chua of gems p

35 36

until the hour of expiration comes; in which we are informed, by way of climax, or catastrophe,-and the learned can scarcely say which,-that "The supreme court of the territory of Michigan commences its annual session on the sixteenth day of September; and there remains barely time for the performance of the journey.-A. E. B. WOODWARD.-Philadelphia, August 31st, 1816.' When the magical arts shall be revived, we

The engraving of the VIEW OF BOSTON, promised for the present number, was not finished in time. It will be given in our next.

A biography of Chief Justice Marshall, whose portrait accompanies this number, will be given in the course of the present volume, and the portrait can be placed opposite to it when bound.

CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL

THE

ANALECTIC MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY, 1817.

ART. I.-A System of Universal Science.-Introduction: Considerations on the Divisions of Human Knowledge; and on the Classification and Nomenclature of the Sciences. Philadelphia, 1816. 4to. pp. 371.

THE

HE author of this work appears to be wholly adverse to system, and, at the same time, more enamoured of system than almost any other writer. In proof of the first part of this paradox, we advert to the fact, that the volume before us contains three hundred and seventy-one pages, which are divided neither into preliminary dissertations, nor essays, nor chapters; so that the reader is denied the privilege of all those resting places which, in large books, have hitherto been systematically afforded him. He gives us, indeed, preliminaries; but they are all mingled, here and there, with the alternations of the analytic and synthetic exhibition of his system. He records nine laws, by which we are to ascertain whether his system is a good one; divides all human knowledge into three provinces; gives us more preliminaries; proceeds to fix a specific termination for the names of his sciences; constructs his nomenclature for the subdivisions of the first province; and then, under the marginal notice of digression, introduces ten more preliminary pages, before he develops the remainder of his catholepistemia.' Besides, men not inimical to system let the public know, from the first page of a book, who its author is; but this child of genius permits us to guess the name of its father until the hour of expiration comes; in which we are informed, by way of climax, or catastrophe,-and the learned can scarcely say which,—that "The supreme court of the territory of Michigan commences its annual session on the sixteenth day of September; and there remains barely time for the performance of the journey.-A. E. B. WOODWARD.-Philadelphia, August 31st, 1816.' When the magical arts shall be revived, we

shall probably learn what connexion the session of the court of Michigan has with A System of Universal Science;' and shall then see, too, the reason of preferring this epistolary conclusion of a volume, to the ordinary mode of stating, in a title page, that this book is written By A. E. B. Woodward, judge of the supreme court of the territory of Michigan.'

·

In proof of the latter part of the introductory paradox, we cite every page of the book under review, as well as the testimony of judge Woodward himself, that he has devoted a great part of his life to the systematization of human knowledge.' It is strange, that the long and highly cultivated love of method, which the writer evinces, should not have induced. him to adhere to something like system in the arrangement and discussion of the important topics treated of in the production on our table.

It is another peculiarity of our author to decline the quotation of authorities, and the acknowledgment of the passages, or of the expressions borrowed, or imitated,'-from a fanciful regard to a beautiful page, or an unbroken text.' Hence every reader must depend either upon his previous knowledge of writers, alluded to in the historical part of the work, or rely implicitly upon judge Woodward's opinions of his concealed authorities. We are informed that the Chinese maintained some principles of moral philosophy, that lord Verulam taught certain things, and that Locke, and Reid, and Stewart do not differ about the mode of acquiring the idea of duration,which we with deference deny; but if we should desire to satisfy ourselves as to the accuracy of the author's representations, we must review all the works of the Chinese, of Bacon, and of the rest; unless, indeed, we are so fortunate as to conjecture accurately what are passages for which he is indebted to his predecessors.-An inferior defect we conceive to be the use of such words as are not contained in any dictionary of the English language. We do not object to the introduction of new words, in the formation of his systematic nomenclature,for they are necessary, and, when legally coined, should have currency; but to introduce terms which are not members of his new community, and which are not found in any classical writer, is always considered as censurable; and it is the more so, in the present case, because our author is by no means incapable of maintaining an uniform purity of style. The words 'dubiety, ecpyrosis, theophanies,' adyta,' andrapodistic,' luminosity, majuscular, embriotic, anthropic, dynamics,' quadragintarian,' dimensuration,' 'synonymic,' entomic,' and catachretic,' are not admitted by any English lexicographer, and should not have found a place in any scientific

treatise. In addition to these needless terms, the judge uniformly prefers an obsolete and hard verbiage. Instead of rash, naked, and embroidered, for example, he must say, 'temerarious,' nude,' and 'purfled;' instead of deluge, cataclysm;' and for general, transcendental.' He politely says of M.Wronski, that more investigation than can at present be spared, and more materials than are at present possessed, would be requisite, to explain the distinctions between didactic and characteristic anthropology, analytic and dialectic logic, esthetic and teleologic judgment, architectonic and canonic knowledge, algorithmy and geometry;' and 'the import of the terms; free causality, spontaneous causality, corporiety, negative criterion of knowledge, positive criterion of knowledge, hevristic, ideology, semiology, methodology, theorie functions, technic functions, pragmatic will, pedagogics, acroamatic philosophy. p. 203. Who can help saying, Physician, heal thyself?'

There is one thing in which judge Woodward is systematic:-he praises his patron, Mr. Jefferson, as often and as extravagantly as he can. The gratitude we feel towards those who have done us a great favour (and Mr. W. unquestionably considers it as a great favour to have been appointed a judge of Michigan territory), must occasionally break out into expression, we know; but surely no man of prudence would be perpetually dwelling upon the subject; and we wonder the author before us did not pour out his whole soul at once, in a good, long, old-fashioned Dedication. The reader would then have considered his eulogical extravagance in the proper light,-as the suspicious praise which an author is bound, by immemorial custom, to lavish on the character of his patron. It would then have done no harm to say of Mr. Jefferson-'that no individual character, in the annals of time, has effected so much for political freedom, and for the cause of republican government;' for, although we possess some old-fashioned, squaretoed predilection' for certain other characters in the annals of time,' we know it is to be expected that Mr. Jefferson's judges should eulogize Mr. Jefferson. Our author's delinquency consists in mingling such dedicatory stuff with his scientific disquisitions,-when it should have been located by itself, either at the beginning-or at the end-or on the outside or any where, in short, but in the middle of the volume.-Every body knows that Mr. Jefferson has sold his old library, and bought a new one. The books of his former library were placed in different boxes, and, we suppose, very ingeniously labelled:-wherefore Mr. Woodward tumbles upon