The System of Nature, or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World. Volume 2 (Annotated)(Kobo/電子書)

The System of Nature or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World (Système de la Nature ou Des Loix du Monde Physique et du Monde Moral) is a work of philosophy by Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789). It was originally published under the name of Jean-Baptiste de Mirabaud, a deceased member of the French Academy of Science. D'Holbach wrote and published this book – possibly with the assistance of Diderot[1] but with the support of Jacques-André Naigeon – anonymously in 1770, describing the universe in terms of the principles of philosophical materialism: The mind is identified with brain, there is no "soul" without a living body, the world is governed by strict deterministic laws, free will is an illusion, there are no final causes, and whatever happens takes place because it inexorably must. Most notoriously, the work explicitly denies the existence of God, arguing that belief in a higher being is the product of fear, lack of understanding, and anthropomorphism.

Though not a scientist himself, d'Holbach was scientifically literate and he tried to develop his philosophy in accordance with the known facts of nature and the scientific knowledge of the day, citing, for example, the experiments of John Needham as proof that life could develop autonomously without the intervention of a deity. It makes a critical distinction between mythology as a more or less benign way of bringing law ordered thought on society, nature and their powers to the masses and theology. Theology which, when it separates from mythology raises the power of nature above nature itself and thus alienates the two (i.e. "nature", all that actually exists, from its power, now personified in a being outside nature), is by contrast a pernicious force in human affairs without parallel. Its principles are summed up in a more popular form in d'Holbach's Bon Sens, ou idées naturelles opposees aux idées surnaturelles.

About Author:

Holbach was born in 1723 in Edesheim. He was raised in Paris, principally by his uncle, Franciscus Adam d’Holbach, and attended the University of Leiden from 1744 to 1748 or 1749. Holbach particularly enjoyed the parties there. It is likely that, at least at first, the dinners Holbach gave in Paris were modelled on the parties he attended at Leiden. In 1749, Holbach married his second cousin, Basile-Geneviève d’Aine. About 1753 or 1754 both his uncle, Franciscus, and his father in law died, leaving Holbach a considerable fortune.

Holbach used his great wealth to throw the dinner parties for which he is famous. He owned a house in Paris in rue Royale, Butte Saint-Roch, which, generally, had a guest list restricted to serious intellectuals, and a chateau at Grandval where, in addition to his coterie, Holbach also hosted social friends and relatives. Holbach’s coterie included intellectuals who, although their positions varied on many issues, shared at least a willingness to entertain views that many would have thought too radical to be discussed in social settings. The coterie met from the 1750s into the 1780s. The group evolved over time, but its core members, Alan Kors has argued, were Denis Diderot, the encyclopedist; the diplomat and cultural critic Friedrich-Melchior Grimm; the naturalist Charles-Georges Le Roy; the writer and critic Jean-François Marmontel; the historian and priest abbé Guillame-Thomas-François Raynal; the doctor Augustin Roux; the poet and philosopher Jean-François de Saint-Lambert; the writer Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard; the pamphleteer François-Jean, chevalier de Chastellux, the pamphleteer abbé André Morellet; and the philosopher Jacques-André Naigeon. Many of these men were, like Holbach, avowed atheists and many also pushed radical, even revolutionary political agendas. So the general character of his coterie might suggest that Holbach was a figure on the fringe of Parisian society, a kind of eccentric parvenu with a taste for scandal.

However, Holbach managed, despite what one might expect, to keep his coterie firmly in the mainstream of European society. French nobles, as well as ambassadors from countries across Europe—Denmark, England, Naples, Saxe-Gotha, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Wurtemburg, and Sweden—attended his dinners. So did prominent intellectuals of all kinds, including, at different times and with different degrees of enthusiasm, the philosopher and novelist Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the mathematician Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, the historian Edward Gibbon, the writer Horace Walpole, the chemist Joseph Priestley, the social critic Cesare Beccaria, the philosopher Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger, the statesman and scientist Benjamin Franklin, the actor David Garrick, the philosopher Claude-Adrien Helvétius, the philosopher David Hume, the economist Adam Smith, and the novelist Laurence Sterne. Holbach was known in France not primarily as a political radical but as le premier maître d’hôtel de la philosophie. Many in Paris coveted invitations to rue Royale, and Holbach’s house was the first stop for many prominent international visitors.

Holbach’s character must have been remarkable to have maintained a salon in which the espousers of political and religious reform met so freely and so often with visitors who either cannot have been accustomed to such open dialogue or who were themselves parts of the establishment under attack. Indeed Rousseau, who himself came to feel unwelcome by the coterie, nevertheless memorializes Holbach in La nouvelle Heloïse, as the paradoxical figure, Wolmar, an atheist who nonetheless embodies all of the Christian virtues. In addition to his good character, Holbach’s generosity at table (his dinners and especially his wine were famously good) and in supporting many of his acquaintances may explain his success at being both a pillar and a critic of society. Perhaps, also, Holbach was not in the eyes of many of his contemporaries as clearly a radical as some other members of his coterie. He did publish some of the most notorious works of the French Enlightenment, including Le Christianisme dévoilé (Christianity Unveiled), Système de la nature (System of Nature) and Le Bon Sens (Common Sense). These books evoked long and heated responses from such notable figures as Voltaire, abbé Bergier, and Frederick the Great; System of Nature and Common Sense were condemned by the parliament of Paris and publicly burned. Holbach, however, was not in his own time as notorious as his books. He was careful always to publish anonymously, so that those who did not know him or who did not care to think of him in that way, might have remained at least partially ignorant of his religious and political views.

Holbach’s coterie met for thirty years, from the early 1750s until about 1780. During that time his first wife died and he married her younger sister, Charlotte Suzanne d’Aine, with whom he had four children. Holbach wrote prolifically throughout this time. According to Vercruysse, Holbach authored or coauthored over fifty books and over four hundred articles. He died in 1789. Source : Wikipedia

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