trouble at his country
seat of Vore by excessive game preserving. He married, in 1751, the
beautiful Mademoiselle de Ligneville, who was long afterwards one of the
chief centres of literary society in Paris. In 1758 his book _De
l'Esprit_ appeared, and made a great sensation, being condemned as
immoral, and burnt by the hangman. Helvetius subsequently travelled in
England and Germany, dying in 1771. A second treatise, _De l'Homme,_
which appeared posthumously, is much inferior to _De l'Esprit_ in
literary merit. It was even more fiercely assailed than its predecessor,
and Diderot himself, the leader of the more active section of the
_philosophe_ party, wrote an elaborate refutation of it, which, however,
has only recently been published. The book _De l'Esprit_ is wanting in
depth, and too anecdotic in style for a serious work of philosophy,
though this very characteristic makes it all the more amusing reading.
It endeavours to make out a theory of morals based on what is called the
selfish system; and it was the naked manner in which this selfish system
of ethics, and the materialist metaphysics which it implies, are
manifested in the book which gave occasion to its ill repute. As a mere
work of literature, however, it is well, and in parts even brilliantly
written, and amid much that is desultory, inconclusive, and even
demonstrably unsound, views of extreme shrewdness and originality on
social abuses and inconsistencies are to be found.

[Sidenote: Systeme de la Nature.]

None of the writers hitherto mentioned made open profession of atheism,
and it is doubtful whether even Diderot deserves the appellation of a
consistent atheist. There was, however, a large anti-theistic school
among the _philosophes_, which increased in numbers and strength towards
the outbreak of the Revolution. The most striking work by far of this
school (which included Damilaville, Naigeon, and a few other names of no
great distinction in literature) was the _Systeme de la Nature_, which
appeared in 1770. This remarkable book, which even Voltaire and
Frederick II. set themselves seriously to refute, contains a complete
materialist system in metaphysics and theology. It represents the
existence of God as a mere creation of the superstition of men, unable
to assign a cause for the evils under which they suffer, and inventing a
supernatural entity to satisfy themselves. The book (to consider its
literary style only) is extremely unequal, passages