Although an atheist, or at least a materialist of the most material school, Holbach seems to have been endowed with a more than average share of virtue, and, whether by his courtesy, gentleness, or benevolence, inspired a warm affec tion in all he met. Even his failings, of which his simple credulity was perhaps the most prominent, were amiable. He was one of the best informed men of his day, and his excellent memory placed at his immediate disposal all the learning he had amassed. He visited England on one occasion, but the solemn stiffness of the British, even while amusing themselves, and the peculiar relations of society, disgusted as much as they surprised him. For the Encyclopedic Holbach compiled and translated a large number of articles on chemistry and mineralogy, chiefly from German sources. He attracted more attention, how ever, in the department of philosophy. In 1767 Christian- isme Devoile appeared, in which he attacked Christianity and religion as the source of all human evils. Regarding religion as a blind superstitious bondage, maintained on men s minds by the self-interest of the priests, he tried to prove it not only unnecessary but absolutely prejudicial to human morality. This was followed up in 1770 by a still more open attack in his most famous book, Le Systeme de la Nature, in which it ia probable he was assisted by Diderot. Denying the existence of a deity, and refusing to admit as evidence all a priori arguments, Holbach saw in the universe nothing save matter in spontaneous move ment. What men call their souls become extinct when the body dies. Happiness is the end of mankind. " It would be useless and almost unjust to insist upon a man s being virtuous if he cannot be so without being unhappy. So long as vice renders him happy, he should love vice." Not less direct and trenchant are his attacks on political government, which, interpreted by the light of after events, sound like the first distant mutterings of the tempest that shortly after his death broke over the capital of France. The Systeme de la Nature struck horror into the minds of even the most "enlightened" of the Parisian philosophers. Charmed by the novelty of their own opinions, and dazzled by the glittering wit and argument with which they had supported them, they had never realized into what extremi ties they had hurried till this lurid torch revealed the hideous abyss from which they were so little removed. Voltaire hastily seized his pen to refute the philosophy of the Systeme, in the article " Dieu " in his Dictionnaire Philosophique, while Frederick the Great also drew up an answer to it. Though vigorous in thought and in some passages clear and eloquent, the style of the book is diffuse and declamatory, and asserts rather than proves its state ments. Its principles are summed up in a more popular form in Eon Sens, on Idees naturelles opposces aux idees sumaturelles, published at Amsterdam in 1772. In the Si/steme Social (1773), the Politique Naturelle (1773-74), and the Morale Universdle (1776), Holbach attempts to rear a system of morality in place of the one he had so fiercely attacked, but these later writings had not a tithe of the popularity and influence of his earlier and more pernicious work. He published his books either anony mously or under a borrowed name, and was forced to have them printed out of France. He died in 1789. On the death of his first wife he obtained a papal dispensation to marry her sister, who survived him till 1814.
Holbach is also the author of the following and other works: Esprit du Clcrr/d, 1767; De V Imposture saccrdotalc, 1767; Prftres Demasqves, 1768 ; Examcn Critique de la vie ct dm ouvragrs dc St Paul, 1770; Histoire Critique de Jtsus Christ, 1770 ; and Etho- cratie, 1776. For further particulars as to his life and doctrines see Grimm s Correspon dance Littcraire, &c., 1813; Rousseau s Con fessions ; Morellet s Mcmoircs, 1821 ; Madame de Genlis, Lcs Diners du Baron Holbach , Madame d ^pinay s Memoircfs; Avezac-Lavigne, Diderot c f , Ja Societt dn Baron d Holbach, 1875 ; and Moray s Diderot, 1878.
HOLBEIN, Hans, the elder, belonged to a celebrated family of painters in practice at Augsburg and Basel from the close of the 15th to the middle of the 16th century. Though closely connected with Venice by her commercial relations, and geographically neater to Italy than to Flanders, Augsburg at the time of Maximilian cultivated art after the fashion of the Flemings, and felt the influence of the schools of Bruges and Brussels, which had branches at Cologne and in many cities about the headwaters of the Rhine. It was not till after the opening of the 16th century, and between that and the era of the Reformation, that Italian example mitigated to some extent the asperity of South German painting. But this is not the place to give even an outline of this development. It must be sufficient to note that Flemish and German art was first tempered with Italian elements at Augsburg by Hans Holbein the elder. Hans first appears at Augsburg as partner to his brother Sigmund, who survived him and died in 1540 at Berne. Sigmund is described as a painter, but his works have not come down to us. Hans had the lead of the partnership at Augsburg, and signed all the pictures which it produced. In common with Herlen, Schongauer, and other masters of South Germany, he first cultivated a style akin to that of Memling and other followers of the schools of Brussels and Bruges, but ho probably modified the systems of those schools by studying the works of the masters of Cologne. As these early im pressions waned, they were replaced by others less favour able to the expansion of the master s fame ; and as his custom increased between 1499 and 1506, we find him relying less upon the teaching of the schools than upon a mere observation and reproduction of the quaintnesses of local passion plays. Most of his early works indeed are taken from the Passion, and in these he obviously marshalled his figures with the shallow stage effect of the plays, copy ing their artificial system of grouping, careless to some extent of proportion in the human shape, heedless of any but the coarser forms of expression, and technically satisfied with the simplest methods of execution. If in any branch of his art he can be said to have had a conscience at this period, we should say that he showed it in his portrait drawings. It is seldom that we find a painted likeness worthy of the name. The drawings of which numbers are still preserved in the galleries of Basel, Berlin, and Copen hagen show extraordinary quickness and delicacy of hand, and a wonderful facility for seizing character; and this happily is, one of the features which Holbein bequeathed to his son. It is between 1512 and 1522 that Holbein tempered the German quality of his style with some North Italian elements. A purer taste and more pleasing realism mark his work, which in drapery, dress, and tone is as much more agreeable to the eye as in respect of modelling and finish it is smoother and more carefully rounded. Costume, architecture, ornament, and colour are applied with some knowledge of the higher canons of art. Here too advantage accrued to Hans the younger, whose independent career about this time began.
