Helvetius, [Claude-Adrien]Biblio.com
HELVETIUS, Claude Adrien (1715-1771).Biblio.com
Oeuvres d'Helvetius.
1792S11263Paris:: Jean Servieres Jean Francois Bastien 1792. 1792. Five volumes. 8vo. xxiv lxxiv 75-446; xii 419; xiv viii 9-349; 4 xii 315; 4 viii 339 pp. Occasional faint spotting not affecting legibility. Full tree calf triple-gilt-ruled covers gilt-stamped spines and red leather spine labels gilt-tooled inside edges; spines rubbed some leather labels chipped Vol. 5 head torn Vol. 1 front cover stained three front covers joints neatly reattached with kozo Vols. 1 3 5. Half-title ownership stamp of Andre Lepine. RARE. Good. The collected works of Helvetius the noted philosopher freemason and 'litterateur'. "In 1758 Helvétius published his philosophical magnum opus a work called De l'esprit On Mind which claimed that all human faculties are attributes of mere physical sensation and that the only real motive is self-interest therefore there is no good and evil only competitive pleasures. Its atheistic utilitarian and egalitarian doctrines raised a public outcry and the Sorbonne publicly burned it in 1759 forcing Helvétius to issue several retractions". / " The work attracted immediate attention and aroused the most formidable opposition especially from the dauphin Louis son of King Louis XV. The Advocate General Joly de Fleury condemned it in the Parlement of Paris in January 1759. The Sorbonne condemned the book while the priests persuaded the court that it was full of the most dangerous doctrines. The book was declared to be heretical – so atheistic that it was condemned by Church and State and was burned. Helvétius terrified at the storm he had raised wrote three separate and humiliating retractions. In spite of his protestations of orthodoxy the book was publicly burned by the Paris hangman". Wikip. / De l'homme de ses facultés intellectuelles et de son éducation On Man was published in 1773. Contains: De l'Esprit; De l'Homme et de Son Education; Le Bonheur; Epitres. See: Helvetius: A Study in Persecution by David Warner Smith Clarendon Press Oxford 1965. Jean Servieres, Jean Francois Bastien, 1792. hardcover
