anon oHotmen A Prelude to the French Revotition—By, W.
Wickwar, sta. Allen" & Unwin, London. 1/8.
To rescue from legend and mis understanding one, ofthe great figures of pre-revolutionary France has been the happy task of the author in this study of Paul Thiry, Baron d'Holbach. No longer is the French Revolution regarded as an Isolated upheaval which changed the course of history. Students have been going back from the revolution to the economic elreumstances, the spiritual preparations which "preceeded and determined its course. 'Among—the precursors Baron '@'Holbach now stands out as one of the' influential figures.
Holbach was so long regarded as the symbol of a dangerous and destructive atheism that his opinions, work' and Influence along. other ines. has been minimized or completely Igmored. True, he has been immortalized in Denys Diderot's lowe letters, but so many of his atheistic publications were issued under the ames of men already dead, so much fof his "sclentife work. was con felbuted "anonymously to the Encyclopedia that only. indefatigable Fescarch has shown the extent and vanely of his writings.
Holbach's mission was fulfilled by the time he was Afty-tve; he had deprived materialism and secularism of the attraction of boldness and novelty. Together with Diderot and the Eneyclopedists the foundation had been laid upon' which" the research workers and the organized educational institutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were to build their selentife advances.
the second part of the book, "an Essay in Criticism," the ideas of Holbach are critically analyzed {in the light of their historical setting, in order to bring out his contri butions to the stream of ideas and events which Issued In the French Revolution.
The notes collected at the end of the book take the place of a bibliography. "The appendixes present the Holbach genealogy. the previous studies concerning Holbach "nnd. chronologiest list. of hic published works. This book is an excellent illustration of sound scholarly method—the building up of a per sonality and the revivifying period through poinctaking research,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.