HELVÉTIUS, CLAUDE-ADRIEN. - Philosopher, b. in Paris in Jan. 1715 to Jean-Claude, a physician of renown, d. there on 26 Dec. 1771. Attracted at first by the reading of La Fontaine and Boileau, while still at the Collège Louis-le-Grand, he became an admirer and follower of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Into his thought, of scant originality and depth, flow the Enlightenment, deism and sensualism, bending toward a decided materialism.
Principal works: Le bonheur (in verse, posthumous ed. by C. F. de St-Lambert, Paris 1773), in which he develops the idea that happiness is to be sought rather in pursuing one's own interest than that of all; De l'esprit (ibid. 1758; placed on the Index with a brief of 31 Jan. 1759), a work that aroused much clamor, the approval of admirers and lively opposition: it was condemned by the Sorbonne and publicly burned by order of the Parlement; De l'homme, de ses facultés et de son éducation (posthumous, London 1772; placed on the Index with a decree of 29 Aug. 1774); Le vrai sens du système de la nature (ibid. 1774); Les progrès de la raison dans la recherche du vrai (ibid. 1775).
H. limits his interest to moral psychology, ethics and their applications. Like Fondillac, he reduces the activity of the mind, including judging and therefore thinking, to pure feeling. In ethics he posits personal egoistic interest as the sole motive of all human actions; the greatest importance belongs to laws and education, whose task is to bring about the greatest possible harmony between the general and the private good. In education H. has unlimited confidence. Ch. 1, sec. 10 of vol. II of De l'homme (1772) is entitled L'éducation peut tout (London ed. 1765, p. 421).
Regarding religion, particularly positive religion, H. shares, and often in a more violent form, the negative attitude common to the Enlightenment: « C'est toujours à sa raison que l'homme honnête obéira de préférence à la révélation. Il est, dira-t-il, plus certain que Dieu est l'auteur de la raison humaine, c'est à dire, de la faculté que l'homme a de discerner le vrai du faux, qu'il n'est certain que ce même Dieu soit l'auteur d'un tel livre » (De l'homme, ed. cit., note 11, p. 201).
Almost all religions, according to H., would be to be condemned, because they forbid the use of reason and make men unhappy and cruel (ibid., p. 13).
Bibliography8 works
Andrea Ferro