Baron d'Holbach Quotes on Nature
Baron d’Holbach’s The System of Nature (Système de la nature, 1770), published anonymously in Amsterdam and immediately condemned, gave the radical wing of the French Enlightenment its most uncompromising philosophical statement of materialist naturalism. The central thesis is that the universe is nothing but matter in motion governed by necessary laws — the apparent realities of soul, immaterial mind, divine providence, free will, and supernatural agency are illusions whose persistence reflects the priestly manipulation of human ignorance rather than any genuine feature of the natural order. The framework, developed through the salon Holbach hosted with Diderot and the broader encyclopedist circle, founded the modern atheist materialist tradition and supplied the philosophical resources that the nineteenth-century scientific naturalism would systematize.
Quotes
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Attributed to Baron d'Holbach:
“Theology is but the ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system.”
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Attributed to Baron d'Holbach:
“If we go back to the beginning, we shall always find that ignorance and fear created the gods.”
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Attributed to Baron d'Holbach:
“Nature is the cause of all things, and all things are governed by necessity.”
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Attributed to Baron d'Holbach:
“Man is born neither good nor wicked; education makes him so.”
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“Samuel Wilkinson, trans., The System of Nature ( Project Gutenberg e-text ), vol. 1, chap. IX”
It is thus superstition infatuates man from his infancy, fills him with vanity, and enslaves him with fanaticism. -
“Date and place of publication unknown. Original publication in French, 1770, as La Système de la nature , under the name of Jean Baptiste de Mirabaud .”
It is thus superstition infatuates man from his infancy, fills him with vanity, and enslaves him with fanaticism. -
“If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them.”
Samuel Wilkinson, trans., The System of Nature ( Project Gutenberg e-text ), vol. 2, chap. I | Date and place of publication unknown. Original publication in French, 1770, as La Système de la nature , under the name of Jean Baptiste de Mirabaud . -
“Samuel Wilkinson, trans., The System of Nature ( Project Gutenberg e-text ), vol. 2, chap. I”
If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them. -
“Date and place of publication unknown. Original publication in French, 1770, as La Système de la nature , under the name of Jean Baptiste de Mirabaud .”
If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them. -
“To wonder at the order of nature, is to wonder that any thing can exist; it is to be surprised at one's own existence.”
Good Sense, or Natural Ideas vs. Supernatural -
“Good Sense, or Natural Ideas vs. Supernatural”
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