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such wide intervals, from the Indian archipelagos to the * Sandwiches, or to Easter Island; in that case a much greater difference than actually exists would be found in their customs, superstitions, and especially in their relative state of civilization. For it is not imaginable that the chance company of a canoe, driven out to sea, and cast upon a distant island, should carry with them many of the arts of their country, or the means of perpetuating them. There is decisive proof of a Malay origin, or rather of a common origin with the Malays, in all the Polynesian vocabularies. Even in Madagascar, Captain Burney shows that the numerals are manifestly cognate with those in Sumatra and in Cocos Island. According to our judgment, the South Sea Islands must have been settled as colonies by some forgotten people in the East, who were either so far civilized as to colonize for the purposes of commerce, or had perhaps attained that higher state in which colonization is pursued without any views of mercantile gain, as necessary for the health and security of the state. The character of their priestcraft, the sacred language which exists in some of these islands, the Tooitonga of the Tonga islands, and the allegorical mythology, indicate much less than the unequivocal testimony of their dialects, a pelation to the East,-the land of allegory and of priestcraft.

The accounts which Captain Burney has collected with such diligence from every accessible source, in all languages, show that the Polynesians, when they were first discovered by the Spaniards two centuries ago, were much in the same state as when they were visited by Captain Cook. A lamentable change has taken place since our establishment in New Holland, and since the American and our own whalers have frequented their sea. They have acquired the arms, the vices, and the diseases of Europe in addition to their native stock. But on the other hand, there seems a reasonable assurance that civilization and Christianity have actually taken root in the Society islands. Those missionaries to whose unweariable zeal and admirable perseverance we bore a willing and a grateful testimony when they were insulted by those who sat in the chair of the scorner, are now reaping the fruits of their long labours. They have a school in the island of Eimeo, which is attended by persons of all ages; they have printed Spelling-books, Catechisms, and the New Testament, history in the language of the country, and were printing the Old Testament part of the scrip

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*In Zuniga's History of the Philippines, the islands of San Duisk are frequently mentioned, and the translator has not discovered the curious blunder. The Spanish author or his printer has fallen into the uuhappy mistake of supposing that San must have the same meaning in Sandwich as in Santiago, and have thus created Lord Sandwich a Saint:-a metamorphosé quite as extraordinary as that of St. Vitus into pagan idol.

tural history-their press is at Botany Bay. Many places of idolatrous worship have been destroyed, and some of the priests have literally committed their idols to the flames. The king appears to be a sincere convert. He says in one of his letters- Jehovah himself, He it is that causeth the growth of his own word; for that reason it prospers, it grows exceedingly.' If the work should proceed here as happily as it has begun, and Christianity with all its accompanying blessings be established firmly in a single island, the converted islanders will soon become objects of envy and imitation. Meantime, as the Missionary Societies extend their views, we hope the Tonga Islands will not be overlooked. A translation of the Gospels might be accomplished in this country, by means of these volumes, with Mr. Mariner's aid, and the Missionaries would thus be spared whole years of painful labour.

ART. II.-Dissertation prefixed to the Supplemental Volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica, exhibiting a General View of the Progress of Metaphysical, Moral and Political Philosophy in Europe, from the Revival of Letters. By Dugald Stewart,

F. R. S. &c.

WE entertain sentiments of unaffected esteem for the writings of Mr. Stewart, and have taken more than one opportunity of expressing it; nevertheless, as we are aware that our approbation is burdened with more conditions than his professed disciples will probably allow to be reasonable, of course we shall not be disappointed to find that the justice which we are willing to render him should appear, to many of our readers, somewhat penurious. But those who have studied the science to which he has devoted himself, in other writings as well as in this, will we trust acquit us of any wilful partiality. We cheerfully acknowledge the many amiable qualities discernible in every thing that he has written: Quis enim neget illum bonum virum et comem et humanum fuisse ?De ingenio ejus in hisce disputationibus, non de moribus, quæritur; our difference with him is upon matters of opinion; not because we are prepossessed in favour of the tenets of any other writer. but for reasons, the validity of which our readers have an opportunity of judging.

His writings are evidently the production of a superior mind, whose taste has been cultivated by much and various reading; and they have served to embellish the dry department of knowledge which he has taken under his protection, with a grace of which metaphysics had never before been thought susceptible. We are

far from undervaluing the importance of this service; but still we must be permitted to say, that we feel doubtful whether the science be proportionably indebted to him for many of those more substantial improvements which, after all, are what, in its present stage, it most requires. In fact, although Mr. Stewart is endowed in a remarkable degree with some of the qualities which are essential to the character of a fine writer, yet compared with any of the great names in philosophy, we cannot bring ourselves to look upon him as a powerful reasoner. Independently of the errors which we conceive to be mixed up with the very conception which he has formed of the proper aim of metaphysical philosophy, -a subject briefly touched upon on a former occasion, and respecting which we may hereafter take an opportunity of saying something more, he does not appear to us to manage his argument, such as it is, with any extraordinary dexterity. His conclusions do not always follow with exactness from his premises; and when it is otherwise, we think they seldom possess so much importance as he commonly supposes. To speak more explicitly, he is generally too fond of skirmishing with his adversaries; instead of grappling with the strength of his subject, he always seems to be desirous of bringing the matter to issue by affairs of posts; even when he is successful in this or that particular opinion, if indeed we may speak from our own experience, we rise from his writings without any settled knowledge of his views or any material changes being effected in the original position of our general principles.

But then, on the other hand, there is a warmth and animation in his manner, which, even in the bleakest and most barren parts of his subject, seems never to desert him; and combined as this fine quality is, with a rich imagination and a very great command of words, it imparts to his productions a character of eloquence, such as mere didactic works are not generally found to possess.-It is, however, a sort of eloquence which, as it seems to us, belongs more properly to oratory than to philosophy; emanating apparently from his own feelings rather than from the nature of the subject, and having commonly more dependence upon the qualities of his diction than upon the greatness of real importance of his ideas.

This, unquestionably, is a considerable merit; it is one, however, which, of itself, cannot be supposed to carry a man far in subjects that are only valuable on account of the useful truths to which they may be expected to lead; and accordingly, we do not find that the publications of Mr. Stewart have met with that extensive circulation, which the popular nature of his talents would appear, in other respects, so well calculated to have ensured them. In truth, we cannot help thinking that our excellent author has, in some degree,

misunderstood the real character of his genius, in devoting himself to so abstruse a branch of the science of the human mind, as logic. In the investigation of the theory of taste, or of morals, in short, in any of the graver departments of polite literature, we feel persuaded that his success, flattering as it has been upon the whole, would have been much more marked and extensive.-As it is, we think we have had occasion to observe, that the number of his readers is not quite so great as that of his admirers; and even the former seem, as far as we can judge, to take up his writings quite as much from an opinion as to the extraordinary merit of his style, as with a view to any profit which they expect to derive from his philosophical speculations.

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It may, perhaps, partly be in consequence of our particular views the subject of metaphysical philosophy, that we confess this last to be our own case. Nevertheless the pleasure which we receive from Mr. Stewart's style is by no means so unmixed, as that we could venture to recommend it to our readers as a model for their imitation; because, as it is absolutely without simplicity, it is not of the highest class of excellence; nor does it furnish the purest or most faultless specimen even of the class to which it belongs. Mr. Stewart's language is rich and copious, but it is, generally speaking, singularly deficient in exactness and precision. And although his phrases are, with a few exceptions, pure, and such as are used by good writers, yet his general manner of expressing himself seems to be founded rather upon the general principles of grammar, than upon the nice idiom of a spoken language. We shall perhaps be thought fastidious in what we are going to add; but we feel something that we desire and miss, even in that dignified elegance and urbanity of manner, by which his writings are distinguished. The fact is, it is too dignified; too reserved and sustained. Moreover, our author's periods, though judiciously constructed for the most part, are far too slow and measured, and not unfrequently far too rhythmical; this last we must take an opportunity of saying is among the greatest faults which any style can possess, though not unusually mistaken for a beauty, particularly among the Scottish writers of English; who from want of practice in the colloquial prosody of the language, or from what other cause we know not, (except indeed it be that which Cicero gives,) seem to be possessed with an idea, that a way of speaking which would not be tolerated in conversation even upon the gravest subjects, nor be approved by persons of taste even in the pulpit or at the bar, forms nevertheless the very perfection of what is commonly called fine writing. Itaque Caria et Phrygia et Mysia, quod minime polita minimeque elegantes sunt, adsciverunt suis

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auribus opimum quoddam et tanquam adipate dictionis genus, quod Rhodi nunquam probaverunt, Græci autem multo minus, Athenienses vero funditus repudiaverunt.

Having said thus much respecting the merits of Mr. Stewart's writings in general, we now come to the consideration of the work itself. Our author styles it 'A Dissertation exhibiting a general, View of the Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical, and Political Philosophy, since the Revival of Letters in Europe.'-It is, in general, exceedingly light reading, and we have derived from it some profit and more amusement; we confess, however, that had it not been for the information which he gives us in the title-page, we should have been rather puzzled had we been questioned as to the precise object for which we supposed it to be intended. It appears to us a sort of 'perambulation of learning' from which we come away, if we may be allowed to continue the metaphor, without remembering much more than that we have had a very pleasant walk, in company with a very sensible companion, during which we met with many agreeable persons whom we had no expectation of seeing so much of, and others again, whom we might more reasonably have hoped to see a good deal more. The remarks which our author makes upon each as they successively appear before him, are often just and entertaining; yet we own that in general they seem to be merely insulated criticisms upon the literary merits of individuals, for which a proper place might have been found in the body of the work, but which might, in a great variety of instances, have been omitted without inconvenience, in a work professing to give merely a synoptical view of the progress of human opinion in general.

In the plan which Mr. Stewart has adopted, if he has not consulted his strength, he has at least consulted his ease: for supposing a person to have the requisite talent and information, the task which our author has performed is one which, with the assistance of the historical abstracts of Buhle or Tenneman, cannot be supposed to have required any very laborious meditation. Had our author tried his strength with D'Alembert, indeed, it would have been another matter. The object which he attempted in his preface to the French Encyclopædia was one of exceeding difficulty; and on that account quite beyond his powers; which, except in mathematics, were only moderate. But a philosophical account of the objects and limits of speculative science; of the relation in which the various branches of it stand towards each other; of the progress which each has made; of the causes by which their further advancement has been respectively retarded; of their present state; and of the problems which still remain undiscussed or undetermined; is a desideratum in philosophy which it would have given

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