REMARKS
ON
THE SYSTEMS
OF
HARTLEY AND HELVETIUS.
I find I owe the reader two explanations; one relating to the association of ideas, from which Hartley and other writers have deduced the origin of all our affections, even of self-love itself; the other relating to the mechanical principle of self-interest stated by Helvetius[1]. It was my first intention to have given at the end of the preceding essay, a general account of the nature of the will, and to have tried at least to dig down a little deeper into the foun-
- ↑ I do not mean that Helvetius was the first who conceived the hypothesis here spoken of, for I do not think he had wit enough to invent even an ingenious absurdity; but it was through him, I believe, that this notion has obtained its present popularity; and in France particularly it has had, I am certain, a very general influence on the national character. It was brought forward in the most forcible manner by the writers of the last century, and it is expressly stated, and clearly answered by Bishop Butler in the preface to his Sermons, at the Rolls Chapel. After Berkeley’s Essay on Vision, I do not know of any work better worth the attention of those who would learn to think than these same Metaphysical Discourses preached at the Rolls Chapel.
