realms of Pluto" (the burning phrase for gold-mines) " is unwholesome to mian, because he CANNOT EAT GOLD!" and that "the littlenefs of man in the domains of nature, may be inferred from the thin stratum of fruitful mould, which alone is properly his territory."

66

man

In the fecond chapter, where the vegetable kingdom of our earth is considered with respect to the history of man, we are told, that and animals are produced from seed, which, like the germ of a future tree, requires a matrix." But we must not purfue this fubject; and fhall only add, that men and trees, when they die, "refign the little phlogiston which they contain to the soul of nature!" We know not whether the reader, after this, will be furprised to learn, that "in the eye of a fuperior Being, man's actions upon earth may appear juft as important, certainly at least as determinate and circumfcribed, as the actions and enterprises of a tree!" Of the truth of this affertion, we confels that we are not without our doubts. To the air, our author's creator of worlds, a tree and a philosophical historian are indeed of the fame importance; but we have a strong fufpicion, that "the PRINCE of the power of the air" is much more interested in the enterprises of the philosopher than in those of the tree.

We pass over the author's lamentation on the humiliating manner in which children are begotten; and regret, in our turn, the occafional defects of his memory. In the former book he traced the human race from one heir who had their refidence in Afia. Here he obferves, much more philofophically, that "all plants grow wild in fome part or other of the world. Thofe, which we cultivate with art, fpring from the free lap of nature, and arrive at much greater perfection in their proper climes. With animals, and with men it is the fame: for every race of men, in its proper region, is organized in the manner moft natural to it. Every foil, every fort of mountains, as well as a like degree of heat and cold, nourishes its own plants." Therefore, as men and animals are plants, there must have been differently organized races of men placed originally in different regions.

We were at fome lofs to conceive what could have given fo rational and sober a writer fuch a favourable opinion of the fcience of astrology; but the grounds of that opinion are here developed, and fhewn to be truly solid."The plants of the Cape, in our hot-houses, bloffom in winter, as then ar rives the summer of their native country. The marvel of Peru bloffoms at night, probably because it is then day in America *, whence it originally came!!" Now these sympathies can refult only from the fecret influence of the stars, or at least of the sun, one ftar, on the plants; and in the discovery of this influence confifts the science which our author wishes to restore to its prif tine rank.

Next follows a fentimental addrefs to the plants" falutary children of the earth!" After which we are told that man is a BEAST, holding the middle rank between the carniverous and graminivorous animals. This subject is

*The author attributes this' reafon for the nocturnal bloffoming of the marvel to Linneus. We fhould have the very fame opinion of it that we have, had its author been Newton, or even Solomon; but we confess, that from the manner in which he refers to the transactions of the Swedish academy, which we have not at hand, we have strong suspicions that Linneus has made no fuch affertion,

continued

1

continued in the third chapter, which treats of the animal kingdom in relation to the history of man. "I mutt here observe, once for all," fays the author, "that man acquired chiefly from BEASTS them elves, that information, which enabled him gradually to obtain his dominion over them. These were the living parks of the DIVINE UNDERSTANDING, (Q. Were the beats or the information derived from thefe fparks?) the rays of which, as they related to food, hab ts of life, clothing, addrefs, arts, or inftincts, he condensed within himself f.om a greater or fmaller circle." (p. 63.)

It has often been remarked, that the animals peculiar to the new world, have neither the ftrength nor fiercenets of thofe of the old; and various reafons have been affigned for thefe differences, of which we believe, that, till the appearance of the work before us, not one was deemed fatisfactory by fober inquirers. Our author, however, folves the difficulty with his ufual confidence and ufual fuccefs.

The American animals "difengaged themfelves with difficulty from the warm slime," in which they originally grew, fome leaving behind them "their teeth; others, a foot or a claw, and others again the tail; and hence it is that most are deficient in fize, courage, or fwiftnets!!" An account of the origin of animals very fimilar to this had indeed occurred to certain philofophers of antiquity, who taught that mother Earth first brought forth vast numbers of legs, and arms, and heads, &c. which approaching each other, arranging themfelves properly, and being cemented together, started up at nce full grown men and women. But the philofophers of antiquity knew nothing of the electric ftream," which their modern difciples have difcovered to be an effential ingredient in the compofition of animals; and our author affures us, that "the electric ftream being evidently wanting in Ame rica," this defect in the animals originally mutilated by the tenacity of the flime of that continent, is the cause of their inferiority to the animals of Afia, Africa, and Europe!

In the fourth chapter, of which it is the profeffed object to prove," that man is a creature of a middle kind among terreftrial animals," we meet with two very unexpected pieces of information. The firft is, that " in the eye of the eternal Being, who views all things in one connected whole, perhaps the form of the icy particle, as it is generated, and the flake of snow which grows from it, may have an analogous refemblance to the formation of the embryo in the female womb!" and the fecond, that "no fooner does the bird approach the earth in a hideous equivocal genus, as in the bat and vampire, -but (then) it refembles the human ikeleton!" These are two of the author's proofs that man is a creature of a middle kind; and we are perfuaded that the reader will agree with us in thinking, that they are of themfelves a sufficient reafon for the exclamation-" Rejoice in thy fituation, O man! and ftudy thyself, thou noble middle creature, in all that lives around thee,” but more especially in bats and vampires!!

The third book is, like the fecond, physiological; but it contains rather PHYSIOLOGICAL HYPOTHESIS than physiological news. In fix chapters the author confiders the structure of plants and animals; compares the various powers that operate in animals; gives what he calls examples of the physiological structure of some animals; treats of instincts, which he attributes, not only to animals, but also to vegetables, and even to a STONE falling by the force of gravity; confiders the advancement of the creature from mere vegetable life, to what he

calls

calls a combination of several ideas, and to a particular frcer use of the senses and limbs; and confiders the organic difference between men and beasts.

In this book every thing is attributed to what is termed ORGANIC POWER; but of orgnaic power itself, the reader will look in vain for an explanation or definition. It feems, however, to be the author's meaning, that all the difference between men and beats, and even between men and vege tables, results from the ftructure of their feveral parts, and their combination of thofe parts into one whole; and that the feveral senses, inftead of being the instruments of mind by which it exerts its various propenfities, are the bases of those propenfities themselves. We shall not, however, be pofitive that this is precifely the author's meaning; for the flyle of this book is fo totally unlike every thing that we have feen expreffive of icience, the writings of Kant and his followers alone excepted, that when with no fmall difficulty we had collected, as we thought, fome fenfe from " the burning words," we found, on clofer infpection, that we had got hold only of a cinder. It is proper, however, that the reader form his own judgment; and this he may fee from the following paffage, the most luminous and comprehenfive that occurs during the difquifition:

"Nature bestowed on her living children what he had beft to befłow, an organic fimilitude of her own creative power, animating warmth. From inanimate vegetable life the creature produces, by means of certain organs, living stimuli; and from the fum of thefe, refined by more exquifite ducts, the medium of perception. The result of ftimuli is IMPULSE: the refult of perception is thought; an eternal progress of the creative organization imparted to every living being. With its organic warmth, not as perceptible externally to our rude inftruments, the perfection of the fpecies increases; and, perhaps too, its capacity for a more delicate fenfe of well-being, in the all-pervading ftream of which the all-warming, all-quickening, all-enjoying mother feels her own exiftence." (p. 81.)

The fubject is continued in the fourth book, in which the intelle&tual and moral fuperiority of man is attributed wholly to his erect form, with the superior size, and greater elaboration of his brain. What is meant by elaboration of brains we have no means of difcovering; and a reader, not accuftomed to our author's mode of writing, might be tempted to charge him with contra-, diction or inconfiftency, when he contends that men are fuperior to apes, and yet affirms, that the brains of some apes equal in fize and elaboration those of man. The contradiction, however, will be feen to vanifh, when it is known that the CAPACITY OF SPEECH is the SOURCE OF REASON! "It was in being organized with a capacity for fpeech, that man received the breath of the divinity, the feed of reason and eternal perfection, an echo of that creative voice to rule the earth, in a word, the divine art of ideas, the mother of all arts." "But the man-like ape is vifibly and forcibly deprived" of fpeech by the pouches nature has placed at the fides of the windpipe.

Why has the father of human fpeech done this? Why would he not permit the all-imitative ape to imitate precifely this criterion of human kind, inexorably clofing the way to it by peculiar obfiacles? Vifit an hofpital of lunatics, and attend to their difcourfe; liften to the jabbering of monfters and idiots, and you need not be told the caufe. How painful to us is the utterance of thefe! How do we lament to hear the gift of language fo profaned by thofe! and how much more would it be profaned in the mouth of the grofs, lafcivious, brutal ape, could he imitate human words, with the half-human understanding, which I have no doubt he poffefles !" (Pp. 156, 157.)

Had our author been a British philofopher we should not have hefitated to pronounce that here he reafons in a circle; for if the dumb ape poffeffes half human understanding, and if the capacity of reason be the source of reason, the speaking ape, fo far from profaning language by his golsnels and lafcivioufnels, might have figured among the philolophers and poets patronized at the court of Weimar by the Duchefs Dowage., and might, in time, have even fucceeded Herder as fuperintendant of the clergy! We dare not, how ever, urge this objection against our author, who being deeply read in the logic of KANT, poffefies the happy talent of reconciling what, to our un philofophical heads, has the appearance of a contradiction.

In this book and in the next, which might well be entitled METAPHYS 1CAL News, will be found fome arguments for the immortality of the human foul, which have been often urged with great force; but which are here so completely enveloped in the sublime language of KANT, that it requires the utmost effort of meaner minds to accompany our author through the detail of them. As ftated by WOLLASTON and others, the reafoning built on man's fufceptibility of perpetual improvement, in contradiftinction to the capacities of the inferior animals, which, as genera and species, have not advanced one flep fince the beginning of the world, is perfectly intelligible; and to would it be, as ftated by our author, had he not deprived man of an individual and permanent principle of conicioufnels. Man's powers are, in his fyftem, all organical; and no power in nature can exist without an organ. He expressly declares that he agrees with " Priestley and others who have objected to the piritualifts, that no fuch thing as pure fpirit is known in the universe; and that we by no means fee far enough into the nature of matter, to deny it the faculty of thinking, or other fpiritual qualities." Yet he repeatedly affirms that he is no materialist; and ftigmatizes the opinions of that fect with the appellation of mists which, before the torch of truth which he holds up to the world, mult vanish for ever!

According to him the organ of God, which he describes fometimes as elec tric matter, fometimes as air, fometimes as ether, ometimes as the plastic nature of CUDWORTH ; but which feems on the whole to be the ANIMA MUNDI Of the ancient stoics, animates every organized fyftem on earth, from the crystal in the mire to a NEWTON or a SOLOMON. This plaftic fubftance forms the organs of each individual being which it animates, according to certain laws; and combining itfelf varioufly with thefe organs, furnishes men, for example, with a set of organic powers, producing consciousness, reason, sensation, and volition, &c. When the organs are worn out, there is an end of the man, but not of the powers by which he was aniniated. Thefe pafs into another state, and animate more perfect organs; for power cannot be annihilated, and all powers are in a fiate of progreffion. This idea of progreffion he carries fo far as fometimes to fuppofe that the fyftem of powers, which aết in the organs of man, had formerly animated inferior animals, and even vegetables.

Be it, that we know nothing of our real or pure spirit, we defire not to know it as fuch. Be it, that it is originally the fame with all the of powers matter, of irritability, of motion, of life, and merely acts in a higher fphere, in a more elaborate and subtile organization, has one fingle power of motion and irritability been feen to perifh? Are thefe inferior powers one and the fame with their organs? Can he, who introduced an innumerable multitude of these into my body, and ordained each its forms who fet my foul over them, appointed the feat of her operations, and gave her in the nerves, bands by which

all

all these powers are linked together, want a medium in the great chain of nature to tranfport her out of it? And can he fail to do this, when he has fo wonderfully introduced her into this organic fenfe, evidently to form her to a fuperior destination? (p. 201.)

Should the reader not clearly perceive the author's object through the fmoke raised by thefe burning words, let him perule with attention the fol lowing extracts:

"When the door of creation was fhut, the forms of organization already chofen remained as appointed ways and gates, by which the inferior powers might in future raise and improve themselves within the limits of nature. New forms arife no more: but our powers are continually verging in their progress through those that exist, and what is termed organization is properly nothing more than their conductor to a higher state." (p. 203.)

"The animal stands above the plant, and fubfifts on its juices. The fingle elephant is the grave of millions of plants; but he is a living, operative grave; he animalizes them into parts of himself: the inferior powers afcend to the more subtile form of vitality. It is the fame with all carniverous beasts. Nature has made the tranfition fhort, as if the feared a lingering death above all things. The greatest murderer among all animals is man, the creature that poffeffes the finest organs. He can assimilate to his nature almost every thing unless it fink too far beneath him in living organization. (p. 204.) Strip off the outer integument, and there is no fuch thing as death in the creation every demolition is but a paffage to a higher fphere of life; and the wile Father of all has made this as early, quick, and various, as was con fistent with the maintenance of the fpecies, and the happiness of the creaturé that was to enjoy its integument, and improve it as far as poffible. By a thousand various modes of ending life, he has prevented tedious deaths, and promoted the germe of blooming powers to fuperior organs. (p. 204.)

:

"Thus, the fcale of improvement afcends through the inferior ranks of nature; and shall it stand still or retrograde in the nobleit and most powerful? The animal requires for its nutriment only vegetable powers, with which it enlivens parts of a vegetable nature." Then, after obferving that animals prey upon each other's powers which are all spiritual, he adds Now, fince thefe cannot exist without organic grounds, we are led to confider the human fpecies, if we may be allowed a conjecture on this obfcurity of the storehouse of creation, as the great confluence of inferior organic powers, which were to unite in it for the formation of man!" (p. 207.)

"Every thing in nature is connected; one state pushes forward and prepares another. If then man be the laft and highest link, clofing the chain of terrestrial organization, he mutt begin the chain of a higher order of creatures, as its lowelt link, and is probably, therefore, the middle ring between two adjoining fyftems of the creation. He cannot pass into any other orga Hization upon earth, WITHOUT TURNING BACKWARDS, AND WANDERING IN A CIRCLE: that he should stand still is impoffible, fince no living power in the dominions of the most active goodne.s is at reft: thus there must be a step before him, close to him, yet as exalted above him, as he is pre-eminent over the brute, to whom he is at the me time nearly allied. This view of things, which is fupported by ALL THE LAWS OF NATURE, (What a prodigy muft our author have been?) alone gives us the key to the wonderful phenomenon of man, and at the fame time to the only philosophy of his history." (p. 225.)

The Monthly Reviewers admit that these speculations on cofmogony, gea

NO. LXXIV, VOL. XVIII.

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logy,