Helvétius, Claude Adrien (1715-1771), French philosopher, born in Paris. He was appointed (1738) farmer general, a post that involved the collection of the royal income, but subsequently resigned because of the corruption of his colleagues in office and purchased the office of maître d'hôtel, or steward, to his patron, Queen Marie Leszczynska, wife of Louis XV, king of France. He then devoted his time to literary efforts and his most famous work, De l'esprit, was published in 1758 (Essays on the Mind,1807). In this work Helvétius, whose personal life was a model of virtue, carried the theory of hedonism to an extreme of selfish sensuality. He asserted that all human faculties, including judgment, the power of comparison, and even memory, are mere attributes of physical sensation; that the only motive of human activity is self-interest; and that no choice exists between good and evil or right and wrong, because even self-sacrifice is a mere choice between competitive pleasures. Helvétius's work was condemned as an affront to public morals by the theological faculty of the Sorbonne, Paris, and was publicly burned in 1759. De l'homme, de ses facultés intellectuelles et de son education (A Treatise on Man: His Intellectual Faculties and His Education,1810) was published posthumously in 1772. In this work Helvétius made an attempt to refute the doctrines of the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau; it too was publicly burned.