Helvetius

18102 — A La Haye, Chez Pierre Moetjens, (Provins, Michelin), 1759. With title-vignettes, titles printed in red and black. 3 volumes. (4), viii, x, 244 pp.; (4), xi, 209 pp.; (4), 166, iv, 34 pp. 12mo. Contemporary polished calf, spines gilt in compartments, gilt fillets on sides, gilt lettering to spine, a very good copy. Smith, E.10; Keim p. 714; Thomas, Checklist, p. 72; not in Tchemerzine-Scheler. Rare clandestine edition, made 'à la Hollandaise' by Michelins in Provins, of this epoch-making work which brought together the 'philosophes' in a common front against their ennemies (see: Belin, Commerce des livres prohibés, p. 102). Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715-1771) obtained the lucrative post of fermier-général in which he soon grew rich. He became known, however, for the philantropic and enlightened uses he made of his great wealth, particularly as a patron of the philosophers and men of letters. He resigned in 1751 from tax-farming, married and retired to his country estate, thenceforth devoting himself primarily to philosophical and literary persuits. The publication in 1758 of his principal work, De l'Esprit, proved to be one of the ideological causes célébres 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. No book during the eighteenth century, except perhaps Rousseau's Emile, evoked such an outcry from the religious and civil authorities or such universal public interest. Condemned as atheistic, materialistic, sacrilegious, immoral and subversive, it enjoyed a remarkable succès de scandale. It lost its privilège within a fortnight of its publication. It was attacked in Church periodicals and in polemical pamphlets, in the literary salons and in popular songs, from bishops' pulpits and from the stage of the Théâtre français. When the work appeared it was censured by the Sorbonne, the pope and the Parlement of Paris and in 1759 it was burnt by the public executioner. Even Diderot found himself unable to subscribe to it. But in spite of Diderot's systematic refutation of the work and in spite of the fact that Helvétius never collaborated in the Encyclopédie the authorities held the sensationalistic philosophy expounded by the encyclopédistes responsible for Helvétius dangerous principles. The appearance of De l'Esprit was thus an important factor in the second suppression of the Encyclopédie. The thought of Helvétius sprang mainly from the predominant current of sensualism in the Enlightenment, which he fashioned with marked originality into what may be described as a thoroughgoing doctrine of 'environmental behaviorism'. - In this copy the 'Tables sommaires' are bound before the 'discourses.'