and of this indeed we have already inftances in the improvement they have admitted in their military and naval architecture, and their tactics; this progrefs will be effentially facilitated by the extent of coaft, which will favour all forts of valuable importations. The union of fix kingdoms, which before lived in conftant enmity, will have the fa lutary tendency of promoting the arts of peace, unless counteracted by the vices of a tyrannic fovereign, who may indeed retard, but after all cannot wholly impede the progrefs of civilization. The power acquired by this country under its prefent victorious monarch, will preserve it from dangerous wars with its neighbours; to which effect the frength of its frontiers, namely the fea on one fide, and chains of lofty mountains on the other, will effentially contribute. The practicability of commerce with other nations will not fail to open a door to numberless improvements; and here the author enumerates many of the articles, both of importation and exportation, that may lead to a brisk and flourishing trade: and he reprobates the policy of this, and most other Afiatic ftates which induftriously difcountenances all foreign intercourfe. He owns that the extravagant veneration of ancestors and of ancient ufages prevalent in this country, may fill further counteract the beneficial communication with frangers. The country moreover being productive of all the neceffaries of life, this circumftance may prove an obftacle to importation. But notwith@tanding all thefe im pediments, he does not defpair that the fovereign will ere long perceive the profits to be derived from the duties he may lay on the articles of foreign traffick, and hence be induced to encourage its operations. Laftly, from a careful comparifon of all the advantages and difadvantages affecting this country, he thinks it reafonable to expect that it will gradually arrive at a much greater degree of profperity and political confequence; and this the fooner fhould the fovereign, although jealous of foreign interference, be yet a man of fufficient wifdom to abitain from the prohibitory decrees which impede the commercial intercourse. From the length of this article, our readers may infer the opinion we entertain of the publication, of which we now take our leave. But however impreffed we are with its importance, we are forry we cannot venture to predict a rapid or a wide circulation in its favour. The gravity of the fubject, and the depth of thought, which the perufal of a great part of it neceffarily implies, being ill calculated for the prefent fri volous vafte in reading. The author, however, is intitled to the thanks of the few who know how to appreciate real merit; and who value every effort that is made to extend our acquaintance with our fellow-creatures, and to inculcate the great principles of found policy, from which mankind derives its most important benefits. ART. III. An Effay on Human Consciousness; containing an 11. is. 6d. WHETHER we ought to make any report of this work to our readers, might well be matter of doubt. But being urged by the author to do it, we shall proceed to state our opinion. We can fay with truth, that it is a very fingular work, but we can fay nothing more; for though we have often taken it up with the intention of analyfing it, we have always been obliged to, relinquish the task in defpair. We can however give one or two fpecimens in the author's own words; and as the language is often quite new to us, this feems to be the only fair conduct that we can purfue. "The grand object of inquiry, in the prefent day," fays Mr. Fearn," I take to be, not whether mind be matter, or of fome other fubftance, but, whether mind inheres any substance whatever. Proper materialifm feems to ret on the hypothefis that brain gives confcioufnefs, merely in virtue of its organization, and includes, that a change of medullary fubftance effects no. change of fubject. "This fuppofition is oppofed by immaterialifts, on very rational grounds; but at the fame time, they fuffer their hypothefis to labour under the infuperable difficulty of mental non-extenfion. "In this ftate of the queftion, whoever fhall fhew that mind, operates by extenfion, distinct from brain; and on the other hand, that brain cannot be the agent of thought, fhould, I imagine, give a new turn to the inquiry; and afford an intereft to the fcheme of immaterialifm, which otherwife it cannot fo extenfively poffefs." To fhow this is the aim of the prefent author, who advises fuch of his readers as are men of fcience, to pafs over the five first chapters of his work, in which, he fays, " are several things, which fuch men are not expected to endure; and to enter at once on the fixth, feventh, and eighth chapters." Not Not being much afraid of metaphyfical difficulties, nor greatly alarmed by metaphyfical paradoxes, we paid at first. no regard to this advice, thinking it the meft natural way to follow the train of an author's thoughts, in the order in which they had occurred to himself; but when we found Mr. Fearn affirming that the mind has a definitive shape as well as extenfion; that it inheres a fubftance; that it must have an energy which matter never difplays to us, though it must yet be extended, because otherwife it could not reciprocate with body; and that feeling and action are divided or articulated by a fort of mental disjunctive conjunction, called will-the hinge upon which feelings turn to action; and when we found him at the fame time confefling, that "without practical fupport, any fpeculation how fuch a mind as this may exift in the brain of a man, would be the mere impertinence," we were glad to proceed at once to thofe chapters in which fuch fupport is promifed. To the whole of them we have paid fome attention; and fuch of our readers as think that the following conclufions are worthy of fupport, and can be fupported, may pay attention to them likewife. 1. The human mind is a flexible (the author feems to mean elaftic) Spherule, exquifitely flexible in jurface, but immutable and impenetrable in fubitance. "2. The furface of the mind, when not affected, is perfectly uniform, and is in contact, throughout, with nervous influence, or perhaps, fome elementary matter; this laft being the medium of its co-operation with the body and external world. 3. Mind poffeffes a limited or qualified motivity, moving not untill nerve has acted upon it; but, being daly moved, it dif plays a peculiar limited power of varying and regulating its orn motions; and of giving new forts of motion to the body which first moved it. "4. When the external force wholly cenfes, the action of the mind is neceffarily included (we fuppofe in the ceffation;) and it moves no more until nerve ftimulates again. 68 5. If during a state of rest, any nervous ftimulus prefs ftrong enough to produce any motion, this must occasion inequality or flexure, in the surface of the mind; and fuch flexure is accom-panied by an inftance of perception, whereby mind is apprised of its own existence, or waked to feeling and action. "Now," continues our author, if the mind be fuppofed to poffefs the figure, and texture, of a flexible fpherule, it appears admirably adapted to receive any number of co-exifting or fyn chronous flexures, on both fides (the internal and external sides we fuppofe) of its Jurface; and to entertain all conceivable varieties of them, them, in number, form and degree, fo long as any capability of flexure remains "It is equally adapted to receive any, or all of these varieties of flexures in fucceffion, with a rapidity, greater or lefs, in proportion as the motions of fuch flexures are, in themselves, phyfically greater or lefs. "Examining ourselves, we shall find our perception equally alive to affections of internal and external origin; and that it is bound to fuffer any number, variety, and degree, of impreffions of both fpecies, until the mind becomes fo tenfely occupied, that no more feeling can be inflicted by any augmentation of force. "It has here been advanced, and will be farther illustrated, that all these affections in the mind are governed in the fame order that flexures are governed in a grofs, flexible, inflated ball. "The inference here is plain, and I muft fuppofe the surface of mind to be the region of perception; and the operation called perception of fenfation to be produced with a motion in that surface; whilft impreffion or flexure is not supposed to be a cause, but only a physical concomitant of intelligence of any fert." P. 89. If there be any of our readers, to whom fuch conclufions as thefe appear difcoveries in fcience, they will, of course, purchase this Effay on Human Confciousness; and study its language, while others, who may deem them "only fit for skull That's empty when the moon is full,” will fuffer the volume to find its way quietly to the shops of paftry-cooks and of the venders of fnuff; or to other ftill more ignoble places, to which we think it must haften with the rapidity of its author's flexures and undulations. Yet we must declare, that a metaphyfical volume lefs likely to be productive of ferious evil, has never come under our review; and that we believe the author to be a well-meaning man, who might have produced fomething much more valuable, if, before he had thought of going to the prefs himfelf, he had ftudied the works of the most eminent mechanical and intellectual philofophers. He feems to have read, or at least looked into, the works of Locke, and Hartley, and Prieftley, and Price; but if we might offer him our advice, it would be to ftudy the works of Bacon, and Reid, and Stewart, before he attempt to play the metaphysician a fecond time; and if to thefe he add the ftudy of mathematics and of grammar, he will probably express his meaning with greater precifion, whether he write of matter or of mind. ART. ART. IV. Philofophical Tranfactions of the Royal Society of London, for 1809. Part I. 4to. 220 pages. Nicol. 1809. WHEN we lamented the death of that excellent philofopher Cavallo, we felt for our own lofs as well as that of the public. On him we had long de ended for philofophical opinions, and the delay of the prefent Report is one of the confequences of that lofs. We trust that it is now repaired, and that we thall proceed in future with equal accuracy and vigour. I. The Croonian Lecture on the Functions of the Heart and Arteries. By Thomas Young, M. D. For. Sec. R. S. "The mechanical motions which take place in an animal body," fays Dr. Young," are regulated by the fame general laws as the motions of inanimate bodies. Thus the force of gravitation acts precifely in the fame manner, and in the fame de gree, on living as on dead matter. It is obvious, therefore, that the inquiry in what manner and in what degree the circula tion of the blood depends on the mufcular and elastic powers of the heart and arteries, fuppofing the nature of those powers to be known, muft become fimply a question belonging to the most res fined department of hydraulics." Agreeably to this view of the fubject, the author proceeds to inquire, 1. What would be the nature of the circulation of the blood if the whole of the veins and arteries were invariable in their dimenfions, like tubes of glaís or bone? 2. In what manner the pulle would be tranfmited from the heart through the arteries if they were merely elaftic tubes? 3. What actions we can with propriety attribute to the mufcular coats of the arteries themfelves. Laftly, are added fome obfervations on the difturbances of thele motions, which may be fuppofed to occur in different kinds of inflammatory fevers. Confidering the blood veffels as tubes of invariable dimenfions, and the motion of the fluid as uniform, we are to fuppose the blood in the arteries as subjected to a certain preffure, by means of which it is forced into the veins; and this preffure originating from the contraction of the heart, and con tinued by the tenfion of the arteries, is almoft entirely employed in overcoming the friction of the veffels. A a BRIT. CRIT. VOL. XXXVIII. OCT. 1811. The |