HELVETIUS, el"v6"si"tis', CLAUDE ADRIEN: French philosopher; b. in Paris Jan., 1715; d. there Dec. 26, 1771. He studied at the ColliAge Louis-leGrand, and in 1738 received the lucrative post of farmer-general, which, however, he soon exchanged for the position of chamberlain to the queen. Tiring of the idle and dissipated life of the court, he married in 1751, and retired to a small estate at Vor6, in Perche, where he devoted himself chiefly to philosophical studies. He visited England in 1764, and the following year he went to Germany, where he was received with distinction by Frederick II. He was one of the Encyclopedists (q.v.), and held the skeptical and materialistic views common to that school of philosophy. His principal works are: De l'esprit (Paris, 1758; Eng. transl., De l'Esprit: or, Essays on the Mind, London, 1759), which, condemned by the Sorbonne and publicly burned at Paris, was translated into most European languages, and read more than any other book of the time; and the posthumous De l'homme, de ses facukks intellectuellm et de son Education (2 vols., London, 1772; Eng. transl., A Treatise on Man; his lnteuectual Faculties and his Education, 2 vols., 1777).

Bibliography: (F. J. de Chastellux), 2lope de M. Hdvnius, Paris, 1774; Saint-Lambert, Essai ear is vie et les ouvrapes de Helvdtius, ib. 1792; J. P. Damiron, in vol. ix. of Comyterendu de L'acad6mie des sciences moral" st potifquea; A. Keim, Helv6liue, so vie et son auvre, Paris, 1907.

HELVICUS, hel'vf-cus (HELWICH), CHRISTOPHORUS: German theologian and educator; b. at Spreudlingen (23 m. s.w. of Mainz), Hesse, Dec. 26, 1581; d. at Giessen Sept. 10,1617. He was educated at the University of Marburg (M.A.,1599), and was called to teach in the academic gymnasium at Giessen in 1605. In 1610, three years after the school had been reorganised as a university, he

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was appointed professor of theology and Hebrew there. He composed grammars of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, wrote on poetics and history, and took part in the dogmatic controversies of his time. He won renown chiefly by his knowledge of Hebrew. On account of his efforts for educa tional reform, particularly in connection with Wolf gang Rattich (Ratke), he occupies also a worthy position in the history of pedagogy in the seven teenth century.

Carl Mirbt.

Bibliography: The early source is J. Winkelmann, Oratio /unebria in obitum C. Heivici. Consult: F. W. Strieder, Grundlapen au nner heaaischen Gekhrten- and Schriftatellergeschichte, v. 520630, Cassel, 1785; ADB, xi. 718-718.