than a monitor to ourselves, or that it is capable of reading the hearts of others, he must certainly allow that it is the quality of the action only. Now this quality muft depend either on the motives that infpired it, or on the effects that follow it. The former more properly belong to the agent, and fhould characterize rather the defign than the fact. Indeed our Philofopher appears to admit, that the confequence of actions fhould diftinguifh their quality. "Men (fays he) are by nature rather friends than enemies, a ftate of warfare being unnatural. An innate fentiment of benevolence makes them find a pleasure in doing each other good, and a repugnance to fee each other fuffer: this Inftinct ftrongly induces them to approve all that is ufeful to mankind, and to blame every thing that is prejudicial to them." Here we fee, that the utility and prejudice to mankind, are made the criterion of the Good or Evil of thofe things, which the Moral Instinct is faid to approve or blame. Hence the natural confequences of the action, independent of the defign of the agent, muft denominate its quality; for though, fpeaking of this Inftinct, our Author fays elfewhere, Rien n'eft bon que par lui, he certainly can mean no more, than that it must neceffarily approve every thing that is good, and not that its approbation conftituted that goodnefs. Might we not afk him now, how this infallible Instinct appears to be innate, and how it operates in man? Will an action, naturally tending to the utility of mankind, and confequently fuch as the Moral Instinct muft approve, make its utility known merely by its being feen or related to the fpectator or auditor? Or will the Moral Inftinct of either immediately difcover it? If not, will the fight of fuch an action, or the hearing of it related, as our Author fuppofes, excite the Moral Senfe to approbation? Surely no that Inftinct, or Senfe, may compel us to approve, and take pleasure in actions or characters, that, we conceive, tend to the Good of our fellow creatures; but it is by other means we muft form fuch conceptions of them, and not merely by Moral Inftinet. There is, therefore, in man no fuch infallible Inftinct, as our Philofopher fuppofes, capable of rightly approving or difapproving a moral action or quality, at firft fight. Children and fools (he fays) know very well when they do amifs. In fome things probably they may; but we believe never till they are told, or have learned by experience the good or ill effects of their actions; which effects are not always mechanically impreffed on any sense, at the time the actions are committed, but are difcovered afterwards and connected by the affociation of ideas with fuch actions. Thus a deed, that might ftrike us with horror did we know the natural or ufual confequences of it, might be looked on with indifference, fuch confequences being unknown. It is not therefore the action that carries with it the impreffion of its Morality or Immorality, but it is the memory, or the underftanding, operating in conjunction with the perception of fuch action, that must represent its moral quality to its proper sense. It is faid our emotions, in favour or deteftation of moral actions, are frequently fudden and involuntary, and therefore cannot be owing to the operations of our reason, to any deliberate examination into the good or ill qualities, or effects of those actions. This is very true: the Moral Sense, like all others, is acted on by appearances, and by our alreadyacquired notions of things, and does not wait for the affiftance of reafon. Hence it is that we are fo frequently deceived in thefe emotions, and confcientioufly deteft an action as vicious; which, when we come to know its motives and confequences, the fame Inftinct, which moved us to deteft, excites us to applaud or approve. Virtuous actions, we are told, give pleasure, and vicious ones pain, to the Moral Senfe; which pleasure and pain are in both cafes purely organical, and are the fimple effect of the impreffion made on that fenfe by the object, in the fame manper as a fine fcent delights, and a rank one offends the smell. But here we would afk, Whether that approbation which the confcience (fuppofed to be this Moral Senfe, or immediately under the direction of it) beftows on good actions, arises from, and is proportionable to, the pleasure fuch actions givo that fenfe? Or whether it arifes from a consciousness or con ception of the utility, of which fuch actions might prove to mankind? In other words, is the pleasure we take, in feeing or contemplating virtuous actions, the cause or the confequence of that approbation? Doth this Moral Senfe delight in what gives it pleasure, merely for its fo doing; or doth it feel pleasure from the fact, in confequence of the good it promises to be of to others? If the former be the cafe, it appears to be that only of a selfish appetite, not taking pleafure in virtue for the fake of virtue, but for the fake of its own gratification, which is as well ferved by the appearance of a good action as by the reality. And, if it be the latter, it is evidently neceffary that this fenfe should be directed to its proper object, by reafon or information, as it cannot other wife wife difcern the good or ill confequences of actions, on which depends their morality. But this Philofopher has made an egregious blunder, in not properly diftinguifhing between fuch an infallible Instinct, as he fuppofes in one place, and fuch a fenfe in all respects like the other fenfes, in another. The Creator (he fays) would not truft our preservation to our reafon, but has committed it to the care of our senses; in the fidelity of whose operations he knew there was a greater fecurity than in the caprices of the understanding: and that by fo much as reflection is flower in its operations than the mechanical motions accelerated by fentiment. We know not how far Instinct or Sentiment, might be a better prefervative of the animal than reafon, in a favage and folitary ftate; but certainly in fuch a state the Moral Inftinet, our Author contends for, could be of little ufe. And in the prefent fituation of man, though it must be owned the operations of reafon in matters quite novel and abftrufe are flow; yet thofe ideas, which are immediately neceffary to prefervation, are fo readily gained, and, when gained, are fo ready for ufe at the command of the fenfes, that we find no occafion to prefer the office of mere fentiment. Our Author is furely the first Philofopher that ever fo ftrenuously maintained the Infallibility of Perception, and at the fame time declaimed against the Caprices of Reason. But this is owing to his want of making a proper use of the latter, and his mistaking the operations of one for the other. Of this we might give more than one inftance. In order to illustrate the manner, in which, he conceives, moral actions operate on their respective fenfe, by comparing it with that of the other fenfes, he tells us that every object carries with it its qualities, fuch as colour, figure, tafte, &c. of which qualities a fenfation is excited, at the fame time, with the fenfation of fuch object. We must remind him, however, that objects, abftracted from their qualities, are ideal and not perceptible; they are not perceived by any fenfe, but formed by the imagination, or inferred by the understanding, in confequence of the perceptions excited by their qualities. The allufion, therefore, which our Author here makes between moral and phyfical objects can never hold good.. On the whole, however, we admit, with this Philofopher, that the idea of moral relations does not neceffarily affect the heart; we conceive, nevertheless, that the heart could never be affected by moral actions, if the understanding had formed no idea of thofe relations. With regard to the fourth part of this work, wherein our Author treats of the Soul, it may be fufficient just to remark, that he confiders it as diftinct and feparate from the Body; a diftinction which, however just and proper to be made, we are very little qualified, as Phyfiologifts, to make. This Philofopher, indeed, confiders the Soul as an organical being, only more diminutive and of a finer fubftance than the groffer Body; on its union with which, nevertheless, the developement of its organs depends. But we must here take leave of this performance, with obferving that, throughout the whole, there is discovered more ingenuity than found reafoning; and that we cannot help applauding the fertility of the Writer's imagination, even where we are obliged to cenfure the inaccuracy of his judgment. Briefe von den Herrn Gellert und Rabener. K-n-k Letters that paffed between Meffieurs Gellert and Rabener. Leipfic, 1761. THE HE publication of these Letters, which are only four in number, has, it seems, been made without the privity or confent of the Writers; on which account those Gentlemen may probably be displeased, notwithstanding the very favourable reception they have met with from the public. Several Editions have already been printed, to fome of which is anrexed a real or pretended converfation between Mr. Gellert and his Pruffian Majefty. They are, on the whole, we are affured, not unworthy their Authors, although not of sufficient merit to authorize those lavish encomiums bestowed on them, or the avidity with which they have been bought up and read in Germany. It is fomewhat remarkable, however, that the horrors of war, amidst which this literary correspondence was carried on, should not have deprived it of that spirit and pleasantry with which thefe Letters abound; efpecially as the parties themselves were confiderable fufferers in their private fortunes, from the circumstances attending the common calamity. As for poor Rabener, he had the mortification of feeing his houfe, his books, manufcripts, and all his other effects burnt and destroyed; an account of which accident he gives to his friend in the following manner; " A ten. "A fhower of bullets and fhells, pouring about my house, I left it, and took fanctuary with the Governor; whither, about five o'clock, my honeft Valet came to acquaint me that my house was levelled with the ground; that the bombs had made their way into the vaults, and had burnt every thing I had placed there. To my comfort, indeed, he told me, the cellar was not damaged, but that it was very carefully pillaged by the foldiers who were sent to put out the fire. This was a terrible ftroke, my dear friend, a cutting blow, indeed! My furniture, cloaths, linnen, provision, all my books and manufcripts, together with your letters, which I ever carefully preferved, all were loft. Of effects, to the amount of three thousand rixdollars, I have not faved to the value of An old furtout, which I put on to affift in preventing the fire; an old peruke, picked up for the fame purpose; a little linnen, fo much worn as to have been already configned to the ufe of my fervant; and a night-gown: these are all the remains of my wardrobe. To the great confolation alfo of all fools that came after me, those valuable manuscripts which fhould have been printed when I was dead and gone, are all gone before me! Alas, every fingle fheet of them burnt to ashes! So that at prefent it is hardly worth while for me to die at all, fince I have no pofthumous piece to bequeath to the world. Before this fatal accident, indeed, I had fome confolation in the thoughts of dying, from the noise my Writings would make after my decease; but now I am fully determined to live as long and as commodioufly as I can. My heart, indeed, bleeds within me when I think of my darling books; the lofs of which I fhould never cease to regret, did not a thread-bare furtout and a dirty fhirt put ine in mind of the comforts of a good coat and clean linnen. In fhort, my dear friend, I am reduced even to the beggary of a Poet." K-n-k These are thy triumphs, thy exploits, OCÆSAR! MONTHLY CATALOGUE, For MAY, 1762. POLITICAL. Art. 1. A Letter to the Right Hon. the Earl of Et: Or, Confiderations on fending Land-Forces to Portugal. 8vo. 6 d. A. Henderson. D fapproves of our being fo alert to defend the Portuguese, whom the Letter-Writer deems more able to cope with the Spaniards, than |