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exact point; and very foon after, both thighs and legs lofe much of their natural fenfibility, and become useless with refpect to all the purposes of loco-motion. They have not, however, the flabby feel and unrefifting loofenefs that a paralytic limb has; but the joints, particularly of the ancles, have a confiderable ftiffness. The accompanying curvature of the fpine varies in fituation, extent, and degree, being either in the neck or back, and fometimes, though feldom, in the upper part of the loins; and comprehending two, three, or more vertebræ. On examining the affected part of the fpine after death, it is found in all the different ftates from laxity of the ligaments and fponginefs and enlargement of the vertebræ, to manifest disease of the former and complete caries of the latter.

The cure of this formidable disorder (which is found to refift all the general and common remedies) is, according to Mr. Pott, with confiderable certainty effected, when the cafe is not too far gone, by procuring a purulent difcharge from the neighbourhood of the curvature in the spine. He candidly acknow. ledges receiving the first hint of this practice from Dr. Cameron and Mr. Jeffreys of Worcester, and gives the following method of performing it moft conveniently and effectually. A small cauftic is applied on each fide beneath the curvature, big enough, when the efchar is feparated, to contain a large kidney-bean. Every third or fourth day a little powder of cantharides is fprinkled on the fores, and the difcharge is thus maintained till the patient perfectly recovers the ufe of his legs.

We are perfuaded the fimplicity of this method will not be an objection to it in the opinion of any fenfible practitioner; and we think the Author has confiderably increased the obliga tions the Public are under to him, by this liberal communication of his fuccefs.

The fecond tract is principally an enlargement on what the writer has already laid down in his former works, particularly in his remarks on compound fractures, concerning the inevitable neceffity of amputation in certain cafes, and the danger of delaying it. He particularly criticises Meffrs. Bilguer and Tiffot, whofe doctrines on this subject, to fay the truth, are too manifeftly irrational to need a formal refutation. As in all Mr. Pott's works, the Reader may even in this fhort piece meet with fome new and ufeful obfervations. His account of an anomalous kind of affection of the leg, requiring amputation, will, probably, afford new information to moft of his Readers.

It has its feat in the middle of the calf of the leg, or rather more toward its upper part, under the gastrocnemius and foleus mufcles. It begins by a fmall, hard, deep-feated fwelling, fometimes very painful, fometimes but little fo, and only hindering the patient's exercifes: it does not alter the natural

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colour of the skin, at least until it has attained a confiderable fize it enlarges gradually, does not foften as it enlarges, but continues through the greatest part of it incompreffibly hard, and when it is got to a large fize it seems to contain a fluid which may be felt towards the bottom, or refting, as it were, on the back part of the bones. If an opening be made for the discharge of this fluid, it must be made very deep, and through a ftrangely diftempered mafs. This fluid is generally small in quantity, and confifts of a fanies mixed with grumous blood; the discharge of it produces very little diminution of the tumor, and in the few cafes which I have feen, very high symptoms of irritation and inflammation come on, and advancing with great rapidity, and moft exquifite pain, very foon deftroy the patient, either by the fever, which is high and unremitting, or by a mortification of the whole leg.'

On diffection, we are told, the arteria tibialis poftica is found enlarged and burft, and the pofterior part of both tibia and fibula carious. Nothing but amputation can give the leaft chance of fafety in this fingular and dreadful disease.

ART. VI. Mifcellaneous Observations relating to Education, more especially as it refpecs the Conduct of the Mind. To which is added, an Effay on a Courfe of liberal Education for civil and active Life. By Jofeph Priestley, LL. D. F. R. S. 8vo. 5 s. bound. Johnfon. 1778.

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N the Preface to thefe Obfervations, Dr. Priestley acquaints his Readers, that, though much has been written about education of late years, yet feveral of the writers appear to him never to have had much, if any thing, to do in the conduct of it, and to have given but little attention to the real influence of it in life; that it is his fault if he has not formed a better judgment, having had the best opportunities for making obfervations, in confequence of having been engaged, at different times, in conducting almost every part of education, both in a public and private way.

That he has formed a juft judgment, will be very evident to every difcerning reader, who has turned his thoughts to the important fubject of education, and who is acquainted with the world. His obfervations, indeed, do no fmall honour both to his head and his heart, and may be read with fingular advantage by every parent and tutor, who is defirous of making his child or his pupil a happy and ufeful member of fociety; as they fhew throughout a liberal and enlarged turn of thought, and are admirably calculated to infpire noble and exalted views of human life and conduct.

The only thing we regret is, that inftead of Mifcellaneous Obfervations on Education, the Author has not favoured us with a REV. Mar. 1779.

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regular treatife on the fubject. He appears to us to be perfectly well qualified for such a task, and we do not see how he could be more ufefully or honourably employed. As he appears to have a deep fenfe of the importance of a religious and virtuous education, and has had an extenfive practical acquaintance with the subject, were he to devote his time and attention entirely to it, and publifh, from time to time, elementary treatifes on those branches of knowledge, which he has studied with fo much care and accuracy, he would, in our opinion, have a jufter title to the most diftinguished honours his country can beftow, than even a CHATHAM, or a KEPPEL.

Before a decifive judgment is formed of the maxims he contends for, he tells us in his preface, that it should more espeeially be confidered, as a fundamental preliminary, that the chief and proper object of education is not to form a shining and popular character, but an useful one; and that there are circumftances in which it may be neceffary that a truly great and valuable man may be the most unpopular of all men.

Shining accomplishments, continues he, are only of fecondary confideration, being valuable only in proportion as they come in aid of qualifications that render a man happy in himself, and ufeful to others. To please is, indeed, generally useful, in order to profit men; but this, like most other general maxims, admits of many exceptions, fuch as we fee in the hiftory of many truly wife statesmen, but more especially thofe eminently wife and good men, to whofe labours and rifques we are indebted for inftruction in the important articles of morality and religion, both Heathens and Chriftians.

The great end of education, if it correfpond to the great end of life, is by no means advancement in the world, but to inculcate fuch principles, and lead to fuch habits, as will enable men to pafs with integrity and real honour through life, and to be inflexibly just, benevolent, and good, notwithstanding all the temptations to the contrary from the example of the age we live in. To comply with the world, and in confequence to be the idol of it, is an eafy thing in comparison with this; but then the advantages derived from nobly withitanding the prevailing vices and errors of the age are infinitely more folid and lafting. This conduct makes a man fatis fied. with himfelf, it generally infures the gratitude of a more enlightened pofterity, and, above all, the favour of God, and a happy immortality.

A man who lives to any purpose, must have one object, and have a confiftent character. When a man's attention is distracted with a multiplicity of views he never fucceeds in any, or never enjoys the fuccefs he may occafionally meet with. But with confiftency of character, and uniformity of conduct, fuccefs is almoft infallible. Any man, for instance, may be rich, if he will be content to have no other object; but he cannot always get money, and enjoy pleafure; he cannot always be wealthy, and refpected; and leaft of all can he always be rich, and honest. Alfo, any man of a common capacity may make himself master of any one branch of knowledge: he may

be an acute grammarian, or critic, a good natural philofopher, an able chymift, a skilful naturalift, a learned lawyer, or a profound metaphyfician; or a man of very distinguished abilities, and great leifure, may, at different times, attend to a variety of things, and make fome figure in each of them; but, in general, one literary parfait must be facrificed to another. So alfo in the arts, a first-rate musician cannot be, at the fame time, the first ftatuary, the first painter, or the first player; though there are few who may not be with the foremost in fome or other of the arts, if their attachment to it be fuch, that they fhall give almoft their whole time and attention to it.

In like manner, if a man's great object be the pursuit of truth, and the practice of virtue, he may depend upon fuccefs, and will en fure the proper reward of fuch a conduct; provided he have no other object to divert him from his purfuit, and obftru&t him in it. But he muft not be disappointed, or chagrined, if, together with virtue and knowledge, and in his endeavours to promote them, he do not get rich, or become popular.

Let us, therefore, be fatisfied, if we can make our children good men, and truly valuable members of fociety, whether the reception they meet with in the world be favourable or unfavourable. If, however, their friends be few, they will be the more cordial, and contribute more to the real enjoyment of life. Indeed, their happiness in all respects will be more in reality, than in appearance; as that of the world is more in appearance, than in reality; and this exclufive of all refpect to any thing in futurity, in comparison of which, however, every thing elfe is little and infignificant.

• I shall be happy if the following obfervations contribute, in any measure, to give parents these juft views with refpect to the education of their children, or their own conduct in life. They are certainly fundamental, though too apt to be overlooked in both. This must be my apology for fuffering myself to be drawn in, infenfibly, to say so much in this ftrain, after what I have advanced to the fame general purpose in the work itself.

Thofe of my friends who wish to see the Obfervations on Human Nature, and the Conduct of the Mind, promifed in the preface to my Examination of the Writings of Scotch Defenders of the Doctrine of inftinctive Principles of Truth, may form fome idea of what they may expect of a practical nature in them, from what they will think of most value in this treatise; and especially Section XII. which was originally written as part of that work, but what it was thought might be more useful in this. I fhall continue to collect materials for this work, but the publication will probably be feveral years hence. Some of the hints I laid before Dr. Hartley himself, more than twenty years ago, and he was pleafed to approve of them, and promife me his affiftance whenever I should think proper to lay them before the Public.'

The fubject of the twelfth fection, here mentioned, is, the Importance of early religious Inftruction. The Doctor introduces it by obferving, that the impreffion which ideas make upon the mind does not depend upon the definitions of them, but upon

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fenfations, and a great variety of ideas, that have been associated with them; and that these affociations require time to be formed and cemented. The idea of God, he says, may be defined, and explained to a man of the world, who has hardly ever heard, and feldom thought of him; but the impreffion that is made upon his mind when the name of God is, at any time, mentioned to him, cannot be the fame with that which will be felt by a person who has been accustomed to hear and think of God from his infancy, who has been much converfant in the fcriptures, and has lived in a general habit of devotion.

In the mind of fuch a perfon, continues he, the idea of God must have acquired a thousand affociations, which, though they are infinitely complex, will be felt as one fenfation; but, from the nature of the thing, it is impoffible that it should ever be fully explained, or communicated to another. The analyfis of fuch an idea is far too difficult a problem for any human fagacity; or if the thing were poffible, the doing of it would not enable a perfon to communicate the sensations that entered into it; because the same events in life would be neceffary to it; and without these the fame refulting ideas and impreffions cannot be obtained.

For this reafon no two perfons can have precifely the fame idea of any thing about which they are much converfant: for the minute affociations which enter into it will be different, though they may have a great refemblance; and perhaps there is no object of our thoughts from the impreffion of which men feel more differently, than the idea of God; though the impreffion made by it on the minds of perfons educated in a fimilar manner will be nearly the fame, fo that by using the fame words they may communicate what may, with fufficient propriety, be called the fame feelings to each other.

This obfervation, which appears to me of confiderable importance, I fhall endeavour to illuftrate by a cafe that very much refembles it. All perfons know what is meant by the term father, and if they were asked, would define it in the fame manner; but the man. who has never known a father of his own, or which is nearly the fame thing, has had little connection with him, no dependence upon him, or particular obligation to him, will by no means have the fame feelings when the word is pronounced to him, with the man who was brought up in a conftant uninterrupted intercourfe with a father, and has been the object of innumerable endearments and kind offices, and who has likewife frequently felt the effects of paternal correction. Every inftance of this nature has an effect, and therefore leaves an impreffion upon the mind, which is not wholly loft. For though it foon becomes feparately indifcernible, it makes part of an infinitely complex fenfation, and is one of the elements of what is called filial affection, or that mixture of love and reverence which is the neceffary result of paternal care properly conducted. Now the moft tranfient idea fuggested by the word father will excite in the mind of fuch a fon a Secondary idea, which, though it does not affect the definition of the term, is, however, infeparable from it; and if dwelt upon, it will unfold itself into a most exquisite and in

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