HelvÉtius, Claude-Adrien(1715–1771)
Claude-Adrien Helvétius was born into a highly respected medical family; his father was first physician to the queen of France. After his education at the College Louis-le-Grand and at the age of only twenty-three, Helvétius obtained, through influence at court, the lucrative post of fermier-général, in which he soon grew rich. He became known, however, for the philanthropic and enlightened uses he made of his great wealth, particularly as a patron of philosophers and men of letters. For a time Helvétius turned to poetry and, in a piece titled Le bonheur, extolled the supreme pleasures of the intellectual life. Taking his own advice, he resigned in 1751 from tax-farming, married, and retired to his country estate, thenceforth devoting himself primarily to philosophical and literary pursuits. The publication in 1758 of his principal work, De l'esprit, proved to be one of the ideological causes célèbres of the eighteenth century. Appearing at a moment of political reaction, De l'esprit was noisily condemned by the authorities, both ecclesiastical and ministerial, for its dangerously heretical and subversive opinions. Suppression of the book signaled a grave—but fortunately temporary—setback for the party of philosophes and Encyclopedists. Despite the recantations that Helvétius was forced to make regarding De l'esprit, he reaffirmed his ideas even more strongly in De l'homme, de ses facultés intellectuelles, et de son éducation, published posthumously in 1772.
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