Noël-Antoine Pluche and the Spectacularity of Nature

Abstract

The article present views of abbé Pluche whose books were very popular in 18^th century France. In his Spectacle of nature and The history of the heavens he wanted to stir in his readers an interest in the world around them. Nature is a book written by God, the creator of this nature, and by reading it properly, people can see the providential care of God. To combat atomism and randomness, Pluche introduced in his physics many elementary substances as foundational elements, of which particularly important was light.

Pluche devoted considerable attention to the problem of the origin of religion and religious rites. For Pluche, monotheism was the original religious faith and idolatry was a later religious development which was basically a perversion of monotheism.