I have been led to make these observations from reading Helvetius’s account of self-love, which is nothing but a series of misrepresentations and assumptions of the question, and which can only have imposed upon his readers from that tone of confidence and alertness which men always have in attacking a received and long-established principle, and a tacit and involuntary feeling that boldness of opinion implies strength and independence of mind. A few examples will show that this censure is well-founded. ‘What,’ says this author in the beginning of his view of the question,—‘what is the human understanding? It is the assemblage of his ideas. To what sort of understanding do we give the name of talent? To the understanding concentrated upon a single subject; that is to say to a large assemblage of ideas of the same kind. ‘Now if there are no innate ideas, human understanding and genius are only acquired; and both one and the other have the following faculties for their principles: ‘1. Physical sensibility; without which we could receive no sensations. ‘2. Memory, that is to say, the faculty of recalling the sensations received. ‘3. The interest which we have in comparing our sensations together, that is to say, in observing with attention the resemblances and differences, the agreements and disagreements of several objects amongst them. It is this interest which fixes the attention, and in minds commonly well-organised, is the efficient cause of understanding.’ It is added in a note, ‘To judge, according to M. Rousseau, is not to feel. The proof of his opinion is that we have a faculty or power which enables us to compare objects. Now this power according to him cannot be the effect of physical sensibility. But,’ continues Helvetius, ‘if Rousseau had more profoundly considered the question, he would have perceived that this power (or faculty of understanding) is no other than the interest itself which we have to compare these objects, and that this interest takes its rise in the feeling of self-love, which is the immediate effect of physical sensibility.’ This is the author’s account of the understanding. It is bold and decided, but it is not on that account either more or less true. It comes to this; that the faculty or power of understanding is owing to the use we have for such a faculty; or that we have a power of comparing our sensations, because we have an interest in comparing them, and that therefore this power is nothing but the effect of physical sensibility. So that a man before he has any understanding, feeling the want of it, supplies himself with this very necessary faculty by an act of the will, and out of pure friendly regard to himself. The interest or desire to fly might at this rate supply us with a pair of wings, or an effort of curiosity might furnish us with a new sense, or an effort of self-interest might enable a man to be in two places at once. All these consequences might very easily follow, if we