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evidently confirms, that it may fafely be confidered as a principle of legislation, provided it be attended to with care, and applied with caution.

We hinted, above, our objections to the Abbé's notion, that Nature has established, by a primitive law, an equality of for tune and property among men, and we fee evidently a principle of inequality originally formed by the different degrees of genius, induftry, and activity, that Nature herfelf has imparted to individuals. Nevertheless, the defcription that our Author gives of the calamities and evils which arife in fociety from this inequality, rendered exceffive by avarice and ambition, and employed by these paffions to the most corrupt purposes, is admirable in every point of view. It is alfo highly instructive, and might be of great importance, if the evils it is defigned to expofe and remedy were not become incurable in almost all governments. The first link (fays our Author) in the series of our vices and miferies, is inequality of fortune. As riches give naturally a certain degree of confideration and influence, they tempt their poffeffors to the ufurpation of public authority: humble and impotent poverty cannot ftop their courfe, and if ambition is prudent enough to purfue its ends with a mild and decent afpect, the community flides almoft imperceptibly into defpotifm, and the weakness of the people will render it perpetual. The Abbé fhews the steps of this progrefs in natural fociety through ariftocracy, and oligarchy to tyranny, and paints the diffenfions, civil wars and revolutions that arife from inequality of riches, when ambition is infolent and cruel, and excites the poor and oppreffed to the refiftance of defpair. He fhews its effects in the conduct of nations, one towards another, in which the opulent, after having enacted at home penal laws against theft, because they may be robbed, approve of extending their conquefts abroad because they themselves are robbers of nations. His ideas concerning commerce and the British conftitution are exceptionable and erroneous in feveral refpects, though in what he fays on the former of these two articles we find fome fenfible refexions, and in his obfervations on the latter there are feveral things worthy of attention.

ART. IX.

Nuove Offervazione Microfcopiche, &c.-New Microscopical Obfervations, by F. D. J. M. DELLA TORKE. 4to. Naples. 1776.

FATHER DELLA TORRE propofes to carry on his Obferva

tions on the Microscope, and to communicate them to the Public in feveral fucceeding volumes, one at a time, and in fomething like a periodical order. The fame method that is

followed

&

followed in this, will be obferved in every other volume. Each will be divided into five parts: the firft relating to the inftruments employed in thefe obfervations; the three following, comprehending the obfervations made on minerals, vegetables, and animals; and the fifth, containing the refults of thefe obfervations, the hypothefes, and conjectures, to which they may give occafion, and answers to the objections which may be made to them.

In pursuance of this method, our Author begins in this firft volume, by giving his idea of the qualities of a perfect microscope. These qualities, according to him, confift in reprefenting objects clearly, diftinctly, and as they are in nature; and he thinks the fimple microscopes preferable for the attainment of all these purposes. The third and fourth parts of this volume contain feveral curious obfervations, fome of which we fhall lay before our Readers.

Father TORRE obferved, among the fibres of vegetables, an infinite number of congealed and tranfparent globules, and the fame thing ftruck him in his obfervation of animals. He examined, with the utmost attention, the cortical fubftance of the brain, and the fubftance of the medulla oblongata and fpinalis; he found, that, in these fubftances, there were no fibres, no lymphatic or blood-veffels, but that they were compofed of an infinite number of globules of different fizes, folid, transparent, floating in a cryftalline fluid. Thefe globules, placed lengthwife, conftitute, according to our Author, the internal fubftance of the nerves, and become more and more fubtile, and refined, in proportion to their diftance from the origin of the brain the membranes alfo are compofed of fimilar globules, which are found in almoft all the parts of the body. They fuffer continually a confiderable lofs or wafte, which is repaired by the lymphatic and blood-veffels, and thus the circulation of the fluids is performed and maintained. In the fourth part of this volume, are feveral curious obfervations on the blood, confidered with respect to its annuli, or rings, for which we must refer the Reader to the work itself.

It was but natural, that the obfervation of the globules abovementioned, fhould animate our ingenious Author, to bring forth an hypothefis; and fo it has. This hypothefis we find unfolded, in a very acute and plaufible manner, in the fifth part of this volume.-Father Torre, there confiders the giobules as the true principle of animal motions; he attributes to them fenfations; he supposes that they conftitute the mechanifm of memory. He not only maintains that they produce vitality, but also that they conftitute the proper and eflential substance of bodies; and that they, alone, enable us to account for the pro

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duction, growth, and prefervation, of plants and animals. In confequence of this hypothefis, he adopts the fyftem of the epigenefis, and approaches to that of Mr. NEEDHAM.

In the last article of the fifth part, our Author answers feveral objections, that may be raised against his notions of the animal economy, and particularly against thofe relating to his doctrine with respect to the annuli of the blood. He proves, that among the heterogeneous parts of the chyme and the chyle, there are fmall membranes, which, infinuating themfelves with the chyle, into the lymph, are filled with this fluid, and thus produce, when they coalefce to the number of five or fix, thofe little bags, which form the annuli in question, and the red parts of the blood.

ART. X.

Hiftoire de la derniere Guerre entre les Ruffes & les Turcs, &c.—An Hif tory of the late War between the Ruffians and Turks, by Mr. KERALIO, Knight of the Order of St. Lewis, and Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm. 12mo. 2 Vols. Paris. 1777.

THIS Hiftory has been compofed from memoirs furnished

by Prince Gallitzin; and the Author has followed the Journal of the Ruffian Commander, in his account of the operations of the Ruffian army. If this expofes him to the fufpicion of partiality, his anfwer is, that he is open to conviction, and defirous of better information, and that he is willing to make use of any authentic memoirs furnished from the other fide, even though they fhould invalidate the relations he has given. After all, the mistakes fufpected can only relate to minute details; -the main operations, and the iffue and fuccefs of the war, are well known. It must be confeffed, that Mr. KERALIO has employed his materials with judgment and tafte, and has drawn from them an elegant and interefting hiftory, in which we fee the military man, and the man of letters, agreeably blended together. He is furnished, as he informs us, with materials for the continuation of this hiftory, the volumes of which, now before us, only contain the campaign of 1769; and an historical description of the feat of the war; which is an excellent piece in every point of view.

APP. Rev. Vol. lvi.

M m

ART.

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LA SAINTE BIBLE, ou le Vieux le Nouveau Teftament, aver un Commentaire; compofe de Notes choifies & tireés de divers Auteurs Anglois, &c-THE HOLY BIBLE; or the Old and New Teftament, with a Commentary: Confifling of felect Notes, taken from feveral English Authors. Vol. VI. Part 1. Containing the First Book of Kings. 4to. Amfterdam. 1777.

THIS is the fixth volume of one of the best compilations we

have met with, both for the erudition and industry which it difcovers, and the judgment, method, and taste, with which it is executed; and it furnishes us with an opportunity of making the whole work more generally known in these ifles, where, we believe, that the learned, alone, are acquainted with its merit. The principal materials, of which it has been composed, have been borrowed from the labours of English divines, and the form and arrangement that have been given to thefe materials, have confiderably increased their value. The Author of this Work is the Rev. Mr. CHAIS, Paftor of the French Church in the Hague; whofe name has been long known, with diftinction, in the Republic of Letters.

The notes, which are judiciously proportioned in their length, to the importance of the objects they are defigned to illuftrate, are taken from Pool, Patrick, Willet, Ainfworth, Wells, Wall, Kidder, Henry, Parker, Pocock, Hammond, Lowth, Stackhoufe, &c. but it is not these learned commentators, alone, that have opened fources of information to Mr. CHAIS. The critical obfervations of other learned writers, whether of ancient or modern date, which have cleared up any difficult or dubious points, relative to the chronology, history, geography, or philofophy, of the facred fcriptures, to the cuftoms there mentioned, or to the literal fenfe of the difficult paffages, which are there contained; all these have been carefully attended to, and employed in the commentary before us. Thus we find frequently quoted the fentiments and obfervations of Uber, Prideaux, Newton, Clarke, Spencer, Mede, Shuckford, Selden, Bedford, Whitby, Waterland, Lewis, Delany, Chandler, Sherlock, Lowth, Kennicott, Bryant, as alfo the authors of the Boyle's Lectures, and the learned compilers of the Univerfal Hiftory; not to mention a multitude of pamphlets on fubjects of facred philology, which have furnished contributions to this important work.

It is alfo to be obferved, that though Mr. CHAIS has derived his principal materials from British commentators and philologifts, yet he has by no means overlooked the valuable labours of other eminent men, in this extenfive field of literature. Accordingly we find the refpectable names of Bochart, Capelle, Don Calmet, Martin, Houbigant, &c. among the French; Le

Clerc,

Clerc, Reland, Schultens, Vitringa, Venema, among the Dutch; and Scheutzer, Carpzovius, Baumgarten, Michaelis, Dietelmair, &c. among the Germans; together with a multitude of authors of academical differtations, furnishing learned remarks, and interefting difcoveries, to our indefatigable Author.

But if it is meritorious, in a compilation of this kind, to have drawn information from the best and most unexceptionable fources; yet there is fill an higher kind of merit in avoiding thofe repetitions, that confufion, that rudis indigeftaque moles, which form foo frequently the character of fuch compilations, and againft which, mere erudition, without judgment and tafte, is no prefervative. Now the Commentary of Mr. CHAIS is poffeffed of this fpecies of merit, in an eminent degree. He has arranged the various fentiments and explications of his authors, in fuch a manner, that the attentive Reader may, eafily, perceive that which he would prefer on each fubject, were he called to declare exprefly his opinion. When any point of more than ordinary confequence is prefented, that requires a particular difcuffion, he arranges, under general and diftinct heads, the principal parts of the fubject; and confiders them in that order and method which are the moft adapted to give a diftinct idea of it, and facilitate the conclufion; and though he has ftudied brevity, as far as he could confiftently with a regard to perfpicuity, yet where the fubject is curious and important, we find a note fometimes fwelling to a fize that gives it the form, and indeed the merit, of a differtation. There is another circumftance, that we have obferved with particular pleasure, in the general tenor of this Commentary, and that is, the care that has been taken to avoid entering upon the common topics of fyftematic theology, and the points of controverfy that have divided the doctors of the christian church-The literal fenfe of the facred writers, and the moral reflections they naturally fuggeft, are the main objects our Author has had in view: he has fteered, happily, the middle way between the prefumptuous tone of the dogmatift, and the unpleafing indecifion of the fceptic, and appears to us to have adopted what he fincerely believed to be the truth, from whatever fect or party it was prefented to his candid researches.

Thus, in the effential part of this work, there is ample provifion made for inftruction; and this inftruction is not only accompanied with the graces of ftyle, and with felicity of expreffion, but is alfo conveyed in fuch a meafure and manner, as will render it clear and useful to families, ftudents, and young ecclefiafticks, for whom it is principally defigned, and highly interesting to the most confiderable and eminent adepts in facred Literature.

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