Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit Subscriptions.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Philosophical Haiku

Helvétius (1715-1771)

by Terence Green

All born to reason
Passion incites inquiry
Virtue through pleasure

Helvetius by Pierre Michel Alix

Claude-Adrien Helvétius was born into a family of physicians – his father was doctor to the Queen of France – but at the age of twenty-three, canny Claude opted to pursue a different avenue and took up tax-collecting instead. A smart move, as this highly remunerative work allowed him to live the high life without actually working. He was fond of literature and philosophy, and soon began to hob-nob with the pre-revolutionary literary and intellectual elite of Paris.

In 1758, Helvétius published his most famous, and scandalous, work, De l’esprit (On the Mind).

…