Baron d\'Holbach by Max Pearson Cushing

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BARON D'HOLBACH
A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France

by

MAX PEARSON CUSHING

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

New York
1914

Press of
The New Era Printing Company
Lancaster, PA

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction.

CHAPTER I. HOLBACH THE MAN.

Early Letters to John Wilkes.

Holbach's family.

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

Estimate of Holbach. His character and personality.

CHAPTER II. HOLBACH'S WORKS.

Miscellaneous Works.

Translations of German Scientific Works.

Translations of English Deistical Writers.

Boulanger's _Antiquité dévoilée_.

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

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

Voltaire's correspondence on the subject.

Goethe's sentiment.

Refutations and criticisms.

Holbach's philosophy.

APPENDIX. HOLBACH'S CORRESPONDENCE.

Five unpublished letters to John Wilkes.

[ENDNOTES]

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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

Part II. General Bibliography.

BARON D'HOLBACH

A une extréme justesse d'esprit il joignait une simplicité
de moeurs tout-à-fait antique et patriarcale.

J. A. Naigeon, _Journal de Paris_, le 9 fev. 1789

INTRODUCTION

Diderot, writing to the Princess Dashkoff in 1771, thus analysed
the spirit of his century:

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

The following study proposes to deal with this attack on religion
that preceded and helped to prepare the French Revolution. Similar
phenomena are by no means rare in the annals of history;
eighteenth-century atheism, however, is of especial interest,
standing as it does at the end of a long period of theological
and ecclesiastical disintegration and prophesying a reconstruction
of society on a purely rational and naturalistic basis. The
anti-theistic movement has been so obscured by the less thoroughgoing
tendency of deism and by subsequent romanticism that the real
issue in the eighteenth century has been largely lost from view.
Hence it has seemed fit to center this study about the man who
stated the situation with the most unmistakable and uncompromising
clearness, and who still occupies a unique though obscure position
in the history of thought.

Holbach has been very much neglected by writers on the eighteenth
century. He has no biographer. M. Walferdin wrote (in an edition
of Diderot's Works, Paris, 1821, Vol. XII p. 115): "Nous nous
occupons depuis longtemps à rassembler les matériaux qui doivent
servir à venger la mémoire du philosophe de la patrie de Leibnitz,
et dans l'ouvrage que nous nous proposons de publier sous le titre
"D'Holbach jugé par ses contemporains" nous espérons faire justement
apprécier ce savant si estimable par la profondeur et la variété de
ses connaissances, si précieux à sa famille et à ses amis par la
pureté et la simplicité de ses moeurs, en qui la vertu était devenue
une habitude et la bienfaisance un besoin." This work has never
appeared and M. Tourneux thinks that nothing of it was found among
M. Walferdin's papers. [2:2] In 1834 Mr. James Watson published
in an English translation of the _Système de la Nature_,
_A Short Sketch of the Life and the Writings of Baron d'Holbach_
by Mr. Julian Hibbert, compiled especially for that edition from
Saint Saurin's article in Michaud's _Biographie Universelle_
(Paris, 1817, Vol. XX, pp. 460-467), from Barbier's _Dict. des
ouvrages anonymes_ (Paris, 1822) and from the preface to the Paris
edition of the _Système de la Nature_ (4 vols., 18mo, 1821). This
sketch was later published separately (London, 1834, 12mo, pp. 14)
but on account of the author's sudden death it was left unfinished
and is of no value from the point of view of scholarship. Another
attempt to publish something on Holbach was made by Dr. Anthony
C. Middleton of Boston in 1857. In the preface to his translation
to the _Lettres à Eugenia_ he speaks of a "Biographical Memoir of
Baron d'Holbach which I am now preparing for the press." If ever
published at all this _Memoir_ probably came to light in the
_Boston Investigator_, a free-thinking magazine published by
Josiah P. Mendum, 45 Cornhill, Boston, but it is not to be found.
Mention should also be made of the fact that M. Assézat intended
to include in a proposed study of Diderot and the philosophical
movement, a chapter to be devoted to Holbach and his society; but
this work has never appeared. [3:3]

Of the two works bearing Holbach's name as a title, one is a piece
of libellous fiction by Mme. de Genlis, _Les Diners du baron d'Holbach_
(Paris, 1822, 8vo), the other a romance pure and simple by
F. T. Claudon (Paris, 1835, 2 vols., 8vo) called _Le Baron d'Holbach_,
the events of which take place largely at his house and in which he
plays the rôle of a minor character. A good account of Holbach,
though short and incidental, is to be found in M. Avézac-Lavigne's
_Diderot et la Société du Baron d'Holbach_ (Paris, 1875, 8vo), and
M. Armand Gasté has a little book entitled _Diderot et le cure
de Montchauvet, une Mystification littéraire chez le Baron d'Holbach_
(Paris, 1895, 16vo). There are several works which devote a chapter
or section to Holbach. [3:4] 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.,
_Essai sur l'histoire de l'idée de progrès_ (Paris, 1910); but
nowhere else is there anything more than the merest encyclopedic
account, often defective and incorrect.

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--though somewhat defectively--the figure of a man who
played an important rôle in his own day; but whose name has long
since lost its significance--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.

M. P. C.

NEW YORK CITY,
July, 1914.

CHAPTER I. HOLBACH, THE MAN.

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--rather gushing
to be sure--quite unlike anything in his later writings, and quite
out of line with the supposedly cold temper of a materialist and an
atheist.

[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.]

HOLBACH TO WILKES

HÉEZE Aug. 9, 1746

_Dearest Friend_

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--_Hope_ 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 & 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.

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.

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!--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

Your affectionate friend and humble servant
DE HOLBACH
Heze the 9th august 1746 N. S.

I shall expect with impatience the letter you are to write me from
Alesbury. Will it be here very soon!

HOLBACH TO WILKES
[HÉEZE Dec. 3rd. 1746]

_Dearest Wilkes_

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.

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.

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

Your faithfull humble Servant and Friend
HOLBACH
Heeze the 3 d Xber 1746 ns

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 _Opera buffa_ 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 _Chienne allaitant ses petits_,
the _chef d'oeuvre_ 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 _Art of Glass making_, and in 1753 a
translation of Wallerius' _Mineralogy_. 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.

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 _Mémoires_, 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 _jour du
synagogue_. Here the _église philosophique_ met regularly to discuss
its doctrines and publish its propaganda of radicalism.

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