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laid on wet fpringy lands before they have been drained, unless he chufes to fink the profits of all his other fields.

"He hath been taught to venture on fome few experiments, on general fixed principles; which, though they might not all of them perfectly anfwer his expectations, may, nevertheless, throw additional light on the subject of Agriculture. In a word, he will become fit company for a gentleman; he will receive and communicate information; and, at the fame time, on account of that close attention which he finds requifite, in order that he may pay his rent, he will be continually increafing that impor tant knowledge which an uninstructed mind cannot poffibly at

tain.

"Such an inftitution as is here recommendeded may poffibly be of fervice to thofe farmers who have no particular connection with our Agricultural Societies; whofe fields, however, lying open to the continual view of their neighbours, will be a conftant leffon to those who need inftruction, fpeaking much more eligibly to them, than accounts of experiments ftated on paper; against which they will be frequently starting that particular kind of doubt, which I have found to be generally expreffed in fome

ch language as this, it may be fo, but I don't know :—a doubt arifing from a cloud inveloping their minds, which the powers of reafoning are very ineffectual to difpel. But they will fometimes learn that leffon from the plants of the field which they might not chufe to learn from the tongues of their fellow-creacreatures, because they will not avowedly acknowledge others to be their fuperiors in this art and science.

"The advantages of fuch an Academy for the education of gentlemen's fons, will be no lefs evident with regard to themfelves, their pofterity, and the nation in general.

Effays on the Hiftory of Mankind in rude and uncultivated Ages. By James Dunbar. LL. D. Profeffor of Philofophy in the King's College and University of Aberdeen. 8vo. 6s. Cadell.

This is a much better performance than we had any reafon to expect from a former fmall production of Dr. Dunbar's, in which he neither difcovered the fame elegance of tafte, nor the fame folidity of judgment. He feems not indeed to poffefs the profound and penetrating genius of a Montesquieu, a Hume, or a Smith; but fo far as he does reafon, his conclufions are generally juft, and are always fuported by proper and well-vouched authorities. The plan of his work will beft appear from the following preface.

3

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"To folve fome appearances in civil life, and by an appeal to the annals of mankind, to vindicate the character of the fpecies from vulgar prejudices, and thofe of Philofophic theory, is the aim of the volume now delivered to the public. Its contents are digested on a regular plan; though the looler form of effys has been preferred to a more fyftematic arrangement.

"He who attempts to reform the world is actuated by a wild enthusiasm, or by a divine impulfe. To stop the career of vice, is the ultimade end of well-directed ambition. That ambition was felt by the great writers of antiquity. They erected a temple to Virtue, and exhausted on the oppofite character all the thunder of eloquence.

Animated with the views, not with the genius of the ancients, I occupy the fame ground; for on that ground the efforts of inferior men may be of use.

"Every author is a candidate for the public favour, and the public alone is the arbiter of his fare. With fuch a fanction he will not need, and without it he ought to decline, even the patronage of kings.

"The voice of the public, like the voice of an oracle, it be comes an author to hear with respectful filence. Even while it mortifies, it instructs; while it refufes approbation, it teaches wifdom. It checks ambition in its wild career; and reminds the candidate for fame to return into that deceiving path of life*, from which he ought not to have deviated, and which, how mortifying foever to the author, is perhaps the happiest for the man."

As a fpecimen we fhall lay before our readers a fhort extract from the beginning of the fecond effay "on language, as an univerfal accomplishment."

"In tracing the origin of arts and fciences, it is not uncom mon to afcribe to the genius of a few fuperior minds, what arifes neceffarily out of the system of inan. The efforts of an individual are familiar to the eye. The efforts of the fpecies are more remote from fight, and often too deep for our researches.

The connection, therefore, of events with an individual, is a more popular idea, while it gratifies an admiration and enthu fiafm natural to the human mind. Hence the conduct of historians, who defcribe the origin of na ions. Hence are celebrated among every people, the first inventors of arts, the founders of fociety, and the inftitutors of laws and government.

Such revolutions, however, in the condition of the world, are more justly reputed the flow refult of fituations than of regular defign, and have, perhaps, lefs exercifed the talents of fuperior genius, than thofe of mankind at large. Ufages there furely are of mere arbitrary inftitution; inventions there furely are which originate with one only, or with a few authors. But other ufages and inventions as neceffarily refer themfeves to the multitude; nor ought

*Fallentis femita vitæ.

the cafual exertions of the former to be confounded with the infallible attainments of the fpecies.

"Under this precaution, then, let us introduce the question concerning language. Is language, it may be afked, derived to us. first by the happy invention of a few, or to be reguarded as an original accomplishment and inveftiture of nature, or to be attributed, to fome fucceeding effort of the human mind?

"The fuppofed tranfition of the fpecies from filence to the free exercife of speech, were a tranfition indeed aftonishing, and might well feem difproportioned to our intellectual abilities. Neither hif tory nor philofophy are decifive upon this point; and religion, with peculiar wisdom, refers the attainment to a divine original. Suitable to this idea, language may be accounted in part natural, in part artificial in one view it is the work of providence, in an other it is the work of man. And this difpenfation of things is ex, actly conformable to the whole analogy of the divine government. With refpect to the organs of fpeech, what, is there peculiar to boaft? The fame external apparatus is common to us and to other animals. In both the workmanship is the fame. In both are dif played the fame mechanical laws. And in order to confer on them fimilar endowments of fpeech, nothing more feems neceffary than the enlargement of their ideas, without any alteration of anatomical texture. In like manner, to diveft, or to abridge mankind of thefe endowments, feems to imply only the degradation of the mental faculties, without any variation of external form.

"It is not then fuppofed that the organs of man alone are capable of forming specch, The voice of fome animals is louder, and the voice of other animals is more melodious than his. Nor is the human ear alone fufceptible of fuch impreffions. Animals are of ten confcious of the import, and even recognize the harmony of found. Thus far there fubfifts a near equality. Vifible signs are likewife poffeffed in common; and language, in every fpecies, is the power of maintaining focial intercourfe among creatures of the fame order.

By the fame medium man is able to converse, in fome fort, with the brute creation; and there the various tribes with each other. But befides fome general figns conftituted to preserve harmony and correfpondence among connected fyftems, there are others of a more myfterious kind deftined for the use and accommodation of each particular clafs. In this fcience the fagacity of the philofo pher has hitherto made no difcoveries. The mystery of animal correfpondence will, probably, be always hid, and it is often no

*This feems to militate with a difcovery lately made by fome anatomift (we believe by Dr. Hunter) who; in diffecting an Oran Outang, found that is's organs of speech, if we may fay fo, differed at least in one material respect, from the human.

REV.

more

more poffible to defcend into the receffes of their intercourse, than to open a communication with a higher fyftem.

In the great fcale of life, the intelligence of fome beings foars perhaps, as high above man as the objects of his understanding foar above animal life. Let us then imagine a man, in fome other planet, to refide among a people of this exalted character.

"Inftructed in the founds of their language, as the more docile animals are instructed to articulate ours, he might articulate too, but could acquire no more. He might admire the magnificence of founds louder or more melodious than he had heard before. But by reafon of a diffimilarity and difproportion of ideas, thefe founds could never conduct him to the sense; and the fecrets of fuch a people would be as fafe in his ears, as ours in the ears of any of our domestic animals.

For the fame reafons, if one of the fuperior race were to drop into our world, our language might be, in fome refpects, impenetrable even to his understanding, because deftitute perhaps of fome perceptions effential to our meaner fyftem.

"Thus each order poffeffes fomething peculiar, which is denied to every other; and it belongs to the author of the univerfe alone to exhaust that immenfity of knowledge which he has diffufed in various kind and proportion through the whole circle of being.

"Here is an arrangement of providence coeval with the birth of things; and confidering the fimilarity of organical texture, the taciturnity of the other animals is a proplem to be accounted for, as well as the loquacity of man.

"Whence comes it that be alone fo far extends the original grant as almoft to confider it as his peculiar and exclusive privi lege? Between the lower claffes and him there fubfifts one important diftinction. They are formed stationary; he progreffive. Had the exact measure of his ideas, as of theirs, been at firft affigned, his language must have stood for ever as fixed and immutable as theirs. But time and mutual intercoufe prefenting new ideas, and the scenes of life perpetually varying, the expreffion of language muft vary in the fame proportion; and in order to trace out its original, we must go back to the ruder ages, and beginning with the early drawn, follow the gradual illuminations of the human

mind.

"Man, we may observe, is at firft poffeffed of few ideas, and of ftill fewer defires. Abforbed in the prefent object of sense, he feldom indulges any train of reflection on the past; and cares. not, by anxious anticipation, to antedate futurity.

All his competitions with his fellows are rather exertions of body than trials of mind. He values himfelf on the command of the former, and is dextrous in the performance of its various func tions. Too impatient for flow enterprife; too bold and impetu ous for intrigue, he ufes the refouces of inftinct, rather than the lights of the understanding; is fcarce capable of abstraction, and a

Stranger

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arnger to all the combinations and connections of fyftematic hought.

"In this fituation of the world there is no need for the de tails of language. The feelings of the heart break forth in vifible form: fenfations glow in the countenance, and paflions flafh in the eye. Nor are thefe filent movements the only vehicles of focial intercourse.

"Prior to the contexture of language, and the ufe of arbitrary fign, there is established a mechanical connection between the feelings of the foul and the enunciation of found. The emotions of pleasure and pain, hope and fear, commiferation, forrow, defpair, indignation, contempt, joy, exultation, triumph, affume their tones; and independently of art, by an inexplicable mechanifm of nature, declare the purpofes of man to man. Thefe affociations are neither accidental nor equivocal; not formed by compact, or the effect of choice, but are parts of an original establishment calculated, in the first economy, for all the occafions of focial life. And happy furely, in one refpect, was this conftitution of things, when men were not only devoid of the inclination, but unfurnished with the means of deceit; and fentiment and expreffion were thus conjoined, by the indiffoluble ties of nature.

"Such accents and exclamations compofe the firft elements of a rifing language. And in thefe diftant times, when artificial figns have fo far fupplanted the natural, interjection is a part of fpeech which retains its primeval character, is fcarce articulated in any tongue, and is exempted from arbitrary rule.

"After the introduction of artificial figns, the tone and cadence of the natural were long retained; but thefe fell afterwards into difufe; and it became then the province of art to recall the accents of nature.

"The perfection of eloquence is allowed to confift in fuperadding to fentiment and diction, all the emphasis of voice and gefture. And enunciation, or action, as it is called, is extolled by the moft approveg judges of antiquity as the capital excellence.

"The decifive judgment of Demofthenes is well known: and the Roman orator, who records that judgment, expatiates himself in almost every page, on that comprehenfive language, which, independently of arbitrary appointment, addreffes itself to all nations, and to every understanding *.

"In a certain period of fociety, their reigns a natural elocution, which the greatest mafters afterwards are proud to imitate, and which art can fo feldom fupply. At first, the talent of the orator, as of the poet, is an inborn talent. Nor has Demofthenes, or Tully, or Rofcius, or Garrick, in their most animated and admired performances, reached, perhaps, that vivacity and force which accompany the rude accents of mankind.

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