text:  Both concurred in thinking that the reputation of Montesquieu would be entirely ruined by the publication of the new manuscript; the brilliant author of the semi-voluptuous semi-infidel _Lettres Persanes_ would sink into a mere Legist a dull commentator on pandects and statutes if he published the _Esprit des Loix_ "That " said Helvetius "is what afflicts me for him and for humanity which he was so well qualified to have served