The Collapse of the Faith [pp. 164-184]

THE COLLAPSE OF FAI1TH.
also every variety of metaphysics, including the transfigured or
rather the disguised physics of which we have spoken, has had
its ardent representatives and devotees.
Going back a little earlier than a century ago, we find that in
I770 the "Systeme de la Nature," by Baron Von Holbach, very
generally attracted the attention of the philosophers of Europe,
and claimed to express the ultimate and prevailing thought of
the age. It was grossly and avowedly atheistic, painfully but not
brilliantly imaginative, violently and contemptuously arrogant
with respect to any and every form of religious faith and feeling. It called forth at once the indignant protest of Voltaire,
who represented the reasoned deism of the logical school, and
subsequently the passionate remonstrances of Rousseau, the
founder and leader of the sentimentalists. Far gone in its negations as the new illumination of science and philosophy had
proceeded, it had not gone far enough to respond with distinct
and full-mouthed assent to Von Holbach's outspoken and defiant assault upon theism. And yet this writer in a most important sense had the argument of his time on his side. He
commanded the assent of the hour. Against his logic, whether
weak or strong, whether it were the logic of science or sentiment, Voltaire's ingenious protests and Rousseau's eloquent
appeals could avail but little, and that little but for a little
while. When we say he had the argument we certainly do not
mean that he had the truth on his side, but that all the logic
was on his side which was provided in the principles and premises which were currently recognized by cultivated men in respect to man and his significance in the universe. To use a
current if not a cant phrase of our day, Holbach and his gospel
of atheism represented the Zeit-Geist of I770, and therefore it
carried the day.
The "Systeme de la Nature" has little meaning and less force
for thinkers of the present generation. The few who read it
now read it as a philosophical curiosity. It is wholly disregarded by fresh and earnest seekers after truth. This is partly
owing to its defects of style and to the abundant use of its
verbose and flowery rhetoric in place of soberly reasoned deductions from accepted principles. A better reason why it has
lost favor with the present generation is that its science is
I 69,