Introduction

Holbach was born in 1723 in a small town in Germany and named Paul Heinrich Dietrich. A wealthy uncle provided for his education, brought him to Paris, and left him a fortune and the title under which he became famous – or notorious – as the most persistent and outspoken opponent of religion among the Enlightenment writers. Educated as a chemist and fluent in several languages, Holbach was brought into contact with the advanced thinkers of Paris by Diderot, who wanted him to write scientific articles for the Encyclopedia. Holbach wrote several hundred of them and then branched out into other fields. His views were so radical for his times that they could not be published openly. Consequently, he had many of his manuscripts published in Holland, either anonymously or under assumed names. Holbach translated numerous anti-Christian books from English, wrote many others, and supported the authors of still other works that, like his, supported materialism, atheism, and hedonism and attacked the power of organized religion.

No one is quite sure exactly what or how much Holbach wrote himself, but a number of works are commonly assumed to be his. One of the earliest is Christianity Unveiled (1761). It was followed by, among others, The Sacred Contagion; or Natural History of Superstition (1768) and Critical History of Jesus Christ (1770). In 1770 Holbach also published his major philosophical work, the System of Nature; or On the Laws of the Physical World and the Moral World.