β
one by which he contributed to the elucidation of history: much of which, except so far as this explained it, must have been entirely inexplicable to him. The idea was given him by Helvetius, whose book, De lβEsprit,[*] is one continued and most acute commentary on it; and, together with the other great idea of Helvetius, the influence of circumstances on character, it will make his name live by the side of Rousseau, when omost ofo the other French pmetaphysiciansp of the eighteenth century qwillq be extant as such only in literary history.
β
β