that not very long since, little more than a mechanical art. But such men as a Hunter and an Abernethy have progressively raised it to the character and dignity of a science. By the latter, it has been more distinctly shown than by any preceding writer, that diseases which have been considered as merely local, are, in a great variety of instances, to be regarded as affections of the general system, and are therefore to be eradicated only by those remedies which act through the medium

of the constitution.

Mr. A. has no passion for the employment of the knife. It is to be feared, that many a limb has been sacrificed to the display of manual adroitness, which might have been spared by the exercise of intellectual skill. What a poor consolation is it to the wretch who has unnecessarily lost a leg that it was taken off with admirable dexterity; or to another, that he has been deformed for life, by an elegant operation!

We have thought it right to give our readers some preliminary knowledge of the character of the author, that they may feel the same desire that we did, to become acquainted with a work, the perusal of which has by no means disappointed our expectations.

Some of Mr. Abernethy's introductory observations are particularly worthy of notice, and may be quoted as specimens of his style of thinking as well as writing.

By exercising the powers of our minds in the attainment of me. dical knowledge, we learn and improve a science of the greatest public utility. We have need of enthusiasm, or of some strong incen tive, to induce us to spend our nights in study, and our days in the disgusting and health-destroying avocations of the dissecting room; or in that careful and distressing observation of human diseases and infirmities, which alone can enable us to understand, alleviate, or remove them for upon no other terms can we be considered as real students of our profession. We have need of some powerful inducement, exclusively of the expectation of fame or emolument: for un fortunately a man may attain a considerable share of public reputation and practice, without undertaking the labours I have men. tioned, without being a real student of his profession.' pp. 4, 5.

The remark with which the above extract concludes, is sufficiently founded on experience. To something extraneous to merit, is medical prosperity too frequently to be ascribed. The most lucrative part, perhaps, of professional skill consists not in the knowledge either of diseases or of remedies. It is not the student, but the man of the world that is best fitted for climbing the ladder of ambition. It is the cultivation of the exterior, rather than of the understanding,-of what is polished, rather

than of what is profound, that is most likely to gain the confidence of the greater part of mankind.

Mr. Hunter's Theory of Life is placed in a clearer light by Mr. A. than by its author. Mr. H. was a remarkable instance of the different degrees, in which the same man may possess the faculty of thinking, and that of expressing thought. He could see, but he could not show, things distinctly. His language was not a sufficiently transparent medium to the images of his mind.

We shall refer our readers to the work before us for a statement of Mr. Hunter's Theory, as well as for the arguments which are adduced in its favour. Mr. A. has succeeded so far at least, as to make it appear the most plausible conjecture, that can be formed upon a subject, which, after all, is perhaps equally out of the reach of our senses and our understanding. The whole of life might be fruitlessly spent, in a search after its mysterious essence. We know that we exist, but we do not know, nor is it likely that, with our terrestrial faculties, we ever shall, in what our existence consists, or on what it may depend. But the agitation of a question, which must probably terminate in doubt, may yet be attended with a certain degree of rational entertainment; and a writer may gratify us by the display of talent or ingenuity, although he fail to produce that kind of conviction, which can arise only from demonstrative

evidence.

Mr. A. judiciously observes, p. 92.

If errors of thought terminated in opinions, they would be of less consequence; but a slight deviation from the line of rectitude in thought, may lead to a most distant and disastrous aberration from that line in action.'

This remark is not exclusively applicable to medicine: it is a maxim of moral wisdom. Conduct has its root in opinion. Practical transgression may, in general, be traced up to speculative error to think correctly, is the only security for acting correctly. Let the understanding, in early life, be enriched with sound principles, and weeded as much as possible from every species of error and prejudice, and it will form a soil out of which will naturally grow an upright and exalted character. Between absurdity and vice there is an inseparable, although not always a visible connexion. The importance of theoretical rectitude will be generally conceded upon grand and cardinal points, and yet it may not be equally acknowledged upon others that seem trifling and irrelevant to the purposes of life. But no false opinion is frivolous in its possible result. A speck on the mental eye, which is too small almost to be discerned, may, if not dispersed in time, gradually overspread the organ, and intercept altogether

the faculty of vision. In the acorn, we do not see the oak; but we are not the less certain, that from this pigmy embryo will arise the future giant of the forest.

We shall transcribe the concluding paragraph of Mr. A.'s second lecture, on account of the beneficial effect which it seems calculated to produce.

My mind rests at peace in thinking upon the subject of life, as it has been taught by Mr. Hunter; and I am visionary enough to imagine, that if these opinions should become so established as to be generally admitted by philosophers, that if they once saw reason to believe that life was something of an invisible and active nature, superadded to organization, they would then see equal reason to believe that mind might be superadded to life, as life is to structure. They would then, indeed, still farther perceive how mind and matter might reciprocally act upon each other, by means of an intervening substance. Thus even would physiological researches enforce the belief, which I may say is natural to man, that in addition to his bodily frame, he possesses a sensitive, intelligent, and independent mind: an opinion which tends in an eminent degree to produce virtuous, honourable, and useful actions.'

It is with a cordial welcome, that we receive such sentiments as these from a professor of anatomy. It is said of an ancient philosopher, that he was first impressed with the idea of a Divine Being, from contemplating the relicts of the human form. But later investigators of the corporeal fabric have not always been led to the same desirable conclusion. The atmosphere of a dissecting room has been found unfavourable to the faith, as well as to the health of those who have been much exposed to its influence. Free-thinking, or rather superficial thinking upon the subject of religion, has prevailed to a very disastrous extent, amongst the pupils of hospitals. Young apprentices, whose previous education has consisted principally in the mechanical drudgery of a shop, and whose learning has extended little farther than a practical knowledge of the elements of pharmacy, as soon as they commence an attendance upon the medical schools of our metropolis, fancy themselves converted, at once, into students of a liberal profession. Such noviciates in philosophy become inflated by their newly acquired importance, and, as the first fruits of an elevated rank, and an enlightened understanding, are apt to renounce, as narrow and illiterate prejudices, the wholesome impressions of their earlier life.

In none, however, of the preceding remarks would we be understood to insinuate, that the denial of an independent, spiritual principle in man, involves, of necessity, the disavowal of any such principle in nature: or, that he who regards the human soul, as the result of anatomical structure, must, therefore, refuse a belief in the existence of at least one mind, which not

preceded only, but produced the organization of the material universe.

The authority of so respectable a teacher as Mr. Abernethy, can scarcely fail to have a salutary influence upon the creed of his disciples and the example of so enlightened a lover of science, will serve to show, that the spirit of philosophical research has no necessary alliance with the demon of impiety.

In the degree in which we extend our knowledge, we grow more intimately acquainted with our ignorance. In proportion as we invigorate our intellectual powers, by the exercise of them, we become more humbly sensible of their present immaturity and weakness. It is happy, if we are thus led to regard this world, as merely the vestibule of a much more extended and magnificent theatre of action and enjoyment, where man will be ripened unto his perfect stature, and all the faculties and affections of his frame, which are here so miserably cramped and confined, will have space for their free exercise and their fullest expansion.

Art. VII.-Phaedo; a Dialogue on the Immortality of the Soul. Translated from the Greek of Plato. 8vo. pp. xviii. 184. Price 10s. 6d. James Black. 1813.

THERE have been discovered nations involved in a night of

intellectual darkness so great, as to have no knowledge of the existence of a God,-even no name in their language expressive of any order of existences higher than their own: there has not, however, been discovered one, so far as we know, that has not had some belief in a future state,-some dim suspicion that death is not the consummation of all things. Whence the philosopher may choose to derive this belief,whether from some floating tradition, to be traced ultimately to revelation; or from some internal feeling, a certain restlessness of soul that finds nothing beneath the moon in which to repose and acquiesce, nothing commensurate with his faculties, or large enough for his desires,--a proud consciousness of superiority over the forms of matter perpetually rising and decaying around,-a strong and ardent principle which, in the midst of the sad emblems of mortality, still hopes against hope, and, in spite of conviction, will not be convinced,-we shall not now stay to inquire. At present, we wish rather to consider the arguments with which the philosopher, unenlightened by revelation, would be able to confirm this inward persuasion, the proofs with which he might furnish his disciples of the reality of a future existence. With this view, it is natural to turn to Socrates, the great philosopher of antiquity, and whose

study was exclusively devoted to the practice and sanctions of morals. A conversation of his on this very subject,—the Immortality of the Soul,-held upon the day of his death, has been preserved by Plato; the arguments that convinced him are formally stated in the Socratic method, and the objections with which his friends impugned them are answered. The arguments are of this kind:

I. Every thing is generated from its contrary: a person to increase must have been smaller; to decrease, must first have been large; to fall asleep, must first have been awake; to awake, must first have been asleep. In the same manner, a person lives to die, and therefore, from analogy, dies to live again.

II. There are self-evident propositions, questions to which, as soon as understood, the mind sees the answer, without any previous information. But all knowledge must be acquired, and this, therefore, must have been acquired in a state of preexistence. But if the soul exists before the body, there is surely no argument against its existing after it.

III. Decay arises from decomposition. But the soul, we have reason to believe, is uncompounded, and, therefore, cannot be decomposed; cannot, then, decay.

IV. Nothing will receive a quality which is directly opposite to the property it universally conveys. The soul universally conveys life to body, and therefore cannot receive death, nor associate with it.

To arguments such as these, a person surely should not hastily be condemned as unduly sceptical, who should refuse his assent. At the same time, it is to be observed that the objections, urged against the immortality of the soul by the disciples of Socrates, are, at least, equally frivolous. We fear, therefore, that an Athenian of common-sense would, after the perusal of the Phaedo, remain in much the same state of uncertainty as when he took it up. Inimitable grace of style, and great dexterity of argument he would indeed find in it; (as in which of the dialogues of Plato would he not?) but for a resolution of his doubts on the most important of all subjects, we are fearful that he would still be obliged to seek.

There are, however, arguments that have higher claims to consideration. That which Wollaston and others more particularly insist upon, is drawn from the nature of the Deity, That there is a God, we suppose proved, even demonstratively, from the world of contrivances around us: we suppose it sufficiently proved too, from the evident tendency of these contrivances, that this God is good, that he wishes well to the creatures that he has made. Now,' says Wollaston, among all those millions that have suffered eminently, can it be imagined, that