Baron d'Holbach Part 4

17. Holbach's next work, _Ethocratie ou Gouvernement fonde sur la Morale_, 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.

18. Holbach's last works dealt exclusively with morals. They are _La morale universelle ou les devoirs de l'homme fondes sur la nature_, Amsterdam, 1771, and

19. A posthumous work, _Elements de la Morale universelle, ou catechisme de la nature_, 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 att.i.tude towards morals is indicated by his _Avertiss.e.m.e.nt_--"La morale est une science dont les principes sont susceptibles d'une demonstration aussi claire et aussi rigoureuse que ceux du calcul et de la geometrie."

CHAPTER III. THE SYSTeME DE LA NATURE.

Early in 1770 appeared the famous _Systeme de la Nature, ou Des Loix du Monde Physique et du Monde Morale, Par M. Mirabaud, Secretaire Perpetuel et l'un des Quarante de l'Academie Francaise_, 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 _Origin of Species_, the thesis of which is more than hinted at by Holbach. There were several editions in 1770. A very few copies contain a _Discours preliminaire de l'Auteur_ of sixteen pages which Naigeon had printed separately in London. The _Abrege du Code de la Nature_, which ends the book was also published separately and is sometimes attributed to Diderot, 8vo, 16 pp. [54:1]

There is also a book ent.i.tled _Le vrai sens du Systeme de la Nature_, 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 _Systeme de la Nature_ in a shortened form in _Bon-sens_, 1772, and Payrard plagiarized it freely in _De la Nature et de ses Lois_, 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 ma.n.u.script, 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 _Parlement de Paris_, August 18, 1770, to be burned by the public hangman along with Voltaire's _Dieu et les Hommes_, and Holbach's _Discours sur les Miracles_, _La Contagion sacree_ and _le Christianisme devoile_, which had already been condemned on September 24, 1769. [55:2]

The _Requisitoire_ of Seguier, _avocat general_, on the occasion of the condemnation of the _Systeme de la Nature_ was so weak and ridiculous that the _Parlement de Paris_ 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]

Le poison des nouveautes profanes ne peut corrompre la sainte gravite des moeurs qui caracterise les vrais Magistrats: tout peut changer autour d'eux, _ils restent immuables avec la loi_ (page 496).

N'est-ce pas ce fatal abus de la liberte de penser, qui a enfante cette mult.i.tude de sectes, d'opinions, de partis, et cet esprit d'independance dont d'autres nations ont eprouve les sinstres revolutions. Le meme abus produira en France des effets peut-etre plus funestes. La liberte indefinie trouveroit, dans la caractere de la nation, dans son activite, dans son amour pour la nouveaute, un moyen de plus pour preparer les plus affreuses revolutions (p. 498).

The most interesting private attacks on the _Systeme de la Nature_ 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 _Systeme de la Nature_ 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 ent.i.tled _Reflexions sur la jalousie, pour servir de commentaire aux derniers ouvrages de M. de Voltaire_, 1772. Frederick II naturally felt bound to defend the kings who, as Voltaire said, were no better treated than G.o.d in the _Systeme de la Nature_. [56:5]

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 _Systeme de la Nature_ 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 la." But by July he had read it and wrote to Grimm: [56:7] "Si l'ouvrage eut ete plus serre il aurait fait un effet terrible, mais tel qu'il est il en a fait beaucoup. Il est bien plus eloquent que Spinoza... J'ai une grande curiosite de savoir ce qu'on en pense a 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 repet.i.tions et quelques inconsequences, mais il y a trop de bon pour qu'on n'eclate avec fureur contre ce livre. Si on garde le silence, ce sera une preuve du prodigieux progres que la tolerance 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 etre imprimees; ce sont des lecons pour le genre humain. Vous soutenez d'un bras la cause de Dieu et vous ecrasez de l'autre la superst.i.tion." [57:9] Later Voltaire confessed to Frederick that he also had undertaken to rebuke the author of the Systeme de la Nature. "Ainsi Dieu a pour lui les deux hommes les moins superst.i.tieux de l'Europe, ce que devrait lui plaire beaucoup" (p. 390).

Frederick, however, hesitated to make his refutation public, and wrote to Voltaire: "Lorsque j'eus acheve mon ouvrage contre l'atheisme, je crus ma refutation tres orthodoxe, je la relus, et je la trouvai bien eloignee de l'etre. Il y a des endroits qui ne saurait paraitre sans effaroucher les timides et scandaliser les devots. Un pet.i.t mot qui m'est echappe sur l'eternite du monde me ferait lapider dans votre patrie, si j'y etais ne particulier, et que je l'eusse fait imprimer.

Je sens que je n'ai point du tout ni l'ame ni le style theologique."

[57:10] Voltaire, in his "pet.i.te drolerie en faveur de la Divinite"

(as he called his work) and in his letters, could not find terms harsh enough in which to condemn the _Systeme de la Nature_. He called it "un chaos, un grand mal moral, un ouvrage de tenebres, un peche contre la nature, un systeme de la folie et de l'ignorance," and wrote to Delisle de Sales: "Je ne vois pas que rien ait plus avili notre siecle que cette enorme 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.

A very different reaction was that of Goethe and his university circle at Strasburg to whom the _Systeme de la Nature_ 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]

The leading refutations directed explicitly against the _Systeme de la Nature_ are:

1. 1770, Rive, Abbe J. J., Lettres philosophiques contre le _ Systeme de la Nature_. (Portefeuille hebdomadaire de Bruxelles.)

2. Frederick II, _Examen critique du livre int.i.tule, Systeme de la Nature_. (Political Miscellanies, p. 175.)

3. Voltaire, Dieu, Reponse de M. de Voltaire au _Systeme de la Nature_.

Au chateau de Ferney, 1770, 8 vo, pp. 34.

4. 1771, Bergier, Abbe N. F., Examen du materialisme, ou Refutation du _Systeme de la Nature_. Paris, Humbolt, 1771, 2 vols., 12mo.

5. Camuset, Abbe J. N., Principes contre l'incredulite, a l'occasion du _Systeme de la Nature_. Paris, Pillot, 1771, 12mo, pp. viii + 335.

6. Castillon, J. de (Salvernini di Castiglione), Observations sur le livre int.i.tule, _Systeme de la Nature_. Berlin, Decker, 1771, 8vo. (40 sols broche.)

7. Rochford, Dubois de, Pensees diverses contre le systeme des materialistes, a l'occasion d'un ecrit int.i.tule; _Systeme de la Nature_.

Paris, Lambert, 1771, 12mo.

8. 1773, L'Impie demasque, ou remontrance aux ecrivains incredules.

Londres, Heydinger, 1773

9. Holland, J. H., Reflexions philosophiques sur le _Systeme de la Nature_. Paris, 1773, 2 vols., 8vo.

10. 1776, Buzonniere, Nouel de, Observations sur un ouvrage int.i.tule le _Systeme de la Nature_. Paris, Debure, pere, 1776, 8vo, pp. 126. (Prix 1 livre, 16 sols broche.)

11. 1780, Fangouse, Abbe, La religion prouvee aux incredules, avec une lettre a l'auteur du _Systeme de la Nature_ par un homme du monde. Paris, Debure l'aine, 12mo, p. 150. Same under t.i.tle Reflexions importantes sur la religion, etc., 1785.

12. 1788, Paulian, A. J., Le veritable systeme de la nature, etc., Avignon, Niel, 2 vols., 12mo.

13. 1803, Mangold, F. X. von, Unumstossliche Widerlegung des Materialismus gegen den Verfa.s.ser des _Systems der Natur_. Augsburg, 1803.

Of these and other refutations of materialism such as Saint-Martin's _Des erreurs et de la verite_, Dupont de Nemours' _Philosophie de l'univers_, Delisles de Sales' _Philosophie de la nature_, etc., which are not directed explicitly against the _Systeme de la Nature_, 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 G.o.d (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 a.s.serts 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 G.o.d, by a kind of natural logic. G.o.d and matter exist in the nature of things, "Tout nous announce un etre supreme, rien ne nous dit ce qu'il est." G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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.

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 _Systeme de la Nature_ 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 _Systeme_ which it qualified as "une malheureuse production que notre siecle doit rougir d'avoir enfantee."

But when it was discovered that Holland was a Protestant his work was condemned forthwith, Jan. 17, 1773.

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 _Systeme de la Nature_ he recognized the hand of the author of _La Contagion sacree_ and the _Essai sur les prejuges_ and dealt with it as he did the _Christianisme devoile_. Buzonniere, Rochfort and Fangouse are milder and more naive in their demonstrations and their works are of no weight or interest. _L'Impie demasque_ is a brutal work which qualifies Holbach as a "vile apostle of vice and crime," and the _Systeme de la Nature_ as the most impudent treatise on atheism that has yet dishonored the globe--one which covers the century with shame and will be the scandal of future generations.

The work of Paulian is of a different sort. Coming comparatively late, it attempted to review the hostile opinions of many years and then ma.s.s them in an overwhelming final attack on the _Systeme de la Nature_. 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 _Systeme de la Nature_ in such works as the _Lettres Helviennes_, of Abbe Barruel, _Dict. des Philosophes_, _Dict. anti-philosophe_, his own _Dict. theologique_, 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.

The _Systeme de la Nature_ had many critics in the stormy days that followed 1789. Delisle de Sales found it a monstrosity--a _fratras_; La Harpe called it an infamous book, "un amas de betises qu'on ose appeler philosophie, inconcevables inepties, un immense echafaudage de mensonge et d'invective"; M. Villemain is much more calm and fair; Lord Brougham, like Damiron, Buzonniere, 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 _Systeme de la Nature_, [64:15]

"No work, ancient or modern, has surpa.s.sed 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 emanc.i.p.ate mankind from all those trammels with which the nurse, the school master, and the priest have successively locked up their n.o.blest faculties, before they were capable of reasoning and judging for themselves."

It seems unnecessary to a.n.a.lyze the _Systeme de la Nature_. 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.

M. Jules Soury has said, in describing a certain type of mind: "Il est d'heureux esprits, des ames fortes et saines, que n'effraie point le silence eternel des es.p.a.ces infinis ou s'aneantissait la raison de Pascal. Naves et robustes natures, males et vigoureux penseurs, qui gardent toute la vie quelque chose des dons charmants de la jeunesse et de l'enfance meme, une foi vive dans le temoinage immediat de nos sens et de notre conscience, une humeur alerte, toute de joyeuse ardeur, et comme une intrepidite d'esprit que rien n'arrete. Pour eux tout est clair et uni; ou a peu pres, et la ou ils soupconnent quelque bas-bond insondable, ils se detournent et poursuivent fierement leur chemin.

Comme cet Epicurien dont parle Ciceron au commencement du _De natura deorum_, ils ont toujours l'air de sortir de l'a.s.semblee des dieux et de descendre des intermondes d'Epicure."

Such was Holbach. His philosophy is based on the child-like a.s.sumption 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 const.i.tution 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.

His initial a.s.sumption is, as has been suggested, that experience (application reiteree 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 pa.s.sion.

Holbach's contention is that if one applies experience and reason to the external universe, or nature, "ce vaste a.s.semblage de tout ce qui existe"; it reveals a _single objective reality_, i. e., _matter_, which is in itself essentially active or in a state of motion.

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 G.o.d, as Petrarch said, is ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system.

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 ent.i.ty. 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 G.o.ds, 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, _correct ideas of nature_ is the one thing needful to the happiness and well-being of man.