http://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1893/essays/1-holbach.htm
Georgi Plekhanov
Essays on the History of Materialism
I
Holbach
We are going to speak of a certain materialist.
But first: what is meant by materialism?
Let us address ourselves to the greatest of modern materialists.
"The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of more recent
philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being," says
Frederick Engels in his excellent book Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of
Classical German Philosophy, (Stuttgart, 1888). "But this question could for
the first time be put forward in its whole acuteness, could achieve its full
significance, only after humanity in Europe had awakened from the long
hibernation of the Christian Middle Ages. The question of the position of
thinking in relation to being, a question which, by the way, had played a great
part also in the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, the question: which is
primary, spirit or nature that question, in relation to the church, was
sharpened into this: Did God create the world or has the world been in
existence eternally?
"The answers which the philosophers gave to this question split them into two
great camps. Those who asserted the primacy of spirit to nature and, therefore,
in the last instance, assumed world creation in some form or other... comprised
the camp of idealism. The others, who regarded nature as primary, belong to
various schools of materialism." [1*]
Holbach would have accepted this definition of materialism with the utmost
readiness. He himself said nothing else. To him, what we call the mental life
of animals was nothing more than a natural phenomenon, and, in his opinion,
there was no need to emerge from within the borders of Nature in search of a
solution to the problems she has confronted us with. [1] This is very simple,
and a far cry from the dogmatic assertions so often and so groundlessly
ascribed to the materialists. True, Holbach saw in Nature nothing but matter or
kinds of matter, and motion or motions. [2] And it is on this that the critics,
Ph. Damiron for example, are out to entrap our materialist. They foist upon him
their concept of matter arid, proceeding from that concept, attempt
triumphantly to prove that matter, alone, is insufficient for an explanation of
all natural phenomena. [3]
This is a facile but threadbare device. Critics of this calibre do not
understand, or pretend not to understand, that one may have a concept of matter
different from theirs. "If, by Nature," Holbach says, "we shall mean an
accumulation of dead substances, without any properties and purely passive,
then, of course, we shall be obliged to seek outside of that Nature the
principle of her motions; but if, by Nature, we mean what she actually is a
whole, in which the various parts have various properties, act according to
those various properties, are constantly acting and reacting upon one another,
possess weight, gravitate towards a common centre, while others depart towards
the circumference; attract and repel one another, unite and separate, and, in
constant collisions and comings together, produce and decompose all the bodies
we see then nothing can make us appeal to supernatural forces for an
explanation of how the things and phenomena that we see are formed. [4]
Locke already thought it possible that matter could possess the faculty of
thinking. To Holbach, this was a most probable assumption "even in the
hypothesis of theology, that is to say, in supposing that there exists an
omnipotent mover of matter". [5] The conclusion drawn by Ifolbach is very
simple and really very convincing: "Since Man, who is matter and has ideas only
about matter, possesses the faculty of thinking, matter can think, or is
capable of that specific modification which we call thought." [6]
What does that modification depend on? Here Holbach advances two hypotheses,
which he finds equally probable. It may be presumed that the sensitivity of
matter is "the result of an organisation, a link inherent in an animal, so that
dead and inert matter ceases to be dead and becomes capable of sensation when
it is `animalised', i.e. when it unites and is identified witli an animal". Do
we not see every day that milk, bread and wine turn into the substance of man,
who is a creature endowed with sensitivity? These dead substances consequently
become endowed with sensitivity when they combine with a creature that is
endowed with sensitivity. The other hypothesis is that dealt with by Diderot in
his excellent Conversation with D'Alembert. "Some philosophers think that
sensitivity is a universal quality of matter. In this case, it would be useless
to seek whence that quality comes to it, which we know by its effects. If one
admits that hypothesis, then it will be in the same way as one distinguishes
two kinds of motion in Nature one that is known under the name of living
force and another under the name of dead force then one will distinguish two
kinds of sensitivity: one that is active or living, and another that is inert
or dead, and then animalising a substance will mean nothing but destroying the
obstacles that prevent it from being active and sensitive." However that may
be, and whichever of these hypotheses of sensitivity we accept, "the
nonextensive being the human soul is supposed to be cannot be a subject". [7]
The reader will perhaps claim that neither hypothesis is marked by sufficient,
clarity. We are well aware of that, and Holbach realised it no less than we do.
That property of matter which we call sensitivity is an enigma that is very
difficult of solution. But, says Holbach, "the simplest movements of our bodies
are, to any man who gives thought to them, enigmas just as difficult to solve
as thought is." [8]
During a conversation with Lessing, Jacobi once said, "Spinoza is good enough
in my opinion, yet his name is a poor kind of salvation for us!" To which
Lessing replied, "Yes! If you wish it so!... Yet ... do you know of anything
better?" [9]
To all reproaches from their opponents, the materialists can reply in just the
same way: "Do you know of anything better?" Where is that something better to
be sought? In Berkeley's subjective idealism? In Hegel's absolute idealism? In
the agnosticism or the neo-Kantianism of our times?
"Materialism," Lange assures us, "stubbornly takes the world of sensory
appearance for the world of real things." [10]
He wrote this remark apropos of Holbach's argument against Berkeley. It creates
the impression that Holbach was ignorant of many very simple things. Our
philosopher could have replied for himself, "We do not know the essence of any
being, if by the word 'essence' one understands that which constitutes the
nature that is peculiar to it; we know matter only through the perceptions, the
sensations, and the ideas it gives us; it is only later that we judge whether
it is good or bad, in accordance with the structure of our organs." [11]
"We know neither the essence nor the true nature of matter, although we are
able to define some of its properties and qualities according to how it affects
us." [12]
"We do not know the elements of the body, but we do know some of their
properties or qualities and we distinguish between their different substances
according to the effects or changes they produce on our senses, that is to say,
by the various changes that their presence brings forth in us." [13]
Strange, is it not? Here we see our kindly old Holbach as an epistemologist of
today. How was it that Lange failed to recognise in him a comrade-in-philosophy?
Lange saw all philosophical systems in Kant, in just the same way as
Malebranche saw all things in God. He found it unimaginable that, even before
the publication of Kritik der reinen Vernunft [2*], there could have been
people, and even among the materialists, who had a knowledge of certain truths,
which were, properly speaking, meagre and barren, but, seemed to him the
greatest discoveries in contemporary philosophy. He had read Holbach with a
prejudiced eye.
But that is not all. There is a vast difference between Holbach and Lange. To
Lange, as to any Kantian, a "thing-in-itself" was absolutely incognisable. To
Holbach, as to any materialist, our reason, i.e., science, was fully capable of
discovering at least certain properties of a "thing-in-itself". On this point,
too, the author of Système de la Nature was not mistaken.
Let us apply the following line of reasoning. We are building a railway.
Expressed in Kantian terms, that means we are engendering certain phenomena.
But what is a phenomenon? It is the result of a "thing-in-itself" acting upon
us. So when we are build ing our railway, we are making a "thing-in-itself" act
on us in a certain way that is desirable to us. But what is it that gives us
the means of acting upon a "thing-in-itself" in such a manner? It is a
knowledge of its properties, and nothing but that knowledge.
Our being able to get a sufficiently close knowledge of a "thing-in-itself"
happens to be very useful to us. Otherwise, we could not exist here on Earth,
and would most probably have been denied the pleasure of indulging in
metaphysics.
The Kantians aver that a "thing-in-itself" is incognisable. That
incognisability, in their opinion, gives Lampe, and all the worthies of
philistinism, the inalienable right to their own more or less "poetical" or
"ideal" God. [3*] Holbach reasoned differently.
"It is being incessantly repeated to us," he says, "that our senses show us
only the outside of things, and that our limited minds cannot conceive a God.
Let us admit that is so; but those senses do not show us even the outside of
the Divinity ... As we are constituted, that means that we have no ideas about
what does not exist for us." [14]
The almost complete absence of any kind of idea of evolution was undoubtedly a
weak point in eighteenth-century French materialism, as it was, in general, in
any kind of materialism prior to Marx. True, such people as Diderot sometimes
arrived at masterly conjectures which would have done credit to the most
outstanding of our present-day evolutionists; such instances of insight,
however, were not connected with the essence of their doctrine, but were merely
exceptions, which, as such, merely confirmed the rule. Whether they were
dealing with Nature, morals or history, the "philosophers" tackled the problem
with the same absence of the dialectical method, and from the same metaphysical
viewpoint. It is of interest to see how indefatigably Holbach tried to find
some probable hypothesis of the origin of our planet and the human race.
Problems now conclusively resolved by evolutionary natural science were seen as
impossible of solution by the eighteenth-century philosophers. [15]
The Earth was not always the same as it now is. Does that mean that it was
formed gradually, during a lengthy process of evolution? No. It might have been
as follows: "Perhaps this Earth is a mass detached at a certain moment from
some other celestial body; perhaps it is the result" (!) "of the spots or
crusts that astronomers observe on the Sun's disc, whence they could spread in
our planetary system; perhaps this globe is an extinct and displaced comet
which once occupied a different place in the regions of space." [16]
Primitive man perhaps differed from his counterpart of today more than a
quadruped does from an insect. Like everything else that exists on our globe
and on all other heavenly bodies, Man can be imagined as being in a process of
constant change. "Thus there is no contradiction in thinking that the species
vary incessantly." [17] This sounds perfectly in the spirit of evolutionism. It
should not be forgotten, however, that Holbach saw this hypothesis as probable
given "changes in the position of our globe". Whoever does not accept this
condition can consider Man "a sudden result of Nature." Holbach does not adhere
quite firmly to the hypothesis of the evolution of the species. "If one should
reject the preceding conjectures, and if one affirms that Nature acts by a
certain sum of immutable and general laws; if one should believe that Man, the
quadruped, the fish, the insect, the plant, etc., are of all eternity and will
forever remain what they are; if one should grant that the stars have shone in
the firmament since all eternity" (thus, "a certain sum of immutable and
general laws" would consequently preclude any development! G.P.); "if one
should say that it should not be asked why Man is what he is, any more than why
Nature is as we see it, or why the world exists we would not object to all
that. Whatever system one adopts, it will, perhaps, reply equally well to the
difficulties that embarrass one It is not given to Man to know everything; it
is not given to him lo know his origin; it is not given to him to penetrate
into the essence of things or to reach the prime principles." [18]
All this seems almost unbelievable to us today, but one should not forget the
history of natural science. It should be recalled that, long after the
publication of Système de la Nature, the great scientist Cuvier was up in arms
against any idea of evolution in the natural sciences.
Let us now consider Holbach's moral philosophy.
In one of his comedies, Charles Palissot, an author who lias been completely
forgotten, but attracted considerable attention in the last century, has one of
his characters (Valere) say the following:
Du globe ou nous vivons despote universel,
Il n'est qu'un seul ressort, l'intérêt personnel [19]
To which another character (Carondas) replies:
J'avais quelque regret à tromper Cydalise
Mais je vois clairement que la chose est permise. [20]
Thus Palissot tried to hold up the philosophers' ideas to scorn. "It is a
question of achieving happiness, no matter how" this aphorism of Valère
expresses Palissot's view of the "philosophers'" ethics. Palissot was merely a
"miserable ink-slinger", yet were there many writers on the history of
philosophy who advanced any other judgement on the materialist ethics of the
eighteenth century? Throughout the present century, this ethics has almost
universally been considered something scandalous, a doctrine unbefitting a
worthy scholar or self-respecting philosopher; people such as La Mettrie,
Holbach and Helvetius were considered dangerous sophists who preached nothing
but sensual enjoyment and selfishness. [21] Yet none of these writers ever
preached anything of the kind. Any reading of their books with a modicum of
attention will bear this out. "To do good, promote the happiness of others, and
to come to their aid that is virtuous. Only that can be virtuous which is
conducive to the weal, happiness and security of society."
"Humaneness is the prime social virtue. It epitomises all the other virtues.
Taken in its broadest aspect, it is the sense that gives all beings of our
species the rights to our heart. Grounded in a cultivated sensibility, it
enables us to do all the good on" faculties render us capable of. It results in
love, beneficence, generosity, forbearance and compassion to our
fellow-creatures." [22]
Where does this so groundless accusation spring from? How could it have been
believed almost universally?
In the first place, ignorance is to blame. The French materialists are much
spoken of, but not read. It is therefore hardly surprising that, having struck
deep root, the prejudice lives on.
The prejudice itself has two sources, both equally abundant.
Eighteenth-century materialist philosophy was a revolutionary philosophy. It
was merely the ideological expression of the revolutionary bourgeoisie's
struggle against the clergy, the nobility, and the absolute monarchy. It goes
without saying that, in its struggle against an obsolete system, the
bourgeoisie could have no respect for a world-outlook that was inherited from
the past and hallowed that despised system. "Different times, different
circumstances, a different philosophy," as Diderot so excellently put it in his
article on Hobbes in the Encyclopédie. The philosophers of the good old days,
who tried to live in peace with the Church, had no objections to a morality
which claimed revealed religion as its source. The philosophers of the new
times wanted morals to be free of any alliance with "superstition". "Nothing
can be more disadvantageous to human morals than having them blended with
divine morals. In linking sensible morals, based on experience and reason, with
a mystical religion that is opposed to reason and based on imagination and
authority, one could only muddle, weaken and even destroy the former." [23]
This divorcement of morals from religion could not have been to everybody's
liking, and it already provided grounds to revile the materialists' ethics. But
that was not all. "Religious morals" preached humility, mortification of the
flesh, and quelling of the passions. To those who suffer here on Earth they
promised recompense in the world to come. The new morality reinstated the
flesh, reinstated the rights of the passions [[24], and made society
responsible for the misfortunes of its members. [25] Like Heine, it wanted "to
set up the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth". [5*] Therein lay its revolutionary
side, but therein, too, was its wrongness in the eyes of those who stood for
the then existent social structure.
In his Correspondance littéraire [6*], Grimm wrote that, following the
publication of Helvetius's De l'Esprit, a certain comic verse circulated
throughout Paris, expressing the apprehension of "respectable folk":
"Admirez tous cet auteur-la
Qui de `l'Esprit' intitula
Un livre qui n'est que matière." [[26]
Indeed, all materialist morals were merely "matter" to those who did riot
understand them, and also to those who, though understanding them excellently,
preferred "tippling wine in secret, while preaching water-drinking in public".
[7*]
This will be sufficient to explain how and why materialist morals, to this day,
make the hair of all philistines of all "civilised" nations stand on end.
Yet there were, among the opponents of materialist morals, such men as Voltaire
and Rousseau. Were they philistines too?
As for Rousseau, he was no philistine in this instance, but it must be admitted
that the Patriarch of Ferney [8*] brought a substantial portion of philistinism
into the discussion.
When a man comes into the world, he brings with him only the faculty of
sensation, what is known as the intellectual faculties all develop from this
faculty. Some of the impressions or sensations a man gets from the objects he
meets please him, while others cause him suffering. He approves of some of
them, which he wants to last or become renewed in him; he regards others with
disapproval, and avoids them as much as he can. In other words, a man likes
some sensations and the objects that produce them, and dislikes other
impressions and that which evokes them. Since man lives in society, he is
surrounded by creatures like himself, who feel exactly what he does. All these
creatures seek enjoyment, and fear suffering. They call good whatever gives
them enjoyment, and evil whatever causes them suffering. Whatever is of
constant use to them they call virtue, while whatever is injurious to them in
the make-up of those that surround them is called vice. One who does good to
his fellow-men is good; he who causes them harm is evil. Hence it follows, in
the first place, that man does not stand in need of divine aid to distinguish
virtue from vice; in the second place, for men to be virtuous, the performance
of virtue should give them pleasure, be pleasing to them. Man should love vice
if it makes him happy. A man is evil only because it is to his advantage to be
so. Evil and wicked men are so often to be met in this world of ours only
because no government exists that could enable them to find advantage in
justice, honesty and charity; conversely, the vested interests everywhere drive
them to injustice, evil and crime. "Thus, it is not Nature that creates evil
people, but our institutions that make them such." [27]
Such is the formal aspect of materialist morals, which we have conveyed almost
in Holbach's own words. His thoughts often lack clarity. Thus, it is
tautological to say that if vice makes man happy, he should love vice; if vice
does indeed make man happy, then he already loves vice. This absence of
precision in Holbach often leads to unfortunate consequences. Thus, in one
place he says that "interest is the only motivation of human acts". Elsewhere
he gives the following definition: "We call interest that object with which any
man, in conformity with the temperament and ideas peculiar to him, links his
well-being; in other words, interest is simply what each of us regards as
necessary to his happiness". [28] This is so broad a definition that one can no
longer tell the difference between materialist and religious morals [29]; any
adherent of the latter could say that his opponents had merely invented a new
terminology, and preferred to call self-interested such actions that had
previously been called disinterested. However that may be, one can readily
understand what Holbach meant by saying that if vice makes man happy he should
love vice. He makes society responsible for the vices of its members. [30]
Voltaire fulminates against Holbach for the latter's alleged advice to people
to take to vice if that proves to their advantage. This reminds one of l'abbé
de l'Lignac, who made a convert to the new morality reply to the question of
whether he should love the interests of his nation, as follows: in the measure
in which it is to my advantage. Yet Voltaire knew more of the matter than de
Lignac ever did: he knew his Locke very well, and must have seen that
materialist morals were merely continuing the English philosopher's cause. In
his Traité de métaphysique, Voltaire himself said far bolder things about
morals than Holbach ever did. However, the patriarch felt afraid: he was
apprehensive lest the people, after turning into atheists and utilitarian
moralists, should become too audacious. "All things considered," he wrote to
Madame Necker (September 20, 1770), "the age of Phaedra and le Misanthrope was
a better one." [9*] Of course it was! The people were held in curb far better
then!
What is most comical is that Voltaire contraposes the following argument to
Holbach's morals: "Our society cannot exist without the ideas of the justice
and injustice, he (God) has shown us the road to reach them Thus, for all
people, from Peking to Ireland, the weal of society is firmly established as an
immutable rule of virtue." What a discovery for an atheist philosopher to make!
Rousseau's conclusions were different: he thought that utilitarian morals could
not explain the most virtuous of human actions. "What is meant by offering up
one's life in one's own interests?" he asked, adding that he found repellent
that philosophy which was a source of embarrassment to virtuous actions,
escaped from any difficulty only by ascribing base intentions and evil motives
to virtuous actions, and "is obliged to humiliate Socrates and slander
Regulus". [10*] For an appreciation of what this reproach signifies, we have to
advance the following considerations.
In their struggle against "religious morality", the materialists were out,
first and foremost, to prove that people were capable of knowing what "virtue"
is, without any aid from Heaven. "Did men need supernatural revelation,"
Holbach exclaimed, "to learn that justice is necessary for the preservation of
society, or that injustice merely brings together enemies prepared to do injury
to one another? Was it necessary that God should speak for them to realise that
creatures who have gathered together need to love each other and render each
other aid? Was aid necessary for them to discover from on high that vengeance
is an evil, an outrage against one's country's laws, which, if they are just,
see to it that citizens are avenged? ... Is not anyone who values his life
aware that vice, intemperance and sensual pleasure shorten his days? Finally,
has not experience proved to any thinking being that crime is an object of
hatred to his" (i.e., the criminal's. G.P.) "fellow men; that vice is
injurious to those who aru infected with it; that virtue wins respect and love
for those who cultivate it? If men reflect but a little on what they do, on
their true interests, and on the purpose of society, they will realise their
duty to one another ... The voice of Reason is sufficient for us to learn what
our duty is towards our fellow creatures." [31]
Since Reason is sufficient to teach us our duties, the mediation of Philosophy
is indicated to show us that virtue lies in our own and correctly understood
interest. It must, also show us that the most illustrious heroes of mankind
would not have actetl otherwise if they had had only their own happiness in
mind. Thus psychological analysis arises, which does, indeed, often and
obviously humiliate Socrates and slander Regulus. Consequently, Rousseau's
reproach was not made without certain grounds; only the "citizen of Geneva"
forgot thai the "slandered Socrates" often fell into the same error that the
materialists are reproached with. [32]
Whether in Greece or in France, in Germany or in Russia (Chernyshevsky and his
followers) the Enlighteners everywhere made one and the same mistake. They
were out to prove what cannot be proved but must be taught by the life of
society itself. [33] Mankind's moral development follows closely in the
footsteps of economic necessity, precisely adapting itself to society's actual
needs. In this sense, it can and should he said thai interest is the foundation
of morality. However, the historical process of that adaptation takes place
behind people's backs, irrespective of the will and intellect of individuals. A
line of behaviour that is dictated by interest seems lo be an injunction of the
"gods", "inborn conscience", "Reason", or "Nature". But what kind of interest
is it that dictates one line of behaviour or another to individuals? Is it
self-interest? In innumerable cases, it is. However, inasmuch as individuals
listen to their voice of their personal interests, it is no longer a question
of "virtuous" actions that we are called upon to explain. Such actions reflect
the interest of the entity, social interest, and it is the latter that
prescribe them. The dialectic of historical development leads, not only to
"sense becoming nonsense, and beneficence turning into evil" [12*] but also to
the selfish interests of society or a class often turning, in the hearts of
individuals, into impulses full of unselfishness and heroism. The secret of
that conversion lies in the influence of the social environment. The French
materialists were good at appraising that influence; they kept on reiterating
that upbringing determines everything, that people become what they are, and
are not born that way. Nevertheless, they regarded and depicted this process of
moral moulding as a series of reflexions that are repeated at every instant in
every individual's mind and are directly modified according to the
circumstances affecting the private interest of anybody who is motivated to
action. From this viewpoint, as we have seen, the moralist's task takes shape
of itself. The thinking of individuals should be protected against errors, and
the moral "truth" be pointed out to them. In that case, then, what is meant by
pointing out the moral truth? It means pointing out where personal interest, as
best understood, lies; it means lauding that particular disposition of heart
which leads up to some praiseworthy action. It was thus that the psychological
analysis which Rousseau rose up against came into being; it was thus that there
appeared the interminable hymns of praise in honour of virtue that Grimm called
capucinades. [13*] The latter were highly characteristic of some of the
eighteenth-century French materialists, while a false analysis of behaviour
motivations was a feature of the others. However, the absence of the
dialectical method is conspicuous in everything they all wrote, and wreaks
vengeance on all of them in equal degree.
In his polemic against materialist morals, Rousseau often appealed to the
conscience, that "divine instinct", "innate feeling", and the like. It would
have been easy for the materialists to explain that feeling as being the fruit
of upbringing and habit. For their part, however, they preferred to present it
as a series of reflections grounded in a thorough awareness of personal
interest. According to Holbach, conscience can be defined as "knowledge of the
effects that one's actions produce on others, and, conversely, on ourselves".
"A guilty conscience is the certitude or the fear of having merited their
hatred or their contempt by our conduct towards them." [34] It is clear that
Rousseau could not have been satisfied with such a "definition"; it is just as
clear that the materialists could not tolerate his point of view. The least
admission of "innate feeling" would have defeated all their philosophy. Today
dialectical materialism can easily single out that part of the truth which is
contained both in Rousseau's statements and in those of the French materialists.
And so all moral laws originate from "Reason". Rut what is Reason guided by in
its search after these laws? By Nature, Holbach replies without the least
hesitation. "Man is a feeling, intelligent and rational being." Reason does not
have to know anything more than that to endow us with "universal morality".
The psychology of this appeal to "Nature" can easily be spelt out.
Incidentally, it is explained by Holbach himself: "To impose duties on us, and
to prescribe to us laws that obligate us, an authority is doubtlessly needed
that has the right to command us." But the materialists were at war with all
the traditional authorities, so they appealed to Nature to find a way out of
the difficulty. "Can anyone deny this right to necessity? Can one question the
claims of that Nature which exercises sovereign rights over all that exists?"
All this was very "natural" at the time, but it must be emphasised that, like
most of his contemporaries, Holbach was referring only to the nature of "Man",
which is something quite different from the Nature we have to struggle against
for our existence.
Montesquieu was convinced that differences in climate produced "variety in
laws". He adduced most inconclusive proof to bear out this relationship, while
the materialist philosophers demonstrated it with no great difficulty. "Will
one say," Holbach asked, "that the Sun which shone down on the Greeks and the
Romans, who were so jealous of their liberties, does not send the same rays
upon their effete descendants?" [35] Basically speaking, however, Montesquieu's
line of thought was not quite erroneous. Today we know the significance the
geographical environment has had for the history of mankind, and if Montesquieu
was mistaken, that does not at all mean that those who attacked him on this
score had a better understanding of what Hegel was later to call the
"geographical foundation of world history". They had not the least knowledge of
the matter, neither right nor wrong knowledge. Human nature was the key they
expected to use to open all doors in the edifice of morals, politics and
history. It is often difficult for us today to have a clear realisation of a
point of view so commonly held by eighteenth-century writers.
"The development of the arts," it was said by Suard, for example, "is subject
to the same gradations that one observes in the development of mankind." We
seize eagerly upon this idea, thinking that the author is about to reveal the
hidden causes of human development, which, while independent of the human will,
give direction to their spirit and enlightenment ("lumières"). There are some
who think that, thanks to Suard, they are escaping from the circulus vitiosus
the philosophy oE history was revolving in so hopelessly in the eighteenth
century. They are, however, too precipitant, and deeply mistaken. The causes
that the development of the "arts" is subordinate to are dependent only on the
nature of "man" ... "In childhood man has nothing but his senses, his
imagination and his memory; he needs nothing but songs and tales. Then follows
the age of passions, and the soul wants to be stirred and agitated; next the
mind expands and reason becomes fortified; these two faculties, in their turn,
have to be exercised, their activities extending to everything affecting man's
curiosity, tastes, feelings and needs." [36]
It is now recognised by all natural scientists that the sequence of forms the
individual organism passes through, from the embryo to its full development is
a repetition of !ho form-changes gone through by the ancestors of the genus the
organism belongs to. Embryogenetic development epitomises the genealogical. In
the same way, one can regard the sequence of forms that each man's mind goes
through from infancy to full development as a kind of synopsis of the lengthy
and slow changes each man's ancestors underwent in the course of history.
Highly interesting research can, in our opinion, be carried out in this field.
[37] But what would be said of the natural scientist who would see, in the
embryogenetic history of an individual organism, sufficient grounds for changes
in a genus? But that is exactly the mode of thinking of Suard and, together
with him, of all eighteenthcentury "philosophers", who had a vague idea of the
pattern of mankind's development.
In this, Grimm is in full accord with Suard. "What people has not started by
being a poet, and ended by being a philosopher?" he asks. [38] Helvetius alone
understood that this fact could spring from other and deeper causes than Suard
thought. But we have not yet come to Helvetius.
Man is a sentient, thinking and rational creature. He is created thus, has
always been and will always remain that way, despite all his errors. In this
sense, man's nature is immutable. What, then, is there surprising in the moral
and political laws dictated by that nature being, in their turn, of universal
significance, unchanging, and constant? These laws have not yet been
proclaimed, and it must be admitted that "nothing is more common than to see
civil laws in contradiction with those of Nature". These corrupt civil laws are
due to the "perversity of morals, the errors of societies, or tyranny which
forces nature to bow to its authority". [39] Let Nature have its say, you will
learn the truth once and for all. Errors arc without number, but there is only
one truth. "Morals do not exist for the monster or the madman; universal morals
can be established only for rational and normally organised creatures; in them
Nature does not change; observation alone is needed to infer the immutable
rules that they must follow." [40]
But how is one to explain that the same Holbach could have written the
following lines: "Like all natural bodies, societies undergo transformations,
changes, and revolutions; they are formed, grow and disintegrate just like all
beings. One and the same laws cannot suit them in different circumstances of
development: useful in one period, they become useless and harmful in another."
It is all very simple. Holbach draws a single conclusion from the above
argumentation, namely that obsolete and outmoded laws (the reference is to the
laws of France at the time) should be abolished. The entrenchedness of a law
speaks rather against it than for it. The example of our forebears is no
evidence in its favour. Holbach could have proved this in theory, but only by
appealing to "reason", but, in view of his readers' prejudices, he pretended to
adhere to the historical point of view. The same is true of the history of
religions. The "philosophers" have devoted a great deal of attention to this
subject, their purpose being to prove that the Christian religion, which claims
to be based on revelation, fully resembles all profane religions. This was a
blow aimed against the odious Christian faith; when it had been dealt, none of
the "philosophers" felt concerned with a study of the comparative history of
religions. The times were revolutionary, and all "truths" proclaimed by the
philosophers (which very often contradicted one other) had immediately
practical aims in view.
We shall remark at this point that "human nature" often led the materialist
philosophers much farther than they had expected. "The distinction that was
often drawn between physical and moral man was excessively abused." Man is a
purely physical being. Moral man is the selfsame physical creature, only
considered from a definite angle, i.e., in respect of some of his faculties as
conditioned by his organisation. Hence, "All of men's errors are physical
errors". [41] Thus, what devolves on medicine, or rather on physiology, is the
task of providing us with a key to the human heart. The same science should
also explain to us the historical changes that have taken place in mankind. "In
Nature, in which everything is interlinked, everything acts and interacts,
everything moves and changes, composes and decomposes, forms and is destroyed,
there is not a single atom that does not play an important and necessary role;
there is not a single imperceptible molecule which, if placed in suitable
circumstances, does not lead to tremendous effects ... An excess of acridity in
a fanatic's bile, excessively inflamed blood in a conqueror's heart,
troublesome digestion in a monarch's stomach, a whim that passes through some
woman's mind" (also a molecule? G.P.) "are sufficient causes to start wars,
send millions of men into the slaughter, destroy fortresses, reduce cities to
rubble... and spread desolation and calamity for a long succession of centuries
..." [42]
There is a well-known aphorism about the speck of sand that found its way into
Cromwell's bladder, thus leading to the entire picture of the world being
reshaped. There is neither more nor less content in this aphorism than in
Holbach's ideas about "atoms" and "molecules" as the causes of historical
events, the only difference being that we owe the aphorism to a pious man. In
the latter's opinion, it was God who introduced the fatal speck of sand into
the Protector's body. Holbach already would have nothing of God, but in
everything else he could produce no objection to this aphorism.
Aphorisms of this kind contain a "grain" of the truth, but that truth also
relates to the entire truth in just the same way as a "grain" or a molecule
does towards all matter in the Universe. Since it is infinitesimal, that truth
does not take us a single step forward in our study of social phenomena. And if
we did nothing else in historical science but await the advent of the genius
that Laplace dreamt of a genius who, with the aid of molecular mechanics,
will reveal to us all the secrets of mankind's past, present and future we
could indulge in long and calm slumber, for that marvellous genius's coming
will not take place so soon.
"If, aided by experience, we knew the elements underlying the temperament of a
man or of most of the individuals a people is made up of, we would know what is
to their liking, what laws they need, and what institutions are useful to
them." [43] In that case, however, what would become of "universal morals" and
" policies that are in accord with Nature"? Holbach has nothing to say on that
score but comments with ever greater zeal on all the moral, political and
social laws which, of necessity, derive from man's nature as considered in the
capacity of a sentient, etc., creature.
It was highly "natural" that, in Holbach's times, Mother Nature was politically
and morally on the side of the very laws that the French bourgeoisie needed at
the moment when it was prepared to become "everything". [15*]
A tacit agreement, a social pact, exists between society and its members. That
contract is renewed at every moment, and is designed to ensure the mutual
guarantees of citizens' rights, of which liberty, property and security are the
most sacred. Moreover: "Liberty, property and security are Ihe only bonds that
attach people to the land they live in. No homeland exists if these advantages
have disappeared." [44] Property is the sonl of this holy trinity. Security and
liberty are necessary in society. "But it is impossible for man to keep or make
his existence happy if he cannot enjoy the advantages his exertions and his
personality (!) have provided him with. Therefore the laws of Nature have
granted every man a right which is called property". Society cannot deprive a
man of his property "because it is created to assure that property". Thus,
property is the aim, and liberty and security are the means. Let us examine
this sacred right in this light and in greater detail.
Where does it spring from? It is based on the necessary relation that arises
between man and the product of his labour. Thus, a field becomes, in a certain
way, a part of him who cultivates it, because it is his will, his arms, his
strength, his industry, in a word, "his inherent individual qualities, those
belonging to his person", that have made that field what it is. "That field,
irrigated with his sweat, becomes, so to speak, identified with him; its yield
belongs to him in just the same way as his limbs and his faculties do, for,
without his labour, that produce would never have existed or, at least, would
not have existed in the way it does." [45]
Thus Holbach saw bourgeois property in the form of the product of the
proprietor's own labour. This, however, did not preclude his high regard for
merchants and manufacturers, those "benefactors, who, in enriching themselves,
give occupations and life to all society". [46] He seems to have had a correct,
though not quite clear, understanding of the origins of the manufacturers'
wealth. "... While the labourer" he says, "gains his livelihood by his labour,
he is constantly increasing the wealth of those who give him employment." Now,
is that wealth produced only by "inherent individual qualities, those belonging
to his person" ("What a multitude of artisans of all kinds turn the wheels of
manufactures!")? [47] Of course, not! But what of that? Manufacturers and
merchants are very useful people, so should not a grateful society award wealth
and honours to those that serve it, so well? The trouble lies, not in the
indisputable fact that the "artisan" promotes the manufacturer's wealth but in
"Gothic and barbarous prejudices" leading to the manufacturer and merchant
being held in lower esteem than they deserve. "The peaceable tradesman seems a
contemptible object to the stupid soldier, who does not see that this man, whom
he looks down on, clothes him, feeds him, and keeps his army supplied." (Sic!)
[48]
Holbach has a different kind of language for feudal property. He regards such
proprietors "the Rich and the Grand" as "useless and harmful members of
Society" and attacks them indefatigably, for it is they who threaten "the
fruits of the labours of others", destroy the liberty of their fellow citizens,
and insult their persons. "That is how property is incessantly violated." [49]
We know that society has been created to preserve property, but the tacit
social pact does and should refer to bourgeois property alone. In respect of
feudal property, society has but a single duty -its complete and absolute
abolition. Holbach stands for abolition of the nobility's privileges,
obligations to them, taxes, the corvée, feudal rights, and the like. [50] "If
the Nobles, whose harmful rights the Sovereign would take away, should make
reference to the sacred rights of property, the reply might be given that
property is nothing but the right to possession with justice; whatever runs
counter to the national weal can never be marked by justice; whatever is
injurious to the property of the husbandman can never be regarded as a right,
for it is nothing but usurpation, a violation of his rights, whose maintenance
is of far greater benefit to the nation than the pretensions of a small number
of Seigneurs, who, not content with doing nothing, are opposed to works that
are of the utmost importance both to themselves and to Society." [51]
The nobles "prefer to do nothing"; they perform no useful function in society,
this condemning them in the eyes of our philosopher. There was a time when the
nobles had to go to the wars at their own expense, and then enjoyed certain
privileges on a fair basis of law. But on what legal foundation should they
enjoy the same privileges in a society in which the army is maintained by the
sovereign, and the nobles are no longer under any obligation to serve? [52]
A time has now arrived when the proletariat is using the same yardstick for the
capitalists' rights as was used over a hundred years ago by representatives of
the bourgeoisie in respect of the privileges of the nobility.
It should not be thought that the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the
nobility was reflected in Holbach's mind as one between landowners and urban
proprietors of various kinds. Nothing of the kind! Holbach was in no way biased
in favour of movable property. On the contrary, it was landed property that he
considered as the real thing, property par excellence. "Ownership of land forms
the genuine citizen," he said. The condition of agriculture is the indicator of
a country's economic situation in general. The "poor" are, first and foremost,
"husbandmen"; defending them is tantamount to defending the country folk who
are oppressed by the "Grand of this world", i.e., the nobility. Holbach went so
far as to say, together with the Physiocrats [16*], that, directly or
indirectly, all taxes fall on the land, just like everything else, whether good
or bad, that happens to the nation. "It is to defend the possession of land
that warfare is designed; it is to keep the fruits of the land in circulation
that trade is necessary; it is by assuring lands to their owners that
jurisprudence is useful." [53] The land is the source of a nation's entire
wealth, and it is for that reason that it should be released as soon as
possible from the feudal yoke, which is pressing down so heavily on it. Another
argument in favour of the bourgeoisie's revolutionary trends!
"Equality" could contain nothing tempting to a man like Holbach. On the
contrary, he thought it an extremely obnoxious chimera. Not all people have the
same kind of organisation. They have always been unequal in their physical,
moral and intellectual forces. "A man who is feeble in body or mind has always
been forced to recognise the superiority of those who are stronger, more
industrious, and more intelligent. One who is more industrious cultivates a
larger lot and makes it more fertile than can be done by another who has
received a weaker body from Nature. Thus, inequality in property and in
possessions has existed from the outset." [54]
To such arguments the l'abbé Mably could well object that they patently
contradicted the point of departure of recent political philosophy, to wit,
absolutely equal rights for all people, both strong and weak. [55] The time was
not yet ripe for "equality", and Mably himself had to admit that "no human
force could today attempt to re-establish equality without causing greater
disorder than one would wish to avoid." [56] The objective logic of social
evolution proved to be on the side of the bourgeois theorists.
------------------------------------
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