Additional Notes. 458 



Helvetius. p. 28. 



Claude Adrian Helvetius was hern In Paris, in the 

 year 1715. In the year 1/758 he produced his first work, 

 entitled, V Esprit, which, on account of its atheistical prin- 

 ciples, was condemned by the Parliament of Paris. The 

 odium which he incurred hereby induced him to visit Eng- 

 land in 17G4, and from thence he went to Prussia, where he 

 was very favourably received by the king. On his return to 

 France he led a retired life in the country, and died in 1771. 

 His treatise on Man, formed on the same principles with his 

 first work, was published a short time before his death. He 

 wrote a poem, in six cantos, entitled, Le Bonheur, which 

 was published in 1772. Helvetius may be regarded as one 

 of the earliest and mat conspicuous of the advocates for that 

 system of materialism, and of atheistical reveries, usually 

 called the new philosophy. 



Edwards, p. 30. 



An ingenious and learned friend, on reading the assertion, 

 in the above-mentioned page, that " President Edwards ap- 

 pears to have been the first Cahinist who avowed his belief 

 so fully and thoroughly in the doctrine of moral necessity as 

 his book indicates," made the following remarks: 



" You have mistaken the fact with reference to President 

 Edwards. His .great mind was, indeed, nobly exercised in 

 the defence of truth. He -appears an original in the inven- 

 tion of arguments against his adversaries, but not in discover- 

 ing the truths which he states respecting the liberty of the 

 Will. The connection between motives and volitions, the 

 liberty of choice in man, and the necessity of the futurition 

 of human voluntary actions ; in short, every part of moral 

 necessity consistent with free agency, was embraced and un- 

 derstood before his dav, although not so successfully demon- 

 strated as by him. You should have taken notice of his 

 son, Jonathan Edwards,. D. D. late President of Union 

 College, in Schenectady. He was an able metaphysician. 

 Few works in the English language discover more penetration 

 than his book on the Liberty of the Witt" 



On the reputation of these two American divines, the cha- 

 . racier of our country, with respect to ntecaph ysical science, 



