Helvétius wrote himself down self-seeker and materialist1, and in every action of his life gave his utterance2 the lie. Helvétius was, as Voltaire had been, a courtier—not the teacher of kings, like Grimm, but their friend and servant. Helvétius alone was at once of that body, which of all bodies the philosophers most hated, the Farmers-General—the extortionate tax-gatherers of old France—and of a practical philanthropy Voltaire himself might have envied.
He belonged to a family famous in the medical profession. His great-grandfather, a religious refugee from the Palatinate, had been a clever quack3, practising in Holland. His grandfather introduced ipecacuanha to the doctors of Paris, and his father, having saved Louis XV.’s life in some childish complaint, was made physician to the Queen and Councillor of State. Still, the
[Image unavailable.]
CLAUDE-ADRIEN HELVéTIUS.
From an Engraving4 by St. Aubin, after the Portrait by Vanloo.
{177}
family fortunes were but mediocre5. Little Claude-Adrien, who was born in 1715, was at first educated at home by a mother ‘full of sweetness and goodness.’ Her tenderness, perhaps, was an ill preparation for the harsher, wider world of the famous school of Saint Louis-le-Grand, whither Claude-Adrien was presently sent. It was Voltaire’s old school, and it was Voltaire’s old school-master, Père Porée, who helped the shy, sensitive, new boy with kindliness6 and encouragement, and first roused in him a love of letters. Grimm, who nearly always has his pen pointed7 with malice8 when he writes of Helvétius, records that poor Claude-Adrien always seemed stupid at school through being the victim of a chronic9 cold in the head: an unromantic affliction, which would make genius itself uninteresting. Young Helvétius was no genius, however.
After leaving school he was sent to an uncle, who was a superintendent10 of taxes at Caen, to learn finance. There he wrote the usual boyish tragedy of promise—never to be performed—and the usual youthful verses, and was made a member of the Caen Literary Academy. The sensitive shyness soon disappeared. Young, healthy, and handsome, loving literature much and women more, an excellent dancer and fencer, clever, cool, agreeable, and much minded to get{178} on in the world, young Helvétius comes up to Paris. At three-and-twenty, in 1738, being the son of his father, and having the necessary financial equipment, he was made Farmer-General, a post certain to bring in two or three thousand a year, and possibly, with the requisite11 extortion and unscrupulousness, a good deal more.
Paris, in the years between 1738 and 1751, was certainly the most delightful12 and the most seductive city in the world. In the early part of that period, Madame de Tencin, the mother of d’Alembert and the sister of the Cardinal13, was forming the youth of the capital in her famous salon14. In the later period, Madame de Pompadour was revealing to it by her example the whole secret of worldly success—a clear head and a cold heart. The Court was eternally laughing, play-acting, intriguing15. For the few, the world went with the liveliest lilt; and for the many—the many were dumb.
Helvétius was one of the few. Now at Madame de Tencin’s, ‘gathering in order that he might one day sow;’ now in the foyer of the Comédie, where Mademoiselle Gaussin, the charming comic actress, nourished a hopeless passion for him; now at the opera, seeing for the first time Buffon, Diderot, d’Alembert, and joining hotly in the question of French or Italian music, which agitated16 the capital a thousand times more than national glory or{179} shame; now at Madame de Pompadour’s famous little dinners of the Entresol, or at Court, daintily distinguishing between the Queen of reality and the poor Queen en titre—the new young Farmer-General was Everywhere where Everybody who is Anybody goes, and Nowhere where Nobody goes. Be sure there was a fashionable shibboleth17 then as there is now, and be sure Helvétius prattled18 it and lived up to it. Grimm declared that if the word ‘gallant’ had not been in the French language, it would certainly have had to be invented in order to describe him.
One day, society heard of him dancing at the opera under the mask of the famous dancer, Dupré. The next, he was whispered to be the lover of a modish19 Countess, who had taken Atheism20 as other women took Jansenism, Molinism, or a craze for little dogs, and passionately21 imbued22 her lover with the exhilarating doctrine23 of All from Nothing to Nothing. Then he posed as the amant-en-titre of the Duchesse de Chaulnes. For the passions were only a pose—like the opera dancing. Helvétius was merely minded to get on in the world, and was looking about for the shortest cut to glory. He soon saw, or thought he saw, a pleasant road thereto called Verse.
Voltaire, now retired24 to Cirey, science, and Madame du Chatelet, had made poetry the fashion.{180} I too will be a poet! The young Farmer-General racked his sharp brains a little, and as a result sent Voltaire some long, dismal25 cantos on ‘Happiness.’ The master replied with the kindliest criticism, and offered advice so keen and excellent that if poets were made, not born, Helvétius’ verses might still live. But, after all, advice by post is always unsatisfactory. Helvétius’ Farmer-Generalship made periodical tours in the provinces an agreeable necessity. On a journey through Champagne27, what more natural than to stop awhile at Cirey, where Voltaire was writing ‘Mahomet,’ and Madame du Chatelet was the most delightful of blue-stocking hostesses? Between Arouet of five-and-forty and Claude-Adrien of five-and-twenty a warm friendship was cemented. All Voltaire’s correspondence from 1738 until 1771 is studded with letters to Helvétius. The young man was his ‘very dear child,’ ‘my rival, my poet, my philosopher.’ If he took so large and liberal a view of Helvétius’ talents as to declare that, as a poet, he had as much imagination as Milton, only more smoothness and regularity28 (!), yet he was not afraid to wrap up the pill of many a shrewd home truth in the fine sugar-plums of compliments.
But, after all, is poetry the easiest way to glory? Claude-Adrien, returned to Paris, walking{181} through the Tuileries gardens one day, saw the hideous29 Maupertuis, the geometrician, surrounded by all the charming and pretty women, adoring him, and immediately decided30 to abandon verse and be a geometrician instead. But before he had taken a couple of steps in this direction, the publication of the ‘Spirit of Laws’ in 1748 electrified32 Europe, and changed his mind. To be sure, when, three years earlier, Montesquieu had brought the book up to Paris and asked the young Farmer-General’s judgment33 on it, Helvétius had replied that it was altogether unworthy of the author of the ‘Persian Letters,’ and had strongly recommended him not to publish it. Well, that advice can be conveniently forgotten. Helvétius paid Montesquieu the sincerest of all flattery by resolving on the spot to be a philosopher himself.
If, between these eventful years of three-and-twenty and six-and-thirty, Helvétius had been nothing but an astute34, ambitious young man-about-town, seeking the likeliest way to fame and fortune, he would have been undistinguishable from hundreds of others around him, and not worth distinguishing. But, at his worst, there was something in him which was never in that selfish crowd which thronged35 the galleries of Versailles.{182}
As tax-gatherer, it was his interest and profession to extract the uttermost farthing—and he did not do it. Nay36, he pleaded in high places for the wretches37 it was his business to ruin. When in Bordeaux they rebelled against an iniquitous38 new tax on wine, he encouraged the rebellion. Though he was constantly at Court and in a position which entailed39 lavish40 personal expenditure41, he pensioned Thomas, the poet, out of his own pocket; and by an annuity42 of a thousand écus opened the world of letters to Saurin, hereafter the dramatist. The Abbé Sabatier de Castres declared himself to have been the recipient43 of his delicate and generous charity. Marivaux, the novelist and playwright44, who was personally very uncongenial to Helvétius, received from him a yearly sum of two thousand livres.
It was in Helvétius’ house in Paris, as he afterwards told Hume, the historian, that he concealed45, coming and going for ‘nearly two years,’ Prince Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, at a time ‘when the danger was greater in harbouring him in Paris than in London’ on account of the clause in the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle of the year 1748, which stipulated46 that France should shelter no member of the family in her domains47. Helvétius, like many another generous dupe, fell a victim to the Stuart grace and charm: ‘I had{183} all his correspondence pass through my hands; met with his partisans48 upon the Pont Neuf; and found at last I had incurred49 all this danger and trouble for the most unworthy of all mortals,’ for a poor coward who ‘was so frightened when he embarked50 on his expedition to Scotland’ that he had literally51 to be carried on board by his attendants. (It is fair to say that Helvétius made this statement only on the testimony52 of a third person whose name is not given.) The sole good quality, indeed, his host ended by finding in this faint hope of Britain, the guest for whom he had risked his safety and spent his money, was that he was ‘no bigot.’ As this meant he had ‘learnt a contempt of all religions from the philosophers in Paris,’ not everyone would consider even this an advantage.
In 1740, Madame de Graffigny, famous as the gossiping visitor at Cirey with whom Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet quarrelled, had arrived in Paris, and there, in the Rue53 d’Enfer, near the Luxembourg, had set up her salon. To insure its success, Madame, who was five-and-forty, fat and unbeautiful, had with her a charming niece, Mademoiselle Anne Catherine de Ligniville, who was then one-and-twenty, fair, handsome, intelligent. A year or two before, her aunt had adopted and so rescued her from a convent, to which the{184} fact of the unfortunate girl having nineteen living brothers and sisters had condemned54 her.
In 1747, Madame de Graffigny attained56 celebrity57 by her ‘Letters from a Peruvian.’ Turgot did her the honour of criticising them: frequented her salon, which rapidly became famous, and at which, in 1750, Helvétius, still young, rich, agreeable, and unmarried, became a constant visitor. For a year, he was there perpetually. ‘The sheepfold of bel esprit,’ people called it. Helvétius liked to be thought a bel esprit, and it was de rigueur to admire the hostess’s ‘Peruvian’ and her play ‘Cénie,’ which was produced in 1750. He soon came to admire something besides her writings. ‘Minette,’ as she nicknamed her niece, was such a woman as fashionable eighteenth-century society rarely produced—such a woman as any fashionable society rarely produces. Strong in mind and body, good, straightforward58 and serene59, refreshingly60 unconventional in an age which had no god but the convenances, not half so clever as that accomplished61 old fool, her aunt, and a hundred times more sensible—such was Mademoiselle de Ligniville.
Helvétius studied her in his calm manner for a year, and at the end of it proposed to her. Then he resigned his Farmer-Generalship with its rich income; bought, to pacify62 his father, the post of{185} ma?tre d’h?tel to Queen Marie Leczinska, and the estates of Voré and Lumigny in Burgundy, and, on June 17, 1751, married Mademoiselle de Ligniville, who was a Countess of the Holy Roman Empire, satisfactorily connected with the nobility, and had not a single franc to her dot.
All these actions caused something very like consternation63 in the world in which Helvétius lived. Give up a Farmer-Generalship! The man must be mad! ‘So you are not insatiable, then, like the rest of them?’ says Machault, the Controller-General. As to the estates in Burgundy, one might as well be buried alive at once! While to marry a woman who is by now certainly not a day less than two-and-thirty, has not an écu, and has a tribe of hungry brothers and sisters clinging to her, as it were, is certainly not the act of a sane64 person! Followed by the mingled65 pity and contempt of all Paris, Helvétius and his wife left immediately for Voré, and settled down to the eight happiest years of their lives.
Voré was one of those country estates which would still be called dull. In those days, before railways, with a starving peasantry at its gates, with rare posts of the most erratic66 description, and with the vilest67 impassable roads between one country house and another, it might have been called not merely dull, but dismal. But, after{186} all, happiness is what one is, not where one is. Perfectly68 content with each other, the Helvétius would have been contented69 in a wilderness70. Minette, says a biographer, asked nothing better than to adore her husband and perpetually to sacrifice herself to him.
If it was not in his calmer nature to adore anyone, his love for her is on the testimony of the whole eighteenth century. His married happiness ‘bewildered and astonished’ it. ‘Those Helvétius,’ said a country neighbour discontentedly, ‘do not even pronounce the words, my husband, my wife, my child, as we others do.’ ‘Good husband, good father, good friend, good man,’ wrote unfavourable Grimm. The easy prosperity of Helvétius’ love for his wife, its freedom from storm and stress, left it, doubtless, a lighter71 thing than if it had been forged in the fire and beaten by the blows of affliction and reverse. It was thus with all his qualities. Kind, rather than lovable; charming, rather than great; equable, because nothing in his destiny came to move the deep waters, or because there were no deep waters to be moved: these were the key-notes to Helvétius’ character.
The first child of the marriage, a daughter, was born in 1752, and the second, also a daughter, in 1754. Father and mother devoted72{187} themselves to the education of the little girls, though in their time polite society considered that parents had sufficiently73 obliged their children by bringing them into the world, and that further favours, such as a judicious74 training, were entirely75 superfluous76.
The household was completed by two superannuated77 secretaries, whom Helvétius kept, very characteristically, not because he wanted them, but because he feared no one else would want them either. One of them, Baudot, had known his master from a child, and spoke78 to him as if he were one still. ‘I have certainly not all the faults Baudot finds in me,’ observed Helvétius tranquilly79, ‘but I have some of them. Who would tell me of them if I did not keep him?’
Sometimes visitors came to Voré, but for so sociable80 an age, not very often. Though they were always made generously welcome, they must have known they were not necessary to that ménage. Still, they were useful, if only to prove to these married lovers how much happier they were alone—just as the four gay winter months they spent in Paris doubled the delights of peaceful Voré.
The day there began with work. Helvétius was now firmly minded to achieve glory by means of philosophy—fame and sport, it is said, were the{188} only passions he had. He spent the whole morning writing and thinking. In composition he had neither the hot haste of Diderot nor the glittering inspiration of Voltaire. He wrote indeed painfully and laboriously—as the author born writes when he is weary and disinclined—as a man always writes whom nature has intended for another occupation. Sometimes one of the incompetent82 secretaries had to wait for hours with his pen in his hand, while his master wrestled83 with the refractory84 thought in his brain, or waited for the inspired phrase to come down from on high. His wife had not much sympathy with his philosophies. The philosophers talked so much, and as yet had done so little! But in everything else she was entirely at one with her husband.
It would be absurd to pretend that before the Revolution there were no noblemen in France who did their duty by their country estates and tenants85, who looked after the poor on their lands, and, so far as they could, realised and acted up to the responsibilities of their position. There is always more goodness in the world than there appears to be, because goodness is of its very nature modest and retiring. But that the conscientious86 landowner was then a rare and surprising phenomenon is proved by the fact that when Helvétius and his wife began to devote{189} themselves to acts of benevolence87, everyone turned and stared at them. To-day, indeed, Helvétius might not be counted extraordinarily88 charitable. But it is not by modern standards he can be fairly judged. Compare him with the immense majority of the great financial magnates of his day and country, and he stands proven a philanthropist indeed.
When he first bought Voré, he had given a M. de Vasconcelles, a poor gentleman who owed the estate a large sum, a receipt for the whole, putting it into his hands saying, ‘Take this paper to keep my people from bothering you;’ and he further settled a handsome gift of money on him, to help him to educate his family. One of his next actions was to bring a good doctor to the place, establish him on it, and himself pay for the medical services thus rendered the peasants. Daily he and Minette visited the poor, accompanied by this doctor and a Sister of Mercy. He also set up in the place a stocking manufactory—and so, perhaps, supplied an idea to Voltaire. He encouraged and helped the farmers to farm their land; acted as unpaid89 judge in their disputes; and in hard times let them off their debts. There are a dozen stories of the private individuals he helped. One day, it is a ruined Jesuit priest, who has abused his confidence and{190} kindness. Helvétius finds one of the Jesuit’s friends, and gives him fifty louis for his old enemy. ‘Do not say it comes from me—he has injured me, and he would feel humiliated90 at receiving a gift from me.’ Could delicacy91 go further?
Another day, when he was driving, a woodman leading a horse and cart was irritatingly slow in getting out of the way of the carriage. Helvétius lost his patience. ‘All right,’ said the man, ‘I am a coquin and you are an honest man, I suppose, because I am on foot and you are in a carriage.’ ‘I beg your pardon,’ says Helvétius, with his fine instincts instantly awake, ‘you have given me an excellent lesson, for which I ought to pay;’ and he gave the man a sum which, though handsome, was less generous than the apology.
When famine came to Voré, Helvétius’ deep purse and wise judgment were both to the fore31. Did the man accomplish less good because, though his heart was kind, it was not warm; because, though he relieved suffering, there was that in his temperament92 which saved him from suffering with it? If the philanthropist must have either a cool head or a hot heart, better the cool head a thousand times. He will do much less harm.
Many of Helvétius’ charities were performed{191} through his valet, whom he bade say nothing about them, even after his death. Sometimes he concealed from his wife, and she concealed from him, the good deeds of which each had been guilty.
A peasant had been imprisoned93 for poaching on Helvétius’ grounds, and his gun confiscated95. Helvétius went to him, bought back his gun, paid his fine, and had him set free, begging his silence because Minette had warned him to be severe with the man as he deserved. That warning troubled her generous heart. She too went to the culprit, gave him money to pay his fine and repurchase his gun, and vowed96 him to secrecy97. Whether the peasant kept the secrets (as well as the price of two fines and two guns), and husband and wife confessed to each other, history does not relate.
There is, indeed, a reverse side to Helvétius’ character as enlightened landowner. Carlyle, in his ‘Essay on Diderot,’ quotes Diderot’s ‘Voyage à Bourbonne,’ in which the ex-Farmer-General is portrayed98 as a cruelly strict preserver, living in the midst of peasants who broke his windows, plundered99 his garden, tore up his palings, and hated him so savagely100 that he dared not go out shooting save with an armed escort of four-and-twenty keepers. Diderot added that Helvétius had swept away a little village of huts which the poor people had built on the fringe of his{192} preserves; that the good philosopher was a coward, and the unhappiest of men. But it must be remembered that Diderot did not speak from first-hand observation, but drew, and said he drew, all his information from a Madame de Nocé, a neighbour of Helvétius. Now happy, unsociable people like Helvétius and his wife are not likely to be popular in a limited country society, which would expect much from them, and get practically nothing. Saint-Lambert and Marmontel both speak of Helvétius’ liberality, generosity101, and unostentatious benevolence. Morellet, who was his closest intimate for many years, adds like testimony, and especially mentions his mercy to poachers. One story illustrating102 it has been told. Another runs that Helvétius found a man poaching under the very windows of his house, and at first naturally inclined to wrath103, curbed104 himself: ‘If you wanted game, why did you not ask me? I would have given it to you.’
Perhaps the truth of the whole matter lies in that anecdote105. The keen sportsman and preserver did sometimes lose his temper and forget his compassion106: his better self soon recalled it, and that rare disposition107 of humility108 and love for his fellows hastened to make amends109.
In 1755, the book to which he had devoted those long, laborious81 mornings at Voré (by which{193} I must certainly achieve glory, if I am to achieve it at all!) was finished at last. It was to be called ‘De l’Esprit’—not to be translated ‘Wit,’ as Croker translated it, but something much more serious—‘On the Mind.’
It set out to prove a new theory of human action, and a new system of morality. Virtue110 and vice26? There are no such things. Self-interest, rightly understood, is the explanation of the one, and self-interest, misunderstood, of the other. Selfishness and the passions are the sole mainsprings of our deeds. So far from character being destiny, as Novalis is to declare, destiny is in all cases character. Everybody is the creature of his environment and his education. Free Will? What free will to be an honest man has the child of thieves, brought up to thieve in a slum? Change his condition, and you change him. Leave him, and he will steal as certainly as fire burns and the waves beat on the shore. As for the vaunted superiority of the human intelligence over the brutes111, ‘an accident of physical organisation’ can account for that. We are as the brutes, only a little better, and the difference is wholly of degree, not of kind.
Put these theories, with their showy falsehood and their substratum of truth, on the library table of any clever man, and get him to do his best to{194} prove them by sophistry112 and ingenuity113, by trick, by subterfuge114, by illustration—somehow, anyhow, so that he prove them to the hilt—and the result will be pretty well what Helvétius made it. There was scarcely a good story, or a bad one, he had heard in his early gay life in Paris that he did not bring in, by hook or by crook115, to point and enliven his paradox116. Madame de Graffigny told Bettinelli that nearly all the notes were the ‘sweepings’ of her salon.
‘On the Mind’ is entertaining or nothing—difficulties presented solely117 that they may be wittily118 demolished—easy, inaccurate119, trifling120; a style ‘insinuating and caressing121 ... made for light minds, young people and women,’ says Damiron; a book which fashion might skip at its toilette, and then, on the strength of remembering two or three of its dubious122 anecdotes123, claim a complete knowledge of its bizarre philosophy. For it was but a bizarrerie—a jeu d’esprit—and Helvétius knew it. He was merely concerned to see how far his impossible theories could be made plausible124, and wrote them to catch the public ear, and turn their author into the lion and darling of the season.
When the thing was ready he took it to Tercier, the censor125, who passed it, suggesting only the omission126 of a few too complimentary127 references to free-thinking Hume. Helvétius cut them out.{195} Malesherbes, during its printing, observed uneasily that the book contained ‘some very strong things’—insolent remarks, for instance, on that dear, crusted old despotism under which we all live, and certainly a suggestion that any means to overthrow128 tyranny are permissible129. But, all the same, in May 1758 it received its privilege. Majesty130 was graciously pleased to accept a copy from the author, our ma?tre d’h?tel. It was already in the hands of the philosophers. And everybody began to read.
It would not have been wonderful, if the theories had had a little more vraisemblance, that most people, particularly people who had devoted their lives and their fortunes to others, who had laboured in poverty that other men might be free and rich, should object to see their self-denial set down as self-interest, and to be informed that the highest aspiration131 of their soul was really nothing but a morbid132 condition of the body. But, considering their manifest absurdity133, it is wonderful that these assertions were taken seriously.
Madame du Deffand, indeed, might naturally say that in making self-interest the mainspring of conduct, Helvétius had revealed everybody’s secret. He had so certainly discovered hers. But Turgot, whose life was to do good, had better have laughed at an absurdity than have risen up to condemn55 it as ‘philosophy without logic134, literature without{196} taste, and morality without goodness.’ A Condorcet, whose long devotion to duty was rewarded only with ruin and death, need not have troubled to loathe135 it. Rousseau immediately sat down to refute it: some of the most inspired pages of his ‘Savoyard Vicar’ still glow with the hatred136 with which it inspired him. Grimm wisely only pooh-poohed it. Voltaire grumbled137 that his pupil had promised a book on the Mind, and presented a treatise138 on Matter; that he had ‘put friendship among the bad passions,’ and, much worse than all, has actually compared me—ME—to two such feeble, second-rate luminaries139 as Crébillon and Fontenelle! No wonder that he found the title, ‘De l’Esprit,’ equivocal, the matter unmethodical, all the new things false and all the old ones truisms.
For a very short time, however, approved or disapproved140, taken as folly142 or mistaken for reason, the book went its way gaily143. It bade fair to become what Helvétius had meant it to be—the success of a season. But for the besotted stupidity of the Government, it never would have been anything else.
One unlucky day the Dauphin, who was more virtuous144 than wise, came out of his room with a copy in his hand and fury in his face. ‘I am going to show the Queen the sort of thing her ma?tre d’h?tel prints.{197}’
On August 10, 1758, the privilege for its publication was revoked145. Tercier was deprived of his office. ‘On the Mind’ was furiously attacked in the religious papers. The avocat général, Fleury, pronounced it ‘an abridgment146 of the Encyclop?dia.’ The Archbishop of Paris declared it struck at the roots of Christianity. At Court, Helvétius was all at once ‘regarded as a child of perdition, and the Queen pitied his mother as if she had produced Anti-Christ.’ Rome banned the accursed thing. On January 31, 1759, the Pope attacked it with his own hand in a letter. On February 6 the Parliament of Paris condemned it. On February 10 it was publicly burned by the hangman, with Voltaire’s ‘Natural Law.’ On April 9 the Sorbonne censured147 it, and declared it to contain ‘the essence of the poisons’ of all modern literature.
Helvétius, from being the happiest of easy-going, benevolent148 philosophers, found himself, as it were in a second, in a position of great danger, and what Collé in his Journal called ‘cruel pain.’ His friends hotly urged upon him a retractation to soften149 the certain punishment awaiting him. His mother begged it from him with tears. Only Minette, a sterner and a braver soul, refused, though ‘a great personage’ besought150 her, to add her own entreaties151 to that end.{198}
Still, it had to be done. Something of a coward this Helvétius, as Collé suggested now, as Diderot had suggested before? The rich and easy life he had led does not breed courage certainly. But, after all, Helvétius only did what Voltaire and many a better man declared it was essential to do in that day. He produced a ‘Letter from the Reverend Father ... Jesuit,’ in which he stated that he had written in perfect innocence152 and simplicity153, and (this was undoubtedly154 true) that he had not had the slightest idea of the effect his book would create. He added, in the stiff phraseology of the time, words to the effect that he was an exceedingly religious man and very sorry indeed. The amende was so far accepted that the Parliament simply condemned him to give up his stewardship155, and exiled him for two years to Voré.
What the book could never have done for itself, or for its author, persecution156 did for them both. ‘On the Mind’ became not the success of a season, but one of the most famous books of the century. The men who had hated it, and had not particularly loved Helvétius, flocked round him now. Voltaire forgave him all injuries, intentional157 or unintentional. ‘What a fuss about an omelette!’ he had exclaimed when he heard of the burning. How abominably158 unjust to persecute159 a man for such an airy trifle as that!{199} ‘I disapprove141 of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,’ was his attitude now. But he soon came, as a Voltaire would come, to swearing that there was no more materialism160 in ‘On the Mind’ than in Locke, and a thousand more daring things in ‘The Spirit of Laws.’ Turgot and Condorcet forgave the philosophy, in their pity for the philosopher. D’Alembert made common cause with the man with whom he had nothing else in common. Rousseau instantly stopped writing his refutation. Diderot roundly swore ‘On the Mind’ was one of the great books of the age. Though Rome had censured it, cardinals161 wrote to condole162 with its author on the treatment it had received. It was translated into almost all European languages. Presently, England published an edition of her own. And Helvétius, when that two years’ exile—a punishment surely only in name?—was over, returning to Paris, found himself the most distinguished163 man in the capital.
In their fine hotel in the Rue Sainte-Anne (Rue Helvétius, the municipality of 1792 rechristened it, and Rue Saint-Helvétius, the cochers of Paris!) he and his wife received the flower of French society. Turgot introduced to them Morellet, who soon became a daily visitor, rode with them in the Bois, and stayed with them{200} in the country. To their Tuesday dinners at two o’clock came Condorcet, d’Alembert, Diderot, d’Holbach, Galiani, Marmontel, Saint-Lambert, Raynal, Gibbon, and Hume—‘the States-General of the human mind,’ says Garat. Only time-serving Buffon, in order not to offend the Court, gave up visiting at the house. If Galiani found the religious, or irreligious, views of the salon too free, Madame his hostess shared his opinion, and would often purposely disturb a too daring conversation by drawing aside one of the coterie164 to talk with her à part. Helvétius himself was still, as he had ever been, listener rather than talker; or talker chiefly when he laid before his friends, with a na?veté and simplicity wholly at variance165 with the sophistry and artificiality of his writing, the difficulties he had encountered in it that morning, or some theories which it had suggested.
Sometimes, directly dinner was over, he slipped out to the opera, and left his wife to do the honours alone. When they were not entertaining themselves, they rarely went out, unless it were on Fridays to Madame Necker’s. ‘Jealous of his wife,’ said acid Grimm, accounting166 for this unsociability. ‘Happy with her,’ is perhaps a truer solution.
But if their own entourage was thus satisfactory, the Court was still bitterly hostile. Though Hel{201}vétius, of course, knew very well that that hostility167 had been the advertisement to which his book owed everything, still, its injustice168 rankled169.
Admiring England invited him to her shores; and on March 10, 1764, he landed there, accompanied by his two daughters, Elizabeth and Geneviève, who, being only ten and twelve years respectively, were certainly rather young for their father to be seeking husbands for them among ‘the immaculate members of our august and incorruptible senate,’ as Horace Walpole declared that he was.
All the great people, including King George the Third, received the persecuted170 philosopher with empressement. ‘Savants and politicians’ flocked to be introduced to him. Gibbon found him ‘a sensible man, an agreeable companion, and the worthiest171 creature in the world.’ Hume (remembering the compliments it contained and the many more it would have contained but for that wretched censor) naturally thought ‘On the Mind’ the most pleasing of writings, and had even entered into an agreement with its author to translate it into English, if he, on his part, would translate Hume’s philosophical172 works into French. (This bargain was never concluded.) Warburton, indeed, declined to meet this French ‘rogue and atheist’ at dinner. But Helvétius, as a whole,{202} had every reason to like Englishmen, and he came back to France, Diderot told Mademoiselle Volland, as madly attached to England as d’Holbach was the reverse. ‘This poor Helvétius,’ says Diderot, to excuse him, ‘saw only in England the persecutions his book had brought him in France.’ There may certainly be truth in that.
A year later, in 1765, he went to stay with Frederick the Great. That astute monarch173 had not at all approved of ‘On the Mind.’ ‘If I wanted to punish a province, I would give it to philosophers to govern,’ said he. But he found Helvétius, as all the world found him, a thousand times better than his book, and observed very justly that in writing he had much better have consulted his heart than his head.
But that was what Helvétius could never do.
When he got back to Voré, to Minette and the little daughters (he had not found any spotless and disinterested174 members of parliament to marry them and enjoy their fortunes of fifty thousand pounds apiece), he settled down to literature again and wrote, with seven years’ severe and unremitting labour, ‘On Man, his Intellectual Faculties175, and his Education,’ which was a sort of defence of ‘On the Mind’ and an answer to the criticisms both friends and foes176 had brought against that work. If he had been persistently177{203} lively on ‘Mind,’ he was persistently dull on ‘Man.’ When it was published, after his death, only a few friends who had loved its author defended it. Mademoiselle de Lespinasse voiced a very general opinion when she declared herself ‘staggered’ at its preposterous178 length; and Grimm (of course) declared that, for his part, he would rather have ten lines of the dear little Abbé Galiani than ten volumes such as that.
Meanwhile, it had given Helvétius the best solace179 chagrins180 and declining life can have—a regular occupation. He was not old, and he was framed, says Guillois, to be a centenarian. But at that epoch181 men spent their health and strength with such fearful prodigality182 in their youth, that they rarely lived beyond what is now called middle age. Helvétius was not more than five-and-fifty when he became conscious of failing powers. Sport, which had been the delight of his life, lost its zest183. The bankrupt condition of his country, her light-hearted descent to ruin, lay heavily now on a soul framed by nature to take the world serenely184 and to see the future fair. He was occupied, it is true, to the end in those works of benevolence and kindness which pay an almost certain interest in happiness to him who invests in them. Then, too, to the last, there was his wife, who might have loved a better man than he, but{204} who—love, fortunately for most people, not being given entirely to worth—spent on him the fidelity185 and devotion of her life.
On December 26, 1771, Helvétius died. He was buried in the Church of Saint-Roch, in Paris.
Minette, a very rich widow, bought a house in Auteuil, where, visited by Turgot, Condorcet, Benjamin Franklin, Morellet, and the famous young doctor, Cabanis, she lived ‘to love those her husband had loved, and to do good to those he had benefited.’ Franklin, it is said, would fain have married her. And Turgot—who knows? Elizabeth and Geneviève, enormously rich heiresses, were married on the same day, a year after their father’s death, each to a Count.
In 1772, ‘On Man’ was published, with the reception which has been recorded. That early poem, ‘Happiness,’ also now publicly appeared for the first time, with a prose preface by Saint-Lambert—the prose, said Galiani, being much better than the verse.
To Helvétius’ works, or rather to his work, for ‘On the Mind’ is the only one that counts, is now generally meted186 the judgment which should have been meted to it when it appeared. Catch thistledown, imprison94 it, examine it beneath a microscope, and a hundred learned botanists187 will soon be confabulating and fighting over it. Put it in the{205} free air and sunshine—and, lo! it is gone. ‘On the Mind’ was but thistledown, and the winds have blown it away.
But the man who wrote it deserves recollection because, though he wrote it, he and Turgot alone among their compeers realised in practice that the best way to do good to mankind is to do good to individual man, here and to-day, and that the surest means to relieve the sorrows of the world is to help the one poor Lazarus lying, full of sores, at the gate.
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1
materialist
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| n. 唯物主义者 | |
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utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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3
quack
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| n.庸医；江湖医生；冒充内行的人；骗子 | |
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engraving
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| n.版画；雕刻（作品）；雕刻艺术；镌版术v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的现在分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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mediocre
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| adj.平常的，普通的 | |
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kindliness
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| n.厚道，亲切，友好的行为 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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requisite
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| adj.需要的，必不可少的；n.必需品 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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intriguing
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| adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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shibboleth
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| n.陈规陋习；口令；暗语 | |
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prattled
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| v.（小孩般）天真无邪地说话( prattle的过去式和过去分词 )；发出连续而无意义的声音；闲扯；东拉西扯 | |
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modish
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| adj.流行的，时髦的 | |
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atheism
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| n.无神论，不信神 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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imbued
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| v.使（某人/某事）充满或激起（感情等）( imbue的过去式和过去分词 )；使充满；灌输；激发（强烈感情或品质等） | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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regularity
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| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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30
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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31
fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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32
electrified
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| v.使电气化( electrify的过去式和过去分词 )；使兴奋 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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34
astute
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| adj.机敏的，精明的 | |
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thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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36
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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wretches
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| n.不幸的人( wretch的名词复数 )；可怜的人；恶棍；坏蛋 | |
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38
iniquitous
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| adj.不公正的；邪恶的；高得出奇的 | |
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entailed
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| 使…成为必要( entail的过去式和过去分词 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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42
annuity
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| n.年金；养老金 | |
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43
recipient
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| a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器 | |
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44
playwright
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| n.剧作家，编写剧本的人 | |
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45
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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46
stipulated
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| vt.& vi.规定；约定adj.[法]合同规定的 | |
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domains
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| n.范围( domain的名词复数 )；领域；版图；地产 | |
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partisans
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| 游击队员( partisan的名词复数 )； 党人； 党羽； 帮伙 | |
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49
incurred
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| [医]招致的，遭受的； incur的过去式 | |
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embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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51
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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52
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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53
rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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54
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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55
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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56
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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57
celebrity
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| n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望 | |
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58
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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59
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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refreshingly
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| adv.清爽地，有精神地 | |
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61
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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62
pacify
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| vt.使(某人)平静(或息怒)；抚慰 | |
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63
consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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64
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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65
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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erratic
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| adj.古怪的，反复无常的，不稳定的 | |
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67
vilest
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| adj.卑鄙的( vile的最高级 )；可耻的；极坏的；非常讨厌的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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72
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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superannuated
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| adj.老朽的，退休的；v.因落后于时代而废除，勒令退学 | |
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78
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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tranquilly
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| adv. 宁静地 | |
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80
sociable
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| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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81
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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82
incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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83
wrestled
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| v.（与某人）搏斗( wrestle的过去式和过去分词 )；扭成一团；扭打；（与…）摔跤 | |
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refractory
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| adj.倔强的，难驾驭的 | |
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85
tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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86
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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unpaid
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| adj.未付款的，无报酬的 | |
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humiliated
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| 感到羞愧的 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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imprison
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| vt.监禁，关押，限制，束缚 | |
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confiscated
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| 没收，充公( confiscate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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portrayed
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| v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画 | |
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plundered
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| 掠夺，抢劫( plunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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101
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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illustrating
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| 给…加插图( illustrate的现在分词 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
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103
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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104
curbed
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| v.限制，克制，抑制( curb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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105
anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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106
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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107
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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108
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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109
amends
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| n. 赔偿 | |
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110
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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111
brutes
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| 兽( brute的名词复数 )； 畜生； 残酷无情的人； 兽性 | |
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112
sophistry
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| n.诡辩 | |
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113
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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114
subterfuge
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| n.诡计；藉口 | |
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115
crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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116
paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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117
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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118
wittily
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| 机智地，机敏地 | |
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119
inaccurate
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| adj.错误的，不正确的，不准确的 | |
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120
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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121
caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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122
dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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123
anecdotes
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| n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 ) | |
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124
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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125
censor
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| n./vt.审查，审查员；删改 | |
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126
omission
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| n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长 | |
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127
complimentary
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| adj.赠送的，免费的，赞美的，恭维的 | |
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128
overthrow
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| v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆 | |
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129
permissible
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| adj.可允许的，许可的 | |
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130
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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aspiration
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| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
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132
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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133
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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134
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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135
loathe
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| v.厌恶，嫌恶 | |
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136
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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137
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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138
treatise
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| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
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139
luminaries
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| n.杰出人物，名人（luminary的复数形式） | |
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140
disapproved
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| v.不赞成( disapprove的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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disapprove
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| v.不赞成，不同意，不批准 | |
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142
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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144
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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145
revoked
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| adj.[法]取消的v.撤销，取消，废除( revoke的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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146
abridgment
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| n.删节，节本 | |
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147
censured
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| v.指责，非难，谴责( censure的过去式 ) | |
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benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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149
soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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besought
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| v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的过去式和过去分词 )；(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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151
entreaties
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| n.恳求，乞求( entreaty的名词复数 ) | |
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152
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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153
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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154
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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155
stewardship
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| n. n. 管理工作；管事人的职位及职责 | |
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156
persecution
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| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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157
intentional
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| adj.故意的，有意（识）的 | |
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158
abominably
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| adv. 可恶地，可恨地，恶劣地 | |
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159
persecute
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| vt.迫害，虐待；纠缠，骚扰 | |
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160
materialism
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| n.［哲］唯物主义，唯物论；物质至上 | |
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161
cardinals
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| 红衣主教( cardinal的名词复数 )； 红衣凤头鸟（见于北美，雄鸟为鲜红色）； 基数 | |
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162
condole
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| v.同情；慰问 | |
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163
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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164
coterie
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| n.(有共同兴趣的)小团体，小圈子 | |
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165
variance
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| n.矛盾，不同 | |
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166
accounting
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| n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表 | |
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167
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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169
rankled
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| v.（使）痛苦不已，（使）怨恨不已( rankle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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170
persecuted
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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171
worthiest
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| 应得某事物( worthy的最高级 )； 值得做某事； 可尊敬的； 有（某人或事物）的典型特征 | |
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172
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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173
monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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174
disinterested
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| adj.不关心的，不感兴趣的 | |
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175
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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176
foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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177
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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178
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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179
solace
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| n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和 | |
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180
chagrins
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| v.使懊恼，使懊丧，使悔恨( chagrin的第三人称单数 ) | |
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181
epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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182
prodigality
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| n.浪费，挥霍 | |
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183
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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184
serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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185
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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186
meted
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| v.（对某人）施以，给予（处罚等）( mete的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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187
botanists
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| n.植物学家，研究植物的人( botanist的名词复数 ) | |
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