In 1770 Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach, publishes the Système de la nature under a dead man's name: nature is all there is, matter in motion explains mind, and religion is the politics of fear. The System of Nature is the Enlightenment's complete naturalist summa, and the book its opponents call the bible of atheism.
Tagged: Naturalism
The Event
- Date
- 1770 (exact)
- Era
- The Enlightenment System; Standard periodization of naturalist history
- Location
- Paris; today Paris, France
- Traditions
- Naturalism
- Streams
- Naturalism
- Key figures
- Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach
- Key texts
- Système de la nature
Connections
Primary Sources
- Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'. Système de la nature. London (Paris), 1770.
Secondary Sources
- De Caro, Mario, and David Macarthur, eds. Naturalism in Question. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
- Gregory, Frederick. Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth Century Germany. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1977.
- Papineau, David. Philosophical Naturalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.
Provenance: HIST-1402; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.
Related on This Site
History Event
Büchner's Force and Matter
1855
History Event
Darwin's The Descent of Man
1871
History Event
Huxley's Man's Place in Nature
1863
History Event
La Mettrie's Man a Machine
1747
History Event
Laplace's Exposition of the System of the World
1796
History Event
Mill's A System of Logic
1843
History Event
Newton's Principia Mathematica
1687
World View
Naturalism
Naturalism holds that nature is all there is: the universe of matter, energy, and natural law needs no god, soul, or purpose beyond itself.