HOLLBACH, Paul Heinrich Dietrich, Baron von. — Philosopher, b. at Heidelberg (Palatinate) in 1723, d. at Paris, where he had settled from his youth, on 21 Feb. 1789.
Author of various works facile and insipid for the crude materialism to which they are inspired, H. is chiefly remembered for the *Système de la nature* (London [actually Amsterdam or Leiden] 1770), written in collaboration with others. His intellect, at times brilliant, more often pedantic, is always superficial. H.’s thought, which is largely influenced by the disputed doctrines of La Mettrie, Diderot, and other lesser exponents of French Enlightenment materialism, represents the most crude and dogmatic expression of this materialism. Convinced that every form of spiritualism is “the fruit of a deliberate and interested policy of theologians,” H. can see in the world nothing other than a corpulent nature, subject to necessary and physically determinable laws. Matter and motion are the only constituent elements of the universe, of which therefore no teleological interpretation is possible. The so-called spiritual activities themselves represent nothing more than some of the infinite modifications of material motion, while every concept of Divinity, according to H., demonstrates of itself the evident absurdity of the idea (the true “fabricators of divinity” are the theologians...). For a general evaluation, V. MATERIALISMO.