Grimm was certainly right in saying that a man must be without taste or sense to find either the morality or the colouring of Diderot in _L'Esprit_. It is tolerably clear that Helvetius had the example of Fontenelle before his eyes--Fontenelle, who had taught astronomical systems in the forms of elegant literature, and of whom it was said that _il nous enjole a la verite_, he coaxes us to the truth. _L'Esprit_ is perhaps the most readable book upon morals that ever was written, for persons who do not care that what they read shall be scientifically true. Hume, who, by the way, had been invited by Helvetius to translate the book into English, wrote to Adam Smith that it was worth reading, not for its philosophy, which he did not highly value, but for its agreeable composition.[113] Helvetius intended that it should be this, and accordingly he stuffed it with stories and anecdotes. Many of them are very poor, many are inapposite, some are not very decent, others are spoiled in telling, but still stories and anecdotes they remain, and they carry a light-minded reader more or less easily from page to page and chapter to chapter. But an ingenuous student of ethics who should take Helvetius seriously, could hardly be reconciled by lively anecdotes to what, in his particular formula, seems a most depressing doctrine. Madame Roland read the celebrated book in her romantic girlhood, and her impression may be taken for that of most generous natures. "Helvetius made me wretched: he annihilated the most ravishing illusions; he showed me everywhere repulsive self-interest. Yet what sagacity!" she continues. "I persuaded myself that Helvetius painted men such as they had become in the corruption of society: I judged that it was good to feed one's self on such an author, in order to be able to frequent what is called the world, without being its dupe. But I took good care not to adopt his principles, merely in order to know man properly so-called. I felt myself capable of a generosity which he never recognises. With what delight I confronted his theories with the great traits in history, and the virtues of the heroes that history has immortalised."[114] [113] Burton, ii. 57. [114] _Oeuv. de Mdme. Roland_, i. 108.