ledge destroying the Aristotelian system and all its controversies, at length banished both the upokeimenon and the predicaments, the Realists and the Universalists, for ever from human favour. The discovery of the Pandects of Justinian at Amalfi, in 1187, and the school of civil law, opened at Bologna, which was in such reputation in the twelfth century, that Becket and other Eaglishmen went to study there, assisted to improve both England and Europe. The Institutes of Justinian contain a fund of jurisprudential wisdom, the most sagacious produce of the Roman intellect, which imparted no small improvement to the imperfect moral reasoning of the middle ages. England, from the middle of the eleventh century to the close of the thirteenth, we have seen the national mind emerging progressively from inertness and ignorance, to strength and activity, and to a curiosity disdainful of limits, and striving even to pass the flagrantia menia mundi. In the next period, we shall see it advancing still more successfully to original poetry, rational theology, true science, and sound natural philosophy. But enough has been already stated to show, that the history of England, from the period of the Norman conquest, is the history of its continued improvement; and we shall find hereafter, that in the succeeding periods, although the progress was diversified in its objects, and more diffused in its extent, yet that it never became either stationary or retrograde. The improveability of human nature is strongly displayed in the course of British history, from the accession of the Conqueror; and there is nothing in the present appearance of society to induce us to despair of still nobler results In this review of the History of in the ages that are to revolve.34 Our clerical chancellors were usually proficients in this study; and it is not unreasonable to ascribe some portion of the high and strict rules of equity which have prevailed in the English Court of Chancery, to the ancient study of the Roman Pandects.33 MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS. Essay on the different Effects of a si- count for the diversities of temper and milar Education. Mar. 30th, 1815. Cur alter fratrum cessare, et ludere, et ungi, Sylvestrem flammis et ferro mitiget agrum; astrum. HOR. universal man." Al. Gazel. Logica et Philosophica, Venice, 1506. Our modern doctrines on abstraction have not quite set these points to rest; for it is not yet fully settled, whether what are called abstract ideas, be any thing more than generalizing terms. But, lo! the Nominalists and Realists again! 33 There were lectures on the civil law before this period in Normandy; but probably on some imperfect abstracts of the Institutes. Bologna was so jealous of her knowledge of them, that an oath was exacted from the public lecturers there, that they would not teach law out of Bologna. Murat. Ant. Ital. 893-910. pursuit in children of the same family, than by referring them to the influence of the guardian deity, who was 'supposed to preside over every person's birth and to regulate his fortunes. The immediate causes of the variety, are, in truth, not easily ascertained; though the fact itself be sufficiently notorious. Observe two persons who passed their infancy, and, it may be, a por 34 With the views of Madame du Stael, on the progress of the human species, tion of history has long led me to this conclucordially coincide. An attentive considerasion. I differ with her on some of her reasonings, but fully concur in her result, and with this qualification would strongly recommend to my readers the eighth chapter of her "Litterature considerée dans ses rapports avec les Institutions sociales." P. 182-211. Let me not omit this opportunity to compliment her sex and country on their possessing a writer of such a powerful mind and originality of thought and observation. She is a striking instance of the progression for which she so eloquently contends. 212 Essay on the different Effects of a similar Education. tion of their youth, under one roof for, could it be completely removed and in nearly the like circumstances. To say nothing of the opposition in the state of their minds, as to vigour and attainments, how contrary are their dispositions, tastes, and moral character! This man is mild and gentle: that, passionate and impetuous. The former has a turn for active, the latter, for retired, life. One is frank and ingenuous, the other, sullen and reserved. And the difference extends to qualities and habits which are of yet higher moment. Though, in general, a similar education may be expected to produce similar results, yet the exceptions are numerous and striking. In attempting to assign the principal causes of them, something, I presume, should be allowed for a difference in the CONSTI TUTIONAL disposition of different individuals. I cannot otherwise explain varieties in talent, inclination and character which make their appearance at a very early age, and have a mighty influence upon the situation and happiness of men. Who, indeed, shall limit the power and wisdom of the Creator? Who will venture to say that it was neither possible nor fit for the members of his human family to be formed with some original diversity in mind? A little reflection may convince us of the error of this sentiment. By what reasoning do we prove that the objects around us, bespeak a skilful, designing cause? Is it not this-that, while they denote unity of purpose, they exhibit a variety in means? That unity destroys the supposition of chance; since chance is infinitely capricious and irregular: that variety excludes the idea of fate; since fate is one blind, undeviating impulse. Why then should not this argument be applied to the characters of men as much as to the rest of the works of God? But, while the different effects of what is called a similar education may in some measure be accounted for from a constitutional difference (with the seat of which, nevertheless, and with the manner of its operation, we are not distinctly acquainted), the fact before us admits of further and yet more satisfactory explanation. Although it be true that, in the sense which I have stated, God distributes to men their peculiar gifts, still, much of the difficulty remains unsolved: by this consideration, the uses and the power of education would indeed be limited. Besides, if all or most of a man's habits, both moral and intellectual, be mainly attributable to predispositions in his constitution of body and mind, I see not how we can resist conclusions which are equally at variance with observation and experience, with the divine perfections and government, and with the tenor, discoveries and declarations of the scriptures. Physiological systems and hypotheses invented for the purpose of illustrating mental phenomena, ought to be viewed with the utmost caution. Most of those who speak of the dif ferent effects of the same education, use the word education in tco confined an import, and often keep out of sight the first impressions made upon the infant's senses, the earliest bias given to his faculties. Nor do they include in this term the whole course of discipline to which the rising generation are subjected before they arrive at their maturity. Education may in some great features be alike, and in many others, which are less prominent, be entirely dissimilar. From the moment of his birth, a child seems capable of being influenced by surrounding persons and objects; and I am satisfied that his temper is formed in no slight degree by the dispositions and manners of those who receive him in their arms. If the countenances of his attendants beam with unfeigned affection and benignity, he reads these qualities in their looks: he is sensible to the glances and the accents of kindness: and, in common, he reflects these properties. But if he behold those to be about him who give inconscious signs of a want of generosity, or of mildness, or of sincere regard; and, still more, if he be treated with caprice and needless severity and harshness; he soon becomes the slave of his humours and passions, practises deceit, when his understanding dawns, and is cold, distrustful and suspicious. To imagine that children are in no sense and degree the proper subjects of education till some few years after they have come into the world, is a gross and dangerous mistake. In the existence or the absence of the efforts of education from the very first, and in the nature and direction of them, the future character of the young, or, more strictly, their future happiness and misery, will be involved. And while it is erroneous to conceive that education can begin too early, it is scarcely less so to presume that, in respect of the parent's lessons and discipline, it should soon cease, or that it should not comprehend a much larger portion of life than the age of childhood Thinking persons will acknowledge that no period is so hazardous to a man's principles, character and conduct as the interval between his quitting his father's house and his obtaining a settlement in the world. Now the situation in which most young people are placed after they have passed through scenes of elementary instruction, are extremely different: for which reason there is frequently a like difference in their habits; even though they spent their first years together, and were then submitted to much the same course of treatment. When they go from home, one has one set of companions, and another has another; this is under influences to which his former associates remain strangers; and hence their tastes, pursuits and acquisitions have an answerable variety. During this period the characters of men are perhaps more powerfully formed than in any other stage of their mortal being. If these considerations are undisputed, it follows that superficial observers often imagine an education to be similar which ought not to be se denominated, and that, in proportion as the education of any two men is really similar, the difference in its effects is not so extensive and important as may usually be supposed. Hap. py would it be were parents, and those who fill the place of parents, practically attentive to this truth in the situations which they choose for their offspring between the ages of youth and manhood! Let it further be remembered that the power of external circumstances upon young and tender minds, is next to irresistible. Before the full establishment of the habits, such minds are susceptible of impressions from every object: and this law of our nature operates, in many instances, long after the young are released from the authority of parents and teachers and masters. A fact so obvious should be taken into the account when we are estimating the influence of education. To the rising generation it suggests, at the same time, a warning of infinite importance. It is not sufficient that they are, as the world terms it, welldisposed: it is not sufficient that, in their retired hours, they recollect a parent's pious admonitious. They are not safe without a wise and successful regard to the choice of companiona and to the description of the scenes where they meet them. Ruin awaits the youth who too confidently relies on his ability to preserve himself pure amidst surrounding irreligion and licentiousness. He who ventures to the utmost boundary which divides vice from virtue, will be carried, by subtlety or force, into the camp of the enemy, and pay the forfeit of his dearest interests. I was forcibly reminded of the correctness of this reasoning on reading of a young man who, merely as the consequence of going, clandestinely, from his father's house, to a spot on which he ought never to have set his foot, was betrayed into the aggravated crimes of robbery and murder, for which his far guiltier accomplice satisfied with his life offended justice. Here was a case, alas! no solitary case, of one who, because he had made a single, and, as he would consider it, a slight, departure from the road of obedience and industry, in a word, because he did not weigh the influence of situation, was drawn into the most fatal snare! With such examples before their eyes of the power of circumstances over character, let no persons say that the varieties in character are inexplicable: let no persons wonder that the effects are different where, after all, the causes are not, and cannot be, substantially, the same. Of the influence of situation upon mental taste, two examples are thus recorded by Dr. Johnson.† 66 "In the window of his [Cowley's] mother's apartment lay Spenser's Fairy Queen, in which he very early took delight to read, till, by feeling He was admitted King's evidence against his companion at the Lent assizes for Surrey, in 1814. † Works, vol. ix. 2. 214 Intolerance towards the “ Socinians” in England. In the Memoirs of the Life of Dr. John Jebbt I have met with some admirable specific directions which he laid down for his behaviour, as well the charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered, and perhaps sometimes forgotten, produce that particular as rules, not less praise-worthy, for designation of mind, and propensity for some certain science or employment, which is commonly called genius. The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great painter of the present age, had the first fondness for his art excited by the perusal of Richardson's treatise." To these instances that of Ruhnken may, I think, be added. This illustrious classical scholar was destined by his parents for a divine. Being placed, nevertheless, under the care of a schoolmaster who greatly excelled in a knowledge of the Latin tongue, the pupil formed an inextinguishable desire of applying himself principally to the study of the Greek and Roman authors and his subsequent introduction to Hemsterhuis, decided his choice, and laid the basis of his high attainments and reputation in philology.* The difference in the effects of an education regarded as similar, may, in part be attributed to some difference in those subordinate principles of conduct which men propose to them selves, and by which they are actually governed. General principles, undoubtedly, have much value in their place: yet perhaps they exert less influence upon the character than those rules which may be styled a detailed application of such principles. Much of the moral and religious education of the bulk of mankind, consists, so far as precept is concerned, in nothing more than the repetition of general maxims; unattended by the habit of causing them to bear upon real circumstances and individual experience. Consequently, they are often applied at random, in a vast variety of ways, according to the several feelings, understandings, tastes and caprice of men. Hence the effects of an apparently similar education are represented as different; while, in truth, the very generality of the instruction communicated, has assisted the diversity. Vita, &c. Auctore D. Wyttenbachio. sub. init. his conduct in the exercise of the me- For "And not only our clergy, but the supreme powers of the kingdom give no quarter to Socinianism. while they have indulged other sects in the free exercise of their religion, they have by an express law forbid Socinians to have any ministers, churches, sacraments, assemblies, or any religious exercises whatever, in their own way." P. 175. If Dr. Nichols correctly stated the legal condition of those nonconformists who were expressly excepted in the Act of Toleration, of which there can be no doubt, how flattering was the representation of the benefits derived from that Act as described by Burnet, in 1689, even if we forget, for a moment, the obligation on all nonconformists to subscribe the doctrinal articles. Calamy, in his additions to Baxter (i. 455,) says, “On Nov. 16, 1689, the Rev. Bishop of Sarum gave an excellent exhortation to peace and union, in a Sermon, preached at St. Lawrence Jewry, on Acts vii. 26." He adds, "'tis pity it should be forgotten." I cannot help subjoining that, for the credit of the Bishop's accuracy, and the historian's discri Pages 124, 125, 135-138. mination, 'tis pity the following misrepresentation, in that sermon, quoted with approbation at p. 457, cannot now be forgotten. "God be thanked for it, that there is an end put to all persecution in matters of conscience; and that the first and chief right of human nature, of following the dictates of conscience in the service of God is secured to all men among us; and that we are freed, I hope, for ever, of all the remnants of the worst part of Popery that we had too long retained, I mean, the spirit of persecution." If this prelate supposed, which is scarcely possible, that no unbeliever could be conscientious, he well knew there were Christians then in England unprotected, or rather marked out for persecution, by the Toleration Act. It is indeed discreditable to the memory of Burnet, a man of such public life and talents, that he has recorded no where in the history of this period a strong and unequivocal testimony against persecuting statutes, which disgraced as well the friends as the enemies of the Revolution, or rather peculiarly disgraced the former as exhibiting the speech of Jacob with the hands of Esau. IGNOTUS. Plymouth Dock, Feb. 6, 1815. BE EING a warm admirer of the late venerable Dr. Priestley's talents and virtues, nothing has afforded me so much pleasure this great while as an intimation given in one of the notes annexed to the memoir of this excellent man in the last number of your improved Repository,that " a plan is now in contemplation, for publishing by subscription, the whole of his works, except the scientific." I shall look forward with earnest solicitude to the period when it shall be brought to maturity. As we have uniform editions of the works of a Bacon, a Boyle, a Newton, a Locke and a Lardner, I have long wondered that the works of a Priestley, (who was very little, if any thing, inferior to these glorious luminaries of our island,) have been suffered to remain in their original unconnected state. The measure under consideration, if carried into execution, will do lasting credit to the promoters of it, will be hailed with sincere pleasure by the Doctor's numerous and increasing friends, and will be a noble monument of the industry, profundity and piety of his genius. I consider it perfectly right to print an edition independent of his scientific works; but I Additions to the History of the War- humbly submit the propriety of print rington Academy. Dublin, March 15, 1815. of an eminent sugar baker in his na- No. 257. [ix. 529] Boyle Moody, D. Newry, long since dead. H. ing the whole of these also, if subscribers enough can be procured to cover the expense, immediately after the completion of the former part; dislike Doctor as a theologian, highly value him as a philosopher, his scientific works, though printed uniformly, should be complete, and at liberty to be purchased alone. The first volume, in my opinion, should contain the memoir written by himself and continued by his sou; and I should be happy to see the latter period of his life, from the time of his settling near Birmingham, more fully elucidated. There are, no doubt many of the Doctor's private letters in the hands of his friends; and as those submitted to the public by Mr. Belsham, in his excellent Life of his pious friend, Mr. Lindsey, are very interesting, a judicious selection incorporated into the present work would prove a treat highly acceptable. I beg further to suggest the uti'ity of subjoining notes to such pas |