The Code de l’humanité ou la Législation universelle, naturelle, civile et politique (Yverdon, 1778, 13 volumes), edited by the protestant Italian émigré Fortunato Bartolomeo De Felice (1723-1789), is one of the first thematic encyclopedias dedicated to morality and law. This Code of humanity is a critical compound of natural law, Calvinism and Enlightenment ideas, coming on the eve of the French devolution. This study highlights the anti-materialistic foundations of the project. In order to better understand the relationship it establishes between metaphysical rationalism, Protestantism and the legal culture of the Enligtenment, it focuses on the articles ATHÉE AND NATURE, written by the Swiss theologian Gabriel Jean Henry Mingard (1729-1786).
Keywords: Code de l’humanité, the legal culture of the Enlightenment, Calvinism, Spinozism, F.B. De Felice, G.J.H. Mingard.