One of the leading lights of the French Enlightenment, Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789), was an acquaintance of Diderot, Rousseau, and David Hume, among others, and a prolific contributor of scientific articles to Diderot's famous Encyclopedie. A man not only of considerable wealth and influence, but great generosity, he was known among friends as the "maitre d'hotel of philosophy" because he so often entertained noted philosophers and intellectuals of the day at his home. Interested in both science and philosophy, he felt constrained to use pseudonyms when publishing his radical philosophic views. He advocated a philosophy of atheistic materialism and at the same time harshly lambasted all religious interpretations of life as rank superstition, taking special aim at the Christian worldview of his day.
