Holbach, Paul Heinrich Dietrich, Baron d' Holbach (1723–1789)

German-born French philosopher. He took up more extreme positions than most of the philosophers of the French Enlightenment. In 1770 he published Le Système de la Nature/The System of Nature, in which he denied the existence of God, explained sensibility and intellect as functions of matter, and asserted that happiness is the end of mankind. The book provoked much criticism, and was answered by Frederick the Great and Voltaire.

Holbach was born in Heidelsheim in the Palatinate. He spent most of his time in Paris, France, where his friends included Diderot, Grimm, Hume, Garrick, Wilkes, Sterne, and Rousseau. He wrote a large number of articles on chemistry and mineralogy for the Encyclopedie, and in 1767 published his Christianisme dévoilé/Christianity Unveiled, in which he attacks Christianity and religion in general. In philosophy d'Holbach was a follower of Diderot, and he is the model for the virtuous atheist Wolmar in Rousseau's Nouvelle Heloïse.