ment, which as it generally drives the natives from their own country, so much more does it deter foreigners from fettling in fuch unhappy states. Thus the cafe is quite otherwise with men, than the brute creation, in this refpect; other animals are generally limited to certain climates, by their aliment and the degree of heat which they can bear; and the multiplication of each species is by its nature, or the scarcity of proper food, inclemency of the weather, beafts of prey, or by man kept within certain bounds: but the human species may be reconciled to every temperature of climate, from Nova Zembla to the Equator; can habituate themselves to any kind of food which any part of the earth affords, and fecure themselves from the inclement changes of the weather: they are generally able to propagate their fpecies for forty or forty-five years, and the fe male fex is prolific from fifteen to forty-five years of age. Man can render defarts, fens, woods, and mountains proper for his fubfiftence; and can make use of, extirpate, or at least drive away, all hurtful beafts from his habitation; and that all this has been done in former times history abundantly teftifies. But the forests still remaining, efpécially in the north-eaft parts of Europe and Afia, and almost over all Africa and America, farther fhew that the whole globe is not yet fo well peopled as it might be; befides, many iflands and countries, which are naturally very fertile and fit for habitation, continue to this day without any inhabitants on the contrary, we learn from unqueftionable authorities, that the farther we fearch back into ancient times, the more thinly was the earth peopled, and the more it was over-run with woods, moraffes, and defarts. This obfervation neceffarily leads us to trace mankind to the smallest number poffible, namely, our general parents; and fhews, that it is impoffible for the human race to have always existed without a beginning: for otherwife, from time immemorial, there must have been at least as many individuals of the human fpecies as there are at this time, and the earth must have been as well cultivated and peopled as we find it at present.'

A second historical circumftance, which M. Reimarus adduces in order to confirm the fuppofition that mankind derive their origin from a small number of ancestors, who had a beginning, is the affinity of languages, or rather the derivation of them all from one univerfal mother-tongue. A third argument which he brings to establish the fame opinion, is the flow invention and improvement of arts and sciences.

In the next differtation he proceeds to fhew that mankind did not originally spring from the world, or from its nature. The abfurdity of fuppofing, that the heat of the fun could form any animals from mud, or rude matter; that blind chance

could

1

could bring forth any body of an artificial texture; or that there have been fuch things in nature as eternal feeds or eggs capable of producing every fpecies of living creatures, he exposes in the most fatisfactory manner. The material world, he obferves, is in itfelf void of life, and confequently incapable of intrinsic perfection; from thence he infers that it is not self-existent, but must have derived its existence from fome other being.

The author having established these fundamental points, proceeds to confider the general defign of the Creator in the formation of the world.

M. Buffon, in his natural history, represents final causes as entia rationis, arbitrary relations, formed according to human views; and he thinks that to draw any conclufion from thence is only to fubftitute the effect instead of the cause. Our author fhews with great perfpicuity, that final caufes, or certain defigns in the formation of things, are founded in reason; that the latter part of M. Buffon's objection is a frivolous equivocation; and that, if his hypothesis is true, there is nothing in the universe, and among its inhabitants, but chance, diforder, and confufion.

In the fifth differtation the author confiders God's particular defigns, or final causes, in the animal kingdom; and exhibits a comprehenfive view of that amazing diverfity of forms, organs, difpofitions, aliments, modes of life, motion, and propagation, which is displayed in the brute creation. This is the moft entertaining part of the prefent work, yet it does not contain many obfervations which will be new to those who have read what Ray, Derham, and other naturalifts have written upon the fubject.

From the brutal the author advances to the human fpecies, and enquires into the nature of the foul and body of man, their diftinguishing characteristics, powers, and operations.

If men, he says, had clear ideas, or words precifely definite in their fignification; or if they had only confulted their own internal fenfation, it would never have been difputed, whether the human foul be a fubftance, or only a certain quality or accident of the body. For, that we have a consciousness of our exiftence cannot be denied; and there can be no felf-consciousness unless I have a recollection of the preceding part of my duration, and find myself to be one and the fame perfon, through manifold circumftances and changes. But I cannot look upon myself to be one and the same person with regard to the body; fince I know not whether any fingle particle of it remains with me, or has been changed. The foul alone, that conscious being within us, knows itself, by its inward tensation, to be one and the fame being in feveral ftates and conditions,

and

and by this knowledge has an idea and conviction of its exiftence, of duration in general, and of the time of its duration. Now if what always continues under various mutations, and never ceases to be the fame identical thing, is to be termed a fubftance; it must be an inconteftible truth, that the human foul, which from its own knowledge has a conviction that it is the fame identical being which formerly perceived, thought, and willed various things, must be efteemed a fubftance, and ought by no means to be claffed among the mere modes or qualities of any other being.'

6

The foul and body, he thinks, are clearly distinguished by the following criterion: We discover in ourselves two kinds of perceptions, which we divide into external and internal, or fenfual and mental. The difference between thefe is most clearly feen by comparing ftrong and violent perceptions of the former, with those of the latter; for example, a painful wound in the corporeal parts, and a mental refentment of an injury or affront. As for the firft, we can point exactly to the place which pains us; but the second has nothing local in it: We cannot in the latter cafe complain of any pain in the head, palpitation of the heart, or smart in any fenfible part of the body. The cause of this is evident; for pain having its source in our bodies, the parts capable of being hurt are without each other, and locally different; and the foul, which minutely attends to the present state of the body, can point out the parts where this alteration has happened. But the refentment of an affront rises in the foul itself, not from the reprefentation or perception of any thing corporeal, but of its own imperfection, and injury. Now there are no distinct parts within or without the foul, to thew where any hurt has been received.'

The dependence of the foul on the body, the author illuftrates by a comparison, which is, perhaps, more evident and fatisfactory than fubtle arguments, drawn in a long chain of reasoning from the effential conftitution of matter and fpirit. If we confider, fays he, the present organical body as a mirror, in which the foul, as it were, fees and perceives all things, we fhall eafily conceive that it will depend on this instrument; that, in this mirror, it will have no fight of fome things; that of others it will have clear or obfcure, plain or confused, flow or quick, regular or irregular, juft or falfe images; and that, according to these representations it will perceive complacency or difguft, inclination or averfion. If a looking-glafs, through fome defect in its texture, does not reflect the images of certain bodies according to the rules of optics, or is full of dark spots or flaws; be the eye ever so found, it will have no view of the objects in fuch a mirror. Should the mirror be clouded or foul

in fome places, or all over, the fight of the objects represented in it would be fo far confufed and imperfect. If the plate of glafs, instead of being ground even and fmooth, fhould be full of knots or inequalities, or have the least mixture or tinge of any colour in it, the objects would be misrepresented and disfigured. Thus by fuch a disfigurement and falfe tinge of objects, their juft figure, proportion, regularity, and beauty would be changed into an illufory deformity; and the eye, instead of viewing them with any delight, would turn afide from them with difguft. The eye however, notwithstanding all these accidental defects of the glass, would still retain its just contexture, internal ftrength, and perfection, and would not be in the leaft weakened or injured by thefe defects. Farther, if the looking-glafs was broken to shivers, it would not at all follow, that the eye would be destroyed and lofe its strength, or that the images which the eye had once received by means of that glafs would be totally obliterated. Though we fuppofe a mirror to be requifite for every part of the representation, it does not follow that another glass could not be allowed to the eye, in lieu of that which was broken.

• It will not be neceffary for me to enter on a particular application of every part of these premises to the foul, and its dependence on the body. The comparison is clear in itself, and is perfectly applicable to the fubject. Every one may easily obferve, from what paffes in himself, how the cases adduced may be accounted for, by the want of this or that organ, or the want of experience, and the ignorance confequent thereon; by the weakness and timidity of the understanding; by the obfcurity and confufion of the images; by fleep, deliquium, and apoplexy; by the fancy, incapacity, and error; by inclinations, paifions, and vices, as far as all these depend on the body; and even by death itself. From all these accidents, it may eafily be conceived that however great a dependence the foul may have on the body; yet that does not in the leaft hinder the foul from being an effence diftinct from the body, fubfifting by itself, and amidst all internal and external changes still permanent in its identity. Now this truth being grounded on certain experience, and internal perception, and entirely confiftent with the dependency of the foul on the body; it appears also, that this dependence can furnish no just proof against the most manifeft experience; fince, to conclude in general from the dependency of one thing on another, that they are homogeneous, fimilar, or identical, is to reafon very prepofterously.'

In order to discover the manner of life for which the human fpecies was formed, the author draws a comparison between

the

the faculties of men, and thofe of brutes. This, he thinks, is more particularly neceffary, as feveral writers, (especially M. Rouffeau) have exhibited a perfect fimilarity between men and brutes, or rather a pre-eminence of the latter above the former. In the course of this differtation he endeavours to fhew, that men, by the want of some endowments which are granted to brutes, are under a neceflity of ufing their reafon; and that by the use of reason, we acquire very eminent advantages above the animal creation. From thence he infers, that it must be the intention of the Deity that man should exercise his faculties, and thereby attain to advantages and pre-eminences fuitable to his rational nature. But as the human mind cannot be established in a folid tranquility without being poffeffed with love and reverence towards our Creator, a reliance on his providence, and the hope of a more perfect and durable ftate of existence, M. Reimarus proceeds to establish the doctrine of a fuperintending providence, and the immortality of the foul; and concludes with fhewing, in the clearest manner, that the greatest happiness of mankind is derived from religion.

These topics are treated by our learned and ingenious author with great perfpicuity, candor, and judgment; and if this work should not meet with that approbation in England, with which it has been received in Germany and Holland, it can *only be owing to a multitude of treatises, which we have had before, wherein the fame fubjects are either profeffedly or occafionally difcuffed.

V. The Truth of the Chriftian Religion vindicated from the Objections of Unbelievers; particularly of Mr. John James Rouffeau: in a Series of Differtations. By the Authors of the Chriftian Magazine. 8vo. Pr. 5s. Newbery.

N°

Ο writer, as the authors of this work obferve in their preface, hath attacked christianity with more fubtilty than Rousseau in his Emilius; and as no antidote had hitherto been offered to the public, against the poison of the Savoyard Vicar's Creed, they determined to lay before the public a series of differtations on fuch important topicks of revealed religion, as more immediately refpect this adverfary's objections.

Differtation I. has for its title, Of the natural state and condition of man ; and is divided into ten fections. In the firit the state of infancy is briefly confidered. Rouffeau, our authors observe, had plainly contradicted himself upon this point, afferting in one part of his work, that man is born without VOL. XXI. March, 1766.

0

Spot,