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TONS, BACONS, and CLARKES in very contemptuous ftrains; he never ventures, however, on a regular attack, and takes fpecial care not to encounter them face to face.

The same conduct is obferved by all his officers, who swell, and ftrut, and look mighty fierce; but, in the day of action, have nothing of the fteadiness, weight, and firmness of regular and well difciplined troops. The juftnefs of this character will not be called in question by those who are acquainted with the writings of D'Alembert, Marmontel, du Marfais, &c. &c. But to the prefent performance:

We fhall give our Readers part of what the Author fays concerning the character of a real philofopher, and the great end which he ought to have in view.

There is no prejudice more common than that of confounding fingularity and the love of diftinction, with philofophy. Nor is this at all furprifing. The vulgar, who never carry their thoughts beyond appearances, are always ftruck with a man who deviates from the common path, who pursues a system of conduct directly oppofite to that of the generality of mankind, who defpifes what others covet, who renounces riches, grandeur, and all the fweets and allurements of life. The whimfical fingularity of his conduct, after dazzling the eyes of the vulgar, fometimes creates a prejudice in favour of his opinions; nay it happens, not unfrequently, that from being an object of pity or of ridicule, he obtains applaufe and admi

ration.

But let us distinguish philosophy from what has only the appearance of it; let us confider the man who profeffes it without prejudice; and let us not proftitute the name of wifdom to pride or peevishnets. Under the Cynic's mantle, or that of the stoic; under the appearance of difintereftcdnefs, and a contempt of honours, fame, and pleafure, it is no uncommon thing to find perfons abfolutely enslaved by envy, fpleen, and ambition.

If philofophy is the fearch after truth, fincerity must be the firft and the mft effential quality of a philofopher. Great talents and the art of thinking are not exclufive privileges granted to perfons of cool, difpaffionate, and virtuous dispositions. The man who thinks, is not always a philofopher; he may have a wretched temper, be tormented with fpleen, and a flave to paffion; he may be envious, haughty, deceitful, diffatisfied with others and with himself. When this is the cafe, he is incapable of making just observations; his reasonings become fufpicious; he can fcarce fee himfelf in his genuine, native colours; or if he does, he strives to conceal from himself the obliquity and irregularity of his temper and disposition: his philofophy, or rather the motley fyftems of his brain, are

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full of confufion; there is no connection in his principles; all is fophiftry and contradiction; infincerity, pride, envy, caprice, mifanthropy appear throughout; and if the vulgar, dazzled with his talents and the novelty of his principles, look upon him as a profound and fublime philofopher, persons of nicer difcernment fee nothing but fpleen, difcontented vanity, and fometimes malignity under the guife of virtue.

The philofopher has no right to efteem or value himself but when he contributes to the welfare of his fellow-creatures; the applauses of his confcience are then only lawful and neceffary when he knows he deferves them. In a world blinded by prejudice, and fo often ungrateful, this ideal recompence is, alas! almoft the only one that is left to virtue. Let the philofopher, therefore, efteem himself when he has done good; let him congratulate himself upon being free from those vain defires, thofe vices, thofe fhameful paffions, thofe imaginary wants with which others are tormented; but let him not compare himself with his fellow-creatures in fuch a manner as to fhock their felf-love. If he thinks himfelf happier than they, let him not infult their wretchednefs; above all, let him not plunge them in defpair. The friend of wifdom ought to be the friend of men; he ought never to defpife them; he ought to fympathize with them in their afflictions; he ought to comfort and encourage them. A love of mankind, an enthusiasm for public good, fenfibility, humanity,thefe are the motives which ought to animate the man of virtue; these the motives which he may acknowledge without a blufh.-Without this, philofophy is only an idle and ufelefs declamation against the human fpecies, which proves nothing but the pride or peevishnefs of the declaimer, and convinces nobody.

What title, indeed, has the philofopher to defpife or infult his fellow-creatures? Is it because he imagines he has fuperior knowledge. But his knowledge is ufelefs, if fociety derives no advantage from it. Why fhould he hate his fpecies, or what glory can arife from mifanthropy? True and folid glory can only be founded upon humanity, the love of mankind, fenfibility and gentlenefs of manners.-Are men ignorant and full of prejudices? Alas! education, example, habit, and authority oblige them to be fo. Are they flaves to vice, paffion, and frivolous defires? Thofe who regulate their deftiny, the impoftors who feduce them, the models which they have before their eyes, produce in their hearts all the vices that torment them. To hate or defpife men for their errors and follies, is to infult those whom we ought to pity, and to reproach them with neceffary and unavoidable infirmities.

Let us comfort man, therefore, but let us never infult or defpife him; on the contrary, let us infpire him with confi

dence ;.

dence; let us teach him to set a just value upon himself, and to feel his own dignity and importance; let us exalt his views, and give him, if poffible, that vigour and force, which so many caufes combine to break and deftroy. True wifdom is bold and manly; it never affumes the haughty and imperious air of fuperftition, which feems to have nothing else in view but to debafe and annihilate the human mind. If the philofopher has warmth and energy in his foul, if he is fufceptible of a deep and strong indignation, let him roufe and exert himself against those falsehoods and impostures of which his species has been fo long the victim; let him boldly attack thofe prejudices which are the real fources of all human calamities; let him deftroy, in the opinion of his brethren, the empire of those priests and tyrants who abuse their ignorance and their credulity; let him wage eternal warfare with fuperftition, which has fo often deluged the earth with blood; let him vow irreconcilable enmity to that horrid defpotifm, which, for fo many ages, has fixed its throne in the midft of wretched nations. If he thinks himfelf poffeffed of fuperior knowledge, let him communicate it to others; if he is more intrepid, let him lend them an helping hand; if he is free, let him point out to others the means of afferting their freedom; let him endeavour to cure them of their fervile and debafing prejudices, and the fhackles which opinion has forged will foon fall from off their hands. To infult the wretched is the height of barbarity; to refuse to lead the blind is the height of cruelty; to reproach them bitterly for having fallen into the ditch, is both folly and inhumanity.'

Our Author has a great deal more to the fame purpose, which it would give us pleasure to infert; but the narrow limits to which the prefent article is confined, oblige us to refer our Readers to the work itself: we fhall therefore conclude with the following reflection:

From what our Author, and the generality of modern French writers fay on the fubject of religion, it appears pretty evident that they have formed their ideas of it from that corrupt and abfurd fyftem in which they have been educated, and have never inquired, with that accuracy and attention which the importance of the fubject demands, into the fundamental principles of natural religion, and the evidences of Chriftianity. It is not at all to be wondered at, that perfons of a liberal and philofophical turn of mind, in France, Spain, and Italy, fhould entertain prejudices against Christianity; the candid Reader, therefore, will make favourable allowances for fuch writers, and, inftead of infulting, will be difpofed to pity them.

R.

ART. V.

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ART. V.

Hiftoire de l'Academie Royale de Sciences, &c.-The Hiftory of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres at Berlin, VOL. XXII. 4to. Berlin, printed for

for the Year 1766.

Haude and Spener.

1768.

EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY.

MEMOIR I. On a vegetable Oil, proper to supply the Place of the Oil of Olives, in thofe Countries where the Olive-Tree cannot be cultivated. By M. De Francheville.

TH

HE Author of this Memoir evinces the practicability, and recommends the practice, of extracting a pure and well-tafted oil, not at all inferior to the beft oil of olives, from the fruit of a common and well-known tree, which grows without any particular care in countries too cold for the cultivation of the olive-tree. This tree is the Beech, the Fagus of the Latins, or payos of the Greeks, undoubtedly fo called (ao T pay) on account of the nutrimental quality of its fruit, the Beech maft; which, and not the acorn, was probably the principal vegetable nourishment of the first men.

It is remarkable that the Author firft faw and tafted the oil extracted from this fruit in France; which country furnishes fo great a quantity of the oil of olives, both for home confumption and exportation. He obferves, that he first met with it at Villers Côterez in the Soiflonois; where, as well as throughout Burgundy, Champaigne, Picardy, and feveral other of the inland provinces, this oil is ufed at table, even in the beft houfes many of the inhabitants preferring it, principally indeed on account of its cheapnefs, to olive oil; with which, however, the greatest part of them he affirms are even unacquainted. He relates the different circumftances and precautions to be obferved in the gathering the beech maft, after it falls from the tree, and in the peeling of it, both which are the work of children; and mentions the proper time and manner of expreffing the oil from it afterwards. The fubftance (Marc) remaining after the expreffion of the oil, is faid to be thereby not only rendered more agreeable to the tafte, but likewife of a more nutritive quality than before, and accordingly more proper for fattening fowls, hogs, and cattle: but, what will appear more remarkable, he affirms, that after being dried and ground, it makes a well-tafted and wholefome bread, either alone or mixed with flour. Nay, towards the end of this Memoir, M. de Francheville almost makes our mouths water with his account of the fromage, gatean's, and other regales, which the Burgundian housewives prepare with it, with the addition of milk and eggs. If the helpmates of the firft men underflood and practifed thefe arts, APP. Rev. vol. xliv.

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the bread-corn afterwards introduced amongst them by Ceres and her Eleve and affiftant Triptolemus, was a mere hors d'œuvre. -Seriously, however, if M. de Francheville does not over-rate the qualities and uses of this fpontaneous production, the subject of this article appears highly worthy of attention, not only on account of the oil expreffible from it, but of the uses to which the refiduum may be applied, in ruftical economy, and as a ready refource, in fome countries at leaft, in times of fcarcity. MEMOIR II. Analysis of fome Experiments on the Magnet. By M.

Lambert.

MEMOIR III. On the Curvature of the magnetical Currents. By the fame.

It is impoffible, without the affiftance of diagrams, to enter into any very particular detail of M. Lambert's experiments. We shall however attempt to give a general idea of the drift of them, and of the principles on which they are conducted.

The numerous experiments which have been made with a view to discover the principles of magnetifm, and particularly the force with which a magnet attracts at different distances, and in different pofitions, have hitherto been productive of theories exceedingly various. The caufes of this variety are not difficult to be affigned. For, though the laws of magnetical attraction are in all probability very fimple; yet no method has yet been difcovered, of reducing the experiments inftituted with a view of difcovering them, to a proper degree of fimplicity, or to divest them of the influence of every circumftance foreign to the parti cular fubject of enquiry. To mention only one or two of the difficulties attending this fubject: every magnet, while it poffeffes an attractive power in one of its poles, is endued with a repellent power in the other, whofe ratio to the former is unknown. In the experiments which have been made, a fmall needle has been placed in various fituations, and at different diftances from a magnet; but, while the needle is exposed to the attractive power of one of its poles, it is at the fame time affected by the contrary and repellent power of the other pole: for although we can give a magnet feveral poles, no one has yet been able to produce a loadftone, or artificial magnetic bar, poffeffed only of one. And though, with fuch a magnet, one fource of uncertainty would be removed, another would remain, arifing from this circumftance, that the attractive power refides not in the pole alone, but is diffused, in an unknown degree, through the fubftance of the ftone: fo that the whole attractive power of fuch a magnet is not the fimple effect of one precife point of it, but the accumulated and complicated refult of the ixed action of all its parts. For these, and other reasons, the determinations of natural philofophers have been fo various: fome affirming, that the attractive power is inverfely as the

fquares

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