CLAUDE ADRIEN HELVETIUS

Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.

Claude Adrien Helvetius (26 January or 26 February 1715 (sources differ) – 26 December 1771) was a French philosopher and littérateur.

Claude Adrien Helvétius was born in Paris , France and was descended from a family of physicians, originally surnamed Schweitzer (literally swissman Latinized as helvetius). His grandfather introduced the use of ipecacuanha; his father was first physician to Marie Leszczyńska, queen of France. Claude Adrien was trained for a financial career, apprenticed to his maternal uncle in Caen^[1], but he occupied his spare time with poetry. Aged twenty-three, at the queen's request, he was appointed as a farmer-general, a tax-collecting post worth 100,000 crowns a year. Thus provided for, he proceeded to enjoy life to the utmost, with the help of his wealth and liberality, his literary and artistic tastes - he attended, for example, the progressive Club de l'Entresol. As he grew older, he began to seek more lasting distinctions, stimulated by the success of Pierre Louis Maupertuis as a mathematician, of Voltaire as a poet, and of Montesquieu as a philosopher. His wife, Anne-Catherine de Ligniville, Madame Helvétius, maintained a salon attended by the leading figures of theEnlightenment for over five decades.

called De l'esprit (On Mind). Its atheistic, utilitarian and egalitarian doctrines raised a public outcry and Helvétius was forced to issue several retractions.

After ten years, when he thought his fortune sufficient, he gave up the post of farmer-general, and retired to a country estate, where he employed his fortune in the relief of the poor, the encouragement of agriculture and the development of industries. For this he won the admiration of many of the philosophers.

In 1764, Helvétius visited England, and the next year, at the invitation of Frederick II, went to Berlin, where the king paid him much attention. He then returned to his country estate and passed the remainder of his life peacefully.