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Claude Adrien Helvétius (;〔("Helvétius" ). ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.〕 ; 26 January or 26 February 1715 (sources differ) – 26 December 1771) was a French philosopher, freemason〔Ian Cumming, (''Helvetius: His Life and Place in the History of Educational Thought'' ), Routledge, 2013, pp. 115–132.〕 and ''littérateur''. ==Life== Claude Adrien Helvétius was born in Paris, France, and was descended from a family of physicians, originally surnamed ''Schweitzer'' (meaning "Swiss"; Latinized as ''Helvétius''). His grandfather Johann Friedrich Schweitzer introduced the use of ipecacuanha; his father Jean Claude Adrien Helvétius was first physician to Marie Leszczyńska, queen of France. Claude Adrien was trained for a financial career, apprenticed to his maternal uncle in Caen,〔''Helvetius: A Study in Persecution'' by David Warner Smith, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1965.〕 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 the Enlightenment for over five decades. In 1758, Helvétius published his philosophical ''magnum opus'', a work 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. Helvetius´ family lived alternately on ''Château de Voré'' (Collines des Perches, Loir-et-Cher) and their Parisian townhouse at the ''rue Sainte-Anne''. 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Claude Adrien Helvétius」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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