System of Nature. Volumes 1 & 2.: Laws of the Physical World and of the Moral World. Translated from French by Balraj K. Joshi

By Baron d’ Holbach and Balraj Kumar Joshi

English translation of the original work of Baron D'Holbach; Système de la Nature ou Des Loix du Monde Physique et du Monde Moral.

In this book, D'Holbach establishes Morality and Politics on the firm foundations of Science and Physical laws of Nature and applies them in the moral, political and social realm. Love is attraction, hatred is repulsion, virtue is the love of public good and crime is the hatred of public good.

D'Holbach creates the foundations of morality and politics, on human nature and not on the superstitions of religions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tablo Publishing
• Release date: Sep 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781649699732

Book preview

CHAPTER I On Nature

Men are always mistaken when they abandon experience for systems produced by imagination 1. Man is the work of nature He exists in nature, he is subject to its laws, he can’t break away from it, he can’t even by thought, can’t go out of its ambit; it is in vain that his mind wishes to soar beyond the limits of the visible world, he is always obliged to return to it. For a being formed by nature and circumscribed by it, there exits nothing beyond the grand whole of which he is the part & whose influences he undergoes. The beings which are supposed to be above nature or distinct from it, will always be chimeras of whom it will never be possible for us to have veritable ideas, not to talk of the place they occupy and their mode of action. There is nothing & nothing can there be outside the precinct which contains all beings.

 Man should therefore stop to look out of the world which he is living, beings which according to him procure him happiness which nature refuses him; that he should study this nature, that he should learn its laws, that he should meditate over its energy & the immutable way in which it acts, that he should apply his discoveries for his own happiness & that he should submit himself silently to the laws from which nothing can make him escape; that he should consent to ignore the causes wrapped in an impenetrable veil; that he should suffer without grumbling the decrees of universal force which can’t retrace its steps, or which never deviate from the rules which its essence lays down for it.

 Obliviously people have misused the distinction which so often has been made about the physical; the moral man. Man is a being purely physical; the moral man is this physical being considered under a certain point of view, that is to say relatively to some of its modes of action, due to its peculiar physical organization. But is not this organization the work of nature? The movements or the modes of action of which it is susceptible, aren’t they physical? His visible actions, as well as invisible movements stirred up within him, which originate from his will or from his thought, are equally natural effects, the necessary consequences of his own mechanism & the impulse which he receives from the beings by which he is surrounded. All that the human spirit has successively invented for changing or for improving its mode of existence and for making it more happy, was only a necessary consequence of the own essence of man and that of beings which act upon him. All our institutions, our reflections, our learnings have object only to procure for us a happiness towards which our own nature obliges us to tend incessantly. All that we do or think, all that we are & that we shall be is never but a consequence of what the universal nature has made us: all our ideas, our wills, our actions are necessary effects of the essence and qualities which this nature has put in us, and the circumstances by which it forces us to pass and be modified. In brief art is nothing but nature acting with the aid of instruments which it has made.

 Nature sends man naked and destitute of any help in this world which has to be his sojourn: shortly he succeeds to clothe himself with skin, gradually we see him spin gold & silk. For a being high above in the earth & who from the height of the atmosphere would contemplate the human race with all its progress & its change man would not appear less subject to the laws of nature, when they wander all naked in the forests for searching with difficulty their food, than when living in civilized societies, that is enriched by a greater number of experiences and end by being steeped in luxury, they invent from day to day thousand new needs and discover thousand means of satisfying them. All the steps which we make for modifying our being, can’t but be regarded as a long sequence of cause and effects, which are only the developments of the first impulses which nature has given to us. The same animal; because of its constitution, passes successively from simple to more complex needs, but which are no less sequel of his nature. It is in this way that the butterfly whose beauty we admire, begins by being a lifeless egg, out of which heat brings out a worm which becomes chrysalis and then transforms itself into a winged insect which we see adorn itself with the most vivid colors having attained this form, it reproduces itself and multiplies itself, at last, stripped of its embellishments, it is obliged to disappear after having fulfilled the task which the nature had assigned it, or trace the circle of changes which it has set for the beings of its species.

 We see analogous changes and progress in all the vegetables. It is a result of the combination, of tissue, of primal energy given to the aloe by nature, that this plant imperceptibly grown and modified, produces after a great number of years, flowers which are the announcements of its death.

It is the same with man, who in all his progresses, in all the variations which he undergoes, acts only after the laws peculiar to his constitution and the matters with which the nature has composed him. The physical man is the man acting by the impetus of causes which our sense organs reveal to us; the moral man is the man acting by physical causes which our prejudices prevent us to know. The savage man is the child devoid of experience, incapable of working for his felicity. The civilized man is he whom experience & the social life bring within the reach of taking advantage of nature for his own happiness.  Enlightened good man is the man in his maturity or in his perfection 2. The happy man is he who knows to enjoy benefits of nature; the unfortunate man is he who is in the incapacity to take advantage of its benefits. 

It is therefore to the physical and to experience that man must have recourse in all his researches. It is they that he must consult in his religion, in his morals, in his legislation, in his political government, in the sciences & in the arts, in his pleasures and in his pains. Nature acts by simple uniform, invariable laws, which experience brings us within the comprehension to know; it is by our sense organs that we are linked with the universal nature. It is by our senses that we can put it into experiences and discover its secrets; as soon as we abandon experience we fall within the void where our imagination leads us astray. 

 All the errors of men are physical errors, they are mistaken, only when they neglect to retrace to the source in nature; consult its rules, call experience to its scour. It is thus that, for lack of experience, they formed imperfect ideas of matter, its properties, its combinations, of its forces, of its mode of action or of the energy which results from its essence; seeing that the whole of universe has become for them only a theatre of illusions. They did not know nature, they refused to know its laws, they did not see the necessary road which traces to all that it encloses in itself. What do I say? They refused to know themselves, all their system, the conjectures, their reasoning, from which experience was banished, were only a long pack of errors and absurdities.

 All error is harmful, it is on account of being deceived, that humanity has become miserable. For lack of knowing nature, it formed itself gods who become the only object of its hopes and fears3. Men did not feel that their nature deprived of kindness as well as malice, only peruses immutable & necessary laws by producing & destroying beings, by making sometimes suffer those which it has made sensible, by distributing them pleasures & pains, by altering them incessantly: they did not see at all that it was in nature itself and in its own forces, that man had to look for his needs, remedies against pains and the means to make themselves happy; they expected these things from some imaginary beings whom they supposed to be authors of their pleasures and misfortunes. Whence it is to be observed that it is on account of ignorance of nature that are due these unknown powers under whom the human race has so long trembled and these superstitious cults which were the sources of all its sufferings, evils. 

It is on account of failure of knowing his nature, his own tendency, his needs and his rights that man in society fell from freedom into slavery; he neglected or thought himself obliged to stifle the desires of his heart and sacrifice his well-being to the caprices of his chiefs; he did not know the end of association and government. He submitted himself without reserve to men like him, whom his prejudices made them consider as beings of a superior order as the gods on earth; the latter took advantage of his error for enslaving him, to corrupt him, make vicious and miserable. Thus it is for having ignored his own nature, that human race fell in bondage and was ill-governed. 

It is for having underrated himself & for having been ignorant of the relations which exist between him and the beings of species that man has neglected his duties towards others – he did not feel that they were necessary for his own happiness. He did not see any more that he owed to himself, the excesses which he must avoid for making himself soundly happy, the passion which he had to resist or indulge for his own happiness; in brief, he did not know his real interests. From that all his profligacies, his intemperance, his shameful delights, & all the vices in which he indulged himself to the detriment of his lasting well-being. Thus it is ignorance of human nature which prevented man from obtaining enlightenment on morals; besides the depraved governments to which he was subject, always prevented him from practicing it, even when he had known it.

It is again for lack of studying nature and its laws, searching to discover its resources & its properties that man sunk into ignorance, or made so slow and so uncertain steps for improving his lot. His laziness found it to his advantage to let itself guided by example, by his routine, by authority, rather than by experience which demands activity, & by reason which requires reflection. Thence this aversion which men manifest for all that appears to them to deviate from rules to which they are accustomed, thence their stupid & scrupulous respect for the antiquity and for most foolish institutions of their fathers; thence the fears which grip them when most advantageous changes are proposed to them, or the most probable endeavors. That is why we see the nations languishing in a shameful lethargy, bewail under the misuses transmitted from century to century, and shudder even at the idea of what could be a remedy for their ills. It is by this very inertia by lack of experience, that medicine, physics, agriculture, in brief, all the useful sciences are doing a progress so little perceptible and remain for so long in the shackles of authority: those who profess sciences, prefer to follow the rut traced out for them; than to plough their own new way; they prefer the deliriums of their imaginations & their unfounded conjectures, to the toilsome experiment which alone would be capable to force out of nature its secrets.

 In short, men, either by laziness or by fear, having given up the testimony of the sense-organs, were no more guided in all their actions & undertakings, than by imagination, enthusiasm, habit, the prejudice and above all by authority, which knew to take advantage of their ignorance for deceiving them. Imaginary systems took the place of experiments, of reflections, of reason: souls rattled by terror and intoxicated by the wonderful or torpid with laziness, and guided by the credulity which produces inexperience, created for themselves ridiculous opinions, or adopted without examining, all the chimeras with which one wanted to feed them.

It is thus, for having  neglected nature  and its laws, for having  disdained experience, for having desired the wonderful and the supernatural, at last for having trembled, the human race remained in a long childhood, from which it has so much difficulty to extract itself. He had only puerile hypotheses  of which he, never dared to examine the foundations & the proofs, He got used to regard them as sacred, as the recognized truths of whom it was not allowed to him to doubt for a moment; his ignorance made him credulous; his curiosity made him swallow the marvelous in long draughts; time confirmed him in his opinions, delivered from race to race his conjectures for the realities; the tyrannical force held him in his notions, became necessary to enslave the society, in short the knowledge of men in all genre was only a pack of lies, obscurities, contradictions, interspersed sometime with low lights of truth, furnished by nature, from which he could never be totally deviated, because necessity always brought him round. 

Let us rise then above the cloud of prejudice. Let us go out of the dense atmosphere which is surrounding us for considering opinions of men & their diverse systems. Let us be warry of a wild imagination; let us take experience as guide; let us consult nature, let us try to draw in her true ideas on the objects which it contains; let us take recourse to our sense-organs; which have falsely been made to be regarded as questionable; let us interrogate reason which has been shamefully calumniated and degraded; let us contemplate attentively upon the visible world & let us see if it does not suffice us to consider the unknown grounds of the intellectual world; perhaps we shall find that one did not have grounds to distinguish them & that it is without motive that the two empires have been separated which are equally the domain of nature.

 The universe, this vast assemblage of all that exists, does not offer to us everywhere but matter & motion; its whole shows to us only an immense uninterrupted chain of causes and effects; some of its causes are known to us; because they strike immediately our sense-organs, others are unknown to us because they act on us only by effects very often, very remote from their first causes.

 Matters very much varied & combined in an infinity of ways, receive and communicate incessantly by diverse movements. Different properties of these matters, their different combinations, their so varied modes of action, which are their necessary sequels, constitute for us the essences of beings; and it is from these diversified essences that result different orders, ranks or systems which these beings occupy, whose sum total is what we call nature.

 Thus nature, in its most wide significance is the big whole which results from the assemblage of different matters, from their different combinations, and their different movements which we see in the universe. Nature is in a less wide, sense, or considered in each being, is the whole which results from the essence, that is to say from the properties, combinations, movements or modes of action which distinguish it from other beings. It is in this way that man is endowed with the particular properties, whose arrangement is called organization, & whose essence is to feel, to think, to act, in brief to move in a way which distinguishes him from other beings with whom he compares himself; after this comparison man classifies himself in an order, in a system, in a class apart, which differs from those of the animals, in whom he does not see the same properties as in himself. The different systems of beings, or if one wishes, their peculiar natures, depend upon the general system of the great whole upon the universal nature of which they form part & to which all that exists is necessarily linked.

 N.B. After having fixed the sense which must be attached to the word nature, I think it a duty to forewarn the reader, once for all, that when in the course of this work I say that nature produces an effect, I don’t at all assert to personify this nature, which is an abstract being, but I mean that the effect of whom I am speaking is the necessary result of the properties of some one of the bodies which compose the great whole which we see. Thus, when I say: the nature wants man to work for his happiness, it is to avoid the circumlocutions and the unnecessary repetitions & I mean by that it is of the essence of a being who feels, thinks, wants, acts, to work for his happiness. At last I call natural that which is consistent with essence of things, or laws which nature prescribes to all the bodies which it includes, in the different orders which these bodies occupy & the different circumstances by which they are obliged to pass through. Thus health is natural to man in a certain state; disease is a state natural for him in other circumstances; death is natural state of the body deprived of some of its things necessary for the maintenance, for the existence of the animal etc. By ESSENCE, I mean that which constituted a being, what is, he sum of the properties or qualities after which it exists & acts as it does. When it is said that the essence of a stone is to fall, it is as if one said that the fall is a necessary effect of its weight, its density, the relations to its parts, the elements of which it is composed. In brief essence of the being or body is its individual & particular nature.

CHAPTER II On movement, motion and its origin 

Movement is an effort by which a body changes, or tends to change its place, that is,  to correspond successively to different parts of space, or well to change distance relatively to other bodies. It is motion alone which establishes relations between our organs and the beings which are within or without us. It is only by movement that these bodies, beings impress us that we know their existence, that we judge their properties, that we distinguish them one from the other, that we distribute them in different classes.

 The beings, the substances of the various bodies of which nature is the assemblage, themselves effects of certain combinations or causes, become causes in their turn. A cause is a being which puts another in motion or which produces some change in it. The effect is the change which a body produces in another with the help of movement. 

 Each being, by virtue of his essence or his particular nature, is susceptible to produce receive and communicate diverse movements, thereby some beings are capable of striking at our sense-organs, & the latter are capable of receiving the impression from them, or undergo changes in their presence; those which can’t act upon any of our organs, either immediately & by themselves, or by mediation or by the intervention of other bodies, do not exist for us, since they can neither move us, nor consequently furnish us ideas, neither be known or judged by us. To know an object, it is to be moved by it; seeing is being moved by the organ of vision, hearing is being impressed the organ of hearing etc. In short in any manner a body may act upon us, we have knowledge about it only by some change which it has produced in us.

 Nature, as has been said, is the assemblage of all the beings, bodies and all the movements which we know, as well as many others which we can’t know, because they are inaccessible to out sense-organs. From the continual action & reaction of all the bodies & beings which the nature contains, there results a sequence of causes & effects or movements, guided by constant & invariable laws characteristic of each being, necessary or inherent to its particular nature, which cause always that it (being) acts or moves in the determined way; different principles of each of these movements are unknown to us because we do not know what constitutes originally the essences of these beings, bodies; the elements of the bodies elude our sense organs, we know them only in mass, we do not know their innermost combinations, the properties of the same combinations, from which must necessarily result modes of action, movements or very different effects.

 Our sense-organs show us generally two sorts of movements in the bodies & beings which surround us, one is a motion of mass by which an entire body is transferred from one place to another; the motion of this kind is perceptible to us. It is in this way that we see a stone falling, a ball roll, an arm move or change its position. Other is a internal and hidden movement which depends upon the energy peculiar to a body; that is to say, on essence, combination; action & reaction of insentient molecules of matter, of which this body is composed, this movement does not show itself to us, we know it only by altercations or changes which we notice after some time on the bodies or on their mixtures. Of this type are the hidden movements which fermentation gives to the molecules of flour, which scattered & separated as they were, become thickened & form a total mass that we call bread. Such are still the imperceptible movements by which we see a plant or an animal grow, grow stronger, change, acquire new qualities without our eyes being capable of following the progressive movements or causes which produced these effects. In short such are again the internal movements which pass inside man, which we called his intellectual faculties, his thoughts, his passions, his will of which we are within the reach to judge only by actions, that is, the perceptible effects which accompany or follow them. It is in this way when we see a man flee, we judge that he is internally flurried by the passions of fear etc.

 The movements, either visible or hidden are called acquired motions or impetus, when they are communicated to a body by a foreign cause or by a force existing outside it, which our sense organs make us perceive, it is thus we called impressed, the movement, which the wind gives to the sails of a vessel. We call spontaneous the movements roused in a body which contains in itself the causes of changes, which we see working in it, then we see this body acting & moving by its own energy. Of this kind are the movements of a man who is walking, talking, thinking, & however if we look at the thing more closely we shall be convinced, that strictly speaking, there are no spontaneous movements in the different bodies of nature, considering that they act continually on each other, & that all the changes are due to either visible, or hidden causes which move them. The will of man is moved or determined secretly by external causes which cause a change in him, we believe that it urges itself, because we see neither the cause which determines it, nor its mode of action, nor the organ which it sets into action.

 We call simple movements, those which are stirred in a body by one cause or a single force; we call compound, the movements produced by several causes or refined forces, whether these forces be equal or unequal, contributing or contrary, simultaneous or successive, unknown or known.

 Of whatever nature be movements of beings, they are always necessary sequence of their essences or properties which constitute them & those of the causes of which they feel the effect. Each being can act only & move in a particular way, that is to say following laws which depend upon its essence, upon its own combinations, its own nature, in brief, on it own energy and that of the bodies from whom it receives impetus. It is that which constitutes the invariable laws of motion; I say invariable because they can’t change, without there being a reversal in the very essence of the beings. It is thus that a weighing body must necessarily fall, if it does not meet an obstacle capable of stopping it in its fall. It is thus that sensitive being must necessarily seek pleasure and shun pain. It is thus the matter of fire must necessarily burn & diffuse etc.

 Each being has therefore laws of motion which are its own, unless a stronger cause does not interrupt its action. It is thus that fire ceases to burn combustible materials, as soon as water is used for stopping its progress. It is thus that sensible being ceases to seek pleasure, as soon as he fears thereby results an evil for him.

The communication of motion, or the passage of effect of one body in another, occurs still more according to certain & necessary laws; each being can communicate only by relation of similarity. Conformity, analogy, or the points of contact which it has with others. Fire increases only when it meets materials containing in themselves principles analogous to it; it is extinguished when it meets bodies which it can’t inflame that is to say those which do not have a certain relation with it. 

All is in movement/motion in the universe. The essence of nature is to act & if one examines attentively its parts, we shall see that there is not a single one which enjoys an absolute rest; those which appear deprived of motion, are only in an relative or apparent rest; they feel so imperceptible or so little noticeable movement that we can’t be aware of their changes4. All that seems to us in rest, does not remain however in the same state; all the beings are only continually coming to life, growing, decreasing, & dissipate with more or less slowness or speed. The insect ephemera (may-fly) comes to life and perishes the same day, consequently it feels very promptly considerable changes in its existence. The combinations formed by the most solid bodies dissolve and decompose in the long run, the hardest of the stones destroy themselves gradually by contact with the air; a mass of iron that we see rusty and eaten away by time, must have been in movement since the moment of its formation in the womb of the earth, till the one when we see in the state of dissolution.  Physicists for the most part do not seem to have reflected enough on what they have called nisus : that is on the continual strain which exert on each other bodies  which appear besides enjoying rest.

 A stone of five hundred pounds seems to us rest on earth, however it does not cause  for a moment to weigh with force on this earth which resists it or which repels it in turn, can it be said that this stone & this earth are not in action? For believing it, it would be sufficient to interpose the hand between the stone & earth & it would be realized that this stone has however the force to break our hand in spite of the rest it seems to be enjoying. There can’t be in the bodies action without reaction. A body which feels an impulse, and attraction or some pressure, to which it resists, shows to us that it reacts by this same resistance; thence (vis-inertioe) which extends against another force; what proves clearly that this force of inertia is capable of acting and reacting effectively. In short one will feel that the forces which are called dead, and the forces which are called live or kinetic, are forces of the same kind which spread, exert still in a different way 5.

 Can’t one go still further & say that in the bodies & masses whose whole seems to us in rest, there is however a continual action & reaction, constant strains, resistances & uninterrupted impulses, in a word nisus, by which the parts of the bodies keep them together & so work that these parts become a mass, a body, a combination whose whole appears us to be in rest, while each of their parts do not cease really to be in action? The bodies appear to be in rest only by the equality of the action of forces which act in them.

 Thus even the bodies which seem to be in perfect rest, receive however really, either on their surface, or in their interior, continual impulses on the parts of the bodies which surround them, on those which penetrate them, which dilate them, which rarefy them, condense them, in short those ones which compose them; thereby parts of these bodies are really in action & reaction or in continual movement, whose effects show themselves at last by very distinct changes. Heat dilates & rarefies the metals, thence we see that an iron rod, by the sole variations of the atmosphere, must be in continuous motion and in it there is not a single particle which enjoys for an instant real rest. As a matter of fact in the hard bodies whose all parts are snug and contiguous, how conceive that, air, cold and warmth can act on a lone of their parts even external, without movement being communicated by degrees up to their innermost parts? How to conceive without movement the way our olfactory sense is affected by the emanations escaped from the most compact bodies, whose all parts seem to us at rest. At last will our eyes be able to see with help of a telescope the stars most remote from us, if there were not a progressive movement from these stars up to out retina.

 In a word, pondered over observation must convince us that all in nature is in continuous movement; that there is none of its parts which be in real rest; finally that nature, if it did not act, or in which without movement, nothing could be produced, nothing can preserve itself, nothing can act. Thus the idea of nature includes necessarily in itself the idea of movement. But it would be said, from where did this nature receive its movement? We shall reply that it is from itself: since it is the great whole, out of which consequently nothing can exist. We shall say that movement is a mode of being which results necessarily from the essence of matter; that it moves by its own energy; that its movements are due to forces which are inherent to it; that the diversity of its movements and phenomena which result from it, come from the diversity of properties, qualities, combinations which are found originally in the different primitive matters of which nature is the assemblage.

The physicists, for the most part, have regarded as inanimate or as deprived of the faculty of moving, the bodies which were moved only with the help of some agent or external cause, they believed to conclude from it that matter which constitutes these bodies was perfectly inert by its nature, they were not undeceived by this error, though they saw that all the times that a body was left to itself, or freed from the obstacles which oppose to its action, it had a tendency to fall or approach the centre of the earth by a movement uniformly accelerated; they preferred to suppose an imaginary external cause, of which they had no idea as to admit that these bodies get their movement from their own nature.

 The same way, though these philosophers saw above their head and infinite number of immense globes which moved very fast around a common centre, they did not stop to suppose chimerical causes of these movements, until immortal Newton had demonstrated that they were the effect of the gravitation of these heavenly bodies towards each others6. A very simple observation would have however sufficed to make feel to the physicist anterior to Newton how much insufficient must be the causes which they admitted, for working so big effects. They had grounds to convince themselves in the shock of bodies which they could observe, & by the known laws of motion, that the latter communicated always on account of the density of the bodies from which they must have naturally inferred that the density of the subtle matter or ether being infinitely less than those of the planets, could communicate to them only a very weak movement. 

If the nature had been observed without bias, one would be since long be convinced that, matter acts by its own forces, & does not need any external impulse for being put in motion; one would have realized that all the times that the mixtures are put in position to act on each other, movement is produced on the spot and that these mixtures act with a force capable of producing the most surprising effects, In mixing together fillings of iron, of Sulphur and of water, thus put in position of acting on each other they warm up slowly and finish by blazing. By making wet the flour with water and on shutting up this mixture, one finds after some time, with the help of microscope, that it has produced organized beings which enjoy a life of which on thought wheat & water incapable 7. It is thus that inanimate matter can pass into life, which is nothing but an assemblage of movements. 

One can above all observe the generation of movement or its development, as well as the energy of matter, in all the combinations in which fire, air and water are joined together; these elements, or rather these mixtures, which are the most fugitive & the most volatile of the beings, are nevertheless in the hands of nature the main agents which it uses for operating its most striking phenomena; it is to them that are due the effects of thunder, the eruptions of volcanoes, the earthquakes. Industry offers an agent of an astonishing force in the gun powder, as soon as fire comes to join in it. In a word the most terrible effects are caused by combining the matters which are thought to be lifeless & inert.

 All these facts prove us invincibly that movement is produced, increases and accelerates itself in matter without the concourse if any of external agents; and we are forced to conclude that this movement is a necessary consequence of immutable laws, of the essence & properties inherent to the diverse elements and the varied combinations of these elements. Is not one still in the right to conclude from these examples, that there can be an infinity of other combinations capable of producing different movements in matters, without there being need to explain them, to have recourse to agents more difficult to know them than the effects which are attributed to them? 

Had men paid attention to what passes before their eyes, they would not be searching out of nature a force distinct from itself which put it into action, and without which they believed that they it could not move. If by nature we understand a mass of lifeless matter, deprived of all properties, purely passive, we shall undoubtedly be forced to look for out of nature the principle of its movement, but if by nature we understand what it really is, a whole whose diverse parts, have diverse properties, which are in perpetual action & reaction on each other, which weigh, which gravitate towards a common centre, while others move off & go to the circumference, which attract each other & repulse each other, which unite and separate themselves, and which by their collusion & continuous proximities produce & decompose all the bodies which we see, then nothing will oblige us to take recourse to supernatural forces, for realizing the formation of things & the phenomena which we see 8. 

Those who admit a cause external to matter, are obliged to suppose that this cause has produced all motion in this matter by giving it existence, this supposition is founded on another, nay that the matter could begin to exist, hypothesis which till now was never demonstrated by valid proofs. The education of non-existence or creation, is only a word which can’t give us an idea of the formation of the universe. It does not present any sense on which the spirit can dwell 9.

 This notion becomes still more obscure, when the creation or formation of matter is attributed to a spiritual being, that is to say, to a being which has not analogy, no point of contact with it, & which, as we shall show soon, being deprived of dimension & parts, can’t be susceptible of movement, the latter being only the change of a body relative to other bodies, in which the body moved presents successively different parts to different points of space. Besides everybody admits that matter can’t be destroyed totally or cease to exist, then, how can one understand that which can’t cease to exist, could ever begin?

 Thus when it will be asked from where has come matter, we shall say that it has always existed. If it is asked whence has come motion in matter, we shall answer that by the same reason, it must have been moving since eternity, since movement is a necessary consequence of its existence, of its essence, its gravity, its impenetrability, its shape etc. Because of its essential properties, constitutive, inherent to all matter & without which it is impossible to from an idea about it, the different matter of which the universe is composed, must have since all eternity weighed on each other, gravitate towards a centre, colliding, meeting being attracted & repulsed combine and separate from each other, in a word act & move in different ways, according to the essence & the energy characteristic of each kind of matter, and to each of their combinations. Existence implies properties in the thing that exists, since it has properties, its mode of action must necessarily result from its mode of existence. As soon as a body has gravity it must fall, as soon as it falls, it must strike the bodies which it meets in its fall; since it is dense, it must on account of 8its own density, communicate movement to the bodies which it will strike, since it has analogy & affinity with them, it must combine with it: as soon as it does not have any analogy it must be repulsed etc.

 Whence one sees by supposing, as one is forced here, the existence of matter, some qualities must be implied, attributed to it out of which the motions or the mode of action determined by the same qualities, must necessarily result. For forming the universe, Descartes called only for matter and movement. A varied matter was sufficient for him, the diverse movements were sequels of its existence, of its essence and its properties; its different modes of existence. A matter without properties is a sheer nothingness. Thus as soon as matter exists, it must act, as soon as it is diverse, it must act diversely, since it did not begin to exist, it exists since eternity, it will never cease to be and act by its own energy, and the motion is a mode which it gets from its very existence. 

The existence of matter is a fact; the existence of movement an other fact. Our eyes show us matters of different essences; and gifted with properties which distinguish between them, forming various combinations.  As a matter of fact, it is an error to believe that matter is a homogenous body, & whose parts differ among themselves only by their different modifications Among the individuals we know, in the same species, there is not one which exactly look like; that must be like this: the single difference of site must necessarily entail more or less diversity, not only in the modifications, but also in the essence, in the properties, in the entire system of beings 10.

If we ponder over this principle, whom experience seems always to verify, we shall be convinced that the elements or the original matter of which the bodies are composed, are not of the same properties nor the same modifications, nor the same modes of preservation, Their activities or their movements, already different, become diversified still up to infinity, increase or decrease, accelerate or retard on account of combinations, proportion weight, density, volume, & matters which enter in their composition. The element of fire is visibly more active & more mobile than the element of earth, the latter is more solid & heavier than fire, air, water, according to the quality of these elements which enter in the combination of bodies, the latter must act diversely, & their movements must on account of some reason composed of elements of which they are formed. The elementary fire seems in nature, the principle of activity. It is so to say a leaven which puts into fermentation the mass & which gives it life. The earth appears to be the principle of solidity of the bodies by its impenetrability or by the strong liaison of which its parts are susceptible. Water is a vehicle fit to favor the combination of bodies, in which it enters itself as a constituent part. Lastly air is fluid which furnishes to other elements space necessary to execute their movements, & which moreover is capable of combining with them. These elements, which our sense organs never show purely, being continually put into action one by the other, always act & react, always combine & separate themselves, attract themselves, and repel each other, are sufficient to explain to us the formation of all the beings which we see; their movements are produced without interruption from each other; they are alternatively causes & effects; they form thus a vast circle of generation & destruction, of combinations & decompositions, which could not have a beginning, & which will have never have an end. In brief nature is nothing but an immense chain of causes & effects which follow incessantly from each other. The movements of particular beings depend upon general movement, which by itself is maintained by the movement of particular beings. The latter are weakened, accelerated or retarded, simplified or complicated, engendered or destroyed by the different combinations or circumstances which at each movement change directions, tendencies, laws, modes of existence & action of different bodies which are moved 11. Wishing to trace further for finding the principle of action in the matter & the origin of things, it is ever only to……………. putting off the difficulty & remove it from the examination of our sense organs which can only make us acquaint with & judge the causes within the reach of actions on them or impress them with movement. Thus let us be content to say that the matter has always existed, & it moves on account of its essence, that all the phenomena of nature are due to diverse movements of varied matters which it contains, &which do like phoenix, it comes to life continually from its ashes. 12

CHAPTER III On matter, its different combinations and its diverse movements; or on the march of nature

We do not know the elements of bodies, but we know some of their properties or qualities and we distinguish different matters by effects or changes which they produce on us, by different movements which their presence produce in us. We find them as a result of dimension, mobility, divisibility, solidity, gravity, force of inertia. From these general & original properties there arise others as density, shape, color, weight etc, Thus relatively to us matter in general is all that affects our senses in some way; & the qualities which we attribute to different matters are founded on different impressions or diverse changes which they produce in us.

 Up till now a satisfactory definition of matter has not been given: men, deceived by their prejudices, had only imperfect, vague and superficial notions of it. They have regarded this matter as a being unique, gross, passive, incapable of moving by itself, combine itself, produce nothing by itself whereas they should have regarded it as a genre of beings, of which all the various individuals, though they had some common properties, such as size dimension, divisibility, shape etc. must not however be arranged under a same class; neither should be understood under a same denomination.

 An example can serve to enlighten what has just been said, & feel its exactness & facilitate its application; the properties common to all nature are dimension, size, divisibility, impenetrability, figurability, mobility or the property of being moved by a movement of mass; the matter of fire besides these general properties, possesses further the particular property of being moved by a movement which produces on the organs, feeling of heat, as well as of another movement which produces in our eyes the sensation of light. Iron, in so far as matter in general, is stretchable, divisible, figurable, mobile in mass, if the matter of fire comes to combine with it then new properties, namely that of exciting in us sensation of heat & light which it did not have earlier etc. All these distinctive properties are inseparable from it, and the phenomena which result from it, result necessarily in most precise sense of the word.

 If only one considers the ways of nature, if only one follows the beings in the different states by which on account of their properties, they are forced to pass, it will be recognized that, it is only to movement that are due the changes, the combinations, the forms, in brief all the modifications of matter. It is by movement that all that exists is produced, changes, grows & destroys. It is it that changes aspect of the beings, which adds or takes away some properties, & which causes that after having occupied a certain

rank or order, each one is forced, by a sequel to its nature, to go out of it, for occupying another, and contribute to birth, maintenance, decomposition of other beings totally different for the essence, rank & the species.

 In what the physicists have named three reigns of nature, it is made with the help of movement a transmigration, an exchange, a continual circulation of the molecules of matter, nature needs, in one place, these (beings)which it had placed for a time in another: these molecules; after having, by particular combinations, constituted beings endowed with, essence, properties, determined modes of action, dissolve or separate themselves more or less easily, and combining themselves in a new manner, they form themselves into new beings. The attentive observer sees this law being executed, in a more or less sensible way, by all the beings which surround it; he sees nature full of roving germs, out of which some develop themselves, while others wait that movement place them in the spheres, in the wombs, in the circumstances necessary to stem them, grow them, make them more sensible by the addition of substances or matters analogous to their primitive being. In all that we see only effects of movement, necessarily directed, modified, accelerated or slowed down, strengthened or weakened on account of different properties which the beings acquire & loose successively; what produces infallibly at each moment more or less distinct alternations in all the bodies, the latter can’t be strictly exactly the same in two successive instances of their duration: they are at each moment forced to acquire or loose, in a word obliged to undergo continual variations in their essences, in their properties, their forces, their masses, their modes of existence, in their qualities.

The animals, after having been developed in the womb which suits the elements of their machine, grow, are fortified, acquire new properties, a new energy, new faculties, either by feeding themselves on plants analogous to their being, or by eating up other animals, whose substance is capable of preserving them, that is to say, to restore for continuous loss of some proportions of their own substance which extricate themselves from it at each moment. These same animals feed themselves preserve themselves and fortify themselves with the help of air, water, earth and fire. Deprived of air, or this fluid which surrounds them, which presses them, which penetrates them which gives them power, they would soon cease to live. Water combines with this air, enters in all their mechanism whose working it facilitates. The earth serves them as base by giving solidity to their tissue; it is charioted by air and water, which carry it to the parts of the body with which it can combine. In short fire itself, disguised under an infinity of forms & envelopes is continually received by animal, procures from it heat & life, & renders it fit to execute its functions. The nutriments in which all these diverse principles, by entering in the stomach re establish movement in the nervous system, and restore, by virtue of their own activity and the elements composing it, the machine which began to languid, sink down by the loss which it had suffered. So everything changes in the animal; it has more energy and activity; it gets more of vigor, shows more of gaiety; it acts, moves, thinks in a different way, all its faculties exert themselves with more ease 13. Whence one sees that what are called the elements or the original primitive parts of matter, diversely combined, are by way of movement continually united and assimilated with the substance of the animals, modify, visibly their being, influence on their action, that is to say on the movements, either perceptible or latent which go on in them. 

The same elements which serve to fortify, to preserve the animal, become in certain circumstances the principles & the instruments of its dissolution, its debility, its death, they bring about its destruction, as soon as they are not in just proportion which renders them capable of maintaining their being. It is then that water having become too abundant in the body of the animal, enervates it relaxes its fibres and prevent the necessary action of other elements, it is thus that fire admitted in too big quantity excites in it disorderly motions and destructive for its machine; it is thus that air charged with constituents less analogous to its mechanisms, bring to it contagion and dangerous diseases. In short the elements modified in the certain way, instead of nourishing it, destroy it and lead to its loss; all these substances preserve the animal only in so far as they are analogous to it, they ruin it when they are no more in just equilibrium which rendered it capable of maintaining its existence.

The plants which as has been seen, serve to nourish and restore up the animals, are fed themselves by the earth, develop in its bowels, grow and fortify themselves to its detriment, get continually in their tissues, by the roots and the pores, the water, the air and the igneous matter. Water reanimates them perceptibly all the times that their vegetation or genre of life declines, it brings to them analogous constituents which can improve them; Air is necessary for expansion and nourish them with water, earth and fire, with whom it is itself combined. In short it receives more or less inflammable matters; and the different families or classes in which the botanists have divided the plants, after their forms and their combinations, from which result an infinity of very varied properties. It is thus that grow the cedar tree and Hyssop, of which one rises high in the sky, while the other creeps humbly on the earth; it is then that from an acorn sprouts little by little, the oak which covers it with its foliage; it is thus that a grain of wheat, after being nourished by the saps from the earth, serves as food for man in whom it will carry the elements or the constituents with which it grew itself, modified and combined by the manner which renders this plant most capable of assimilating itself and combine itself with the human machine, that is with the fluids and the solids of which it is composed.

 We find again the same elements or constituents in the formation of the minerals, as well as their decomposition, either natural or artificial. We see that earth, diversely constituted, modified and combined, serves to grow them, gives them more or less of weight and density. We see air and water continually in joining up to their parts, the igneous matter or the inflammable constituent giving their colors and showing itself sometimes naked by the shining sparks which movement releases out of it. These so solid bodies, these stones, these metals are destroyed and dissolved with the help of air, water and fire, as the most ordinary analysis shows it, as well as a host of experience of which our eyes are the witness every day.

 The animals, the plants, and the minerals give back after a certain time, that is to say, to general mass of things, to the universal store, the elements or the constituents which they have borrowed from it (nature). The earth takes back then the portion of the body with which it formed the basis and the solidity, the air charges itself with parts analogous to itself and those which are most subtle and the lightest; water takes in its course those which it is capable of dissolving: fire, breaking its ties, liberates itself to combine itself with other bodies. The elementary parts of the animal thus divided, dissolved, shaped, dispersed, go to form new combinations: they serve to nourish, to conserve or destroy new beings and amongst other plants which reached to their maturity, nourish and preserve new animals, the latter undergo in their turn the same fate as the first.

Such is the constant march of nature; such is the eternal circle which all that exists is forced to follow. It is thus that movement brings to life, preserves for some time and destroys successively the parts of the universe, one by the other, whilst the sum of existence, always remains the same. Nature, by its combinations, produces suns, which go to place themselves in the centre of as many systems, it produces planets, which by their own essences gravitate and these trace their revolutions around these suns; gradually the movement changes both of them; it will disperse perhaps one day the parts of which it has composed these wonderful masses, which man, in the short space of his existence can have an idea incidentally.

 It is therefore continual movement, inherent to matter, which alters and destroys all the beings, which takes away from them at each moment some of their properties for substituting them by others: it is It, which by changing thus their actual essences, change also their orders, their directions, tendencies, the laws which govern their modes of existence and action. From the stone formed in the womb of earth, by the inward combinations of analogous and similar molecules which knit themselves closely, up to the sun, this vast reservoir of enflamed particles, which brightens the firmament; from the humble oyster up to the active and thinking man, we see an un interrupted progression, a perpetual chain of combinations, and movements, from which there result beings which differ between themselves only by the variety of their elementary matters, combinations and proportions of these very elements out of which are produced infinity of diversified modes of existence and action. In generation, nutrition, preservation, we shall ever see only matter diversely combined, which each one of it has its own movement, regulated by fixed and determined laws, which make them undergo necessary changes. We find in the formation and the growth and the instantaneous life of the animals, plants & minerals, only matters which combine, unite, accumulate, themselves, extend themselves and which form gradually beings—sentient, living, vegetating or deprived of these faculties, which after having existed for some time under a particular from, are forced to constitute by their ruin to the production of another 14.

CHAPTER IV Laws of movement common to all the beings of nature. On attraction & repulsion. On the force of inertia. On necessity.

Men are not surprised by the effects of which they know the causes; they believe to know these causes, as soon as they see them act in uniform & immediate manner, or as soon as the movements they produce are simple: the fall of a stone which falls by its own weight is an object of meditation only for a philosopher, for whom the modes of action of the most immediate causes & the simplest movement are not less impenetrable mysteries, than the way in which the most remote causes act and the most complicated movements. The ordinary people do not have the desire to go deep into the effects which are familiar for them, not to trace to their first principles. The ordinary man sees nothing in fall of the stone which must surprise him or merit his researches: There must be a Newton to feel that the fall of heavy bodies is a phenomenon worth of his attention; it is necessary to have the sagacity of a profound physicists to discover the laws according to which the bodies fall, and commensurate to others their own movements: in short the most experienced spirit has often the distress to see that the most simple and ordinary effects, escape all researches, and remain inexplicable for him.

We are tempted to ponder and meditate on the effects that we see, only when they are extraordinary and unusual, i.e. when our eyes are not used to it or when we do not know the energy of the cause which we see acting. There is no European who has not seen some of the effects of gun powder, the worker who works to make it does not suspect anything marvelous in it, because he handles every day the matters which enter in the composition of this powder; the American looked formerly its mode of action as the effect of a divine power, and its force as supernatural. The thunder the real cause of which the ordinary man does not know, is regarded by him as the instrument of heavenly vengeance; the physicist regards it as a natural effect of electric matter, which is however itself a cause which he is far from knowing perfectly.

Whatever, it be, as soon as we see a cause act, we regard its effects as natural, as soon as we are accustomed to see it or are familiarized by it we believe of knowing it, and its effects surprise us no more. But as soon as we notice an unusual effect without discovering its cause, our spirit begins to work, it becomes worried on account of the range of this effect; it becomes agitated especially when it thinks our preservation involved, its perplexity increases in proportion it is convinced that it is essential for us to know this effect by which we are deeply affected. Due to the defect of the sense organs which often can apprise us nothing on the causes and the