Good Sense

What if the unseen ruler who commands the world’s fear were only a phantom—and the priests who speak for him were keeping people from seeing the causes of their misery? Paul Henri Thiry d’Holbach begins with a blunt challenge: where, amid all this reverence, has common sense gone?

Published anonymously in Amsterdam in 1772, Good Sense brings the arguments of an Enlightenment philosopher to bear on theology, authority, and human conduct. D’Holbach contends that doctrines no one can make intelligible have bred fear and conflict, while priests and tyrants keep people obedient and ignorant. Against them, he sets knowledge, reason, and liberty—and insists that morality need not wait upon heaven’s command. If people look to earthly causes and their fellow human beings, can they find a better guide to virtue than fear of the gods?

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