The Tao of Laozi is the entia of the rule and the essence of the corporality world.Its basic character is materialistic.But it has some diathesis of the mentalism.
Holbach, who pushed deism's religious skepticism further, advocated atheism and developed a nonreligious " system of nature" that was thoroughly materialistic.
It was, therefore, quite consonant with the whole tenor of his thought to use machines—purely material mechanisms—as a challenge to his materialistic opponents.