Complete Works of Helvétius

LETTER IV.

TO HELVÉTIUS

Well! Since in other climates
You carry far from us your thoughts and your steps,
Everywhere, Helvétius, you will have seen men;
Those of antiquity, those of the century in which we live,
New Diogenes, you know them all.
He esteemed them little: what will you tell us of them?

Little sensitive to happiness, little touched by setbacks,
On everything that happens in the round machine A common Enlightenment metaphor for the Earth or the universe.,
Insensible, mute, not warming to anything,
Looks with the same eye at both evil and good;