{"id":4122,"date":"2025-11-24T22:44:45","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T22:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apeterman.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/phl202f25\/?page_id=4122"},"modified":"2025-11-24T22:44:45","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T22:44:45","slug":"baron-dholbachs-work","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/apeterman.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/phl202f25\/baron-dholbach-2\/baron-dholbachs-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Baron d&#8217;Holbach&#8217;s Work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Ecce Homo!; A Critical Inquiry into the History of Jesus of Nazareth<\/strong> (1770) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/39052\/pg39052-images.html\">https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/39052\/pg39052-images.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The System of Nature; the Laws of the Moral and Physical World Volume 1 <\/strong>(1770) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/8909\/pg8909-images.html\">https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/8909\/pg8909-images.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The System of Nature; the Laws of the Moral and Physical World Volume 2 <\/strong>(1770) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/8910\/pg8910-images.html\">https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/8910\/pg8910-images.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Good Sense; Natural Ideas Opposed to Supernatural <\/strong>(1772) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/7319\/pg7319-images.html\">https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/7319\/pg7319-images.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Christianity Unveiled; Examination of the principles and effects of the Christian religion<\/strong> (1761) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/40770\/pg40770-images.html\">https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/40770\/pg40770-images.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Sacred Contagion; Natural History of Superstition<\/strong> (1768)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Letters to Eugenia; A Preservative Against Religious Prejudices<\/strong> (1768) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/31275\/pg31275-images.html\">https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/31275\/pg31275-images.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Portable Theology; Abridged Dictionary of the Christian Religion <\/strong>(1768)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Essay on Prejudices; the Influence of Opinions on the Morals and Happiness of Men <\/strong>(1770)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Table of the Saints; Examination of the spirit, conduct, maxims, and merit of the people that Christianity reveres and proposes as models<\/strong> (1770)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Natural Politics; Discourse on the True Principles of Government<\/strong> (1773)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Social System; Natural Principles of Morality and Politics, with an Examination of the Influence of Government on Morals<\/strong> (1773)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ethocracy; Government Founded on Ethics<\/strong> (1776)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Universal Morality; The Duties of Man Based on Nature<\/strong> (1776)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Elements of Universal Morality; Catechism of Nature <\/strong>(1790)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Religious Cruelty<\/strong> (1862) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/41336\/pg41336-images.html\">https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/41336\/pg41336-images.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Superstition in All Ages <\/strong>(1732) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/17607\/pg17607-images.html\">https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/17607\/pg17607-images.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--nextpage-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Secondary Sources: <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A Fourth Musketeer of Social Contract Theory: the Political Thought of the Baron d&#8217;Holbach <\/strong>(Charles Devellennes 2013) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/26225839?seq=2\">https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/26225839?seq=2<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In this article, Devellennes exposes the d&#8217;Holbach&#8217;s work in <em>Ethocracy<\/em> of how the social contract can function in a period that was the 1770s. d&#8217;Holbach was not the only political philosopher at the time, renowned names such as Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau were frequently in discussion with one another. His critiques of their work led him to establish a social contract theory involving relations between property, sociability, equality, and more.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The&nbsp;<em>Philosophes\u2019<\/em>&nbsp;Criticism of Religion and d\u2019Holbach\u2019s Non-Hedonistic Materialism<\/strong> (Hasse H\u00e4m\u00e4l\u00e4inen 2017) <a href=\"https:\/\/diametros.uj.edu.pl\/diametros\/article\/view\/1133\/971\">https:\/\/diametros.uj.edu.pl\/diametros\/article\/view\/1133\/971<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In this analysis, H\u00e4m\u00e4l\u00e4inen includes d&#8217;Holbach on the discussion of happiness and pleasure. At the time, Helvetius and Diderot dissented from the church asserting that happiness is being able to reach heaven in the afterlife. Helvetius claims that the virtues of the church are superficial, it&#8217;s peoples internal desires that motivate them towards earthly pleasures. Diderot claims that pleasure is about helping others as it tends to make people feel good, but this theory is not very empirical as there are bad people that feel great. d&#8217;Holbach refines this that people tend to help others because what is most pleasurable is preserving oneself, with this foundation, it makes it preferable to aid others over harming them<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Deriding the Messiah and the Devil in Paul d\u2019Holbach\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Histoire critique de J\u00e9sus Christ<\/em><\/strong> (Ismael del Olmo 2025) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2077-1444\/16\/5\/574\">https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2077-1444\/16\/5\/574<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li> Author Olmo writes in this article about d&#8217;Holbach&#8217;s impact on philosophy as people began questioning religion. In d&#8217;Holbach&#8217;s work <em>A Critical Inquiry into the History of Jesus of Nazareth<\/em>, he comments how Jesus is a fraud exploiting human weakness. Christian beliefs are ironic and hypocritic, but our world, which is that of demons and evil, pokes holes in their beliefs. His original work was disguised a satirical work in order to avoid facing persecution in the 1770&#8217;s, however he successfully spread his word that Jesus was nothing more than a human, and that God&#8217;s power should be called into question.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ecce Homo!; A Critical Inquiry into the History of Jesus of Nazareth (1770) https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/39052\/pg39052-images.html The System of Nature; the Laws of the Moral and Physical&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/apeterman.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/phl202f25\/baron-dholbach-2\/baron-dholbachs-work\/\">Continue Reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Baron d&#8217;Holbach&#8217;s Work<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":193,"featured_media":0,"parent":3935,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4122","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apeterman.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/phl202f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apeterman.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/phl202f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apeterman.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/phl202f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apeterman.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/phl202f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apeterman.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/phl202f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4122"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/apeterman.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/phl202f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4563,"href":"https:\/\/apeterman.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/phl202f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4122\/revisions\/4563"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apeterman.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/phl202f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apeterman.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/phl202f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}