His philosophy belongs to the utilitarian school. The four discussions of which his book consists have been thus summed up: (1) All man's faculties may be reduced to physical sensation, even memory, comparison, judgment; our only difference from the lower animals lies in our external organization. (2) Self-interest, founded on the love of pleasure and the fear of pain, is the sole spring of judgment, action, affection; self-sacrifice is prompted by the fact that the sensation of pleasure outweighs the accompanying pain; it is thus the result of deliberate calculation; we have no liberty of choice between good and evil; there is no such thing as absolute right--ideas of justice and injustice change according to customs. (3) All intellects are equal; their apparent inequalities do not depend on a more or less perfect organization, but have their cause in the unequal desire for instruction, and this desire springs from passions, of which all men commonly well organized are susceptible to the same degree; and we can, therefore, all love glory with the same enthusiasm and we owe all to education. (4) In this discourse the author treats of the ideas which are attached to such words as _genius_, _imagination_, _talent_, _taste_, _good sense_, &c. The only original ideas in his system are those of the natural equality of intelligences and the omnipotence of education, neither of which, however, is generally accepted, though both were prominent in the system of J. S. Mill. There is no doubt that his thinking was unsystematic; but many of his critics have entirely misrepresented him (e.g. Cairns in his _Unbelief in the Eighteenth Century_). As J. M. Robertson (_Short History of Free Thought_) points out, he had great influence upon Bentham, and C. Beccaria states that he himself was largely inspired by Helvétius in his attempt to modify penal laws. The keynote of his thought was that public ethics has a utilitarian basis, and he insisted strongly on the importance of culture in national development.
A sort of supplement to the _De l'esprit_, called _De l'homme, de ses facultés intellectuelles et de son éducation_ (Eng. trans. by W. Hooper, 1777), found among his manuscripts, was published after his death, but created little interest. There is a complete edition of the works of Helvétius, published at Paris, 1818. For an estimate of his work and his place among the philosophers of the 18th century see Victor Cousin's _Philosophie sensualiste_ (1863); P. L. Lezaud, _Résumés philosophiques_ (1853); F. D. Maurice, in his _Modern Philosophy_ (1862), pp. 537 seq.; J. Morley, _Diderot and the Encyclopaedists_ (London, 1878); D. G. Mostratos, _Die Pädagogik des Helvétius_ (Berlin, 1891); A. Guillois, _Le Salon de Madame Helvétius_ (1894); A. Piazzi, _Le Idee filosofiche specialmente pedagogiche de C. A. Helvétius_ (Milan, 1889); G. Plekhanov, _Beiträge zur Geschichte des Materialismus_ (Stuttgart, 1896); L. Limentani, _Le Teorie psicologiche di C. A. Helvétius_ (Verona, 1902); A. Keim, _Helvétius, sa vie et son oeuvre_ (1907).
