HELVETIUS.
_Helvetius_ has exhibited the moral consequences of the sensualistic
standpoint. While theoretical sensualism affirms that all our knowledge
is determined by sensation, practical sensualism adds to this the
analogous proposition that all our volition springs from the same
source, and is regulated by the sensuous desire. Helvetius adopted it as
the principle of morals to satisfy this sensuous desire.
Helvetius was born at Paris in 1715. Gaining a position in his
twenty-third year as farmer-general, he found himself early in the
possession of a rich income, but after a few years he found this office
so vexatious that he abandoned it. The study of Locke decided his
philosophic direction. Helvetius wrote his famed work, _de l’Esprit_,
after he had given up his office and withdrawn himself in seclusion. It
appeared in 1758, and attracted a great attention at home and abroad,
though it drew upon him a violent persecution, especially from the
clergy. It was fortunate for him that the persecution satisfied itself
with suppressing his book. The repose in which he spent his later years
was interrupted only by two journeys which he made to Germany and
England. He died in 1771. His personal character was wholly estimable,
full of kindness and generosity. Especially in his place as
farmer-general he showed himself benevolent towards the poor, and
resolute against the encroachments of his subalterns. The style of his
writings is easy and elegant.
Self-love or interest, says Helvetius, is the lever of all our mental
activities. Even that activity which is purely intellectual, our
instinct towards knowledge, our forming of ideas, rests upon this. Since
now all self-love refers essentially only to bodily pleasure, it follows
that every mental occurrence within us has its peculiar source only in
the striving after this pleasure; but in saying this, we have only
affirmed where the principle of all morality is to be sought. It is an
absurdity to require a man to do the good simply for its own sake. This
is just as impracticable as that he should do the evil simply for the
sake of the evil. Hence if morality would not be wholly fruitless, it
must return to its empirical basis, and venture to adopt the true
principle of all acting, viz., sensuous pleasure and pain, or, in other
words, selfishness as an actual moral principle. Hence, as a correct
legislation is that which secures obedience to its laws through reward
and punishment, _i. e._ through selfishness, so will a correct system of
morals be that which derives the duties of men from self-love, which
shows that that which is forbidden is something which is followed by
disagreeable consequences. A system of ethics which does not involve the
self-interest of men, or which wars against this, necessarily remains
fruitless.