proceedings of the apoftolic age, the primitive church, and the moft venerable among the ancient fathers; he draws, from the nature of religion, and from the principles of natural law, unanfwerable arguments in favour of toleration,-removes the difficulties that may be alleged against it, and fuggefts the precautions with which it ought to be allowed. Civil or political tole ration is the fubject of the fourth chapter. This is founded upon the laws of the empire, the pacification of Paffau, and the fucceeding conventions of Augfburg, Ofnabrug, and Munfter; and our author fhews, that it is both the duty and the prerogative of the Emperor to maintain these laws, that the happy fruits of civil toleration, the pernicious effects of perfecution, and many other political confiderations require their maintenance. He proves, moreover, that civil toleration is neither inconfiftent with the obligation, by which fovereigns are bound to maintain public tranquillity and order, nor with the protection they owe to the church of Rome. He fhews how far Socinians, Anabaptifts, and other fects, may be tolerated, without expofing to the reproach of religious indifference, either the Roman Catholics, or the Lutheran and Reformed churches. Finally, he concludes this judicious and interefting work with an account of the Greek charches, who feparated themselves from the jurifdiction of the church of Rome, defcribing their state before the council of Florence, their prefent ftate, and the principal rea fons of their feparation, and pointing out the means of reftoring the union that fubfifted, in ancient times, between the Greek and the Latin churches.

The three mottos, that are placed at the head of this excel, lent book, fhew the fpirit of the author and of his publication, The first is the fublime fong of the angels at the birth of Chrift, Glory to God in the highest-peace on earth and good will towards men. The fecond is the noble faying of Theodoric, as we find it in Caffiodorus, Religionem imperare non poffumus, quia nemo cogitur ut credat invitus.The third is that ingenious fentence of Seneca (Ep. 97.), Societas noftra lapidum fornicationi fimillima eft, qua, cafura nifi INVICEM OBSTARENT, hoc ipfo continetur,

II. Zimmerman's Reife um die Wolte, &c. i. e. A Voyage round the World with Captain Cook. By Mr. HENRY ZIMMER MAN, of Willock in the Palatinate. 8vo. 1781. Manheim. This author, who was on board the Discovery, relates the cir cumftances of this famous voyage with a great appearance of veracity; and his obfervations are often inftructive and enter taining. The whole bears fuch a ftriking refemblance of the anonymous work publifhed in England on the fame fubject, that the two publications almoft feem to have proceeded from the fame pen. III. For

F 4

III. For fock Atvifa, &c. i. e. A Difcourfe, in which it is propofed to confute the Hypothefis of the Influence of Climate on the Character of Nations, delivered at a Meeting of the Royal Academy at Stockholm, October 25, 1780. By M. FERMER, Counsellor in Chancery. 8vo. 1781.-Montesquieu's ingenious obfervations on the influence of climate, exercised a strong attractive power upon the imaginations of fanciful readers. They have been warmly oppofed by many learned men; but they have lately met with a very able and ingenious advocate in Dr. FALCONER, who has given this hypothefis new colours, and rendered it alluring by philosophical combinations of the moft curious kind. M. FERMER, in this little treatife, rejects the influence of phyfical caufes on the character of a people, and apprehends, that the form of government, the manner of its adminiftration, religious tenets, the method of education, and certain customs and prejudices, however introduced, are the true causes of the varieties obferved in national characters. This controverfy may perhaps be compromised. Too much influence has been given to climate by one of the contending parties, and too little by the other. Befides, it would be proper to define, with accuracy, what is meant by national character, and to determine and afcertain with precifion its variations.

FRANCE.

IV. Nouveaux Principes de Phyfique, &c. i. e. NEW PRINCIPLES of Natural Philofophy; adorned with Cuts, and dedicated to the Prince of Pruffia. 8vo. Paris. Vols. I. II. and III. Price about 18 s. 1781 and 1782.

We are at prefent in the fermentation of philofophical systems. New experiments are battering down the old fyftems; metaphyfical fpeculation (which being turned out at one door, ftill comes in at another) is teeming with new ones; and fo we are likely to go on, rebuilding on paper the edifice of nature, until the tranfitory part of it, which we inhabit, fhall tumble about our ears. The new fyftem builder, whofe name is prefixed to the prefent work, comes forth with the exhibition of a univerfal agent, to whom or which the Deity has imparted the power, or, as he calls it, the property of modifying matter into all forms and directions, and producing all the marvellous phanomena of nature. Now, what is this wonder-worker, will our readers afk, this deputy-divinity, that has fuch an extenfive commiffion? It is a univerfal fluid, whofe exiftence M. CARRA undertakes to demonftrate with full evidence, and whofe nature he pretends to define with the utmoft precifion. He calls it an elementary fluid; tells us, that it occupies the whole capacity or extent of universal space, in plus, or pofitively; while the elemensary felid occupies that space only in minus, or negatively. The

com

Comprefbility of this fluid is the cause of gravitation, attraction, and magnetifm, as its elasticity is the caufe of impulfion, percuffion, and repercuffion. From this principle, whofe fecundity is prodigious in the hypothefis of our author, effects upon effects, and confequence upon confequence, pour in upon us like a flood. There is no vacuum or void in nature,—all things are connected in the univerfe,-the rotation of the planets on their axis, and the orbits they defcribe in their motions round the fun, arife from the mutual correfpondence which takes place between the movements of all the celeftial bodies; and these movements are the effects of the rectilinear or curvilinear vibrations, imprinted on the universal fluid by the weight and refiftance of folids. Under this univerfal principle, gravitation, attraction, electricifm (a good term), and magnetism, act their respective parts as powerful vicegerents; we fay their respective parts, for our author lays down a mathematical distinction between these four great powers, and fhews that each has its particular and independent laws, which concur, nevertheless, with order and mutual connection in the univerfal mechanism.

The work, proceeding on these principles, exhibits new theories of the fun, ftars, planets, comets, and of the earth. The author treats alfo, with equal novelty, of the three kingdoms or claffes of nature, of light and colours, of fire and heat, of air and founds, of water and fluids, which have gravity or weight; of the earth confidered as material, of mineralization and vegetation, of the animal fyftem, the specific progreffion of the powers and faculties of the animal prototype, of generation, of the animal œconomy, of the heart and the circulation of the blood, of the brain and the nervous fyftem, of the human fenforium, of fight, hearing, smelling and tafte, of memory, of the mechanical caufes of dreams and fleep-walking, and, laftly, of the paffions. The work is to be terminated by a hiftory of man, in the progress of his moral agency; and it is preceded by a preliminary difcourfe, in which the author acknowledges the goodness of the Supreme Being, in having imparted to man fuch a portion of reafon and intelligence, as permits him to contemplate, admire, and explain, the fublime mechanism of the divine works.

Such are the general contents of this ftrange, ingenious, but, perhaps, too fanciful work. The three firft volumes of it, which are already published, contain our author's theories of the ceJeftial bodies, and of our earth. In two volumes more, which are foon to appear, the whole plan will be completed. To enter into an analytical review of this work, would fwell this article into a volume; and to confider it critically, is a task we would wish to fee performed by abler hands. There are, no doubt, some of his novelties, at which the philofophical fraternity will fmile with filence; but there are others which call upon them to

speak

speak out. When, in his theory of the formation of the earth, M. CARRA tells us, that the centre of our globe is occupied by quick-filver, from whence refults the approximation of the poles towards the equator, the flexibility of the earth's nucleus, and the rifing or fwelling of its equatorial parts,-that gold, whose intrinfic weight carried it imperceptibly towards the centre, preffed apon the mercury, and made it afcend in all directions towards the furface, that mercury, by its incompreffibility and mobi Jity, made feveral parts of other metals, and even of gold, afcend with it, and by this procedure, is become not only the companion of almost all metals, but alfo the mineralizer of feveral other substances, known under the denomination of semi-metals: We believe, that, on reading these novelties, feveral will smile, though we think that the Buffonians, if there be any, ought to anfwer. But when, in his theory of the moon, our author demonftrates, that this fatellite moves round the earth in fifty-five days and a half, and not in twenty-feven days and three quarters, as all the aftronomers have hitherto fuppofed, all the aftronomical fraternity are concerned, becaufe they are accufed of error. M. De la Lande is perfonally called upon by our author's new theory of the tides, becaufe M. CARRA attacks his theory with vehemence, as a geometrical chimera, which does not take place in the phænomenon of the fyzygy-tides, nor in those of the quadratures. The new theory of water, in which our author confiders its nature, the caufes of its humidity and incompreffibility, as alfo thofe of the condenfation and dilatation of vapours, will attract the fons of fpeculation: for, in our author's hypothefis, if we dare give his demonftration fuch a modest title, water, in its principle (l'eau principe, l'eau mére), is produced by the firft effects of the rotation of the earth upon its axis, and the powers, which acted in its formation, were the gravitation of the first folids towards the centre:-electricism, or the centrifugal force of the earth, which raifed (or whiked up, as one might fay) the higher parts of the circumference, and the mutual attraction of these parts which fet them in a fluid motion. These three powers (fays our Author), counterbalancing each other's effects, in different relations, fixed this fluid on the furface, and rendered it a fecond medium, which was, and could only be, established after the formation of the first. This fluid is then an intervening medium between the air and earth, and partakes, in a mean proportion, of the elasticity of the one, and the vis inertia of the other. By it the ambient air is connected with the movements of the earth; and, at the fame time, the folids are

Mathematics, according to our author, has nothing to do with the quomodo in philofophical theories, and muft confine its operations to the quantum, when the quomodo is already found.

preserved

preferved from the fatal effects of an atmosphere that is inceffantly rarefied and dilated. It is by this medium that the influence of the air produces, in the bofom of the earth, and on its furface, different centres of motion and different points of incubation. Finally, were it not for the property of humidity, that characterizes this fluid, the action of the air upon folids would be only deftructive, and would never form any new combination of their principles.'

M. CARRA's theory of the air, which terminates the third volume of this work, contains difquifitions of an interesting kind, relative to the fubftance which conftitutes the real air, or the permanent medium of the atmosphere,-the true cause of its motion, fluidity, elasticity, and gravity,-the causes of the pestilence in the air, and the methods of deftroying it, either in the place of its birth, or in the fubftances that are impregnated with its fatal infection.-The two remaining volumes will, no doubt, contain curious things, if our author treats animal nature, human intelligence, and moral agency, with the fame fpirit of originality and reformation, that predominate with fuch luxuriancy in those we have been now curforily reviewing.

NETHERLAND s.

V. Tableau des Provinces Unies, &c. i. e. A View of the Hiftory of the United Provinces. By M. CERISIER. 12mo. Vols. 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th.-We formerly gave an account of the character and demerit of this hafty compiler of history, as they appeared in the two firft volumes of this work. In thefe volumes we saw marks of induftry in collecting facts, but too little care employed in diftinguishing between rubbish and pure materials and we found the language not only rough and inelegant, but fometimes indecent, and almoft always below the dignity and gravity of hiftorical compofition. The author's ftile changed much for the better in the following volumes ;we beheld the change with pleasure and with furprize. His expreffions became less barth, his indecencies of phrase less frequent and difgufting, and his declamation lefs frothy and petulant. We even began to entertain hopes that he would become an hiftorian, were it only of the fecond or third rate. However, the leaven of a party-fpirit ftill fermented in the hiftorical mafs, and he continued to caft fhades on illuftrious characters, by anecdotes unknown, before they were produced by him, unfupported by any records, and related boldly without even informing his readers from whence he had them. The feventh volume, which has lately appeared, is, by the author's own account of it, very imperfect. It appears, from his preface, that he has met with difappointments: I had, fays he, a promife of the communication of a great number of papers, but an INCIDENT UNHEARD OF in the annals of literature, put it out of my power;

to