it is intimated to us from fome other quarter: in which cafe, when called upon by a perfen capable of comprehending us, and receiving fatisfaction on the fubject in queftion, we fhall be ready to give it in as ample a manner as is confiftent with our work, or can be reasonably required by our readers. Our antagonist will doubtless call this, in his ufual file, a jefuitical way of fhiiting off the argument, intolerable arrogance, &c. we must take the liberty to tell him, however, it is not the argument, but the writer, we fhould be pleased to get rid of: if we muft engage in a controverfy, we are indeedto far ambitious, as to wish it may be with a writer capable of understanding, and replying to an argument. K-n-k ACCOUNT of FOREIGN BOOKS. Efai Analytique fur les Facultés de l'Ame. Par Charles Bonnet, de la Societé Royale d'Angleterre, de l'Academie Royale des Sciences de Suede, de l'Academie de l'Inflitut de Bologne, An Analytical Efay on the Faculties of the Mind, &c. Copenhagen, 1760. 4to. Philibert. ME Etaphyfics, which, in this island, hath long given place to other branches of philofophy, hath ftill its numerous admirers, and is cultivated with no little appearance of fucrefs, on the continent. Among the many ingenious productions of this kind, which have been lately publifhed abroad, this of Mr. Bonnet has met with diftinguifhed approbation. It is indeed with great fatisfaction that we perceive a number of adepts in this fcience agreed, as to many effential points, which have been fo long and fo warmly contefted, as to have given the world a very difadvantageous idea of metaphyfical enquiries in general. Vague and uncertain, however, as they may be generally efteemed, there is reafon to think the imperfection of this fcience rather owing to the want of appli cation, or abilities, in the ftudent, than to any defect or impracticabili y of arriving at truth, in the nature of the ftudy. The objects of fuch enquiry are too generally conceived to be fuch only as are removed beyond the reach of our faculties, while our means of purfuit fall equally fhort of their end. But neither that object, nor thofe means, when fcientifically pointed out and purfued, are beyond the limits of human reafon; reafon; nor are they found to be inadequate to the purposes of philofophical investigation. So far it is certain that, as this fcience respects the moft fublime and refined improvements of our knowledge, it requires, as it deferves, the greateft efforts of genius, as well as the strongest powers of the understanding to be exerted in its cultivation. There are, it is true, among pretenders to this, as among thofe to every other icience, fome extraordinary adventurers, whofe excentric turn of mind, or depravity of taste and judgment, set them hunting after paradoxical novelties and unintelligible chimeras. Our author, however, is not one of these. Indeed there is but little novelty either in his fubject or manner of treating it; the Abbe de Condillac having pursued nearly the fame plan. Mr. Bonnet, however, having begun this work before the appearance of the Abbe's treatife, was prevailed on by thofe to whom he had communicated his defign*, to perfevere in carrying it into execution: for, though the task he had sketched out was, in fome measure, performed by that eminent philofopher, he found their conformity of fentiments as to general points, had not prevented a confiderable difference in their particular ideas, as well as in their method of analyfis. Our author has contented himself, nevertheless, with taking only a curfory view of thofe matters, which Mr. Condillac had confidered in the fame light he himfelf might have done. At the fame time, he hath greatly improved on the Frenchman's plan; corrected the mistakes into which he conceives him fallen; and, by filling up the chafms and tracing a more regular connection between the feveral parts of the argument, hath formed a compleat chain of reafoning on this nice and difficult fubject of investigation. The general defign of this work, as laid down in the preface, is to difcover the nature of man, as far as it can be known. Not that the author pretends to inform us of the real effence of those two distinct fubftances of which he conceives man to be compofed; to penetrate the mystery of their reciprocal influence on each other, or to difclofe the fecret of their union. He is contented to ftudy man in the manner he would contemplate a plant or an infect. Convinced that all our ideas are originally founded on our perceptions, he has The completion and publication of this work are indeed principally owing to the protection and patronage of the King of Denmark, to whom Mr. Bonnet has gratefully dedi.ated his performance. confidered confidered the latter with peculiar attention. To this end, he examines what paffes in the organs of fenfe, in transmitting to the mind the impreffions made on them by external objects. He confiders the action of those fibres on which depend our ideas; reafoning from the refult of their various movements and relations to each other. From a particular examination into all thefe it is, that he endeavours to explain the operations of the human mind, and the manner in which ideas are generated and ftored up therein. Again, being perfuaded, on the other hand, of the action of the foul on the body, as evinced by the effects of volition, he confiders it as a force or power applied to the fibres compofing the fenfible organs; from the effects of which he deduces the knowledge of the actual exercife of the mental faculties. Our author fets out with a detail of those principles, on which he proceeds in the course of his treatise: but these, as we have already intimated, being neither new nor uncommon, we should be thought unneceffarily tedious to follow him step by ftep through his work. Having hinted his general method and defign therefore, we shall only take notice of a paffage or two, that occur in the profecution of his fubject, which may ferve as a fpecimen of Mr. Bonnet's manner of thinking, and of his abilities for metaphyfical speculation. "Our fenfe of pleasure and pain, fays he, depends more or lefs on the mobility of the fenfible fibres; pleasure confifting in all the degrees between their too great or too little agitation. A fufceptible Being cannot be a moment indifferent to pain and pleasure; nor is it poffible for it to distinguish one fenfation from another, without giving, at the fame time, the preference to one of them. The immediate effect of this preference is that attention which fuch being gives to that fenfation which is the most agreeable, which attention confifts in a certain exertion of the activity of the foul on the fibres of the brain; whence the momentum of the motion, first impreffed on thofe fibres by the object, is increased, and fuch object engages the power of volition to exert itself, in confequence thereof, by a method conformable to its pleasure or prefervation. Hence, fays he, the will is that act of a fenfible, or intelligent Being, by which it prefers, of feveral circumftances, that which promifes it moft good or leaft evil and its liberty, or the freedom of the will, confifts in that faculty by which the foul executes its defires. Every Being, therefore is a free agent that has the power of doing what it wills. To be a free agent, it is not neceffary to have the power power of deliberation, or of acting, on any occafion, in this, that, or the other, manner. It is fufficient that we are capable of voluntary action, or of acting agreeable to the determination of the will. The infinite Being faw, and willed, what is right, from all eternity; but never deliberated about it. By an act of his liberty, he executed his fovereign will, and gave the poffible world an actual existence. The philofopher, therefore, continues our author, who has reprefented the Almighty Being as having made a deliberate choice of the beft of all poffible worlds, has expreffed himself, in my opinion, much more like a poet than a metaphyfician." With refpect to the immortality of the foul, and a future ftate, our author's fentiments are not incurious; they may, however, be thought perhaps more ingenious than folid. There are a numerous clafs of animal beings, fays he, which undergo very furprizing metamorphofes. The individual is, in its firft ftate, a crawling worm, or creeping caterpillar, which devours the verdure of the earth. In its next, it becomes, to all appearance, an infenfible mafs, without parts or motion; fuch is the chryfalis, which takes no nourishment, and betrays hardly any figns of life. At length, in its third tate, it appears as a papilio, or butterfly, is ornamented with the most beautiful colours, and, provided with wings, roves from place to place, fporting in the fun-fhine, tafting the fweeteft flowers, or indulging itself in the pleasures of love. Still the fame animal, the butterfly, exifted under the form of the caterpillar, and the folds of the chryfalis; nor doth it pafs through thofe fucceffive changes, but because they are neceffary to its acquifition of new faculties. Thus it is, that nature, by a progrefs, more or lefs flow, conducts every fpecies of beings to perfection: and thus man, in the eyes of fuperior beings capable of knowing him truly, may be in the fame fituation as the caterpillar in the eye of a naturalift. Death perhaps reduces him into the state of a chryfalis, and is only preparatory to that metamorphofis he will affume in another itate *. But This allufion, ingenious as it is, is far from being new: the author of Epifties to Lorenzo has made ufe of it, though we think lefs philofophically than Mr Bonnet, as the former fuppofes the prefent flate of man to refemble that of the chrysalis. Is man a worm? 'tis here his fate To winter his aurelia state; ໄຕ But our philofopher doth not content himself with advancing the plaufibility of a future exiftence; he goes fo far, as to endeavour to fhew not only the immortality of the foul, but also the poffibility and neceffity of its future union with an incorruptible and spiritual body, agreeable to what is taught us by revelation. As it is admitted, that the foul cannot act but through the interpofition of the fenfes, he conceives that the Deity has formed an organical machine, of a fubftance fimilar to that of fire, æther, or light; that this machine is infinitely fub:le, and is inclofed within a callous body, which is properly the feat of the foul, and is the organ of reciprocal communication between the foul and body in the prefent ftate. This organ, or refined body, he conceives alfo to be the only effential body of man; that, during the life of the groffer material body, the fibres of this feat of the foul, which correfpond with thofe of the fenfible organs, receive thofe impulfes or determinations which conftitute the phyfical economy or mechanifm of the memory. In death, the communication between the grofs, adventitious body, and the refined, effential one, is broken; as is alfo that between the organs of fenfe and the perceptible univerfe. The nature, however, of this receptacle of the foul is fuch, as enables it to divet itfelf of all connection with thofe caules that operates to the diffolution of the groffer body. Hence, in this new ftate, the man ftill retains his confcioufnefs and perfonality, because the mind remains united to that little organifed machine, which has the faculty of remembering the occurrences of its firft ftate. In this manner he conceives this feat or receptacle of the foul to comprehend the germ of that incorruptible body, with which, according to the fcriptures, we fhall be cloathed at the general refurrection. In time to burft his cell defign'd, K-n-k To the AUTHORS of the MONTHLY REVIEW. GENTLEMEN, I hope you will oblige the public with giving the inclofed The work is now printing |