The System of Nature, or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World. Volume 1

INTRODUCTION

Paul Henri Thiery, Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789), was the center of the radical wing of the _philosophes_. He was friend, host, and patron to a wide circle that included Diderot, D'Alembert, Helvetius, and Hume. Holbach wrote, translated, edited, and issued a stream of books and pamphlets, often under other names, that has made him the despair of bibliographers ...