In 18th century France, during the Enlightenment, La Mettrie, Helvetius, and the Baron d’Holbach created a new philosophy called materialism. To them, matter was all important. La Mettrie reasoned that to be scientific, one must focus on matter and ignore everything else. Ludicrously, he believed that pleasure and egocentrism were the only goals of any worth or purpose and that man should not be ashamed for following them. Helvetius decided that humans are neither naturally noble nor naughty and are focused on surviving and self benefit. Meanwhile, the Baron d’Holbach stated that every human action is predetermined due to his or her genes, upbringing, and chemical signals. Believing that consciousness was a phenomenon due to matter, these materialists thought that everything was a machine, including living creatures. Therefore, people are unaccountable for what they do. After all, they only act upon chemical signals inside their brains. Because the materialists genuinely held that man is nothing more than a machine, these Enlightenment thinkers from the 1700s were crazy.