Talk:Claude Adrien Helvétius

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the article does little service to Helvétius, either his philosophy / saying or his influence.

To be virtuous it is necessary to unite nobleness of soul with an enlightened understanding. Whoever combines these gifts conducts himself by the compass of public utility. The utility is the principle of all human virtures, and teh foundation of all legislation . . . All laws should follow a single principle, the utility of the public - i.e., of the greatest number of the persons under the same government . . . This principle contains all morality and legislation.

most nations morality is now nothing more than a collection of the ... precepts dictated by the powerful to secure their authority and to be unjust with impunity.

An honest man will always obey his reason in preference to revelation; for it is, he will say, more certain that God is the author of human reason ... than that he is the author of a particular book.

[Religious] Toleration subjects the priests to the princes; intolerance subjects the prince to the priests.

In every religion the first objective of the priests is to stifle the curiosity of men, to prevent the examination of every dogma whose absurdity is to palpable to the concealed. ... Man is born ignorant, but he is not born a fool; and it is not without labor that he is made one. That he should be made such, and be able to extiguish in himself his natural light, much art and method must be employed; instruction must heap upon him error upon error.... There is nothing which the sacerdotal power cannot execute by the aid of superstition. For by that it robs the magistrates of their authority and kings of their legitimate power; thereby it subdues the people, and acquires a power over them which is frequently superior to the laws; and thereby if finally corrupts the very principles of morality.

-- all of these quotes are from Will and Ariel Durant's The Story of Civilization (vol 9 ch 21). he gives a much better feel for his weight and influence.