If you would immediately fee through the defign of her pretended virtue, affume the air of a man who knows the world; of those to whom your fifter gives the appellation of Libertines. Affect to difregard both women and their favours; and turn fentiment into ridicule; be familiar with her, bold, free, forward, and fo forth. Follow thefe directions, and the Syren will foon fall into your net; but if you do otherwife, depend on it you will be fo hampered in hers as not to escape with impunity. Remember that I forewarn you, you will become the jeft of the public, and by this egregious piece of folly, will lofe a thousand favourable oportunities. Therefore well confider it..

Make a refolution alfo, in good earnest to throw off the preceptorship of your fifter. What! to be eternally under the ferula! And, pray, my good friend, how do you think she is to form you for the world? She who is acquainted only with the virtues of our grandmothers! She would make of you a good patriot, a good Chriftian: and what then? You might have the merit of the most celebrated of the old Romans; and what then? would you be the more careffed, the more rewarded, the better entertained, or the more happy. New times, new manners, my friend, is the best of all our old proverbs. The virtue of our times is honour; not indeed that honour, which was coveted by those bluftering Knights that ransacked the world, like blockheads, in fearch of dangerous adventures: but that of a man of gallantry, who does not debase. himself by any act of meannefs or cowardice. The antiquated virtue of our forefathers, would appear in all good company like a favage transplanted into a civilized country, where he would frighten every body he met, and every body he met would be affrighted at him. Refign it all to your fifter, if fhe likes it, and to her ridiculous affociates; who, in their folitude, are at least feveral ages behind us. I can enter very well into her character by the manner of the ball and entertainment you defcribe. I'll hold a wager fhe thought to divert you wonderfully. I'll anfwer for't these people conceive they divert themselves. As to M. de St. Sever, he is one of those men who are pleased with any thing, because they have not taste enough to be difpleafed. An honeft, downright Marplot, always bufy for want of fomething to do, or through a friendly zeal, that is always in the wrong; in fhort he is a character truly bur lefque. I have feen Madam de St. Albin's daughters, mighty pretty puppets truly! it is a pity they are dumb. Not but that either might do well enough for a wife; and in that I fhould for once be of your fifter's opinion, if you thought yourself old enough to marry, The woman whom it is the leaft neceffary

for us to think agreeable, is one's own wife. By marrying, we espouse the fortune of a woman and fet her perfon at liberty. This is what is generally efteemed a reputable way of obferving that Sacrament. Mifs de St. Albin is a young lady of condition, rich, and may be made a wife of without any great inconvenience; but it fhould not be quite fo foon. You have as yet got but one mistress; how can you have such narrow notions of things as to take a wife? As to Leonora-but stay, what is it o'clock? Half an hour past feven! Adieu, my dear friend, I had an appointment at fix; I proposed to be there at feven, and it will presently be eight. Yours till to-morrow."

Neither the raillery, however, of his companions, nor the remonftrances of his relations, can prevail on the Marquis to abandon Leonora; who, in the mean time, practices a variety of schemes, and employs all her agents, to effect her defign upon him. His relations and friends, on the other hand, take every step they can to counteract this artful woman. M. de Ferval in particular, an active and worthy young man, difplays great zeal to prevent the Marquis's ruin. To this end he bribes the waiting-woman of Leonora, and by that means procures information of every ftep fhe is taking, getting into his poffeffion also her letters to a confident, wherein her whole defign is difcovered. It is, nevertheless, with great difficulty, and at the hazard of his life, that he prevails at length to undeceive the Marquis, when just on the point of being married to this infamous impoftor.

The fucceeding explanation, and the difappointment of our young inamorato, has a fatal effect upon his health; from which he is long in recovering. During this interval, he becomes acquainted with the amiable fifter of his friend de Ferval, to whom he is afterwards happily married.

Such is the main bufinefs of the ftory, which is rendered extremely interesting throughout, by the various incidents that naturally arife from the fubject. The characters are for the moft part well fupported, and the contraft between the virtuous and vicious part of life, well drawn and very inftructive.

(

540 Recherches Metaphyfiques fur les Loix du Mouvement. A Metaphyfical Enquiry into the Laws of Motion. Berlin, 1764. inira ༈་་ཉt*

HE Author of this ingenious inveftigation is M. Rein

Thurd, of Berlin, to whom we have been more than once 5 for his correfpondence and civilities: we cannot help

The German original of this work not being come to hand, we confider this tranflation, by Mr. Formey, as equally authentic.

dif

differing with him, however, in regard to many points of his philofophy, as well as his manner of treating them. We fee no neceffity, or ufe, for modelling this enquiry into an answer to the question, "Whether the laws of motion are contingent or neceffary?" Or, as he ftates it, in other words, "Whether God Almighty could or could not have made the laws of motion different from what they are?" This method of bringing the Creator, unneceffarily, and often irreverently, into polemical queftions, favours ftrongly of thofe abfurdities in the Scholaftic difputations, that were fo difgraceful both to philofophers and divines, on the revival of letters in Europe. For, after all our enquiries, however fuccefsful, into the secrets of Nature, the effential attributes of the Creator himself, can never be the fubject of scientific investigation. A mere philofopher, who deduces the very Being of a God from the works of Creation, and the apparent laws of nature, can afcribe no other attributes to the Deity, than fuch as muft neceffarily exist in the caufe of those effects he perceives. He knows demonstratively that an efficient cause of those effects, or the Author of thole laws which he obferves, muft exift; but it is impoffible for him thence justly to infer that the Author of thofe laws, might be the Author of others totally different. A Chriftian, who derives the existence, and his ideas, of a Supreme Being, from Revelation, may indeed very juftly make a diftinction between the will and the power of the Deity; but Philofophy ever bewilders itself when it would reduce divine wisdom to the ftandard of human fagacity. It were to be wifhed, therefore, that subjects of Divinity and Philofophy were ever confidered apart, and that theological tenets never interfered in the decifion of phyfical difputes. We call them Phyfical, because, however they may be dignified with a chimerical title of fomething fu→ perior to phyfics, their folution requires only mechanical experiment and mathematical reasoning, which conftitute physical fcience.

Setting, therefore, the metaphyfical queftion, as it is called, afide, we shall confider what our Author has done toward explaining the nature of motion, and its laws.

As to what he hath advanced againft the Newtonians, refpecting the abfolute neceffity of there being, fome principle of action in matter, it amounts to no more than this: viz. that he entertains a different opinion of the effence of matter from that of the Newtonians.

Again, his refutation of those philofophers, who impute a principle of action to matter, and thence deduce its impenetrability, vis inertia, &c. ferves only to fhew, what is very ge

ne

nerally known, that such philofophers have had a falfe idea of a first principle of action.

The only part of his effay worth our animadverfion, is his reply to a third fort of Philofophers, who acknowlege a principle of action in matter, on which they found the laws of motion, pretending at the fame time to deduce this force of action from the fimple elements of which matter is compofed. In answer to thefe, he attempts to demonftrate, that fuch force is not effential to matter in any refpect whatever; but that the Creator hath implanted or fuperadded it to matter, by virtue of his free-will, wisdom, and power. For, fays he, it is impoffible to deduce all the laws of motion, or even the principal, from the fuppofition of an univerfal moving force. It is poffible, indeed, that they could not be deduced from our Author's idea of that force, becaufe he does not appear to make any diftinction between a principle of action and a moving body. He does not appear to conceive in what manner a principle of action can exift, unless already invefted with, or attached to, fome fubftance or matter. But it is in this very particular that phyfical action and motion differ; the mechanical action of matter or body is motion, but that action which is effential to the being of matter or body, and by which the elementary bodies are conftituted, is not motion. Motion depends on the removal of body or matter from one place to another, but these must firft exift before they can be removed. The resistance of the moft fimple bodies in nature to each other, is the immediate effect of that action which constitutes their existence, and the inequality of which in different bodies neceffarily generatesmotion, by caufing the refifted body to move on the fide of the leaft refiftance. Now we will take upon us to fay that the laws of motion, fuch of them at least as are fully afcertained, may be all very naturally and mechanically deduced from that one fimple principle of action and reaction*, established by Sir Ifaac Newton; and by which we not only fuppofe all material bodies are actuated; but according to which we conceive also that all bodies are generated Matter, or body is as much a phenomenon as motion; both being the effect of the fame ac

- This principle indeed has been called in queftion' by philofophers in fome repute, as the Reader may fee in the Mifcellanies of the Edin burgh Society but he may there fee, alfo, for it is very evident, that thofe who doubted of it,, did not understand enough of the fubject, to make the neceffary diftinction between phyfical and mechanical ac tion. Had Sir Ifaac Newton fpoke of this diftinction, they would not have doubted his principle; but he thought perhaps the use of two different words fufficient.

tion,

tion, and in thousands of cafes, not to be distinguifhed from each other.

It would (admit of a question if it were poffible to refolve it, <<Whether the actual phenomena of the univerfe, or the number and difpofition of its feveral parts, were ever contingent or not?" That their fucceffion is as neceffary as the laws by which it is governed, there can be no doubt. But philofophers have fallen into a strange blunder in making a distinction between the creation of the world, and the government of it, as if they were two defigns, the one fucceeding the other. Thus, fay they, the material univerfe was first formed of inactive subftances, and its parts afterwards put into motion, according to certain laws, impofed by the will of the Creator. Is it not much more philofophical to fuppofe that it was at once formed of fuch materials, and in such a manner, that the laws by which it is governed flowed as a neceffary confequence of its existence? At least we think fo, and fhall always look upon enquiries of this fort as vague and chimerical, till thofe who make them can mechanically account for the cohesion of the parts of bodies. For even this is to be mechanically explained.

Lettres Secrettes de Mr. de Voltaire. Publiées par Mr. L. B. Geneve, 1765.

IT

The Private Letters of Mr. de Voltaire.

T has been objected against the private Letters of many eminent Writers, that they were originally intended for the Public; or written, at leaft, with a fecondary view that they might not difgrace the Author, if by accident they fhould find their way to the Prefs. We dare venture to fay, that Mr. de Voltaire neither intended thefe Letters for the Public eye, nor will think himself obliged to the Editor, for thus expofing the most infignificant and uninterefting correfpondence that perhaps ever appeared in the Literary World. The greateft part of thefe Letters are little more than Epiftolary Memorandums of bufinefs; respecting the publication of the Author's works. They are occafionally interfperfed indeed with little perfonal anecdotes, and other matters relative to his literary fquabbles with the Abbé des Fontaines, Rouffeau and others; all which do him as little honour as the many artifices and indefatigable pains he appears to have taken, to fupport a reputation which his talents only ought to have fecured to him. Unimportant, however, as thefe Letters are in themselves, and uninteresting as they are

to