Holbach

(Paul He in rich Diet rich von) Baron , b. Heidelsheim Jan. 1723. Brought up at Paris where he spent most of his life. Rich and generous he was the patron of the Encyclopædists. Buffon, Diderot, d’Alembert, Helvetius, Rou eau, Grimm, Raynal, Marm on tel, Condillac, and other authors often met at his table. Hume, Garrick, Franklin, and Priest ley were also among his visitors. He translated from the German several works on chemistry and mineralogy, and from the English, Mark Akenside’s Pleasures of the Imagination . He contributed many articles to the Encyclopédie . In 1765 he visited England, and from this time was untiring in his i ue of Free thought works, usually put out under pseudonyms. Thus he wrote and had published at Amsterdam Christianity Unveiled , attributed to Boulanger. The Spirit of the Clergy , translated, from the English of Trenchard and Gordon, was partly rewritten by d’Holbach, 1767. His Sacred Contagion or Natural History of Superstition , was also wrongly attributed to Trenchard and Gordon. This work was condemned to be burnt by a decree of the French parliament, 8 Aug. 1770. D’Holbach also wrote and published The History of David , 1768, The Critical History of Jesus Christ , Letters to Eugenia , attributed to Freret, Portable Theology , attributed to Bernier, an E ay on Prejudices , attributed to M. Du M [arsais], Religious Cruelty , Hell Destroyed , and other works, said to be from the English. He also translated the Philosophical Letters of To land, and Collins’s Discourses on Prophecy , and attributed to the latter a work with the title The Spirit of Judaism . These works were mostly conveyed to the printer, M. Rey, at Amsterdam, by Naigeon, and the secret of their authorship was carefully preserved. Hence d’Holbach escaped persecution. In 1770 he published his principal work The System of Nature , or The Laws of the Physical and Moral World . This text-book of atheistic philosophy, in which d’Holbach was a isted by Diderot, profe ed to be the posthumous work of Mirabaud. It made a great sensation. Within two years he published a sort of summary under the title of Good Sense , attributed to the curé Meslier. In 1773 he wrote on Natural Politics and the Social System . His last important work was Universal Morality; or the Duties of Man founded upon Nature . D’Holbach, whose personal good qualities were testified to by many, was depicted in Rou eau’s Nouvelle Héloise as the benevolent Atheist Wolmar. Died 21 Jan. 1789.