art could not possibly have any existence." Vide Forsyth's Principles of Moral Science, a book which contains many new and interesting views of man and society.

P. 345. "The mechanism." According to the system of Necessity, vice is no more in our own power than virtue: we act in both cases under the impressions which certain objects make upon our senses, and these senses move our dosires, desires operate on the will, and the will produces the action: the rectitude or depravity of any man's conduct, therefore, depends on the impressions which he receives in his youth; for these impressions, frequently repeated, become habits, and form the character of the man: hence will be seen the necessity of a virtuous education. Let no man be alarmed at the idea of his being a mere machine, for at any rate he is not of his own making, and therefore has no, more right to claim a liberty of action, than the right of making himself; he can do nothing which is not intended by a superior power, and therefore he need not fear being impelled to vice by an irresistible propensity; for if such is the will of Providence, it is not in his power to reaist, though he may suffer for his imprudence: I will not venture to maintain that whatever is, is right; but I will affirm that it cannot be otherwise than it is..

P. 350. "To interpret." Among many instances that might be produced of oracles and men pretending to know the will of God, the two which are now cited are, the one the most serious, and the other the mcst ridiculous:-The Carians, when attacked by Harpagus, one of Cyrus's generals, and threatened with the loss of their liberty, deter mined to defend themselves by cutting a canal across an isthmus, and make their country an island; but finding some difficulty in it from the rocky nature of the ground,

they consulted the oracle of Apollo at Delphos, who returned them for answer, "That they must desist, for Jupiter would have made their peninsula an island, if he had chosen it." Herod. lib. i. c. 174.—In the reign of Charles II. of Spain, it was proposed by some Dutchmen to render the Tagus navigable from Lisbon to Madrid. On the proposal being laid before the council of Castile, they returned for answer, after much deliberation, "That if God had chosen it to be so, he would have made it so; and therefore they begged leave to reject the proposal."-Rev. E. Clarke's Letters on the Spanish Nation, Letter 15.

P. 351. "Anima mundi." It is somewhat singular, that as the vital spirit of man has been personified under the name of the soul, so the vital principle of the universe has been personified under the name of God; and yet neither can be proved to have any separate existence distinct from

matter.

P. 351. "If by a God is meant." Virgil, who leaned considerably to the doctrines of Epicurus, has expressed this meaning fully in two lines:

Totamque infusa per artus.

Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.

En. vi. 727.

Vide also Georg. ii. ver. 327; with Heyne's Notes,