which is more than hinted at by Holbach. There were several
      editions in 1770. A very few copies contain a <i>Discours préliminaire de
      l'Auteur</i> of sixteen pages which Naigeon had printed separately in
      London. The <i>Abrégé du Code de la Nature</i>, which ends the book was
      also published separately and is sometimes attributed to Diderot, 8vo, 16
      pp. [54:1]
    </p>
    <p>
      There is also a book entitled <i>Le vrai sens du Système de la Nature</i>,
      1774, attributed to Helvetius, a very clear, concise epitome largely in
      Holbach's own short and telling sentences, and much more effective than
      the original because of its brevity. Holbach himself reproduced the <i>Système
      de la Nature</i> in a shortened form in <i>Bon-sens</i>, 1772, and Payrard
      plagiarized it freely in <i>De la Nature et de ses Lois</i>, Paris, 1773.
      The book has been attributed to Diderot, Helvetius, Robinet, Damilaville
      and others. Naigeon is certain that it is entirely by Holbach, although it
      is generally held that Diderot had a hand in it. It was published under
      the name of Mirabaud to obviate persecution. The manuscript, it was
      alleged, had been found among his papers as a sort of "testament" or
      philosophical legacy to posterity. This work may be called the bible of
      scientific materialism and dogmatic atheism. Nothing before or since has
      ever approached it in its open and unequivocal insistence on points of
      view commonly held, if at all, with reluctance and reserve. It is
      impossible in a study of this length to deal fully with the attacks and
      refutations that were published immediately. We may mention first the
      condemnation of the book by the <i>Parlement de Paris</i>, August 18,
      1770, to be burned by the public hangman along with Voltaire's <i>Dieu et
      les Hommes</i>, and Holbach's <i>Discours sur les Miracles</i>, <i>La
      Contagion sacrée</i> and <i>le Christianisme dévoilé</i>, which had
      already been condemned on September 24, 1769. [55:2]
    </p>
    <p>
      The <i>Réquisitoire</i> of Seguier, <i>avocat général</i>, on the occasion
      of the condemnation of the <i>Système de la Nature</i> was so weak and
      ridiculous that the <i>Parlement de Paris</i> refused to sanction its
      publication, and it was printed by the express order of the King. As Grimm
      observed, it seemed designed solely to acquaint the ignorant with this
      dangerous work, without opposing any of its propositions. One would look
      in vain for a better example of the conservatism of the legal profession.
      [55:3]
    </p>
    <p>
      Le poison des nouveautés profanes ne peut corrompre la sainte gravité des
      moeurs qui caractérise les vrais Magistrats: tout peut changer autour
      d'eux, <i>ils restent immuables avec la loi</i> (page 496).
    </p>
    <p>
      N'est-ce pas ce fatal abus de la liberté de penser, qui a enfanté cette
      multitude de sectes, d'opinions, de partis, et cet esprit d'indépendance
      dont d'autres nations ont éprouvé les sinstres révolutions. Le même abus
      produira en France des effets peut-être plus funestes. La liberté
      indéfinie trouveroit, dans la caractère de la nation, dans son activité,
      dans son amour pour la nouveauté, un moyen de plus pour préparer les plus
      affreuses révolutions (p. 498).
    </p>
    <p>
      The most interesting private attacks on the <i>Système de la Nature</i>
      came from two somewhat unexpected quarters, from Ferney and Sans Souci.
      Voltaire, as usual, was not wholly consistent in his opinions of it, as is
      revealed in his countless letters on the subject. Grimm attributed his
      hostility to jealousy, and the fear that the <i>Système de la Nature</i>
      might "renverse le rituel de Ferney et que le patriarcat ne s'en aille au
      diable avec lui." [56:4] George Leroy went so far as to write a book
      entitled <i>Réflexions sur la jalousie, pour servir de commentaire aux
      derniers ouvrages de M. de Voltaire</i>, 1772. Frederick II naturally felt
      bound to defend the kings who, as Voltaire said, were no better treated
      than God in the <i>Système de la Nature</i>. [56:5]
    </p>
    <p>
      Voltaire's correspondence during this period is so interesting that it
      seems worth while to quote at length, especially from his letters to
      Fredrick the Great. In May 1770, shortly after the publication of the <i>Système
      de la Nature</i> Voltaire wrote to M. Vernes: [56:6] "On a tant dit de
      sottises sur la nature que je ne lis plus aucun de ces livres là." But by
      July he had read it and wrote to Grimm: [56:7] "Si l'ouvrage eut été plus
      serré il aurait fait un effet terrible, mais tel qu'il est il en a fait
      beaucoup. Il est bien plus éloquent que Spinoza... J'ai une grande
      curiosité de savoir ce qu'on en pense à Paris." In writing to d'Alembert
      about this time he seemed to have a fairly favorable impression of the
      book. "Il m'a paru qu'il y avait des longueurs, des répétitions et
      quelques inconséquences, mais il y a trop de bon pour qu'on n'éclate avec
      fureur contre ce livre. Si on garde le silence, ce sera une preuve du
      prodigieux progrès que la tolérance fait tous les jours." [57:8] But there
      was little likelihood that philosophers or theologians would keep silent
      about this scandalous book. Before the end of the month Voltaire was
      writing to d'Alembert about his own and the king of Prussia's refutations
      of it, and the same day wrote to Frederick: "Il me semble que vos
      remarques doivent être imprimées; ce sont des leçons pour le genre humain.
      Vous soutenez d'un bras la cause de Dieu et vous écrasez de l'autre la
      superstition." [57:9] Later Voltaire confessed to Frederick that he also
      had undertaken to rebuke the author of the Système de la Nature. "Ainsi
      Dieu a pour lui les deux hommes les moins superstitieux de l'Europe, ce
      que devrait lui plaire beaucoup" (p. 390).
    </p>
    <p>
      Frederick, however, hesitated to make his refutation public, and wrote to
      Voltaire: "Lorsque j'eus achevé mon ouvrage contre l'athéisme, je crus ma
      réfutation très orthodoxe, je la relus, et je la trouvai bien éloignée de
      l'être. Il y a des endroits qui ne saurait paraître sans effaroucher les
      timides et scandaliser les dévots. Un petit mot qui m'est échappé sur
      l'éternité du monde me ferait lapider dans votre patrie, si j'y étais né
      particulier, et que je l'eusse fait imprimer. Je sens que je n'ai point du
      tout ni l'âme ni le style théologique." [57:10] Voltaire, in his "petite
      drôlerie en faveur de la Divinité" (as he called his work) and in his
      letters, could not find terms harsh enough in which to condemn the <i>Système
      de la Nature</i>. He called it "un chaos, un grand mal moral, un ouvrage
      de ténèbres, un péché contre la nature, un système de la folie et de
      l'ignorance," and wrote to Delisle de Sales: "Je ne vois pas que rien ait
      plus avili notre siècle que cette énorme sottise." [58:11] Voltaire seemed
      to grow more bitter about Holbach's book as time went on. His letters and
      various works abound in references to it, and it is difficult to determine
      his motives. He was accused, as has been suggested, by Holbach's circle
      "de caresser les gens en place, et d'abandonner ceux qui n'y sont plus."
      [58:12] M. Avenel believed that he suspected Holbach himself of making
      these accusations. Voltaire's letter to the Duc de Richelieu, Nov. 1,
      1770, [58:13] seems to give them foundation.
    </p>
    <p>
      A very different reaction was that of Goethe and his university circle at
      Strasburg to whom the <i>Système de la Nature</i> appeared a harmless and
      uninteresting book, "grau," "cimmerisch," "totenhaft," "die echte
      Quintessenz der Greisenheit." To these fervent young men in the youthful
      flush of romanticism, its sad, atheistic twilight seemed to cast a veil
      over the beauty of the earth and rob the heaven of stars; and they
      lightheardedly discredited both Holbach and Voltaire in favor of
      Shakespeare and the English romantic school. One would look far for a
      better instance of the romantic reaction which set in so soon and so
      obscured the clarity of the issues at stake in the eighteenth century
      thought. [58:14]
    </p>
    <p>
      The leading refutations directed explicitly against the <i>Système de la
      Nature</i> are:
    </p>
    <p>
      1. 1770, Rive, Abbé J. J., Lettres philosophiques contre le <i> Système de
      la Nature</i>. (Portefeuille hebdomadaire de Bruxelles.)
    </p>
    <p>
      2. Frederick II, <i>Examen critique du livre intitulé, Système de la
      Nature</i>. (Political Miscellanies, p. 175.)
    </p>
    <p>
      3. Voltaire, Dieu, Réponse de M. de Voltaire au <i>Système de la Nature</i>.
      Au château de Ferney, 1770, 8 vo, pp. 34.
    </p>
    <p>
      4. 1771, Bergier, Abbé N. F., Examen du matérialisme, ou Réfutation du <i>Système
      de la Nature</i>. Paris, Humbolt, 1771, 2 vols., 12mo.
    </p>
    <p>
      5. Camuset, Abbé J. N., Principes contre l'incrédulité, a l'occasion du <i>Système
      de la Nature</i>. Paris, Pillot, 1771, 12mo, pp. viii + 335.
    </p>
    <p>
      6. Castillon, J. de (Salvernini di Castiglione), Observations sur le livre
      intitulé, <i>Système de la Nature</i>. Berlin, Decker, 1771, 8vo. (40 sols
      broché.)
    </p>
    <p>
      7. Rochford, Dubois de, Pensées diverses contre le système des
      matérialistes, à l'occasion d'un écrit intitulé; <i>Système de la Nature</i>.
      Paris, Lambert, 1771, 12mo.
    </p>
    <p>
      8. 1773, L'Impie démasqué, ou remontrance aux écrivains incrédules.
      Londres, Heydinger, 1773
    </p>
    <p>
      9. Holland, J. H., Réflexions philosophiques sur le <i>Système de la
      Nature</i>. Paris, 1773, 2 vols., 8vo.
    </p>
    <p>
      10. 1776, Buzonnière, Nouel de, Observations sur un ouvrage intitulé le <i>Système
      de la Nature</i>. Paris, Debure, père, 1776, 8vo, pp. 126. (Prix 1 livre,
      16 sols broché.)
    </p>
    <p>
      11. 1780, Fangouse, Abbé, La religion prouvée aux incrédules, avec une
      lettre à l'auteur du <i>Système de la Nature</i> par un homme du monde.
      Paris, Debure l'aîné, 12mo, p. 150. Same under title Réflexions
      importantes sur la religion, etc., 1785.
    </p>
    <p>
      12. 1788, Paulian, A. J., Le véritable système de la nature, etc.,
      Avignon, Niel, 2 vols., 12mo.
    </p>
    <p>
      13. 1803, Mangold, F. X. von, Unumstossliche Widerlegung des Materialismus
      gegen den Verfasser des <i>Systems der Natur</i>. Augsburg, 1803.
    </p>
    <p>
      Of these and other refutations of materialism such as Saint-Martin's <i>Des
      erreurs et de la vérité</i>, Dupont de Nemours' <i>Philosophie de
      l'univers</i>, Delisles de Sales' <i>Philosophie de la nature</i>, etc.,
      which are not directed explicitly against the <i>Système de la Nature</i>,
      the works of Voltaire and Frederick the Great are the most interesting but
      by no means the most serious or convincing. Morley finds Voltaire very
      weak and much beside the point, especially in his discussion of order and
      disorder in nature which Holbach had denied. Voltaire's argument is that
      there must be an intelligent motor or cause behind nature (p. 7). This is
      God (p. 8). He admits at the outset that all systems are mere dreams but
      he continues to insist with a dogmatism equal to Holbach's on the validity
      of his dream. He repeatedly asserts without foundation that Holbach's
      system is based on the false experiment of Needham (pp. 5, 6), and even
      goes so far as to ridicule the evolutionary hypothesis altogether (p. 6).
      He speaks of the necessity of a belief in God, by a kind of natural logic.
      God and matter exist in the nature of things, "Tout nous announce un Être
      suprême, rien ne nous dit ce qu'il est." God himself seems to be a kind of
      fatalistic necessity. "C'est ce que vous appellerez Nature et c'est ce que
      j'appelle Dieu." At the end he shifts the argument from the base of
      necessity to that of utility. Which is the more consoling doctrine? If the
      idea of God has prevented ten crimes I hold that the entire world should
      embrace it (p. 27). As Morley has said, such arguments could scarcely have
      convinced Voltaire himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      Frederick was surprised that Voltaire and D'Alembert had found anything
      good in the book. His refutation was more methodical than that of
      Voltaire, who called it a "homage to the Divinity" but wrote to D'Alembert
      that it was written in the style of a notary. Two other refutations
      emanating from the Academy of Berlin were those of Castillon and Holland.
      The first of these is a very heavy and learned work, formidable and
      forbidding in its logic. Castillon reduces Holbach's propositions to
      three. The self-existence of matter, the essential relation of movement to
      it, and the possibility of deriving everything from it or some mode of it.
      Castillon concludes after five hundred pages of reasoning that matter is
      contingent, movement not inherent in it, and that purely spiritual beings
      exist in independence of it. Hence the <i>Système de la Nature</i> is a
      "long and wicked error." Holland's is a still more serious work, which the
      Sorbonne recommended strongly as an antidote against Holbach's <i>Système</i>
      which it qualified as "une malheureuse production que notre siècle doit
      rougir d'avoir enfantée." But when it was discovered that Holland was a
      Protestant his work was condemned forthwith, Jan. 17, 1773.
    </p>
    <p>
      Bergier's refutation is interesting as an attack from a churchman of
      extraordinary keenness and insight into the progress of the new
      philosophy. In the <i>Système de la Nature</i> he recognized the hand of
      the author of <i>La Contagion sacrée</i> and the <i>Essai sur les préjugés</i>
      and dealt with it as he did the <i>Christianisme dévoilé</i>. Buzonniere,
      Rochfort and Fangouse are milder and more naive in their demonstrations
      and their works are of no weight or interest. <i>L'Impie démasqué</i> is a
      brutal work which qualifies Holbach as a "vile apostle of vice and crime,"
      and the <i>Système de la Nature</i> as the most impudent treatise on
      atheism that has yet dishonored the globe&mdash;one which covers the
      century with shame and will be the scandal of future generations.
    </p>
    <p>
      The work of Paulian is of a different sort. Coming comparatively late, it
      attempted to review the hostile opinions of many years and then mass them
      in an overwhelming final attack on the <i>Système de la Nature</i>. To
      this end Paulian rewrites the entire book chapter by chapter, giving the
      "true version." He then reviews Holland's outline and Bergier's comments,
      together with seven articles directed explicitly against the <i>Système de
      la Nature</i> in such works as the <i>Lettres Helviennes</i>, of Abbé
      Barruel, <i>Dict. des Philosophes</i>, <i>Dict. anti-philosophe</i>, his
      own <i>Dict. théologique</i>, etc., besides many other writings against
      the new philosophy in general. He then reviews articles by members of the
      philosophic school against materialism and then goes back to Holbach's
      sources, Diderot, Bayle, Spinoza, Lucretius, Epicurus, etc. The work is
      not scholarly but comprehensive and evidently discouraged further formal
      refutations.
    </p>
    <p>
      The <i>Système de la Nature</i> had many critics in the stormy days that
      followed 1789. Delisle de Sales found it a monstrosity&mdash;a <i>fratras</i>;
      La Harpe called it an infamous book, "un amas de bêtises qu'on ose appeler
      philosophie, inconcevables inepties, un immense échafaudage de mensonge et
      d'invective"; M. Villemain is much more calm and fair; Lord Brougham, like
      Damiron, Buzonnière, and many others, found it seductive but full of false
      reasoning; Lerminier was so severe that St.-Beuve was moved to defend
      Holbach against him. Samuel Wilkinson, the English translator of 1820, is
      one of the few whose criticism is at all favorable. Holbach has always
      appealed to a certain type of radical mind and his translators and editors
      have generally been men who were often over-enthusiastic. For example, Mr.
      Wilkinson says of the <i>Système de la Nature</i>, [64:15] "No work,
      ancient or modern, has surpassed it in the eloquence and sublimity of its
      language or in the facility with which it treats the most abstruse and
      difficult subjects. It is without exception the boldest effort the human
      mind has yet produced in the investigation of Morals and Theology. The
      republic of letters has never produced another author whose pen was so
      well calculated to emancipate mankind from all those trammels with which
      the nurse, the school master, and the priest have successively locked up
      their noblest faculties, before they were capable of reasoning and judging
      for themselves."
    </p>
    <p>
      It seems unnecessary to analyze the <i>Système de la Nature</i>. This has
      been done by Damiron, Soury, Fabre, Lange, Morley, the historians of
      philosophy, and encyclopaedists; and the book itself is easily available
      in the larger libraries. The substance of Holbach's philosophy is
      susceptible of clearer treatment apart from it or any one of his books,
      although it permeates all of them.
    </p>
    <p>
      M. Jules Soury has said, in describing a certain type of mind: "Il est
      d'heureux esprits, des âmes fortes et saines, que n'effraie point le
      silence éternel des espaces infinis où s'anéantissait la raison de Pascal.
      Naïves et robustes natures, mâles et vigoureux penseurs, qui gardent toute
      la vie quelque chose des dons charmants de la jeunesse et de l'enfance
      même, une foi vive dans le témoinage immédiat de nos sens et de notre
      conscience, une humeur alerte, toute de joyeuse ardeur, et comme une
      intrépidité d'esprit que rien n'arrête. Pour eux tout est clair et uni; ou
      à peu près, et là où ils soupçonnent quelque bas-bond insondable, ils se
      détournent et poursuivent fièrement leur chemin. Comme cet Epicurien dont
      parle Cicéron au commencement du <i>De natura deorum</i>, ils ont toujours
      l'air de sortir de l'assemblée des dieux et de descendre des intermondes
      d'Epicure."
    </p>
    <p>
      Such was Holbach. His philosophy is based on the child-like assumption
      that things are as they seem, provided they are observed with sufficient
      care by a sufficient number of people. This brings us at once to the very
      heart of Holbach's method which was experimental and inductive to the last
      degree. Holbach was nourished on what might be called scientific rather
      than philosophical traditions. As M. Tourneux has pointed out, he had been
      a serious student of the natural sciences, especially those connected with
      the constitution of the earth. These studies led him to see the disparity
      between certain accepted and traditional cosmologies and a scientific
      interpretation of the terrestrial globe and the forms of life which
      flourish upon it. Finding the supposed sacred and infallible records
      untrustworthy in one regard, he began to question their veracity at other
      points. Being of a critical frame of mind, he took the records rather more
      literally than a sympathetic, allegorical apologist would have done,
      although it cannot be said that he used much historical insight. After
      having studied the sacred texts for purposes of writing or having
      translated other men's studies on Moses, David, the Prophets, Jesus, Paul,
      the Christian theologians and saints, miracles, etc., he concluded that
      these accounts were untrustworthy and mendacious. He knew ancient and
      modern philosophy and found in the greater part of it an unwarranted
      romantic or theological trend which his scientific training had caused him
      to suspect. It must be admitted that however false or illogical Holbach's
      conclusions may be considered, he was by no means ignorant of the subjects
      he chose to treat, as some of his detractors would have one believe. His
      theory of knowledge was that of Locke and Condillac, and on this
      foundation he built up his system of scientific naturalism and dogmatic
      atheism.
    </p>
    <p>
      His initial assumption is, as has been suggested, that experience
      (application réitérée des sens) and reason are trustworthy guides to
      knowledge. By them we become conscious of an external objective world, of
      which sentient beings themselves are a part, from which they receive
      impressions through their sense organs. These myriad impressions when
      compared and reflected upon form reasoned knowledge or truth, provided
      they are substantiated by repeated experiences carefully made. That is, an
      idea is said to be true when it conforms perfectly with the actual
      external object. This is possible unless one's senses are defective, or
      one's judgment vitiated by emotion and passion.
    </p>
    <p>
      Holbach's contention is that if one applies experience and reason to the
      external universe, or nature, "ce vaste assemblage de tout ce qui existe";
      it reveals a <i>single objective reality</i>, i. e., <i>matter</i>, which
      is in itself essentially active or in a state of motion.
    </p>
    <p>
      From matter in motion are derived all the phenomena that strike our
      senses. All is matter or a function of it. Matter, then, is not an effect,
      but a cause. It is not caused; it is from eternity and of necessity. The
      cardinal point in Holbach's philosophy is an inexorable materialistic
      necessity. Nothing, then, is exempt from the laws of physics and
      chemistry. Inorganic substance and organic life fall into the same
      category. Man himself with all his differentiated faculties is but a
      function of matter and motion in extraordinary complex and involved
      relations. Man's imputation to himself of free will and unending
      consciousness apart from his machine is an idle tale built on his desires,
      not on his experiences nor his knowledge of nature. This imputation of a
      will or soul to nature, independent of it or in any sense above it, is a
      still more idle one derived from his renunciation of the witness of his
      senses and his following after the phantoms of his imagination. It is
      ignorance or disregard of nature then that has given rise to supernatural
      ideas that have "no correspondence with true sight," or, as Holbach
      expressed it, have no counterpart in the external object. In other words,
      theology, or poetry about God, as Petrarch said, is ignorance of natural
      causes reduced to a system.
    </p>
    <p>
      Man is a purely natural or physical being, like a tree or a stone. His
      so-called spiritual nature (l'homme moral) is merely a phase of his
      physical nature considered under a special aspect. He is all matter in
      motion, and when that ceases to function in a particular way, called life,
      he ceases to be as a conscious entity. He is so organized, however that
      his chief desires are to survive and render his existence happy. By
      happiness Holbach means the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain.
      In all his activity, then, man will seek pleasure and avoid pain. The
      chief cause of man's misery or lack of well being is his ignorance of the
      powers and possibilities of his own nature and the Universal Nature. All
      he needs is to ascertain his place in nature and adjust himself to it.
      From the beginning of his career he has been the dupe of false ideas,
      especially those connected with supernatural powers, on whom he supposed
      he was dependent. But, if ignorance of nature gave birth to the Gods,
      knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them and the evils resulting
      from them, the introduction of theistic ideas into politics and morals. In
      a word, the truth, that is, <i>correct ideas of nature</i> is the one
      thing needful to the happiness and well-being of man.
    </p>
    <p>
      The application of these principles to the given situation in France in
      1770 would obviously have produced unwelcome results. Holbach's theory was
      that religion was worse than useless in that it had inculcated false and
      pernicious ideas in politics and morals. He would do away completely with
      it in the interest of putting these sciences on a natural basis. This
      basis is self-interest, or man's inevitable inclination toward survival
      and the highest degree of well-being, "L'objet de la morale est de faire
      connaître aux hommes que leur plus grand intérêt exige qu'ils pratiquent
      la vertu; le but du gouvernement doit être de la leur faire pratiquer."
    </p>
    <p>
      Government then assumes the functions of moral restraint formally
      delegated to religion; and punishments render virtue attractive and vice
      repugnant. Holbach's theory of social organization is practically that of
      Aristotle. Men combine in order to increase the store of individual
      well-being, to live the good life. If those to whom society has delegated
      sovereignty abuse their power, society has the right to take it from them.
      Sovereignty is merely an agent for the diffusion of truth and the
      maintenance of virtue, which are the prerequisites of social and
      individual well-being. The technique of progress is enlightenment and good
      laws.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nothing could be clearer or simpler than Holbach's system. As Diderot so
      truly said, he will not be quoted on both sides of any question. His
      uncompromising atheism is the very heart and core of his system and
      clarifies the whole situation. All supernatural ideas are to be abandoned.
      Experience and reason are once for all made supreme, and henceforth refuse
      to share their throne or abdicate in favor of faith. Holbach's aim was as
      he said to bring man back to nature and render reason dear to him. "Il est
      tempts que cette raison injustement dégradée quitte un ton pusillamine qui
      la rendront complice du mensonge et du délire."
    </p>
    <p>
      If reason is to rule, the usurper, religion, must be ejected; hence
      atheism was fundamental to his entire system. He did not suppose by any
      means that it would become a popular faith, because it presupposed too
      much learning and reflection, but it seemed to him the necessary weapon of
      a reforming party at that time. He defines an atheist as follows: "C'est
      un homme, qui détruit des chimères nuisibles au genre humain, pour ramener
      les hommes à la nature, à l'expérience, à la raison. C'est un penseur qui,
      ayant médité la matière, ses propriétés et ses façons d'agir, n'a pas
      besoin, pour expliquer les phénomènes de l'univers et les opérations de la
      nature, d'imaginer des puissances idéales, des intelligences imaginaires,
      des êtres de raison; qui loin de faire mieux connaître cette nature, ne
      font que la rendre capricieuse, inexplicable, et méconnaissable, inutile
      au bonheur des hommes."
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_APPE" id="link2H_APPE">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      APPENDIX
    </h2>
    <h3>
      HOLBACH'S CORRESPONDENCE
    </h3>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 The following letters of Holbach are extant:

 Holbach to Hume, Aug. 23, 1763.
 Holbach to Hume, Mar. 16, 1766.
 Holbach to Hume, July 7, 1766.
 Holbach to Hume, Aug. 18, 1766.
 Holbach to Hume, Sept. 7, 1766.

 These were printed in Hume's <i>Private Correspondence</i>, London, 1820,
 pp. 252-263, and deal largely with Hume's quarrel with Rousseau.

 Holbach to Garrick, June 16, 1765.
 Holbach to Garrick, Feb. 9, 1766.

 These two letters are in manuscript in Lansdowne House,
 Coll. Forster, and were published by F. A. Hedgcock,
 <i>David Garrick et ses amis français</i>. Paris, 1911, pp. 251-253.

 Holbach to Wilkes, Aug., 1746, 9 (Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30867, p. 14).
 Holbach to Wilkes, Dec. 10, 1746 (Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30867, p. 18).
 Holbach to Wilkes, May 22, 1766 (Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30869, p. 39)
 Holbach to Wilkes, Nov. 9, 1766 (Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30869, p. 81).
 Holbach to Wilkes, Dec. 10, 1767 (Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30869, p. 173).
 Holbach to Wilkes, July 17, 1768 (Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30870, p. 59).
 Holbach to Wilkes, Mar. 19, 1770 (Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30871, p. 16).
 Holbach to Wilkes, April 27, 1775, 9 (Wilkes, <i>Correspondence</i>,
  London, 1804, Vol. IV, p. 176).

 The first seven of these letters are published for the first time
 in the present volume, pp. 6-11 and pp. 75-80.

 Holbach to Galiani, Aug. 11, 1769 (<i>Critica</i>, Vol. I, pp. 488 sq.).

 Galiani to Holbach, April 7, 1770 (Galiani, <i>Correspondence</i>, Paris,
 1890, Vol. I, p. 92).

 Galiani to Holbach, July 21, 1770 (Galiani, <i>Correspondence</i>, Paris,
 1890, Vol. I, p. 199).

 Holbach to Galiani, Aug. 25, 1770 (<i>Critica</i>, Vol. I, p. 489).
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 There are references to other letters in <i>Critica</i> which I have not
 been able to find.

 Holbach to Beccaria, Mar. 15, 1767, published by M. Landry
 <i>Beccaria, Scritte e lettre inediti</i>, 1910, p. 146.

 Holbach to Malesherbes, April 6, 1761 (hitherto unpublished). See
 present volume, p. 30.
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 HOLBACH TO HUME
 (Hume, Private Correspondence, London, 1820, pp. 252-263)
 PARIS, the 23rd. of August, 1763

 <i>Sir,</i>&mdash;

 I have received with the deepest sense of gratitude your very kind
 and obliging letter of the 8th. inst: favors of great men ought to
 give pride to those that have at least the merit of setting the value
 that is due upon them.  This is my case with you, sir; the reading
 of your valuable works has not only inspired me with the strongest
 admiration for your genius and amiable parts, but gave me the highest
 idea of your person and the strongest desire of getting acquainted
 with one of the greatest philosophers of my age, and of the best friend
 to mankind.  These sentiments have emboldened me to send formally,
 though unknown to you, the work you are mentioning to me.  I thought
 you were the best to judge of such a performance, and I took only
 the liberty of giving a hint of my desires, in case it should meet
 with your approbation, nor was I surprized, or presumed to be
 displeased, at seeing my wishes disappointed.  The reasons appeared
 very obvious to me; not withstanding the British liberty, I conceived
 there were limits even to it.  However, my late friend's book has
 appeared since and there is even an edition of it lately done in
 England: I believe it will be relished by the friends of truth,
 who like to see vulgar errors struck at the root.  This has been
 your continued task, sir; and you deserve for it the praises of all
 sincere wellwishers of humanity: give me leave to rank myself among
 them, and express to you, by this opportunity you have been so kind
 as to give me, the fervent desire we have to see you in this country.
 Messrs. Stuart, Dempster, Fordyce, who are so good as to favor me
 with their company, have given me some hopes of seeing you in this
 metropolis, where you have so many admirers as readers, and as many
 sincere friends as there are disciples of philosophy.  I don't doubt
 but my good friend M. Helvétius will join in our wishes, and prevail
 upon you to come over.  I assure you, sir, you won't perceive much
 the change of the country, for all countries are alike for people that
 have the same minds.

 I am, with the greatest veneration and esteem, sir, your most
 obedient and most humble servant.
  D'HOLBACH.
  Rue Royale, butte St. Roch, à Paris.
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 HOLBACH To GARRICK
 (Coll. Forster, Vol. XXI; pub., Hedgcock, p. 253)
 PARIS, Feb ye 9th, 1766.

 I received, my very Dear Sir, with a great deal of pleasure, your
 agreeable letter of ye 24th of January, but was very sorry to hear
 that you are inlisted in the numerous troup of <i>gouty</i> people.  Tho'
 I have myself the honour of being of that tribe I dont desire my
 friends should enter into the same corporation.  I am particularly
 griev'd to see you among the invalids for you have, more than any
 other, occasion for the free use of your limbs.  However, don't be
 cross and peevish for that would be only increasing you distemper;
 and I charge you especially of not scolding that admirable lady
 Mrs Garrick, whose sweetness of temper and care must be a great
 comfort in your circumstances.  I beg leave to present her with my
 respects and ye compliments of my wife, that has enjoyed but an
 indifferent state of health, owing to the severity of the winter.
 Mr and Made Helvetius desire you both their best wishes and so do
 all your friends, for whom I can answer that every one of them
 keeps a kind remembrance of your valuable persons.  Dr. Gem thinks
 you'll do very well to go to Bath, but his opinion is that a thin
 diet would be more serviceable to you than anything else; believe
 he is in the right.  Abbé Morellet pays many thanks for the answers
 to his queries, but complains of their shortness and laconism;
 however it is not your fault.  He is glad to hear you have receiv'd
 his translation of Beccaria's book, <i>Des délits et des peines</i> and
 the compliments of our friend Dr Gatti to whom I gave your direction
 before he went to London.  Our friend Suard has entered his neck into
 the matrimonial halter; we are all of us very sorry for it for we know
 that nothing combin'd with love, will at last make nothing at all.

 I was not much surpris'd at the particulars you are pleas'd to mention
 about Rousseau.  According to the thorough knowledge I have had of
 him I look on that man as a mere philosophical quack, full of
 affectation, of pride, of oddities and even villainies; the work he
 is going to publish justifies the last imputation.  Is his memory so
 short as to forget that Mr Grimm, for those 9 years past, has taken
 care of the mother of his wench or <i>gouvernante</i> whom he left to starve
 here after having debauch'd her daughter and having got her 3 or 4
 times with child.  That great philosopher should remember that
 Mr. Grimm has in his hands letters under his own hand-writing that
 prove him the most ungrateful dogg in the world.  During his last
 stay in Paris he made some attempts to see Mr Diderot, and being
 refused that favor, he pretended that Diderot endeavoured to see
 him, but that himself had refused peremptorily to comply with his
 request.  I hope these particulars will suffice to let you know what
 you are to think of that illustrious man.  I send you here a copy of
 a letter supposed to come from the King of Prussia, but done by
 Mr Horace Walpole, whereby you'll see that gentleman has found out
 his true character.  But enough of that rascal who deserves not to be
 in Mr Hume's company but rather among the bears, if there are any in
 the mountains of Wales.

 I am surprized you have not receiv'd yet the <i>Encyclopédie</i>, for a
 great number of copies have been sent over already to England unless
 you have left your subscription here, where hitherto not one copy has
 been delivered for prudent reasons.

 We have had in the French Comedy a new play called <i>Le Philosophie sans
 le savoir</i> done and acted in a new stile, quite natural and moving: it
 has a prodigious success and deserves it extremely well.  Marmontel
 will give us very soon upon the Italian stage his comical opera of
 <i>La Bergère des Alpes</i>.  I hope it will prove very agreeable to the
 Publick, having been very much delighted by the rehearsal of it; the
 music was done by Mr Cohaut who teaches my wife to play on the luth.
 We expect a tragedy of the Dutch Barnvelt.

 Mr Wilkes is still in this town, where he intends to stay until you
 give him leave to return to his native country.  We have had the
 pleasure of seeing Mr Chanquion, your friend, who seems to be a very
 discerning gentleman and to whom in favor of your friendship I have
 shown all the politeness I could.  I hear that Sr James Macdonald has
 been ill at Parma, but is now recovered and in Rome.  Abbé Galliani is
 still at Naples and stands a fair chance of being employ'd in the
 ministry there.

 Adieu, very dear Sir and remember your affectionate friend
  D'HOLBACH
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 HOLBACH TO WILKES
 (Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30869, p. 39)
 PARIS the 22d Of May (1766)

 <i>My dear Sir</i>

 I am extremely glad to know your lucky passage and happy arrival
 in your native country.  I hope you know too well the sincere
 dispositions of my heart as to doubt of the friendship I have
 vowed to you for life; it has been of too long a duration to be
 shaken by any circumstances, and especially by those that do honor
 to you.  I shall be very happy if your affairs (that seem to be in
 a fair way) permit you to drop over very soon to spend some time
 in this place along with Miss Wilkes to whom Made D'Holbach and I
 pay our best compliments.  I can easily paint to my imagination
 the pleasure you both felt at your first meeting; everybody that
 has any sensibility must be acquainted with the grateful pangs in
 those moving circumstances.

 Your case with the hawker at your entry in London is very odd and
 whimsical you did extremely well to humour the man in his opinion
 about Mr. Wilkes.  I dare say if you had done otherwise his fist
 would have convinc'd you of the goodness of your cause, and then it
 would have been impossible for you to pass for a dead man any longer;
 which however, I think was very necessary for you in the beginning.
 I expect with great eagerness the settlement of your affairs with
 the ministry to your own satisfaction; be persuaded, Dear Sir, that
 nobody interests himself in your happiness than myself, and nothing
 will conduce more to it than your steady attachment to the principles
 of honor and patriotism.

 If you don't find a way of disposing of the little packet, you need
 not take much trouble about it, and you may bring it back along with
 you, when you come to this place, as to the kind offers you are so
 good as to make me about commissions, experience has taught me that
 it is unsafe to trust you with them, so I beg leave with gratitude
 to decline your proposals as that point.

 All our common friends and acquaintances desire their best
 compliments to you, and believe me, my dear Sir.

  Your affectionate oblig'd humble servant
  D'HOLBACH
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 HOLBACH TO WILKES
 (Brit. Mus. Mss., VOL 30869, p. 81)
 PARIS 9ber 10th 1766

 <i>My very Dear Sir</i>

 I receiv'd with the greatest pleasure the news of your lucky arrival
 in Engelland.  You know the sentiments of my heart, and are undoubtedly
 convinc'd how much I wish for the good success of all your enterprises
 tho I am to be a great looser by it.  I rejoice very heartily at the
 fine prospect you have now in view and don't doubt but the persons you
 mention will succeed if they are in good earnest: which is allways a
 little doubtful in people of that Kidney.

 We have had the pleasure of seeing Miss Wilkes three or four times since
 your departure, she is extreamly well and longs for the return of her
 friend Mlle Helvetius the 20th of this month.

 Rousseau will very likely hate the English very cordially for making
 him pay so dear for his books, it is however a sign that he told us a
 lye when he pretended in his writings to have no books at all, as to
 his guitar he should buy a new one to tune his heart a little better
 than he did before.

 We have no news here, except the Election of Mr Thomas as a member of
 the french academy.  Marquis Beccaria is going to leave us very soon
 being obliged to return to Milan: Count Veri will at the same time set
 out for England.

 I'll be oblig'd to you for a copy or two of the book printed in holland
 you mentioned in your letter you may send it by some private opportunity
 to Miss Wilkes, with, proper directions.  A gentleman of our Society
 should be glad to get 2 copies of Baskervilles' virgil <i>in octavo</i>.

 Tho Mr Davenport and Rousseau seem to be pleased very much with one
 another, I suppose they may very soon be tired of their squabbling,
 and the latter like the apostles will shake of against the barbarous
 Britons the dust of his feet.

 Receive the hearty compliments of my wife and all our friends.  You
 know the true sentiments of my heart for you,
 Dear Sir.  I am with great sincerity
  your most obedient humble Servant
  D'HOLBACH
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 HOLBACH TO WILKES
 (Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30869, p. 173)

 <i>Dear Sir</i>

 I receiv'd with a great deal of pleasure your friendly letter from
 Ostende of the 26th. nov. I was extreamly glad to hear your happy
 arrival at that place, and do not doubt but you met with a lucky
 passage to Dover the following day, we are now enjoying the conversation
 of your British friends about elections; that will not be tedious for
 you if, according to your hopes, you should succeed in your projects.

 I see by your letter that instead of coming back directly by Calais
 you intend to travel with Miss Wilkes through Antwerp and the Low
 countries, which I should think not very advisable in this rigorous
 season of the year, for generally at that time the waters are lock'd
 up by the frost and travelling is bad et tedious and may be would
 prove hurtful to your tender fellow traveler to whom my wife and I
 desire our best compliments.  Such a scheme will be more advantagious
 for you both and more conformable to the wishes of your friends in
 this place.

 I hope your arrival in London will contribute to reconcile abbé
 Galliani to that place, where he complains of having not heard of
 the sun since he set his foot on British shore, however he may
 comfort himself for we have had very little of it in this country.
 The Abbé must be overjoy'd at the news of the Jesuits being expell'd
 from his Native country for now he may say <i>Gens inimica mihi
 Tyrrhenum navigat aquor</i>.  We have no material news in this country,
 except that the queen continues to be in a very bad state of health.

 If there is some good new romance I'll be oblig'd to bring it over
 along with you as, well as a couple of french books call'd
 <i>Militaire philosophe</i> and <i>Théologie portative</i> in case you may
 easily find them in London, for we cannot get them here.  I am told
 the works of one Morgan have been esteem'd in your country but I don't
 know the titles of them, if you should know them and meet with them
 with facility, I should be very much oblig'd to you provided you make
 me pay a little more than you have done hitherto for your commissions.

 All our common friends beg their compliments and I wish for your
 speedy return, and I am Sincerely
 Dear Sir
  Your faithful affectionate humble servant
  D'HOLBACH
 PARIS the 10th of decemb. 1767
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 HOLBACH TO WILKES
 (Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30870, p. 59)
 GRANDVAL, 17th of July 1768

 <i>Dear Sir</i>

 I receiv'd with a great deal of pleasure your very agreeable letter
 of the 28th of last month.  I am extreamly glad that your generous
 soul is very far from sinking under the weight of these Misfortunes,
 and to see that you don't give up the hopes of carrying triumphantly
 your point notwithstanding the discouragements you have met with lately.
 I need not tell you how much your friends in Paris and I in particular
 interest ourselves in all the events that may befall you.  Our old
 friendship ought to be a sure pledge of my sincere sentiments for you,
 and of my best wishes for your good success in all your undertakings.
 I believe you can do no better but to keep strictly to the rules you
 have laid down for your conduct, and I don't doubt but you'll find it
 will answer the best to your purpose.

 I am very much oblig'd to you, Dear Sir, for the kind offers you make
 in your friendly letter.  I have desir'd already Mr Suard to bring over
 a few books lately published in your metropolis.  I am very glad to hear
 that Gentleman is pleas'd with his journey.

 There's no possibility of getting for you a compleat sett of Callots
 engravings.  Such a collection must be the business of many years; it
 is to be found only after the decease of some curious men who have taken
 a great deal of trouble to collect them.  I found indeed in two shops 8
 or 10 of them, but the proofs (les épreuves) were very indifferent and
 they wanted to sell them excessively dear; in general 200 guineas would
 procure a collection very far from being compleat.

 My wife and all our common acquaintence desire their best compliments
 to you and to Miss Wilkes and you know the sentiments wherewith I am
 for ever
 Dear Sir
  your affectionate friend and
  very humble servant
  D'HOLBACH
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 HOLBACH TO WILKES
 (Brit. Mus. Mss., Vol. 30871, p. 16)
 PARIS the 19th of March 1770

 <i>Dear Sir</i>

 I receiv'd with a due sense of gratitude the favour of your last
 letter, and was overjoy'd to hear from yourself that your long
 confinement has not been able hitherto to obstruct the lively flow
 of your spirits.  A little more patience and you'll reach the end
 of all your misfortunes, that have been faithfully partaken by your
 friends in England and abroad, for my own part I wish most sincerely
 that everything for the future may turn to your profit and welfare,
 without hurting that of your country, to whom, as a lover of mankind,
 I am a well wisher.

 My wife desires her best compliments to you and your beloved Daughter,
 whom we both expect to see again with a great deal of pleasure in
 this country next month.  Notwithstanding our bad circumstances we
 are making very great preparations for the Wedding of the Dauphin,
 and our metropolis begins already to be filled with foreigners that
 flock hither from all parts of the world.  Our friend Mr D'Alainville
 is to set out at the end of April to fetch the Archdutchess at
 Strasbourg and bring mask (ed) (?) her different stages on the road
 to Versailles.

 We have no news in the literary world except that Voltaire
 is become lately <i>le père temporal</i>, that is to say the benefactor
 of the <i>Capucins du pays de Gex</i> where he lives, a title of which
 all his pranks seemd to exclude him, but grace you know, is omnipotent,
 and monks are not over nice when there is something to be got by
 their condescension.

 If the hurry of affairs whould leave you any moments to read
 curious books I would advise you to peruse two very strange
 works lately publish'd viz <i>Recherches philosophiques sur les
 américains</i>, le <i>Système de la Nature</i> par Mirabaud.  I suppose
 you'll find them cheaper and more easily in London that at
 Paris.

 All your late acquaintances in this Town desire me to present
 you with their sincere compliments and best wishes; as to mine
 you know that they have no other object but your Welfare.

 I am, Dear Sir, for ever
  your most affectionate friend
  and humble servant
  D'HOLBACH

 P. S. I'll be very much oblig'd to you for sending over to me in
 2 vol. small octavo.
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 HOLBACH TO WILKES
 (Wilkes, Correspondence, London, 1805, Vol. 4, p. 176)
 PARIS, April 27; 1775

 "<i>My Lord</i>,

 "I received with the utmost gratitude your lordship's friendly
 letter of the 28th of March. (1775?)  I should have done
 myself the honor of answering sooner to your kind propositions,
 if I had not been prevented by some gouty infirmities that have
 assailed in the beginning of this spring.  I esteem myself very
 happy to find that the hurry of business, and your exhaltation
 to the rank of chief-magistrate, could not make you forget your
 friendship to me; though my present circumstances do not permit
 me to make use of your friendly invitation, be persuaded my very
 dear lord that Madame D'Holbach and myself shall forever keep
 these signs of your kindness, in very grateful remembrance.

 We both desire our best compliments to your very amiable
 lady-mayoress: who acted so well her part lately in the Egyptian
 hall, to the satisfaction of that prodigious crowd you have
 been entertaining there.  All members of our society that have
 had the happiness of being acquainted with you, desire to be
 kindly remembered; and a continuation of your valuable friendship
 shall for ever be the utmost ambition
  my lord
  of your most sincerely devoted
  D'HOLBACH"
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 GALIANI To HOLBACH
 (Galiani, Corresp., Vol. I, p. 199)
 NAPLES, le 21 juillet, 1770

 <i>Bonjour, mon cher Baron,</i>

 J'ai vu le <i>Système de la Nature</i>.  C'est la ligne où finit la
 tristesse de la morne et sèche vérité, au-delà commence la gaieté
 du roman.  Il n'y a rien de mieux que de se persuader que les dés
 sont pipés: cette idée en enfante milles autres, et un nouveau
 monde se régénère.  Le M. Mirabaud est un vrai abbé Terray
 de la métaphysique.  Il fait des réductions, des suspensions,
 et cause la banqueroute du savoir, du plaisir et de l'esprit
 humain.  Mais vous allez me dire qu'aussi il y avait trop de
 nonvaleurs: on était trop endetté, il courait trop de papiers non
 réels sur la place.  C'est vrai aussi, et voilà pourquoi la crise
 est arrivée.

 Adieu, mon cher baron.  Ecrivez-moi de longues lettres, pour que
 le plaisir en soit plus grand.  Embrassez moi longuement la
 baronne, et soyez longue dans tout que vous faites, dans tout
 ce que vous patientez, dans tout ce que vous espérer.  La
 longanimité est une belle vertu; c'est elle qui me fait espérer
 de revoir Paris.
  Adieu.
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 HOLBACH To GALIANI
 (Critica, Vol. I, 1903, p. 489)

 GRANDVAL, le 25 d'août 1770

 <i>Bonjour, mon très délicieux abbé,</i>

 J'ai bien reçu votre très-précieuse lettre du 21 de juillet qui
 m'accuse la réception de celle que je vous avais écrite le 3 de
 juin.  Je vois que celle-ci a été longtemps en route, attendu
 que M. Torcia à qui M. Diderot s'était chargé de la remettre, a
 encore traînassé quelque temps à Paris, suivant la louable
 coutume des voyageurs qui nous quittent toujours avec peine.

 Je suis bien aise que vous ayez lu le livre de Mirabaud qui fait
 un bruit affreux dans ce pays.  L'abbé Bergier l'a déjà
 réfuté très-longuement et sa réponse paraîtra cet hiver.  La
 Sorbonne est, dit-on, occupée à détruire ce maudit <i>Système</i> qui
 lui paraît au moins hérétique.  Voltaire lui-même se prépare
 à le pulvériser; en attendant nos seigneurs du Parlement y
 viennent d'y répondre par des fagots, ainsi qu'à quelque autres
 ouvrages de même trempe.  Ce qu'il y a de fâcheux c'est que
 l'ouvrage de V. qui a pour titre <i>Dieu et les hommes</i> a été
 enveloppé dans la même condamnation, ce qui doit déplaire
 souverainement à l'auteur.  Je me rappelle à cette occasion ce
 que M. Hume dit d'un catholique que Henri VIII fit conduire au
 bûcher avec quelques hérétiques, et dont le seul chagrin était
 d'être brûlé en si mauvaise compagnie.  Nonobstant toutes ces
 réfutations, il parait tous les jours quelques nouveaux ouvrages
 impies, au point que je suis très surpris que la récolte ait été
 si bonne dans le royaume.  En dernier lieu on vient de publier un
 ouvrage sous le titre de <i>Droit des souverains sur les biens du
 clergé</i>, qui, sans contenir des impiétés n'en est pas moins déplaisant
 pour cela: Il va droit à la cuisine, et veut que pour liquider
 la dette nationale on vende tous les biens ecclésiastiques et
 que l'on met nos pontifes à la pension.  Vous sentez qu'une
 proposition si mal sonnante n'a pu manquer de mettre le ciel en
 courroux; sa colère s'est déchargé sur cinq ou six libraires et
 colporteurs qui ont été mis en prison.
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    <h2>
      [ENDNOTES]
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 [1:1] Diderot, <i>Oeuvres</i>, ed. Assézat et Tourneaux, Vol. XX, p. 28.

 [2:2] Grimm, <i>Corr. Lit.</i>, Vol. XV, p. 421.

 [3:3] Diderot, <i>Oeuvres</i>, Vol. XX, p. 95.

 [3:4] Among the most important are Damiron J. P., <i>Mémoires pour
 servir à l'histoire de la philosophie au dix-huitième siècle</i> (Paris,
 1858, 3 vols., 8vo); Lange, <i>Geschichte des Materialismus</i> (Eng. tr.,
 Boston, 1877); Morley, <i>Diderot and the Encyclopedists</i> (N. Y., 1891,
 2 vols., 12mo); Plekhanow, G., <i>Beiträge zur Geschichte des Materialismus</i>
 (Stuttgart, 1896); Hancock, A. E., <i>The French Revolution and the
 English Poets</i> (N. Y., 1899); Tallentyre, <i>The Friends of Voltaire</i>
 (London, 1906); Fabre, <i>Les Pères de la Révolution</i> (Paris, 1910), etc.

 [5:5] Confessions, <i>Oeuvres</i>, Vol. XXIV, p. 338.

 [5:6] Bib. Nat. mss. <i>Pièces originales,</i> 1529, d'Holbach, 34, 861.

 [6:7] Carlyle, Rev. Dr. A., <i>Autobiography</i>, ed. Burton, Boston, 1861,
 p. 137 sq. for Holbach's English friends mentioned in his letters to
 Wilkes.

 [12:9] See Chap. II and Bibliography, Pt. I, for these and his other works.

 [12:10] Grimm <i>Cor. Lit.</i>, Vol. II, p. 283.

 [12:11] <i>Gazette de France</i>, Aug. 10, 1754.

 [12:12] Jal, <i>Dict. Critique</i>, p. 685.

 [13:13] His career is somewhat doubtful.  He travelled in Italy in 1779
 and Abbé Galiani, an old friend of Holbach's, got a very agreeable
 impression of him.  John Wilkes, in a letter to his daughter in 1781,
 seems to imply that he had not turned out very well, and hopes that the
 baron's second son will make good the deficiencies of the first.  In
 1806 he published a translation of Weiland's <i>Oberon</i> or <i>Huon de
 Bordeaux</i> which went thru another edition in 1825, but those are the
 only details that have come to light.

 [13:14] Diderot, in writing to Mlle Volland Sep. 17, 1760 says: "On
 nourrit, à Chenvières, les deux filles de Madame d'Holbach.  L'aînée
 est belle comme un chérubin; c'est un visage rond, de grands yeux
 bleus, des levres fines, une bouche riante, la peau la plus blanche
 et la plus animée, des cheveux châtains qui ceignent un très joli
 front.  La cadette est un peloton d'embonpoint où l'on ne distingue
 encore que du blanc et du vermillon."

 [13:15] Gazette de France, June 1, 1781.

 [14:16] Holbach's intendant was [a] Jew, Berlise.  After his death several
 of his old servants Vincent, David, and Plocque, contested Holbach's will,
 in which they thought they were legatees.  The case was in the courts
 for several years and was finally decided against them.  Douarche,
 <i>Les tribunaux civil de Paris pendant la révolution</i>, Paris, 1905, Vol. I.,
 pp. 141, 261, 325, 689.

 [14:17] Avézac-Lavigne, <i>Diderot</i>, p. 5.

 [15:18] <i>Critica</i>, Vol. I, p. 48, note.

 [15:19] He met Voltaire in Paris in 1778, however, and Naigeon relates
 that Voltaire greeted him very cordially and said that he had long
 desired to make his acquaintance.

 [15:20] Collignon, <i>Diderot</i>, p. 1.

 [16:21] Avézac-Lavigne, <i>Diderot</i>, p. 75, note.

 [16:22] Romilly, <i>Memoirs</i>, Vol. I, p. 179.

 [16:23] Diderot, <i>Oeuvres</i>, Vol. I, p. lxvi, note.

 [17:24] Journal de Paris, Dec. 2, 1789.

 [17:25] See appendix, p. 73, p. 77.

 [18:26] See appendix, p. 71.

 [19:27] See appendix, p. 72.

 [19:28] See p. 6 sq. and appendix pp. 75 sq.

 [39:2] Barbier, <i>Dict.</i>, Vol. I, p. 175 sq.

 [40:3] Barbier, Vol. I, p. xxxiii, note.

 [40:4] <i>Oeuvres</i>, Vol. XVIII, p. 265.

 [44:5] <i>Oeuvres</i>, Vol. XIV, p. 352.

 [47:7] Middleton's translation, preface.

 [47:8] Cf. p. 94. [Bibliography Part I]

 [54:1] Morley, <i>Diderot</i>, Vol. II, p. 155.

 [55:2] Later <i>Bon-sens</i> and <i>Théologie portative</i> were doomed to the
 flames by the condemnations of Jan. 10, 1774, and February 16, 1776.

 [55:3] <i>Système de la Nature</i>, ed. 1771, Vol. II, p. 496.

 [56:4] Grimm, <i>Cor. Lit.</i>, Vol. IX, p. 167.

 [56:5] Voltaire, <i>Oeuvres</i>, ed. Beuchot, Vol. LXVI, p. 404.  Subsequent
 references to Voltaire are from this edition.

 [56:6] Vol. LXVII, p. 265.

 [56:7] Grimm, <i>Cor. Lit.</i>, Vol. IX, p. 90.

 [57:8] Vol. LXVI, p. 432.

 [57:9] Vol. LXVI, p. 563.

 [57:10] Vol. LXVI, p. 386.

 [58:11] Vol. LXVI, p. 394.

 [58:12] Vol. XXVIII, p. 493.

 [58:13] Vol. LXVI, p. 469.

 [58:14] Goethe, <i>Wahrheit und Dichtung</i>, 11th Book, Goethe's <i>Werke</i>,
 Stuttgart, Vol. 19, p. 55.

 Auf philosophische Weise erleuchtet und gefödert zu werden, hatten
 wir keinen Trieb noch Hang: über religiöse Gegenstände glaubten wir
 uns selbst aufgeklärt zu haben, und so war der heftige Streit
 französischer Philosophen mit dem Pfafftum uns ziemlich gleichgültig.
 Verbotene, zurn Feuer verdaminte Bücher, welche damals grossen Lärmen
 machten, übten keine Wirkung auf uns.  Ich gedenke statt aller des
 <i>Système de la Nature</i>, das wir aus Neugier in die Hand nahmen.  Wir
 begriffen nicht, wie ein solches Buch gefährlich sein könnte.  Es kam
 uns so grau, so cimmerisch, so totenhaft vor, das wir Mühe hatten,
 seine Gegenwart auszuhalten, dass wir davor wie vor einern Gespenste
 schauderten.  Der Verfasser glaubt sein Buch ganz eigens zu empfehlen,
 wenn er in der Vorrede versichert, dass er, als ein abgelebter Greis,
 soeben in die Grube stiegend, der Mit- und Nachwelt die Wahrheit verkünden
 wolle.  Wir lachten ihn aus: denn wir glaubten bemerkt zu haben, dass
 von alten Leuten eigentlich an der Welt nichts geschätzt werde, was
 liebenswürdig und gut an ihr ist.  "Alte Kirchen haben dunkle Gläser"
 "Wie Kirschen und Beeren schmecken, muss mann Kinder und Sperlinge
 fragen"&mdash;dies waren unsere Lust und Leibworte: und so schien uns jenes
 Buch, als die rechte Quintessenz der Greisenheit, unschmachhaft, ja
 abgeschmackt Alles sollte notwendig sein und deswegen kein Gott.
 "Könnte es denn aber nicht auch notwendig einen Gott geben?" fragten
 wir.  Dabei gestanden wir freilich, das wir uns den Notwendigkeiten der
 Tage und Nächte, der Jahrszeiten, der klirnatischen Einflusse, der
 physichen und animalischen Zustände nicht wohl entziehen könnten: doch
 fühlten wir etwas in uns, das als vollkommene Willkür erschien, und
 wieder etwas, das sich mit dieser Willkür ins Gleichgewicht zu setzen
 suchte.  Die Hoffnung, immer vernünftiger zu werden, uns von den aussern
 Dingen, ja von uns selbst immer unabhängiger zu machen, konnten wir
 nicht aufgeben.  Das Wort Freiheit klingt so schon, dass mann es nicht
 entbehren könnte und wenn es einen Irrtum bezeichnete.

 Keiner von uns hatte das Buch hinausgelesen; denn wir fanden uns in
 der Erwartung getäuscht, in der wir es auf geschlagen hatten.
 <i>System der Natur</i> ward angekündigt und wir hofften also wirklich
 etwas von der Natur, unsere Abgötten, zu erfahren.  Physik und Chemie,
 Himmels- und Erdbeschriebung, Naturgeschichte und Anatomie und so
 manches andere hatte nun zeit Jahren und bis auf den letzten Tag uns
 immer auf die geschmüchte grosse Welt hingeweisen, und wir hatten gern
 von Sonnen und Sternen, von Planeten und Monden, von Bergen, Thälern,
 Flüssen und Meeren und von allem, was dann lebt und webt, das Nähere
 sowie das Allgemeinere erfahren.  Das hierbei wohl manches vorkommen
 müsste, was dem gemeinen Menschen als schädlich, der Geistlichkeit als
 gefährlich, dem Staat als unzulässig erschienen möchte, daran hatten wir
 keinen Zweifel, und wir hofften, dieses Büchlein sollte nicht unwürdig
 die Feuerprobe bestauden haben.  Allein wie hohl und leer ward uns in
 deiser tristen Atheistischen Halbnacht zu Mute, in welcher die Erde mit
 allen ihren Gebilden, der Himmel mit allen seinen Gestirnen verschwand!
 Eine Materie sollte sein von Ewigkeit und von Ewigkeit her bewegt, und
 sollte nun mit dieser Bewegung rechts und links und nach allen Seiten
 ohne weiteres die unendlichen Phänomene des Daseins hervorbringen.
 Dies alles wären wir sogar zufrieden gewesen, wenn der Verfasser
 wirklich aus seiner bewegten Materie die Welt vor unsern Augen
 aufgebaut hätte.  Aber er mochte von der Natur so wenig wissen als wir;
 denn indem er einige allgemeine Begriffe hingepfahlt, verlässt er sie
 sogleich, um dasjenige, was höher als die Natur oder als höhere
 Natur in der Natur erschient, zur materiellen schweren, zwar bewegten,
 aber doch richtungs- und gestaltlosen Natur zu verwandeln, und glaubt
 dadurch recht viel gewonnen zu haben.  Wenn uns jedoch dieses Buch
 einigen Schaden gebracht hat, so war es der, das wir allen
 Philosophie, besonderers aber der Metaphysick recht herzlich gram
 wurden, und bleiben, dagegen aber auf lebendige Wissen, Erfahren,
 Thun und Dichten uns nur desto lebhafter und leidenschaftlicher hinwarfen.

 [64:15] Vol. II, p. 261, ed. 1820.
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    <h2>
      BIBLIOGRAPHY&mdash;PART I.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 EDITIONS OF HOLBACH'S WORKS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER.
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 As the works of Holbach are not yet cataloged in the Bibliothèque
 Nationale, the following list is doubtless incomplete.  The numbers
 given are those of the Bibliothèque Nationale and the British Museum
 where the books were used, except in cases where they were available
 in Boston, New York or Washington.
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 ABBREVIATIONS

 B. N., Bibliothèque Nationale.
 B. M., British Museum.
 L. C., Library of Congress.
 C. U., Columbia University.
 H. U., Harvard University.
 U. T. S., Union Theological Seminary.
 G. T. S., General Theological Seminary.
 A. T. S., Andover Theological Seminary.
 N. Y., New York Public Library.
 B. P., Boston Public Library.

 Of about 120 editions consulted, C. U. had 13; U. T. S. 7; N. Y. 7;
 H. U. 6; B. P. 5; L. C. 4; A. T. S. 3; G. T. S. I.  There are 20 or more
 editions in existence that were not to be found in the library catalogs
 consulted.

 1752.  Lettre à une dame d'un certain âge sur l'état présent de l'Opéra.
 En Arcadie aux dépens de l'Académie Royale de Musique, (Paris, 8vo, pp. 11.)
 B. M. 1103 b 21 (2).

 1752.  Arrêt rendu à l'amphithéâtre de l'Opéra, sur la plainte du
 milieu du parterre intervenant dans la querelle des deux coins.
 (Paris, 1752, 8vo, pp. 16.)
 B. N. Yf 7726 (attributed to Diderot).

 1752.  Art de la Verrerie, De Neri, Merret et Kunckel; auquel on a
 ajouté Le <i>Sol Sine Veste</i> D'Orschall; <i>L'Helioscopium videndi sine
 veste solem Chymicum</i>; Le <i>Sol Non Sine Veste</i>: Le Chapitre XI du
 <i>Flora Saturnizans</i> de Henckel, Sur la Vitrification des Végétaux;
 Un Mémoire sur la manière de faire le Saffre; Le Secret des vraies
 Porcelaines de la Chine et de Saxe; Ouvrages où l'on trouvera la
 manière de faire le Verre et le Crystal, d'y porter des Couleurs,
 d'imiter les Pierres Précieuses, de préparer et colorer les Emaux,
 de faire la Potasse, de peindre sur le Verre, de préparer des Vernis,
 de composer de Couvertes pour des Fayances et Poteries, d'extraire la
 Couleur Pourpre de l'Or, de contrefaire les Rubis, de faire le Soffre,
 de faire et peindre les Porcelaines, etc.  Traduits de l'Allemand Par
 M. D... A Paris Durand, rue St. Jacques, au Griffon.  Pissot, Quai des
 Augustins, à la Sagesse.  Avec Approbation et Privilège du Roi (in quarto).
  B. N. V. 11028.
  C. U. A. n H 35 (Avery Library).

 1753.  Minéralogie, ou description générale des substances du règne
 minéral.  Par Mr. Jean Gotshalk Wallerius, Professeur Royale de
 Chymie, de Métallurgie et de Pharmacie dans l'Université d'Upsal,
 de l'Académie Impériale des Curieux de la Nature.  Ouvrage traduit
 de l'Allemand, A Paris, Chez Durand, rue S. Jacques, au Griffon.
 Pissot, Quai de Conti, à la Croix d'Or, MDCCLII.  Avec Approbation
 et Privilège du Roi (2 vols., 8vo, pp. xlvii + 569 + 284).  Followed
 by (second title page) Hydrologie, ou description du règne aquatique,
 divisés par classes, gendres, espèces et variétés, avec la manière de
 faire l'essai des eaux (256 p.).
  B. N., S. 1992 (2).
  B. M. 987 h. 9-10.

 &mdash;Ibid.  (Paris, Herissant, Durand, 1759, 2 vols., 8vo.) N. Y., P. W. D.
  H. U. Geol. 7257-59.
  B. M. 970 h.l.

 1756.  Introduction à la Minéralogie; ou connoissance des eaux, des
 sucs terrestres, des sels, des terres, des pierres, des minéraux, et
 des métaux: avec une description abrégée des opérations de métallurgie.
 Ouvrage posthume de M. J. F. Henckel, publié sous le titre de <i>Henckelius
 in Mineralogiâ redivivus</i> et traduit de l'Allemand.  A Paris, Chez Guillaume
 Cavelier, Libraire, rue S. Jacques, au Lys d'Or.  MDCCLVI.  Avec Approbation
 et Privilège du Roi.  (2 vols., 12vo, pp. lxxi + 204 + 371.)
  B. N. 19930 (1).

 1758.  Chimie métallurgique, Dans laquelle on trouvera la Théorie et
 la Pratique de cet Art.  Avec des Experiences sur la Densité
 des Alliages des Métaux, et des demi-Métaux; et un Abrégé de
 Docimastique.  Avec Figures.  Par M. C. E. Gellert, Conseiller
 des Mines de Saxe et de l'Académie Imperiale de Petersbourg.
 Ouvrages traduits de l'Allemand.  A Paris, Chez Briasson, rue
 Saint Jacques; Avec Approbation et Privelège.  (2 vols., 12mo,
 pp. xii + 296 + xvii + 351.)
  B. N., R. 37032 (3).

 1759.  Traités de physique, d'histoire naturelle, de minéralogie et de
 métallurgie.  (Paris, 1759, 3 vols., 12mo.)  (General title.)
  Tome I.  L'Art des Mines, ou Introduction aux connoissances
 nécessaires pour l'exploitation des mines métalliques avec un traité
 des exhalaisons minérales ou moufettes, et plusieurs mémoires sur
 differens sujets d'Histoire Naturelle-Avec figures.  Par
 M. Jean Gotlob Lehmann, Docteur en Médecine, Conseiller des
 Mines de Sa Majesté Prussienne, de l'Académie Royale des
 Sciences de Berlin et de celle des Sciences utiles de Mayence.
 Traduit de l'Allemand.  A Paris, Chez Jean Thomas Herrisant
 MDCCLIX.  Avec Approbation et Privilège du Roi.
  Tome II.  Traité de la formation des métaux et de leurs
 matrices ou minières, ouvrage fondé sur les principes de la
 physique et de la minéralogie et confirmé par des expériences
 chymiques.  Par M. J. G. Lehmann, etc.  Traduit de l'Allemand.
  Tome III.  Essai d'une Histoire Naturelle des couches de la
 terre.  Dans lequel on traite de leur formation, de leur situation,
 des minéraux, des métaux et des fossiles qu'elles contiennent.
 Avec des considerations physiques sur les causes des Tremblements
 de Terre et de leur propagation.  Ouvrages traduits de l'Allemand,
 et augmentés de Notes du Traducteur etc.
  H. U., M, Z.
  B. M. 990 c. 16-18.

 1759.  Les plaisirs de l'imagination, poème en trois chants, par
 M. Akenside.  Traduit de l'anglais.  A Amsterdam, Arkstée et Merkus,
 et se trouve à Paris chez Pissot, Quai de Conti MDCCLIX (8vo).
  B. N. 2 ex. Yk 2362 et 2498.
  B. M. 1162 f 20.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Les plaisirs de l'imagination, poème en trois chants, Par
 Akenside, traduit de l'Anglais par le baron d'Holbach, augmenté de
 Notes historiques et littéraires, de la vie de l'auteur et du Traducteur,
 par Pissot.  Paris, Hubert MDCCCVI (1806-18vo).
  B. N. Yk 2363.
  B. M. 1065 b 20 (2).

 1760.  Pyritologie, ou Histoire Naturelle de la Pyrite, ouvrage dans
 lequel on examine l'origine, la nature, les propriétés et les usages
 de ce Minéral important, et de la plupart des autres Substances du même
 Règne: on y a joint le Flora Saturnisans où L'Auteur dèmontre l'Alliance
 qui se trouve entre les Végétaux et les Minéraux; et les Orpuscules
 Minéralogiques, Qui comprennent un Traité de l'Appropriation, un Traité
 de L'Origine des Pierres, plusieurs Mémoires sur la Chymie et l'Histoire
 Naturelle, avec un Traité des Maladies des Mineurs et des Fondeurs.
 Par M. Jean-Frederic Henkel, Docteur en Médicine, Conseiller des Mines
 du Roi de Pologne, Electeur de Saxe; de l'Académie Imperiale des Curieux
 de la Nature et de celle de Berlin.  Ouvrages Traduit de l'Allemand [by
 Baron d'Holbach and M., Charas] à Paris, Chez jean Thomas Hérissant,
 Libraire, Rue S. Jacques, à S. Paul et à S. Hilaire. MDCCLX.  Avec
 Approbation et Privilège du Roi.  (Paris, 1760, quarto, pp. xvi + 524.)
  B. N. 5324.
  B. M. 34 c 15.

 1760.  Oeuvres Métallurgiques de M. Jean-Christian Orschall, Inspecteur
 des Mines de S. A. S. le Land-grave de Hesse-Cassel.  Contenant
 I. L'Art de la Fonderie; II. Un Traité de la Siquation;
 III.  Le Traité de la Macération des Mines; IV. Le Traité
 des Trois Merveilles; (Traduit de l'Allemand) Le prix est de 50
 sols broché et de 3 liv. relié. A Paris, Chez Hardy, Libraire, rue
 S. Jacques au dessus de celle de la Parcheminerie à la Colonne
 d'Or.  MDCCLX.  Avec Approbation et Privilège du Roi.
 (12mo, pp. + 394.)
  B. N., S 19,992.

 1764.  Recueil des mémoires les plus intéressants de chymie, et d'histoire
 naturelle, contenus dans les actes de l'Académie d'Upsal, et dans les
 Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences de Stockholm; Publiés depuis
 1720 jusqu'en 1760.  Traduits du Latin et de l'Allemand.  A Paris, Chez
 Pierre-Fr. Didot, le jeune, Quai des Augustins, à S. Augustin.  MDCCLXIV.
 Avec Approbation et Privilège du Roi. (2 vols., 12mo, pp. viii + 687.)
  B. N. R 15483 (4).

 1765.  Histoire du règne de la Reine Anne d'Angleterre, contenant Les
 Négociations de la paix d'Utrecht, et les démêlés qu'elle occasionna
 en Angleterre.  Ouvrage posthume du Docteur Jonathan Swift.  Doyen de
 S. Patrice en Irelande: Publié sur un Manuscrit corrigé de la propre
 main de l'Auteur, et traduit de l'Anglais par M... [d'Holbach and Eidous].
 A Amsterdam, Chez Marc-Michel Rey, et Arkstée et Merkus. MDCCLXV.
 (12mo, pp. xxiv + 416.)
  B. N. 8vo Nc 1718.

 1766.  Traité du Soufre, ou Remarques sur la dispute qui s'est élevée
 entre les chymistes, au sujet du Soufre, tant commun, combustible
 ou volatil, que fixe, etc.  Traduit de l'Allemand de Stahl.
 A Paris, Chez Pierre-Francois Didot, le jeune.  Quai de
 Augustins à Saint-Augustin.  MDCCLXVI.  Avec Approbation
 et Privilège du Roi.  (12mo, pp. 392.)
  B. N., R 51709.
  B. M. 233 b 15.

 1766.  L'Antiquité dévoilée par ses usages, ou Examen critique des
 principales Opinions, Cérémonies et Institutions réligieuses et
 politiques des différens Peuples de la Terre.  Par feu M., Boulanger.
 Homo, quod rationis est particeps, consequentiam cernit causas rerum
 videt, earumque progressus et quasi antecessiones non ignorat,
 similitudines compare, rebus praesentibus adjungit at anectit futuras.
 &mdash;Cicero, De Offic. Lib. I. C. 4.
 A Amsterdam, Chez Marc-Michel Rey, MDCCLXVI. (Quarto pp. viii + 412.)
  B. N., E 690.
  C. U., A P. B 66 (Avery Library).

 &mdash;Ibid.  (1766, 3 vols., 12mo.)
  B. N. *E 2446-2448.

 &mdash;Ibid.  (1772, 3 Vols., (12mo.)
  B. N. *E 2445 (VIII).
  B. M. 4506 a 1.

 &mdash;Ibid.  (Amsterdam, 1777, 3 vols., 12mo, pp. lx + 355 + 391 + 396.)
  B. M. 696 b 35.

 &mdash;Ibid.  In Oeuvres de Boulanger T. I-IV En Suisse.
 De l'Imprimerie Philosophique MDCCXCI. (4 vols., (12mo.)
  B. N., Z 24316-24319.

 &mdash;Ibid.  In <i>Oeuvres de Boulanger</i> T. I-II Amsterdam.
 (Paris, 2 vols., 8vo.) (Quérard.)

 1767.  Le Christianisme dévoilé, ou Examen des principes et des effets
 de la religion Chrétienne.  Par feu M. Boulanger.  Superstitio error
 infanus est, amandos timet, quos colit violat; quid enim interest,
 utrum Deos neges, an infames?  Senec. Ep. 12.
 A Londres, MDCCLVI (Nancy, Leclerc, 1761, 8vo, pp. xxviii + 295).
  B. N., D2 5305.
  B. M. 4016 bb 6.
  B. M., C 2863 (another copy with MS. notes by Voltaire).

 &mdash;Ibid.  (Londres, 1767, 8vo, pp. xx + 236.)  Printed at John Wilkes'
 private press in George St. Westminster, according to MS. note in
 title page.
  B. M. 4017 de. 13.

 &mdash;Ibid.  (Londres, 1767, 8vo, pp. 244.)
  A. T. S. 6 11.

 &mdash;Ibid.  (A Paris, Chez les Libraires Associés, 1767, 8vo,
 pp. xvii + 218.)
  B. N., D2 8364.

 &mdash;Ibid.  (Londres [Amsterdam], 1767, 12mo.)
  B. M. 696 b 34

 &mdash;Ibid.  Oeuvres de Boulanger T. VII.  (En Suisse de l'Imprimerie
 philosophique, 1791, 12mo.)
  B. N., Z 23421.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Oeuvres de Boulanger T. V, 1793.

 &mdash;Christianity Unveiled; being an examination of the principles and
 effects of the Christian Religion, from the French of Boulanger,
 Author of <i>Researches into the Origin of Oriental Despotism</i>, by
 W. M. Johnson. New York, 1795, printed at the Columbian Press by
 Robertson and Gowan for the editor and sold by the principal book
 sellers in the United States. (12mo, pp. ix + 238.)
  B. M. 4017 de 4.
  B. M. 900 i. 1, (7) another copy with MS. Notes.
  B. P.... 7490 a 22.

 &mdash;Ibid.  London, printed and published by R. Carlile, 55 Fleet St.
 1819 (8vo, pp. 98.)
  B. M. 4016 d. 13.

 &mdash;Ibid.  The Deist, etc. Vol. II, published by R. Carlile, 1819.
 (8vo, pp. vii + 125.)
  B. M. 4015 f 11.

 &mdash;El Cristianismo a descurbierto, ó examen de los principios y efectos
 de la religion cristiana.  Escrito en Francés por Boulanger y traducido
 al castellano por S. D. V.... Londres en la emprenta de Davidson, 1821.
 (12mo, pp. xxvi + 246.)
  B. M. 4016 df 6.

 1767.  L'Esprit du clergé, ou Le Christianisme primitif vengé des
 entreprises et des excès de nos Prêtres modernes.  Traduit de
 l'Anglois à Londres (Amsterdam) MDCCLXVII (2 vols. 8vo,
 pp. 2 + 10 + 240).
  B. M. pp. 54.

 1767.  De l'imposture sacerdotale, ou Recueil de Pièces sur le Clergé.
 Traduites de l'Anglois. Londres (Amsterdam) MDCCLXVII.
 (12mo, pp. 144.)
  B. N., D2 8368 (7).

  Contains, Tableau fidèle des papes.  <i>Traduit d'une Brochure
  Anglaise</i> de M. Davisson, Publie sous le titre de <i>a true picture
  of Popery</i>, pp. 1-35.

  De l'insolence pontificale, ou des Prétentions ridicules du
  Pape et des Flatteurs de la Cour de Rome.  <i>Extrait de la
  Profession de Foi du célèbre Giannone</i>, par. M. Davisson, pp. 36-54.

  Sermon.  Sur les fourberies et les impostures du Clergé
  Romain, <i>Traduit de l'Anglois sur une Brochure publiée à
  Londres en 1735</i> par M. Bourn Birmingham, Sous le titre de
  <i>Popery a Craft</i>, pp. 55-84.

  Le Prêtrianisme opposé au Christianisme.  Ou la Religion
  des Prêtres comparée à celle de Jésus-Christ, ou examen de la
  différence qui se trouve entre les Apôtres et les Membres du
  Clergé moderne.  <i>Publié en Anglois en 1720 sous le titre de</i>
  Priestanity.  Or a View of the disparity between the Apostles
  and the Modern Clergy, pp. 85-108.

  Des Dangers de l'Eglise, <i>Traduit de Anglois sur une Brochure
  Publiée eu 1719</i>.  Par M., Thomas Gordon, Sous le titre
  d'<i>Apology for the danger of the Church</i>, etc., pp. 109-128.

  Le Simbole d'un Laïque, ou Profession de Foi d'un homme
  désintéressé.  Traduit de l'Anglois de M. Gordon, Sur une
  brochure publiée en 1720.  Sous le titre de <i>the creed of an
  independent Whig</i>, pp. 129-144.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Published under title De La Monstruosité pontificale, ou
 Tableau fidèle des Papes.  <i>Traduit de l'Anglois</i> Londres
 MDCCLXXII.  (16vo, pp. 55.)
  B. N., H. 19859.

 1768.  Examen des Prophéties qui servent de fondement à la religion
 chrétienne, avec un Essai de critique sur les Prophètes et les
 Prophéties en général.  Ouvrages traduits de l'Anglois.
 Londres MDCCLXVIII.  (8vo, pp. 234.)
  B. N., D2 5190.
  B. M. 4017 de 18.

 Contains, Discours sur les fondements de la religion chrétienne, pp. 1-111.

 Extrait De l'Ouvrage qui a pour titre: Examen du Septème de ceux
 qui prétendent que les Prophéties se sont accomplies à la lettre.
 The Scheme of literal Prophecy considered, etc., 1727. (8vo, pp. 118-234.)

 1768.  David, ou l'Histoire de l'homme selon le coeur de Dieu, ouvrage
 traduit de l'Anglois.  Saül, et David, tragédie en 5 actes d'après
 l'Anglois.... (Londres, 1768, 8vo.)
  B. N. 3 ex. LD2 5194, Hz 1542, et Rès Z. Beuchot 798 (2).
  B. M. 4014 a 67 (1).

 1768.  Les Prêtres démasqués, ou des iniquités du clergé chrétien.
 Ouvrage traduit de l'Anglois.  Londres.  MDCCLXVIII.
 (16vo, pp. 180.)
  B. N., D2 4639.
  B. M. 4017 de 29.

 1768.  Lettres philosophiques, sur l'origine des Préjugés, du Dogme de
 l'Immortalité de l'Ame, de l'Idolâtrie et de la Superstition; sur
 le Système de Spinoza et sur l'origine du mouvement dans la
 matière.  Traduites de l'Anglois de J. Toland.

  Opinionum commenta delet dies, naturae judicia confirmat.
  Cicero, de Nat. Deor. lib. II.  A Londres (Amsterdam). 1768.
  MDCCLXVIII. (8vo, pp. 267.)
   B. N., D2 5203.
   B. M. 4015 de 48.

  Containing, Préface ou Lettre à un ami, en lui envoyant les
  Dissertations suivantes, dans laquelle l'Auteur rend compte des
  motifs qui les ont fait écrire. (pp. 12-26.)

  Première Lettre.  De L'origine et de la Force de ces Préjugés.
  (pp. 27-44.)

  Seconde Lettre.  Histoire du dogme de l'Immortalité de
  l'Ame Chez les Payens. (pp. 45-93.)

  Troisième Lettre.  Sur l'origine de l'Idolâtrie et sur les
  fondements de la Religion Payenne. (pp. 94-152.)

  Quartrième Lettre.  A un Gentilhomme Hollandois pour lui
  prouver que le système de Spinoza est dépourvu de fondements
  et pèche dans ses principes. (pp. 154-186.)

  Cinquième Lettre.  Dans laquelle on prouve que le mouvement
  est essentiel à la Matière; en réponse à quelques remarques
  qui ont été faites à l'Auteur au sujet de sa réfutation du
  Système de Spinoza.

  Nunc quae mobilitas fit reddita Materiaë Corporibus paucis
  licet hinc cognoscere, Memmi.  Lucret., lib. II, vers 142.
  (pp. 187-267.)

 1768.  Théologie portative, ou Dictionnaire Abrégé de la Religion
 Chrétienne.  Par Mr. l'Abbé Bernier, Licencié en Théologie.

 Audite hoc Sacerdotes, et attendite Domus Israël, et Domus
 Regis auscultate; quia vobis Judicium est, quoniam Laquens
 facti estis Speculationi et rete expansum super Thabor. Osée,
 Chap. V, Vers. I.  Londres (Amsterdam), MDCCLXVIII (1767),
 (12mo, pp. 243).
  B. N., D2 14334.
  B. M. 703 a 25.

 &mdash;Ibid. Londres (Suisse), 1768.

 &mdash;Ibid.  A Rome, MDCCLXXV (8vo, pp. 213).
  B. N., D2 8370.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Augmentée d'un Volume.  A Rome, avec permission et privilège
 du Conclave.  (2 vols., 12mo (1776).)
  B. N., D2 8371.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Under title.  Manuel Théologique, en form de Dictionnaire.
 Ouvrage très utile aux personnes des deux sexes pour le salut de leurs
 âmes, par l'abbé Bernier etc.  Rome, 1785 Au Vatican de l'Imprimerie du
 Conclave. (2 vols., 8vo.)

 &mdash;Ibid.  1802.

 1768.  Le Militaire philosophe, ou Difficultés sur la Religion,
 proposées au R. P. Malebranche, Prêtre de l'Oratoire.  Par un ancien
 Officier.  Londres (Amsterdam) MDCCLXVIII.  (8vo, pp. 193.)
  C. U. 201 N 14.

 &mdash;Ibid.  1770 (8vo).
  B. M. 4015 bb 32.

 &mdash;Ibid.  1776 (8vo).
  B. M. 4015 de 34.
  (Last chapter by d'Holbach.)

 1768.  La Contagion sacrée, ou Histoire Naturelle de la Superstition.
 Ouvrage traduit de l'Anglois.  <i>Prima mali labes</i>.  Londres
 (Amsterdam), MDCCLXVII. (2 vols. in 1, 8vo.)
  B. N., D2 5195.
  C. U. 194 H 69 P.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Avec des notes relatives aux Circonstances.  Nouvelle
 Edition.  A Paris, de l'Imprimerie de Lemaire, rue d'Enfer no. 141,
 An 5 de la Republique (1797).  (2 vols. in 1, 8vo, pp. 179-190.)
  U. T. S. 441
  B. H. 723 C.

 &mdash;El Contagion sagrado, ó Historia natural de la supersticion.
 Paris, Rodriguez, 1822.  (2 vols., 8vo.)  (Quérard.)

 1768.  Lettres à Eugénia, ou Préservatif contre les préjugés... arctis
 Relligionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo.&mdash;Lucret. de rer. nat., Lib. 4,
 v. 6-7.  A Londres, MDCCLXVIII. (2 vols., 8vo, pp. xii + 188 + 167)

 &mdash;Ibid.  Oeuvres de Nicolas Fréret, T. I, pp. 1-359. Paris, 1792.  (8vo.)
  H. U. 19-30, vol. I.

 &mdash;Cartas á Eugenia, por Mr. Freret.  Paris.  Imprenta de F. Didot,
 1810 (8vo, pp. viii + 358).
  B. M. 4015 de 23.

 &mdash;Letters to Eugenia on the absurd, contradictory and demoralizing
 Dogmas and Mysteries of the Christian Religion.  Now first translated
 from the French of Fréret, but supposed to be written by Baron Holbach,
 author of the System of Nature, Christianity Unveiled, Common Sense,
 Universal Morality, Natural Morality.  R. Carlile, The Deist, etc.,
 Vol. II, 1819, etc.  (8vo, pp. 185.)
  B. M. 4015 f. 11.

 &mdash;Cartas à Eugenia.  Madrid, 1823, por Don Benito Cano.  2v.
  N. Y., Z F F.

 &mdash;Letters to Eugenia on the absurd, contradictory and demoralizing
 Dogmas and Mysteries of the Christian Religion, by Baron d'Holbach,
 New York, published by H. M. Dubecquet, No. 190
 William Street, 1833.  (12vo, pp. 236.)
  U. T. S. 326 B.

 &mdash;Letters to Eugenia etc., translated by Anthony C. Middleton,
 M.D. Boston, Josiah P. Mendum, 1857.
  B. P. 5484 2.

 1769.  De la Cruauté religieuse.  A Londres, MDCCLXIX. (16vo, pp. 228.)
  B. N., D2 8365.
  B. M. 4017 aa 25.
  U. T. S. H 723.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Amsterdam, 1775, 12vo.

 1769.  Le la Tolérance dans la Religion, ou de la Liberté de conscience
 par Crellius.  L'Intolérance convaincue de crime et de folie.
 Ouvrage traduit de l'Anglois, Londres, MDCCLXIX.  (12vo, pp. 174.)

  Contains De la Tolérance dans la religion, ou de la liberté de
  conscience (Crellius).

  De l'Intolérance dans la Religion (d'Holbach), p. 88.

  Enfer détruit ou Examen Raisonné du Dogme de l'Eternité
  des peines.  Ouvrages, tr. de L'Anglois à Londres, MDCCLXIX, p. 1.

  Dissertation critique sur les tourmens de l'enfer.  Traduit de
  L'Anglois, p. 96 (by Whitefoot).
   B. N., D2 5154.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Hell destroyed!  Now first translated from the French of
 d'Alembert without any mutilations.  London.  Printed and published
 by J. W. Trust, 126 Newgate St., 1823. (8vo, pp. 47.)
 (Followed by Whitefoot's Torments of Hell, "now first translated
 from the French," to p. 83.)

 1770.  L'Esprit du judaïsme, ou Examen raisonné de la Loi de Moyse,
 et de son influence sur la Religion Chrétienne.
  Atque utinam nunquam Judaea sub acta fuisset Pompeii
  bellis, imperioque Titi.
  Latius excisae pestes contagie serpunt, Victoresques suos
  natio victa premit.  Rutilius, Itinerar.  Lia I, vs. 394, Londres,
  MDCCLXX. (12mo, pp. xxii + 201.)
   B. N., D2 5191.
   B. M. 4034 bb 38.

 1770.  Examen critique de la vie et des ouvrages de saint Paul, Avec
 une dissertation sur saint Pierre par feu M. Boulanger.
 Londres, 1770 (8vo), (by Peter Annet).
  B. N. 3ex. [D2 5349 (2) 8367 et H. 7551].
  B. M. 48o8 aa 7.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Nouvelle Edition, Londres, 1790. (8vo.)
  B. N. [H 13032].

 &mdash;Critical Examination of the Life of St. Paul.  Translated from
 the French of Boulanger.  "Paul, thou art beside thyself, much
 learning doth make thee mad."  Acts, chap, 26, v 24.  London.
 Printed and published by R. Carlile, 5 Water Lane, Fleet St.,
 1823.  (8vo, pp. 72.)
  B. M. 4372 h g (4).

 1770.  Histoire critique de Jésus-Christ, ou Analyse raisonnée
 des Evangiles.  Ecce Homo.
 Pudet me humani generis, cuius mentis et aures talia ferre
 potuerunt.  S. Augustin. (No date [Amsterdam, 1770?], 16mo,
 pp. viii + xxxii + 298.)
  B. N, 7,549.
  B. M. 4017 a. 45.
  U. T. S. 465 H 723.

 &mdash;Ecce Homo! or a critical enquiry into the history of Jesus Christ,
 being a Rational Analysis of the Gospels.  Edinburg, 1799.

 &mdash;Ecce Homo! or a critical enquiry into the history of Jesus Christ,
 being a Rational Analysis of the Gospels.  (2d ed.) London, 1813.
 Printed, published and sold by D. I. Easton.
  G. T. S. 232 G. H. 69.

 &mdash;Historia critica de Jesus Christo, o anáilisis razonado le los
 evangelios.  Traducida del Frances, por el P. F. de T, ex-jesuita.
 Ecce Homo.  Vel. aqui el hombre.  S. Juan, cap. 19,

 v. 5. Londres, en la imprenta de Davidson, 1822.  (2 vols., 12mo,
 pp. xiii + 200 + 280.)

 Contains Advertencia del Traductor.

 1770.  Tableau des Saints, ou examen de l'esprit, de la conduite, des
 maximes, et du mérite des personnages que le Christianisme révère et
 propose pour modèles.
 Hoc admonere simplices etiam potest,
 Opinione alterius ne quid ponderent;
 Ambitio namque diffidens mortalium
 Aut gratiae subscribunt, aut odio suo;
 Erit ille nottis, quem per te cognoveris.
 Phaed., Lib. III, Fab. 10.

 A Londres, MDCCLXX.  (2 Vols., 12mo, pp. xxviii + 280 + 286.)
  B. N., H 7,552.
  B. M. 4,824 a a a a 27.

 1770.  Recueil philosophique, ou Mélange de Pièces sur la Religion et
 la Morale.  Par différents Auteurs (ed. Naigeon).

 Ovando enim ista observans quieto et libero animo esse poteris,
 ut ad vem gerendam non Superstionem habeas, sed Rationem ducem.
 &mdash;Cicero, de Divinat., Lib. 2.  Londres, MDCCLXX.  (2 vols., 12mo.)
  B. N., D2 5309.

  Vol. I, p. 129 (VI), Réflexions sur les Craintes de la Mort.

  Vol. II, p. 34 (IX), Dissertation sur l'Immortalité de l'âme.
  Traduite de l'Anglais.

  Vol. II, p. 50 (X), Dissertation sur le suicide.  Traduit de l'Anglais.

  Vol. II, p. 70 (XI).  Problème important.  La Religion est
  elle nécessaire à la Morale et utile à la Politique?  Par M.
  Mirabaud.

  Vol. II, p. 125 (XIII).  Extrait d'un Ecrit Anglais qui a pour
  titre <i>le christianisme aussi ancien que le monde</i>.

 1770.  Essai sur les préjugés, ou, De l'influence des opinions sur les
 moeurs et sur le bonheur des hommes.  Ouvrage contenant l'apologie
 de la philosophie par Mr. D. M.

 Assiduite quotidiana et consuetudine oculorum assuescunt animi,
 neque admirantur, neque requerunt rationes earum rerum quas vident.
 &mdash;Cicero de Nat. Deorum, Lib. II.  Londres, MDCCLXX. (8vo, pp. 394.)
  B. N., R 20 553.
  B. M. 8463 b b b 16.
  H. U. Phil. 264840.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Paris Desray an 1 (1792).  (2 vols., 8vo, Cortina.)

 &mdash;Ibid.  Oeuvres de Dumarsais. Paris, Pougin, 1797.  T. VI
 8vo, pp. 43-352.
  B. N., Z 23766-72.
  H. U. 9578 13 VI.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Paris, Niogret, 1822.
  C. U. 3045 D 89.

 &mdash;Essayo sobre las preocupaciones ó del influjo de las opiniones
 en las costumbres y felicidad de las hombres.  Por Dumarsais.
 En Paris.  Hallase en la casa de Rosa, Librero.  Gran pacio del
 Palacio Real.  1823.  (8vo, pp. 391.)
  B. N., R 34,366.

 &mdash;(Bibliothèque Nationale. Collection des meilleurs auteurs
 anciens et modernes.)  Dumarsais.  Essai sur les Préjugés.
 Précédé d'un Discours préliminaire et d'un Précis historique de
 la vie de Dumarsais par le citoyen Daube.  Paris.  Librairie de
 la Bibliothèque Nationale.  Rue de Richelieu 8, Près le
 Théâtre Francais. Ci-devant rue de Valois 1886.  Tous droits
 resérvés (25 centimes).
  B. N. 8vo R. 15952.

 1770.  Système de la Nature, ou Des Loix du Monde Physique et du
 Monde Moral. Par M. Mirabaud, Secrétaire Perpétuel et l'un
 des Quarante de l'Académie Française.

 Natura rerum vis atque majestas in omnibus momentis fide
 caret, si quis modè partes ejus, ac non totam complectatur
 animo.&mdash;Plin. Hist., Lib. VII. Londres, MDCCLXX.
 (2 vols., 8vo, pp. 370 + 412.)
  B. M. 4017 f 32
  U. T. S. 321 H 7235.

 &mdash;Ibid, Londres, MDCCLXX. (Second edition, 2 Vols., in 8vo,
 pp. 366 + 408.)
  B. M., D2 5166-5167.
 Contains Discours préliminaire de l'Auteur (pp. 16).  Avis de
 l'Editeur. Préface de l'Auteur, etc.

 &mdash;Abrégé du Code de la Nature, par M., Mirabaud, Secrétaire
 Perpétuel et l'un des Quarante de l'Académe Française.
 Londres. MDCCLXX. (8vo, 16 p.)

 &mdash;Ibid.  Nouvelle Édition augmentée par l'auteur à laquelle on a
 joint plusieurs pièces des meilleurs Auteurs relatives aux
 mêmes objets, etc.  (Ed. Naigeon.)  Londres, MDCCLXXI.
 (2 vols. in 8vo, pp. 397-500.)

 Contains Vol. II, p. 455, Réquisitoire, sur lequel est intervenu
 l'Arrêt du Parlement du 18 Août 1770 qui condamne à
 être brûlés, differens Livres ou Brochures, intitulés.

 1. La Contagion sacrée...
 2. Dieu et les hommes.
 3. Discours sur les Miracles.
 4. Examen des Apologistes.
 5. Examen impartial des principales religions du Monde.
 6. Christianisme dévoilé.
 7. Système de la Nature.
 Imprimé par ordre exprès du Roi.
  B. M., D2 5168.
 Reprinted in 1774, 1775-1777.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Nouvelle Édition.  Londres,  1780, 8vo, pp. xii + 371 + 464.

 Contains <i>Sentiments de Voltaire sur le Système de la Nature</i>.
 Séguier's <i>Réquisitoire</i> and Holbach's <i>Réplique</i>.
  B. M. 528 1. 2526.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Nouvelle Édition. Londres, 1781. (2 vols. in 8vo, pp. 316 + 385.)
  B. N., D2 516g.

 &mdash;Ibid.  German Translation, Schreiter.  Leipzig and Frankfort, 1783.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Paris, An. III (1795).  (3 vols. in 8vo.)

 &mdash;The System of Nature.  Translated from the French of M. Mirabeau.
 London, 1797.  Printed for G. Kearsley.
  L. of C. B 2053-S G E-12 11-15959.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Philadelphia, 1808.  Pub. by R. Benson.
  L. of C., B 2053-S G 3 E 13-11-1595 G.

 &mdash;Nature and Her Laws, as Applicable to the Happiness of Man Living
 in Society, Contrasted with Superstitions and Imaginary Systems.
 Done from the French of M. Mirabaud.  London in 1816.  W. Hodgson.
  C. U. 194 H 69 S.
  L. of C., B 2053 S g 3 E 14-11.15960

 &mdash;Système de la Nature,... Avec notes de Diderot.  Nouvelle édition.
 Ed. Lemonnier, Paris, 1820.  B. Roquefort.  (2 vols. in 8vo.)

 &mdash;The System of Nature, or the Laws of the Moral and Physical World.
 Translated by Samuel Wilkinson from the original French of M. Mirabaud.
 Printed and published by Thomas Davison. (Vols. 2, 3, R. Helder, 1821.)
 London, 1820.
 3 vols in 8vo, pp. xi + 348-311-273.)  Contains Life of Mirabaud,
 Vol. 3, pp. 263-273.
  B. M. 804. de 20?
  U. S. 321. H 723.

 &mdash;Système de la Nature... par le Baron d'Holbach.
 Nouvelle Edition avec des notes et des corrections par Diderot.
 Paris, Etienne Ledoux, 1821.  (2 vols. in 8vo, pp. xvi + 507 +502.)
  B. N., D2 5170.
  B. M. 124 9 i. 26.
  C. U, 194 H 69. R.
  N. Y., Y C O.
 Contains extract of Grimm's Literary Correspondence, Aug. 10, 1789.

 &mdash;Système de la Nature, ou des lois du monde physique et du monde
 morale, par le Baron d'Holbach.  Nouvelle Édition avec des notes et
 des corrections par Diderot etc.  Paris, Domère, 1822. (4 vols. in 12mo.)
 Contains Avis de Naigion.  Avertissement du nouvel éditeur, pp. 11-29.
 Pièces diverses, pp. 30-46.

 &mdash;Sistema de la Naturaleza, con notas y correcciones por Diderot;
 trad, al castell. por F. A. F....  Paris, Masson hijo, 1822,
 4 vols. in 18mo.
  B. N., D2 5172.

 &mdash;Selections from Mirabaud's System of Nature in the Law of Reason, etc.
 London, 1831.  (16mo, pp. 231.)
 Selections from Bon-Sens, pp. 39-81, 82-112.
  B. M. 1387. b. 3.

 &mdash;Nature and her Laws, as Applicable to the Happiness of Man Living
 in Society, Contrasted with Superstitions and Imaginary Systems.
 From the French of M. de Mirabaud.  James Watson.  London, 1834.
 (2 vols. in 12mo, pp. xxiv + 287 + 320.)
 Sold for 7 s. 6 d.
  B. M. 1133 b 29.
 Contains
 1. Publisher's Preface (by James Watson).
 2. Preface.
 3. A short account of the life and writings of the Baron d'Holbach
 (by Julian Hibbert).

 &mdash;System of Nature, new and improved edition with notes by Diderot.
 Translated by H. D. Robinson.  New York, 1835, published by Matsell.
  N. Y., Y B X.

 &mdash;System of Nature, or the laws of the moral and physical world,
 from the French of M. Mirabaud.  (New edition, pp. 8 + 520.)
 London, 1840.
  C. U. 194 H 69. R 1.

 &mdash;System der Natur von Mirabaud. Deutsch bearbeitet und mit Anmerkungen
 versehen von Biedermann.  Leipzig, 1841.
 (8vo, pp. 604.) Georg. Wigands Verlag.
  T. S. (Andover 23).

 &mdash;System der Natur....  Translated by Schreiter, 1843.

 &mdash;System of Nature, new and improved edition with notes by Diderot,
 translated by H. D. Robinson.  Stereotype edition, Boston, 1848,
 in 8vo.  Published by J. P. Mendum.
  B. P. 00.80-6105.5.

 &mdash;System der Natur..., tr. Allhusen, 1851.

 &mdash;System of Nature..., tr. Robinson, Boston. 1853. Published by
 J. P. Mendum.
  B. P. 3600.48.
  N. Y., Y C O 11-15957/
  L. of C., B. 2053. S g 3 E 6.

 &mdash;The System of Nature; or, The Laws of the Moral and Physical World,
 by the baron d'Holbach, originally attributed to M. de Mirabaud with
 memoir by Charles Bradlaugh.  Reprinted verbatim from the best edition.
 London.  Published by E. Truelove, 256 High Holborn, 1884. In 8vo,
 pp. xi + 520.
  B. M. 8467 a a 33.

 1772.  Le Bon-sens ou idées naturelles opposées aux idées surnaturelles.
    Detexit quo doloso vaticinandi furore Sacerdotes
    mysteria, illis saepe ignota, audacter publicant.
    &mdash;Petronii Satyricon.
 Londres (Amsterdam) 1772, 8vo, pp. xii - 515.
  U. T. S. 321 H. 7236.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Le Bon-sens du curé J. Meslier d'Etrépigny.  Rome
 (Paris), 1791, 8vo.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Another edition, 1772, 8vo, pp. x-250.

 &mdash;Ibid. Londres (Amsterdam), 1774, 16mo, pp. xii-302.
  U. T. S. 321 H. 7236.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Le Bon-sens du curé Meslier d'Etrépigny.  Rome
 (Paris), 1791, 8vo.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Nouvelle édition, suivi du Testament du curé Meslier.
 Paris, Bouqueton, l'an I de la République.  (1792, 2 vols., 12mo.)

 &mdash;Ibid.  Le Bon-sens du curé J. Meslier suivi de son Testament.
 Paris, 1802, 8vo, pp. 380.
  C. U. 843 M 56 D 1.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Paris, Palais des Thermes de Julien, 1802 (1822), 12mo.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Paris, Guillaumin, 1830, 12mo.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Paris, Guillaumin, 1831, 12mo.

 &mdash;Common Sense, H. D. Robinson, New York, circa 1833.

 &mdash;Le Bon-sens du curé J. Meslier, etc.  Paris, Bacquenois, 1833, 12mo.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Paris, Guillaumin, 1834, 12mo.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Nancy, Haener, 1834, 12mo.

 &mdash;Der gesunde Menschenverstand.  Baltimore, 1857.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Baltimore, 1859 (second edition), H. U.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Tr. into German by Miss Anna Knoop. circa 1878.

 &mdash;Ibid., under title, Superstition in all ages; by Jean Meslier...
 who left to the world the following pages entitled <i>Common Sense</i>.
 Translated from the French original by Miss Anna Knoop, New York, 1878.
  C. U. L. 211 M.

 &mdash;Ibid.  New York, Peter Eckler, 1890, pp. vi-339.
  U. T. S.

 &mdash;Le Bon-sens du curé J. Meslier, Paris, Palais des Thermes de
 Julien, 1802.  (Garnier Frères, 1905.)
  H. U.

 &mdash;Superstition in all ages, etc.  Translated from the French original
 by Miss Anna Knoop; arranged for publication in its present form and
 manner with new title-page and preface by Dr. L. W. deLaurence.  Same
 to now serve as "text-book" number five for "the congress of ancient,
 divine, mental and Christian masters," Chicago, Ill., DeLaurence,
 Scott &amp; Co., 1910, pp. xx-17-339.
  L. of C. 1910, A 26880.  L. W. de Laurence.

 1772.  De la nature humaine, ou Exposition des facultés, des actions
 et des passions de l'âme, et de leurs causes, déduites d'après des
 principes philosophiques qui ne sont communément ni reçus ni connus.
 Par Thomas Hobbes; Ouvrage traduit de l'Anglois.
 Londres (Amsterdam), MDCCLXXII. (8vo, pp. iv + 171.)
  B. M. 8403 c c 15.
  (Bookmark of Richard Chase Sidney.)

 &mdash;Ibid.  Oeuvres philosophiques et politiques de Thomas Hobbes.
 1787. (2 vols., 8vo.)  (Tr. by Sorbière and Holbach.)
  B. M. 528 2223.

 1773.  Recherches sur les Miracles.  Par l'auteur de l'Examen des
 Apologistes de la Religion Chrétienne.  A Genus attonitum.
 Ovid.  Metam.  Londres, MDCCLXXIII.  (8vo. pp. 172.)
  B. M. 4015 de 44.

 1773.  La politique naturelle, ou, Discours sur les vrais principes du
 Governement.  Par un ancien Magistrat.
 Vis consili expers mole ruit suâ. &mdash;Horat., Ode IV, lib. III, vers. 65
 Londres (Amsterdam), MDCCLXXIII. (2 vols. in 8vo.
 pp. vii + 232 + 280.)
  B. M. 521 h. 8.
  U. S. 269 E. H. 723 (ex libris Baron Carl de Vinck, Ministre de Belgique).
  C. U. 320 H. 691.
  (Ascribed also to C. G. Lamoignon de Malesherbes.)

 &mdash;Ibid.  Londres, 1774.  (2 vols, in 8vo.)

 &mdash;La Politica Naturale: discorsi sui veri principi di governo.
 Traduzione di Luigi Salvadori.  Mantova, Balbiani e Donelli,
 '78-80.  (2 vols., 16 (L. 5).)

 1773.  Système Social, ou principes naturels de la moral et de la
 politique, avec un examen de l'influence du governement sur les moeurs.
 Discenda virtus est, ars est bonum fieri; erras si existimas
 vitia nobiscum nasci; supervenerunt in gesta sunt. &mdash;Seneca, Epis. 124.
 Londres, MDCCLXXIII.  (8vo, pp. 218 + 174 + 166, in three parts.)
  B. N., R 20275.76 E 1919.
  C. U. 320. H. 69.
  N. Y. SC.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Par l'auteur du Système de la Nature, Londres, 1774.
 (3 vols., 8vo, pp. 208 + 174 + 167.)
  B. M. 8403. h 23.

 &mdash;Ibid.  A Paris, Servière, 1795.  (2 vols., 8vo, pp. 472 + 403.)
  B. M. 8404 dc. 25 (ex libris J. Gomez de la Cortina et amicorum.
  Fallitur hora legendo).

 &mdash;Ibid....par le baron d'Holbach.  Paris, Niogret, 1882.
 (2 vols, 8vo.)
  C. U. 320.  H. 690.

 1774.  Agriculture réduit à ses vrais principes par Jean Gottschalk
 Wallerius, Paris, Lacombe, 1774. (12mo.)

 1776.  Ethocratie ou le gouvernement fondé sur la morale.
 Constituit bonos mores civitati princips. &mdash;Seneca, de Clementia, Lib. I.
 A Amsterdam.  Chez Marc Michel Rey.  MDCCLXXVI.
 (8vo, pp. 10 + 293 + 2.)
  C. U. 320. 1 H 69.

 1776.  Morale universelle, ou Les devoirs de l'homme fondés sur la nature.
 Naturâ duce utendum est: hanc ratio observe, hanc
 consulit, idem est ergo beatè vivere et secundum naturam. &mdash;Seneca
 de Vita beata, Cap. VIII init.
 A Amsterdam.  Chez Marc-Michel Rey, MDCCLXXVI.
 (3 vols., 8vo, pp. 416 + 334 + 364.)
  B. N., R 18596-7-8..
  B. M. 231 h-3

 &mdash;Ibid.  A Tours, Chez Letourmy le jeune et compagnie, A Angers,
 De l'Imprimerie de Jahyer et Geslin.  Imprimeurs-Libraries, rue
 Milton, 1792. (8vo.)
  B. M. 527.  K. 1-3H.
  U. Phil. 2648.50.

 &mdash;Ibid.  Paris, Smith (Rey et Gravier), an 6, 1798. (3 vols., 8vo.)

 &mdash;Ibid.  Par le baron d'Holbach. Paris, Masson et fils.  Libraires,
 Rue de Tournon, No. 6, 1820.  (3 vols., 8vo, pp. xxxii + 314 + 266 + 300.)
  C. U. 170 H 2.
  B. M. 8411 k 7.

 &mdash;Moral universal ódeberes del hombre, fundatos en su naturaleza.
 Obra escrita en francès por el baron de Holbach y traducida al
 castellano por D. Manuel Diaz Moreno Zaragoza, 1838, imp. de
 M. Heras. (3 vols., 8vo.)

 &mdash;La moral universel por el baron de Holbach.  Madrid, 1840,
 imp. y lib. del Establecimiento Central. (2 vols. in 4to.)

 &mdash;Ibid.  Translated into German by Johann Umminger.  Leipzig, 1898.
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 1790.  Elements de la morale universelle, ou catechisme de la nature.
 Par feu M., le Baron d'Holbach des académies de Pétersbourg de Manheim
 et de Berlin.
 Numquam aliud natura aliud sapientia dicit.&mdash;Juvenal.
 A Paris.  Chez G. de Bure.  Rue Serpente, No. 6, MDCCXC.
 (24vo, pp. vi + 208.)
  B. M. 528. a. 27.
  B. P., G. 3537.14.

 &mdash;Elementos de la moral universel, ó catecismo de la naturaleza,
 por el baron de Holbach.  Madrid, 1820, imp. que fué de Fuentenebro,
 lib de Sanchez en 8vo past.

 &mdash;Principios de moral, ó manuel de los deberes del hombre fundados
 en la naturaleza.  Obra póstuma de baron de Holbach.  Traducida al
 espanol por D. L. M. G. adoptada en su mayor parte de la escuelas
 de primera educacion para instruccion de los ninos.  Madrid, 1837,
 imp. de Ferrer y compania lib de J Sanz.  (In 16mo.)
</pre>
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    <h2>
      BIBLIOGRAPHY PART II.
    </h2>
    <h3>
      GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY.
    </h3>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie.

  Avézac-Lavigne, Diderot et la société du Baron d'Holbach.  Paris, 1875.

  Bachaumont, Mémoires secrètes.  Paris, 1859.

  Barbier, Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes.  Paris, 1822.

  Barni, Histoire des idées morales et politiques en France au
       dix-huitième siècle.  Paris, 1865.

  Barruel, Mémoire pour servir à l'histoire de Jacobinisme.  Hamburg, 1798.

  Lettres helviennes.  Hamburg, 1798-1799.

  Bartholmess, Histoire philosophique de l'Académie de Prusse.  Paris, 1851.

  Bergier, Apologie de la Religion Chrétienne contre l'auteur du
       <i>Christianisme dévoilé</i>.  Paris, 1769.
     Examen du matérialisme, ou Réfutation du <i>Système de la Nature</i>.
       Paris, 1771.

  Bibliothèque Nationale, Pièces originales.  1529 d'Holbach.
     Manuscrits Français, 15224, 22149 (Col. Anisson).

  Boiteau, Mémoires de Mme. d'Epinay.  Paris.

  British Museum Manuscript Index, 1876-1881.  Mss. Folios 30867-69, 70, 71.

  Brougham, A Discourse of Natural Theology.  London, 1835.

  Brunel, Les philosophes et l'Académie Française.  Paris.

  Brunet, Manuel du Librairie.  Paris, 1865.

  Bucherberger, Kirche-Lexikon.

  Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume.  Edinburgh, 1846.
     Letters of Prominent Persons addressed to David Hume.
       Edinburgh and London, 1849.

  Buzonnière, Observations sur un ouvrage intitulé le <i>Système de la Nature</i>.
     Paris, 1776.

  Camuset, Principes contre l'incrédulité, à l'occasion du
     <i>Système de la Nature</i>.  Paris, 1771.

  Carlile, The Deist.  London, 1819.

  Carlyle, Rev. Dr. Alexander, Autobiography, Ed. Burton.  London, 1861.

  Castillon, Observations sur un livre intitulé, <i>Système de la Nature</i>.
     Berlin, 1771.

  Catalogue des manuscrits français dans les bibliothèques départementales.

  Chaudon, Dictionnaire anti-philosophique etc.  Avignon, 1767.

  Claudon, Le Baron d'Holbach.  Paris, 1835.

  Collignon, Diderot.  Paris, 1907.

  Critica, 1903-1904

  Damiron, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la philosophie au 18me
       siècle.  Paris, 1858.
     Etudes sur la philosophie de d'Holbach.  Mémoires de l'Académie
       des sciences morales et politiques, Vol. IV du Compte rendu des Séances.

  Debure, Catalogue des livres de la bibliothèque du feu
     M. le baron d'Holbach.  Paris, 1789.

  Delisle de Sales, Philosophie de la Nature.  Paris, 1770.
     Mémoire en faveur de Dieu.  Paris, 1802.

  Delvaille, Essai sur l'histoire de l'idée de progrès.  Paris, 1910.

  Diderot, Oeuvres, ed Brière.  Paris, 1822.
     Mémoires, correspondance, et ouvrages inédits de Diderot.  Paris, 1830.
     Oeuvres complètes de Diderot, ed. Assézat et Tourneux.  Paris, 1877.

  Douarche, Les tribunaux civils de Paris pendant la Révolution.
       Paris, 1905-1907.

  Dupont de Nemours, Philosophie de l'univers.  Paris, l'An IV (1796).

  Duprat, Les Encyclopédists.  Paris, 1865.

  Duvoisin, L'Autorité des livres du Nouveau Testament contre les
       incrédules.  Paris, 1775.
     L'Autorité des livres de Moïse, etc.  Paris, 1778.

  Eclaircissements relatifs à la publication des <i>Confessions</i> de
     Rousseau, avec des réflexions sur les apologies de MM. Cerutti et
      d'Holbach etc.  Paris, 1789.

  Encyclopédie des sciences religieuses.

  Epinay, Mme. d' Mémoires et correspondance.  Paris, 1818.

  Fabre, Les Pères de la Révolution.  De Bayle à Condorcet.  Paris, 1910.

  Fabry d'Autrey, Antiquité justifiée etc.  Paris, 1766.

  Fangouse, La religion prouvée aux incrédules, etc.  Paris, 1780.

  Ferraz, Histoire de la philosophie pendant la Révolution.  Paris, 1889.
     Histoire de la philosophie en France au 19me siecle.  Paris, 1882.

  Fitzmaurice, Life of William, Earl of Shelburne.  London, 1875.

  Fortnightly Review, Vol. XXVIII, 1877.

  Frederick II, King of Prussia, Examen critique du livre
       intitulé <i>Système de la Nature</i>.  Berlin, 1770.

  Fréret, Lettre de Thrasybule à Leucippe.

  Funck, Les sophistes français et la révolution européenne.  Paris, 1905.

  Galiani, Lettres, ed. E. Asse.  Paris.
     Correspondance, ed. Perey et Maugras.  Paris, 1910.

  Garrick.  Private Correspondence.  London, 1833.

  Gasté, Diderot et le curé de Montchauvet, etc.  Paris, 1898.

  Garat, Mémoires historiques sur le 18me siècle.  Paris, 1821.

  Gazette de France, Aug. 10, 1754.  June 1, 1781.

  Genlis, Mme de, Les dîners du Baron d'Holbach, etc.  Paris, 1822.

  Gibbon, Autobiography, ed. Murray.  London, 1897.
     Private Letters, 1753-1794, ed Prothero.  London, 1897.

  Grande Encyclopédie.

  Grimm, Correspondance littéraire et critique.  Paris, 1878.
     Nouveaux mémoires secrets et inédits, etc.  Paris, 1834.

  Hammard, Mme. de Genlis.  New York, 1913.

  Hancock, The French Revolution and the English Poets.  New York, 1899.

  Hedgcock, David Garrick et ses amis français.  Paris, 1911.

  Helvetius, Le vrai sens du <i>Système de la Nature</i>.  Paris, 1774.

  Herzog, Real-Encyklopedie.

  Hibbert, A Short Sketch of the Life and the Writings
       of Baron d'Holbach.  London, 1834.

  Holland, Réflexions philosophiques sur la
       <i>Système de la Nature</i>.  Paris, 1822.

  Hume, Private Correspondence, etc.  London, 1820.

  L'Impie démasqué, etc.  London, 1773.

  Independent Whig.  London, 1720.

  Jal, Dictionnaire critique de biographie et d'histoire.  Paris, 1867.

  Journal de lecture, Vol. I, 1775.

  Journal de Paris, 1789.

  Laharpe, Cours de littérature.  Paris, 1821.
     Philosophie du 18me siècle.  Paris, 1818.

  Lagrange, Oeuvres complètes de Senèque.  Paris, 1778.

  Landry, Beccaria, Scritte e lettre inediti.  1910.

  Lange, History of Materialism.  Boston, 1877.

  Lanson, Manuel bibliographique de la littérature
       française moderne 1500-1900.  Paris, 1911.

  Lenel, Un homme de lettres au 18me siècle, Marmontel.  Paris, 1902.

  Lerminier, De l'influence de la philosophie au 18 siècle.  Paris, 1833.

  Lévy-Bruhle, History of Modern Philosophy in France.  Chicago, 1899.

  Lowell, The Eve of the French Revolution.  Boston, 1892.

  Magasin encyclopédique.  Mai, 1805.

  Mangold, von, Unumstossliche Widerlegung des Materialismus
       gegen den Verfasser des Systèms der Natur.  Augsburg, 1803.

  Maréchal, Dictionnaire des athées (Paris). An. VIII (1800).

  Marmontel, Mémoires, ed. Tourneur.  Paris, 1891.

  Martin, Histoire de France, 1748-1789.  4th Ed.

  Michaud, Biographie universelle.

  Morellet, Mémoires.  Paris, 1821.
     Lettres à Lord Shelburne.  Paris, 1898.

  Mornet, Les sciences de la nature au 18me siècle.  Paris, 1911.

  Myers, Konversations-Lexikon.

  Naigeon, Mémoires historiques et philosophiques sur la
       vie et les ouvrages de Denis Diderot.  Paris, 1821.

  Nouvelle Revue, June, July, 1912.

  Paulian, La religion prouvée aux incrédules, etc. Paris, 1780.

  Paulian, Le véritable système de la nature.  Paris, 1788.

  Payrard, De la nature et de ses lois.  Paris, 1773.

  Perey et Maugras, Dernières années de Mme. d'Epinay.  Paris, 1883.

  Picavet, Les Idéologues.  Paris, 1891.

  Plechanow, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Materialismus.  Stuttgart, 1896.

  Quérard, La France littéraire.  Paris, 1833.
     Superchéries littéraires dévoilées.  Paris, 1870.
     Littérature française contemporaine (Continuation).

  Rabbe, Biographie.

  Répertoire de la Gazette de France.

  Revue Bleue, June, 1912.

  Revue de l'histoire littéraire de la France, Jan.-June, 1912.

  Revue de synthèse historique, 1903, Vol. I.

  Revue des Cours et Conférences, 1908-1910.

  Revue des deux mondes, Apr., 1886; June, 1912.

  Revue encyclopédique, Vol. XVI.

  Rey, Rousseau.  Paris, 1909.

  Rietstap, Armorial général.  Gonda, 1884.

  Robinet, Le personnel municipale de Paris pendant la Révolution.
       Paris, 1890.

  Rochfort, L'Esprit révolutionnaire avant la Révolution.  Paris, 1878.

  Romilly, Sir S., Memoirs.  London, 1840.

  Rosenkrantz, Diderot's Leben und Werke.  Leipzig, 1864.

  Rousseau, Oeuvres complètes.  Paris, 1793.

  Roustan, Les philosophes et la société française au 18me siècle.
       Paris, 1906.

  St.-Beuve, Portraits littéraires.  Paris, 1878.
     Causeries de lundi.  Paris, 1882.

  St.-Martin, Des erreurs et de la vérité.  Edinburgh, 1775.

  Soury, Bréviaire de l'histoire de matérialisme.  Paris, 1881.

  Stupuy, Chez Diderot, comédie en deux actes, en vers.  Paris, 1868.

  Tallentyre, The Friends of Voltaire.  London, 1906.

  Villemain, Cours de littérature française.  Paris, 1859.

  Voltaire, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Beuchot.  Paris, 1829-40.
     Oeuvres complètes, ed. Garnier.  Paris, 1880.

  Walpole, H., Letters, ed, Toynbee.  London, 1912.

  Weiland, Oberon, tr. Holbach fils.  Paris, 1825.

  Wetzer &amp; Welte, Kirchen-lexikon.

  Wilkes, Correspondence with his Friends.  London, 1805.
       Letters from the year 1774 to 1796, addressed to his daughter.
        London, 1805.

  Wright, A History of French Literature.  London, 1912.
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    <h2>
      VITA
    </h2>
    <p>
      Max Pearson Cushing, born in Bangor, Maine, October 27, 1886; Bangor High
      School, 1905; A.B. Bowdown College, 1909. Instructor in English, Robert
      College, Constantinople, 1909-1911; Graduate Student in History, Columbia
      University, 1911-1913; A.M. Columbia, 1912, Instructor in History, Reed
      College, Portland, Oregon, 1913.
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