that they were particularly fond of Mufic; and, if we may believe Quintilian and Boethius, they never fuffered a day to pass without devoting part of it to that delightful art. In the fragments that remain of the ancient Pythagoricians, fuch as thofe of Hippodamus and Euryphamus, nothing is more common than comparisons taken from Mufic. And, in fine, we learn from Porphyrius, that there was a fect of Muficians, that bore the name of Pythagoreans. As to Arithmetic, Mo deratus affures us, that they ftudied it with uncommon attention. And how, indeed, could they poffibly do otherwife? they, who, according to Theodoret, were taught by their mafter to believe, that in the perfect knowledge of numbers confifted the chief happiness of man. What an abfurdity, then, for the author of the Table, to reprefent Cebes, a profeffed Pythagorician, as condemning Mufic and Arithmetic; the two fciences, which, by the principles of his fect, he must have been naturally inclined to prefer to all others! Add to this, as a fourth argument against the authenticity of the Table, that it is wrote in the common dialect, whereas it is well known that all the Pythagoricians wrote in the Doric dialect. M. Sevin concludes with obferving, it is extremely improbable, that a work, poffeffed of greater merit than most ancient pieces, fhould have been neglected and overlooked for the fpace of five hundred years. Lucian, he fays, is the firft writer that quotes it; and, upon the whole, he gives it as his opinion, that it cannot lay claim to a much earlier date than the time of that Author. (To be continued.) A Treatise on Man, his Intellectual Faculties and his Education. 2 vol. 8vo. 12s. Law. The celebrated author of the Effay, de L'Esprit, hath, in this work, bequeathed to the world a performance; in which the whole Man is inveftigated more at large. The principles laid down in that Effay are here profeffedly repeated and placed in a new point of view. *We cannot help thinking Helvetius extremely unfortunate in respect to English tranflators. His Ellay de l'Esprit was very haftily and bunglingly tranflated: the prefent is still more execrable. The tranflator's notes, also, are very fuperficial and paltry. My D "My inducement, fays he, to engage in the following work, was merely the love of mankind and of truth; from a perfuafion, that to become virtuous and happy, we wanted only to know ourselves, and entertain juft ideas of morals. "My defign can hardly be mistaken. Had I published this book in my life-time, I fhould in all probability have expofed myself to perse cution, without the profpect of any perfonal advantage. "That I have continued to maintain the fame fentiments which I advanced in my Treatife on the Understanding, is the confequence of their appearing to me the only rational principles on the fubject, and of their being generally adopted, fince that time, by men of the greatest learning and abilities. "Thofe principles are farther extended, and more accurately examined, in the prefent work than in the former; my reflection having fuggefted a number of new ideas, while I was employed in the com polition." "A writer, continues he, who is defirous of the favour of the great, and the tranfitory applaufe of the prefent hour, muft adopt implicitly the current principles of the time, without ever attempting to examine or question their authority; and from this fource arifes the want of originality, fo general among literary productions. Books of intrinfic merit, and which difcover real genius, are the phænomena but of very few periods in the space of many ages; and their appear. ance, like that of the fun in the foreft, ferves only to render the intervening darknefs more confpicuous. They conftitute an epoch in the history of the human understanding, and it is from the prin ciples they contain, that future improvements in fcience derive their origin." So numerous and various are the ingredients, which enter into the compofition of that wonderful compound, Man, that it is impoffible for a writer to analyze fuch a fubject with any tolerable degree of difcrimination, without conftituting at the fame time a moft multifarious and complicated tract. Such, is, of course the work before us; the diverfity of which lays the Reviewer under no little difadvantage; as the feveral divifions of the fubje&t are treated fo concifely as to render abfirat in a great meafare impracticable, and to extract even a moderate part of what is new, or otherwife worthy notice and remark, would fwell the article, beyond the limits, to which we are neceffarily confined.-We shall endeavour, therefore, to fleer a middle courfe, and give our readers as fatisfactory an account, of the Contents as the nature of the work will admit. In his Introductory fection, the author takes into confideration the different points of view, from which we may confider man; together with the influence of education; proceeding to difcufs the queftion" Whether the difference in the the minds of men be the effect of their different organisations or of education." Of education he juftly obferves that no two perfons receive exactly the fame. "Iftill. learn, fays he, my inftruction is not yet finished: When will it be? When I fhall be no longer fenfible; at my death. The courfe of my life is properly nothing more than a long courfe of edu cation. "What is neceffary that two individuals should receive precifely the fame education? That they should be in precifely the fame pofitions and the fame circumstances. Now fuch an hypothefis is impoffible: it is therefore evident, that no two perfons can receive the fame inftructions. "But why put off the term of our education to the utmost period of fife? Why not confine it to the time exprefsly fet apart for instruction, that is, to the period of infancy and adolefcence?" "I am content to confine it to that period; and I will prove in like manner, that it is impoffible for two men to acquire precifely the fame ideas. "It is at the very inftant a child receives motion and life that it receives its first instruction: it is fometimes even in the womb where it is conceived, that it learns to distinguish between fickness and health. The mother however delivered, the child ftruggles and cries; hunger gripes it, it feels a want, and that want opens its lips, makes it seize, and greedily fuck the nourishing breaft. When fome months have paffed, its fight is diftinct, its organs are fortified, it becomes by degrees fufceptible of all impreffions; then the fenfes of teeing, hearing, tafting, touching, fmelling, in a word, all the inlets to the mind are fet open; then all the objects of nature rush thither in crowds, and engrave an infinity of ideas in the memory. In these first moments what can be true inftructors of infancy? The divers fenfations it feels these are so many instructions it receives. : "If two children have the fame preceptor, if they are taught to diftinguish their letters, to read and repeat their catechifm, &c. they are fuppofed to receive the fame education. The philofopher judges otherwife: according to him, the true preceptors of a child are the bjects that furround him; these are the inftructors to whom he owes almost all his ideas. "A bort history of the infancy of man will bring us acquainted with them. He no fooner fees the light than a thousand founds frike his ears; he hears nothing but a confufed noife; a thousand bodies offer themfelves to his fight, but prefent nothing but objects imperfectly defined. It is by infenfible degrees the infant learns to hear and fee, to perceive and rectify the errors of one fenfe by another. "Being conftantly ftruck by the fame fenfations in the presence of the fame objects, he thereby acquires a more complete remembrance of them, in proportion as the fame action of the objects are repeated on him; and this action of them we should regard as the most confiderable part of his education. The The child in the mean time grows; he walks and walks alone; numberless falls then teach him to preferve the equilibrium of his body, and to ftand firm on his legs; the more painful the falls, the more instructive they prove, and the more adroit, attentive, and cautious he walks. "The child grows ftrong; he runs, he is already able to leap the little canals that traverse and water the garden. It is then that by re peated trials and falls he learns to proportion his leaps to the width of the canals. "He fées à stone fall into the water and fink to the bottom, while a piece of wood floats on the furface: by this inftance he acquires thé fifft idea of gravity. "If he take the stone and the wood out of the water, and by chance they both fall on his feet, the unequal degree of pain occafioned by their fall, engraves more strongly on his memory the idea of their unequal weight and hardness. "If he chance to throw the same stone against one of the flower-pots placed on the border of a canal, he will then learn that fome bodies are broke by a blow that others refift. "There is therefore no man of difcernment who must not fee in all objects, fo many tutors charged with the education of our infancy. "But are not these instructors the fame for all? No. The chance is not precisely the fame for any two perfons; but fuppofe it were, and that two children owed their dexterity in walking, running, and leaping to their falls; I fay, that as it is impoffible they should both have precifely the fame number of falls, and equally painful, chance cannot furnish them both with the fame inftructions. "Place two children on a plain, in a wood, a theatre, an affembly, or a fhop. They will not, by their mere natural pofition, be ftruck precifely in the fame manner, nor confequently affected with the fame fenfations. What different fubjects moreover are by daily occurrences inceffantly offered to the view of these two children! "Two brothers travel with their parents, and to arrive at their na tive place they must traverse long chains of mountains. The eldeft follows his father by the fhort and rugged road. What does he fee? Nature in all the forms of horror; mountains of ice that hide their heads among the clouds, mafly rocks that hang over the traveller's head, fathomlefs caverns, and ridges of arid hills, from whence torrents precipitate with a tremendous roar. The younger follows his mother through the most frequented roads, where nature appears in all her pleafing forms. What objects does he behold? Every where hills planted with vines and fruitful trees, and vallies where the wandering treams divide the meadows, peopled by the brouzing herds. "These two brothers have, in the fame journey, feen very different profpects, and received very different impreffions. Now a thoufand incidents of the fame nature may produce the fame effects. Our life is nothing more, fo to fay, than a long chain of fimilar incidents; let men not ever flatter themfelves, therefore, with being able to give two children precifely the fame education. Our author proceeds to illuftrate the important fubject of Education in feveral chapters of his firft fection; confidering it in its feveral varieties, as they are conformable to custom, and as they tend to the formation of the moral character. Of a Collegiate Education he obferves that an uniformity of it is not adapted to all capacities. Of a Domestic Education, that in every individual, it ought to be different. But the difficulty, or rather impracticability of this, is obvious; It is more pertinently that he afcribes the formation of characters to accident. "The moft ftriking characters are fometimes the produce of an infinity of little accidents. It is from an infinity of threads of hemp that the largest cables are formed. There is no change that chance cannot produce in the character of a man. But why do thefe changes almost always operate in a manner unperceived by himself? Because, to perceive them, he must have a most severe and penetrating eye on himfelf. Now pleafure, idlenefs, ambition, poverty, &c. equally 'divert him from this obfervation. Every thing turns him away from himself. A man has, moreover, fo much refpect for himself, fo much veneration for his own conduct, as, being the confequence of fuch fagacious and profound reflection, that he can rarely permit himfelf to examine it: pride forbids, and pride is readily obeyed. "Chance has, therefore, a neceffary and confiderable influence on our education. The events of life are frequently the produce of the moft trifling incidents. I know this affertion difgufts our vanity, which conftantly affigns great caufes to effects that appear to it of great confequence. To deftroy the illufions of pride, I fhall prove, by the aid of facts, that it is to the most trifling incidents the most illuftrious citizens have fometimes owed their talents. From whence I conclude, that chance acts in a like manner on all mankind, and if its effects on ordinary minds are lefs remarked, it is merely because minds of this fort are themfelves lefs remarkable." The author proceeds to illuftrate this point by examples, as follows: "For my firft example, I fhall cite M. Vaucanfon: his pious mother had a fpiritual director, who lived in a cell, to which the hall where the clock was placed ferved as an antichamber. The mother paid frequent vifits to this director. Her fon waited for her in the antichamber there alone, and having nothing to do, he wept with wearinefs, while his mother wept with repentance. However, as we commonly weep and weary ourielves as little as poffible, and as in a fate of vacation there are no fenfations indifferent, young Vaucanfon was foon ftruck with the uniform motion of the penduluin, and defirous of difcovering its caufe. His curiofry was routed; he approached the clock-cafe, and faw, through the crevices, the wheels that turn each other; difcovered a part of the mechanifm, and gueffed at the reft. He projected a fimilar machine, which he executed in wood with a knife, and at lait was able to make a clock more or lefs perfect. Encouraged by this first fuccefs, his tafte for mechanics was determined. VOL. VI. His PP |