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
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Five unpublished letters to John Wilkes.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.
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
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 superst