System of nature

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First page of the Systems de la Nature by Baron d'Holbach

The system of nature or Système de la Nature ou Des Loix du Monde Physique et du Monde Moral or in the detailed German translation the system of nature or of the laws of the physical and moral world is a work of the enlightener and encyclopaedist Paul Henri Thiry d ' Holbach , which first appeared in 1770 . Denis Diderot took part in the stylistic revision of the manuscript.

D'Holbach assumes that moral laws as well as natural laws can be recognized as true, and that these form a common system that enables people to live a contented and happy life. He attributes the deviation from this ideal to errors or delusions about nature (especially about natural needs) and about moral rules. The knowledge of the materialistic truth averts the bad blessings that arise from ignorance of nature. The cause of all things lies in their inherent motion , which shows itself in the forms of inertia , attraction and repulsion of the atoms of matter (see Epicurean atomism ). The movement of the atoms or atomic complexes can be explained by the concept of mechanical causality and thus lack any teleology .

Authorship and Reception

The title page of the edition published in early 1770 named Jean-Baptiste de Mirabaud (1675-1760), a member of the Académie française and the place of publication London as the author . The author clandestinely tried to make Mirabaud's authorship even more credible to the reader by adding a biographical sketch of the secretary of the French Academy, who had died ten years ago, and listing a fictitious list of publications. This action becomes understandable when one looks at the effects and possible consequences of the censorship at the time of Louis XVI. envisioned.

The actual author was the above-mentioned philosopher, enlightener and encyclopaedist , the place of its printing was in Holland with the publisher Marc-Michel Rey . The fact that d'Holbach was the author did not enter public discourse until two decades later. From 1752 to 1760 Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach worked mainly for the Encyclopédie ; he translates and edits well over 400 articles on topics from mineralogy, mining and chemistry. At the same time, Holbach collects materials on the history of ideas and ideas, mainly from French and English sources. This results in the impressive number of over 35 works for the decade from 1760 to 1770, almost exclusively published in Holland because of the strict censorship. Characteristic titles are, for example, Christianity unveiled (1761), Letters to Eugenie , or means of protection against prejudice (1768), and Der Geist des Judentums (1769).

The third decade of his oeuvre, from 1770 to 1780, culminated with his main works, which have repeatedly received strong attention from posterity: Experiment on Prejudice ( 1770 ), System of Nature (1770, Volume 1 and Volume 2 completely online), Common sense ( 1772 ), The social system, or natural principles of morality and politics ( 1773 ), The universal morality, or man's duties, based on his nature ( 1776 ).

Jacques-André Naigeon frequented the Baron d'Holbach's house and was also associated with the Coterie holbachique , as a secretary he edited and edited its texts, including the Système de la Nature, and thus helped with the clandestine distribution of his writings. D'Holbach was concerned about his safety and that is why he never gave his own handwritten texts for printing from the house.

The system of nature was a work ostracized by the authorities, but already saw a third edition in the year of its first publication. Circles of the French clergy obtained a hearing before the Parlement in Paris, at whose plenary session the Prosecutor General Antoine-Louis Séguier , avocat général au Parlement de Paris, gave an indictment speech. As a result, the book was ceremoniously burned on Saturday, August 18, 1770. A number of books have been published to refute his system of nature : Frédéric Samuel Ostervald, one of the partners in the Neuchâtel publishing house, the Société typographique de Neuchâtel (STN) , published a pirated print of the system of nature in 1771 , contrary to the ostracism of parish chapters and Council of State. Ostervald then had to resign from his office as a banneret . In 1782 he was given a seat on the Small Council, petit conseil .

Or put the concept of "nature" at the center of their considerations:

Frederick II of Prussia, for example, accuses the unknown author of the Système de la nature that the author, with his work on nature and God, morality and religion, as well as states and princes, abandons the path of human experience and opposes the labyrinth of System philosophy.

content

Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach (1723–1789)

The Système de la Nature can be seen as a fundamental work of philosophical materialism . Nature is thus understood as a self-created or better uncreated - there is no intentional creator - constant and eternal sum of matter and movement, which in turn is constantly changing. It forms a closed system that should include both the laws of nature and the eternal rules of morality.

In this work, which is divided into two parts, a connection is created between the laws of the physical and the human-moral world. First the characteristics of the physical world are named in order to then create a transition to human thinking and its conditions. Their résumé then also includes a critique of the ideologies and religions that influence original thinking. He defines nature as

"[...] le grand tout qui résulte de l'assemblage des différentes matières, de leur différentes combinaisons, et des différents mouvements que nous voyons dans l'univers [...]"

"[...] the big picture that results from the union of the various substances, from their various connections and from the various movements that we see in the universe."

- Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach : Système de la nature ou des loix du monde physique & du monde moral (1770)

The first part, with a total of seventeen chapters, deals with material nature, the object of the physical explanation of nature, in the first five chapters;

Movement is an inherent property of matter (or various substances). In nature there is nothing more than matter that moves and is involved in a consistent sequence of cause and effect. The human concepts of order and disorder do not arise from a planning and regulating authority. Man is a product of nature and is therefore bound to its laws, his human nature . Both individual virtue and social morality must be tied to this nature. For D'Holbach there was no dualism , i.e. a contrast between matter versus spirit or soul versus body , rather he was committed to a consistent monism .

Humans have sense organs that ultimately determine their spiritual nature. Matter is determined empirically as that which can affect the senses . D'Holbach developed a system of sensualistic , monistic materialism. Thus there are no innate ideas or innate instincts, and also no a priori access to natural or moral laws. Sensory perceptions, habits and upbringing determine his spiritual nature. D'Holbach's position is thus deterministic in a double sense in the last instance the principles of Newtonian mechanics have universal validity for all physical events, but also for human beings in their physical corporeality, subject to the laws of nature. D'Holbach therefore declares free will to be an illusion. In fact, people are moved by interests, and their actions follow them. Morally relevant, therefore, is above all an explanation of the natural interests that every individual possesses and the use of knowledge for their conflict-free realization.

According to d'Holbach, intellectual abilities and processes would be modes of the human body, i. H. certain modes of being or modes of action that functionally result from the anatomy. This just needs to be analyzed. One of the basic human skills is feeling . Basically, he derives all intellectual and consequently also moral abilities from the excitability for the impressions of the outside world. As senses, he describes the organs of the body by means of which the brain, also an internal organ, is modified. He calls the modifications sensations, perceptions, ideas.

“[...] Changes, considered in and of themselves, are called sensations ; they are called perceptions when the internal organ perceives them or is informed by them; they are called ideas when the internal organ relates these changes to the object that produced them. Every sensation is therefore only a shock communicated to our organs; every perception is a continuation of this shock to the brain; every idea is the image of the object from which sensation and perception proceed. From this it can be seen that we can have neither sensations nor perceptions nor ideas if our senses are not affected. [...] "

- Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach : Système de la nature ou des loix du monde physique & du monde moral (1770)

In d'Holbach's ethics , self-preservation , the happiness of the individual, self-interest and benefit are systematically linked on the basis of physical laws as central interests .

“[…] In other words, man's actions are never free; they are always necessary consequences of their temperament, their ideas received from outside, the true or false concepts people have of happiness, and finally their beliefs reinforced by example, upbringing, and daily experience. [...] "

- Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach : Système de la nature ou des loix du monde physique & du monde moral (1770)

In these philosophical constructs there is no room for people's religious expectations. And from the moral consequences derived from this, unrealistic expectations and demands are derived.

By now imparting this knowledge to man, natural science enables him to strive for happiness in the present, namely by seeking it in society without sacrificing his own interests. Faith in God, on the other hand, comes from a fear of man towards nature and its laws and is the sign of the unenlightened man. Enlightenment, i.e. the insight into the conditions of the physical world, led to acceptable laws and education and would free people from the darkness of ideologies, religions and their institutions such as the church and despots.

D'Holbach had a high level of knowledge and education on these topics. So he tried to develop his philosophy in harmony with the known facts of nature and the scientific knowledge of his time and cited, for example, the experiments of John Needham as proof that life could have developed independently without the intervention of a deity.

construction

The work is divided into two parts, the first into seventeen, the second into fourteen chapters.

Première Partie // First part
Chapter 1 Chapitre I. De la nature From the nature.
Chapter 2 You mouvement et de son origine. About the movement and its origin
Chapter 3 De la matière, de ses combinaisons différentes et de ses mouvements divers; ou de la marche de la nature. From matter, from its various connections and its different movements, or from the course of nature.
Chapter 4 Des lois du mouvement communes à tous les êtres de la nature. De l'attraction et de la repulsion. De la force d'inertie. De la nécessité. Of the laws of motion that are common to all things in nature. Of attraction and repulsion. From the power of resistance. Of necessity.
Chapter 5 De l'ordre et du désordre, de l'intelligence, du hasard. Order and disorder, intelligence, chance.
Chapter 6 De l'homme; de sa distinction en homme physique et en homme moral; de son origine. From people. On the distinction between the physical and the moral man. From its origin.
Chapter 7 De l'âme et du système de la spiritualité. From the soul and from the system of spirituality.
Chapter 8 Des facultés intellectuelles; toutes sont dérivées de la faculté de sentir. Of the intellectual faculties, all of which are based on the faculty of feeling.
Chapter 9 De la diversité des facultés intellectuelles; elles dépendent de causes physiques ainsi que leurs qualités morales. Principes naturels de la sociabilité, de la morale et de la politique. On the diversity of intellectual abilities. Like moral properties, they depend on physical causes. Natural principles of social coexistence, morals and politics.
Chapter 10 Notre âme ne tire point ses idées d'elle-même. Il n'y a point d'idées innées. Our soul does not draw its ideas from within itself. There are no innate ideas.
Chapter 11 You system de la liberté de l'homme. A moral chrétienne. The doctrine of human freedom.
Chapter 12 Examen de l'opinion qui prétend que le système du fatalisme est dangereux. Examination of the view that the system of fatalism is dangerous.
Chapter 13 De l'immortalité de l'âme; you dogme de la vie future; des craintes de la mort. From the immortality of the soul. From the dogma of the future life. From the fear of death.
Chapter 14 L'éducation, la morale et les lois suffisent pour contenir les hommes. You désir de l'immortalité; you suicide. Education, morals and laws are enough to keep people in check. The desire for immortality. From suicide.
Chapter 15 Des intérêts des hommes ou des idées qu'ils se font du bonheur. L'homme ne peut être heureux sans la vertu. From people's interests or from the ideas they have about happiness. Man cannot be happy without virtue.
Chapter 16 The ereurs des hommes sur ce qui constitue le bonheur sont la vraie source de leurs maux. Des remèdes qu'on leur a voulu appliquer. People's errors of what makes them happy are the real source of their suffering. Of the useless remedies that one tried to use against it.
Chapter 17 Des idées vraies ou fondées sur la nature sont les seuls remèdes aux maux des hommes. Recapitulation de cette première partie. Conclusion. True ideas or ideas based on nature are the only remedies for human suffering. Summary of this first part. Enough.
Deuxième Partie // Part Two
Chapter 1 Chapitre I. Origine de nos idées sur la divinité Origin of our ideas from the deity.
Chapter 2 De la mythologie et de la théologie. From mythology and theology.
Chapter 3 Idées confuses et contradictoires de la théologie. Confused and contradicting ideas of theology.
Chapter 4 Exams des preuves de l'existence de Dieu, données par Clarke. Examination of the evidence given by Clarke to the existence of God.
Chapter 5 Exams des preuves de l'existence de Dieu données par Descartes, Malebranche, Newton, etc. Examination of Descartes, Malebranche, Newton u. a. evidence given for the existence of God.
Chapter 6 You panthéisme ou idées naturelles de la divinité. From pantheism or from natural ideas about the deity.
Chapter 7 You théisme ou déisme, you système de l'optimisme et des causes finales. From theism or deism. From the system of optimism. From the final causes.
Chapter 8 Exams des avantages qui résultent pour les hommes de leurs notions sur la divinité, ou de leur influence sur la morale, sur la politique, sur les sciences, sur le bonheur des nations et des individus. Examination of the advantages that should result for people from their concepts of deity or from its influence on morality, politics, science, the happiness of peoples and individuals.
Chapter 9 Les notions théologiques ne peuvent point être la base de la morale. Parallèle de la morale théologique et de la morale naturelle. La théologie nuit aux progresses de l'esprit humain. Theological concepts cannot be the basis of morality. Comparison of theological morality with natural morality. Theology damages the advancement of the human spirit.
Chapter 10 Que les hommes ne peuvent rien conclure des idées qu'on leur donne de la divinité de l'inconséquence et de l'inutilité de leur conduite à son égard. That people cannot draw any conclusions from the ideas given to them about God. Of the inconsistency and uselessness of their behavior towards the deity.
Chapter 11 Apologie des sentiments contenus dans cet ouvrage. De l'impiété. Existe-t-il des athées? Apology for the views given in this work. From godlessness. Are there atheists?
Chapter 12 L'athéisme est-il compatible avec la morale? Is atheism compatible with morality?
Chapter 13 Des motifs qui portent à l'athéisme ce système peut-il être dangereux? Peut-il être embrassé par le vulgaire? Motives that lead to atheism. Can this system be dangerous? Can it be grasped by the crowd?
Chapter 14 Abrégé du code de la nature. Brief outline of the code of nature.

Appreciation in the German-speaking area

In his autobiographical story From my life. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe also wrote poetry and truth about d'Holbach's system of nature :

“We didn't understand how such a book could be dangerous. It seemed so gray, so Cimmerian, so deadly that we had difficulty withstanding his presence, that we shuddered at it like a ghost (...). If, however, this book has done us some damage, it was that we were and remained deeply angry with all philosophy, especially metaphysics, but on the other hand only threw ourselves all the more vividly and passionately into living knowledge, experience, doing and poetry . "

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : From my life. Poetry and truth. 3rd part, 11th book In: Goethe's poetic works. complete edition, Volume 8, Stuttgart 1952, p. 573

Goethe had begun reading d'Holbach's System of Nature in Strasbourg in 1771 , but did not finish it.

expenditure

Contemporary

  • Système de la nature ou Des loix du monde physique et du monde moral . London 1770. ( Part 1 , Part 2 ).
  • System of nature, or of the laws of the physical and moral world. 2nd, improved edition. Frankfurt / Leipzig 1791. ( Part 1 , Part 2 ).

Translations

  • System of nature . Wigand, Leipzig 1841. (online) .
  • System of nature or of the laws of the physical and moral world (=  Suhrkamp-Taschenbücher Wissenschaft . Volume 259 ). 1st edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-518-07859-3 .

literature

  • Paul Jansen: Philosophy. In: Peter-Eckhard Knabe (Ed.): France in the Age of Enlightenment. dme-Verlag, Cologne 1985, ISBN 3-922977-15-4 , pp. 78-79.
  • Erich Köhler: Lectures on the history of French literature. Edited by Henning Krauss and Dietmar Rieger. Volume 5.1. University Library, Freiburg i. Br 2006, p. 52. (PDF)
  • James Llana: Natural History and the Encyclopédie. In: Journal of the History of Biology. 33 (1), 2000, pp. 1-25.
  • Wolf Lepenies: The End of Natural History. Change of cultural self-evident in the sciences of the 18th and 19th centuries. (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbücher Wissenschaft. 227). Suhrkamp-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-518-07827-5 .
  • Georgi Walentinowitsch Plechanow : Contributions to the history of materialism. Holbach Helvetius Marx. Neuer Weg publishing house, Berlin 1946, p. 10 f.
  • Roselyne Rey: Dynamique des formes et interprétation de la nature. In: Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie. Volume 11, Numéro 11, 1991, pp. 49-62. (on-line)
  • Virgil W. Topazio: D'Holbach's Conception of Nature. In: Modern Language Notes. Volume 69, Number 6, 1954, pp. 412-416 ( JSTOR 3039742 ).

Web links

Wikisource: Système de la nature ou Des loix du monde physique et du monde moral  - Sources and full texts (French)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Max Pearson Cushing: Baron D'holbach A Study Of Eighteenth Century Radicalism. (Original 1886). Kessinger Pub., 2004, ISBN 1-4191-0895-6 , pp. 39-49.
  2. ↑ Michael Hunter, David Wootton: Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment. (1992). Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011. doi: 10.1093 / acprof: oso / 9780198227366.001.0001
  3. ^ Max Pearson Cushing: Baron D'holbach A Study Of Eighteenth Century Radicalism. (Original 1886). Kessinger Pub. Co. 2004, ISBN 1-4191-0895-6 , pp. 39-49.
  4. ^ Robert Darnton: The Business of Enlightenment: Publishing History of the Encyclopédie, 1775-1800: Publishing History of the "Encyclopedie", 1775-1800. Harvard University Press; 1987, ISBN 0-674-08786-0 , p. 39 f.
  5. ^ Consortium of European Research Libraries. Monsieur De Nesle
  6. ↑ Eric Puisais: Léger-Marie Deschamps, un philosophe entre Lumières et oubli. Société chauvinoise de philosophie, Harmattan, 2001, ISBN 2-7475-0309-7 , p. 68 f.
  7. ^ II Friedrich: Critique of the system of nature. In: Friedrich Volz: The works of Frederick the Great. (see note 24), Volume 7, pp. 258–269, precisely p. 262f.
  8. ^ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. First published Fri Sep 6, 2002.
  9. ↑ a b Olga Rubitschon: Materialistic Ethics. In: Annemarie Pieper (Ed.): History of the newer ethics. Volume 1, Tübingen 1992, ISBN 3-8252-1701-9 , pp. 102-123, on d'Holbach in particular, pp. 116-120.
  10. ↑ Paul Thiry d'Holbach: System of nature or of the laws of the physical and moral world. (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbücher Wissenschaft. 259). Translated into German by Fritz-Georg Voigt. 1st edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-518-07859-3 , p. 24.
  11. ↑ a b Helmut Holzhey, Vilem Mudroch, Friedrich Ueberweg, Johannes Rohbeck: Outline of the history of philosophy: The philosophy of the 18th century. 2 half volumes. Schwabe-Verlag, Basel 2008, ISBN 978-3-7965-2445-5 , p. 564.
  12. ^ Paul Thiry d'Holbach: System of nature. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-518-07859-3 , p. 17.
  13. ^ Gerhard Schurz: Lecture notes on epistemology. (PDF; 606 kB). 1995, p. 49.
  14. ↑ Friedrich Albert Lange: History of Materialism. (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbücher Wissenschaft. 70). 1st edition. Volume 1, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1974, ISBN 3-518-07670-1 , p. 397.
  15. ^ Paul Thiry d'Holbach: System of nature. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-518-07859-3 , p. 92.
  16. ^ Paul Thiry d'Holbach: System of nature. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-518-07859-3 , p. 96.
  17. ^ Paul Thiry d'Holbach: System of nature. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-518-07859-3 , p. 169.
  18. ^ Hermann Sauter:  Holbach, Paul T (h) iry von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , pp. 510-512 ( digitized version ).
  19. ↑ Hermann Sauter: The Palatine Baron Paul Tiry von Holbach, a central figure of the French Enlightenment. Special edition of the Literary Association of the Palatinate for its members. (1972), pp. 14-16.
  20. ↑ According to nature's system. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-518-07859-3 .
  21. ↑ Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, text in French, online (PDF; 2.0 MB)
  22. ^ Gero von Wilpert : Goethe-Lexikon (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 407). Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-40701-9 , p. 482.