A HIS INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES AND HIS EDUCATION. By M. HELVETIUS. Honteux de m'ignorer, Dans mon être, dans moi, je cherche à pénétrer. Voltaire, Dis. VI. de la Nat. de l'Homme. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES, By W. HOOPER, M. D. A NEW AND IMPROVED EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. ALBION PRESS: PRINTED FOR JAMES CUNDEE, IVY-LANE, AND VERNOR, HOOD AND SHARPE, 31, POULTRY. PREFACE. MY inducement to engage in the following work, was merely the love of mankind and of truth; from a persuasion, that to become virtuous and happy, we want only to know ourselves, and entertain just ideas of morals. My design can scarcely be mistaken. Had I published this book in my life-time, I should, in all probability, have exposed myself to persecu tion, without the prospect of any personal advantage. That I have continued to maintain the same sentiments which I advanced in my Treatise on the Understanding, is the consequence of their appearing to me the only rational principles on the subject, and of their being generally adopted, since that time, by men of the greatest learning and abilities. Those principles are farther extended, and more accurately examined, in the present work than in the former; my reflection having suggested a number of new ideas, while I was employed A 2 |