apply to it, by a fancied analogy which has no relation to it. The powers exercised by our clergy, though denominated ecclefiaftical, involve principally civil and temporal rights. Of this defcription are tithes, glebes, &c. of material churches. Excommunication itself, in the established church, is inflicted as a mere civil punishment.

• The supremacy of Rome, the exercise of which may be regulated by the modes I have on other occafions fuggefted, and to which I fhall again presently advert, as fanctioned by the inftitutions of other states, can militate against no civil or temporal rights, and cannot trench on the duties of civil allegiance; in fact it is confined to a fubordination purely fpiritual; a fupremacy which is confidered inherent in other churches as well as that of Rome. If the power be purely fpiritual, it little imports the ftate, as far as its temporal interefts are concerned, where that power is lodged,-whether with the Patriarch of Moscow, or the Pope of Rome,-provided the ftate is fatisfied with fuch pledges as Catholics are called upon to give, in the oaths of 1791 and 1793, in which they declare," that they do not believe that the Pope of Rome, or any other foreign prince, prelate, ftate or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any temporal or civil jurifdiction, power, fuperiority or preeminence, directly or indirectly, within this realm." It is contended, therefore, that the independency of this purely spiritual fupremacy, admitted in the perfon of a foreign prelate, or rather in the church of which he is confidered as the chief organ, can, in no manner whatever, interfere with the duties of allegiance to a temporal fovereign. The Kirk of Scotland maintains a fupremacy equally independent of the temporal jurifdiction of the Crown. The General Affembly confiders itself paramount in its definitions of doctrine and decrees of difcipline, and convokes and diffolves itfelf. The King's commiffion is not allowed to poffefs any authority or controul over the acts of the Affembly. This power claimed by the Church of Rome, as diftinct and independent of all temporal authority, we have feen admitted by the moft jealous legiflatures; and not inconfiftently with this acknowledgement, we know that Catholic princes have waged war againft the Pope himself, and reduced him to the state of a prifoner in his capital. ***** But in admitting the exiftence of this fpiritual fupremacy of the fee of Rome, Gatholics do not even admit that the Pope (hall himself elect and nominate all bishops, as in fome ages pontiffs have affumed a right to do, in the fame manner as they exercised other powers which have not even by human authorities been confidered as legitimately inherent in them." P: 19.

The candid and well-informed author of this tract, which we consider as highly deserving of actual publication, is much disposed even to controvert the heinous imputations which have been thrown upon the Church of Rome, in the darker ages of modern history. Yet charges of ambition and intolerance have been so invariably brought against her by all Protestant writers, and even by many of her own communion, that we cannot avoid

I 4.

a suspicion that he has sometimes strained this a little too far. The tyrannical domination of papal Rome, forms one of the leading features of civil history during several centuries, and certainly one of the most interesting and curious phenomena which the philosophical reflector upon past times can contemplate. We certainly would not chuse, therefore, to rest the cause upon this ground; let us pare the claws of the panther,' without vouching for the milk-white purity of the hind. It is fair, however, to observe, that the canon of the fourth council of Lateran, which seems to sanction the deposition of princes, is suspected of spuriousness by many learned men, and, at all events, involves no matter of faith, to which the Catholics of the present day can hold themselves bound to subscribe. Thus the argument, which has been sometimes brought forward in the guise of a syllogism, The Catholic church once maintained the deposing power; but, according to the Catholics themselves, what their church once maintained, it maintains still; therefore, it still maintains the deposing power, is easily repelled. The major proposition is: universally denied by the Catholics at this day; but if any Protestant think that there are historical proofs of that, he may securely deny the minor of the premises; since it is clear, that at present no such tenet is held by that church, either in Great Britain or on the Continent. The oath of 1791 refutes the charge as to the former; the answer of six eminent universities in 1788, to certain queries proposed at desire of Mr Pitt, is satisfactory, as to the principal repositories of Catholic theology in Europe. These answers are printed in the Appendix to Sir John Coxe Hippisley's tract, and they may be found in Mr Plowden's history of Ireland.

3

We have only to add, that in discussing this most important: question, either now, or at any other time, no considerations of party shall ever enter into our views. If this great national improvement is brought to pass, it matters little to us by what hand it shall be carried into execution, Although recent changes in government have revived the public feeling upon this theme, the abstract merits of the question have no reference to any political connexions. Among those who regret the late administration, there are many who would have refused their aid in breaking down the restrictive laws against the Catholics; among those who are most engaged in the present, there are many whose assent to the justice of the cause which we have espoused has never been withheld or concealed. But if it seem a solecism to write on political matters, without appertaining to some political sect,-if we are to chuse the divinities of our own idolatry,—we must de⚫ clare ourselves to belong, upon this subject, to the party of Mr. Burke, Mr Fox, and Mr Pitt,

ART.

ART. X. Notice de la Vie et des Ecrits de George Louis Le Sage de Geneve, Membre de l'Academie et de l'Institut de Bologne, &c. &c. Redigée après ses Notes, par Pierre Prevost. A Geneve, chez

Paschoud. 1805.

THE biographical sketch here announced, has more than an or dinary claim to the attention of the reader. The subject of it is a philosopher, who, beside the peculiarities incident to genius, had several that belonged exclusively to himself. These he was careful to study and explain; and the notes which he has left behind him, seem to entitle him to the rare eulogy, of having given an accurate and candid delineation of his own character. His biographer, too, had the advantage of being intimately acquainted with the person whom he has undertaken to describe, and has been attentive to mark whatever appeared singular in the constitution or progress of his mind.

His

George Lewis Le Sage was born at Geneva in 1724, to which city his father, a native of France, had for some time retired, and lived by giving private lessons in mathematics and natural philosophy. The son was early initiated in these studies; receiving, at the same time, in all the branches of literature, as li beral a course of education as his father's limited income would allow. A marked opposition, however, in their tastes and intel lectual propensities, prevented the son from reaping from his fa ther's instructions all the advantage that might have been ex pected. The old man was well informed; but his knowi ledge was very much confined to facts, and was accompa nied with little. tendency to reason, or to generalize. son, again, even when a boy, delighted in connecting his ideas by general and abstract principles, and was not more inquisitive about facts, than about the relations in which they stood to one another. This propensity arose, in some measure at least, from the weakness of his memory, which forced him to study the most just and constant connexions among things, in order to prevent both words and ideas from escaping his recollection entirely. 'It was thus,' says M. Prevost, that we saw him, in his maturer years, and particularly in his old age, avoiding, with the greatest care, whatever could trouble the order of his thoughts, and substituting, with much art, a logical series of mental operations to the effort which the recollection of a single unconnected fact would necessarily have cost him.'

The history of Le Sage does indeed illustrate, in the clearest manner, the relation between the faculties of memory and ab straction, and the power which each has to supply the deficiencies'

fate of this young man, however, to derive, from the means used for his instruction, advantages very different from those that were intended, and often of far greater value. The weakness of Montfaucon's conjectures, concerning the use of many of the instruments he has described, did not escape the observation of Le Sage; and he began even then to try to establish some general and certain rules for discovering the end of a workman from the inspection of his work! Such extent of view, at so early a period of life, has rarely occurred, and must be considered as a decided mark of genius and originality. Some years after this period, connecting the pursuit just mentioned with one closely allied to it, namely, the rules that must guide us when, in the works of nature, we would trace the marks of the wise design of the Creator, he formed the idea of a treatise, entitled Teleology, and of which an account will afterwards be given.

The perusal of Lucretius is one of the events that did most determine the objects of Le Sage's researches, and indeed the whole colour and complexion of his future speculations. The precise time when this happened does not appear, though it was certainly very early, and before he had attained the age of twenty. It was then that he conceived the notion of a mechanical explanation of gravity, and of the reduction of all the motions observed in nature, to the principle of impulsion. This was suggested by the atoms of Lucretius; and the invention of a system by which such an explanation could be given, even with tolerable plausibility, must be considered as a work of great merit by all who know the difficulty with which it is attended, and its importance to philosophy. The system by which Le Sage proposed to effect this great object will be by and by considered.

Le Sage had the good fortune to study mathematics under Cramer, and philosophy under Calendrini, two eminent profes sors, who then adorned the University of Geneva. When it became necessary for him to make choice of a profession, he gave the preference to that of medicine. The pursuit of this study led him first to Basle, and afterwards to Paris. At the former place, he became acquainted with Daniel Bernoulli, from whom, however, his merit seems to have been completely concealed, by his awkwardness and diffidence. He says of himself, when he entered at this University Ill dressed; timid, and expressing myself with difficulty, I was quite neglected in the first months of my stay at Basle; insomuch, that they did not even think it worth while to speak French before me. He undertook the study of the German, but the weakness of his me mory did not permit him to succeed.

The

The same awkwardness could not fail to have effects at Paris yet more unfavourable, as the narrowness of his income must Likewise have had; yet he persevered not only in pursuing medicine, but in applying to his favourite objects in philosophy. At last he returned to Geneva; but not having the freedom of a burgess of the city, he was refused the privilege of practising as a physician; and saw himself, in the end, forced to relinquish every other view of fixing himself in life, but that of following the business of his father, and giving lessons in mathematics and natural philosophy.

For this he appears to have been well qualified. He says of himself, that the structure of his mind was such, as had fitted him for understanding the mathematics well, but not extensively. Propre à bien savoir les mathematiques, mais non a en savoir beaucoup.' The first part of this assertion, we imagine, may be understood more literally than the last; though it is probably true that he was not quite master of all the modern improvements of the calculus. Some of his remarks on the state of the mathematical sciences in France, are worth attending to. In a letter to the Duke de Rochefoucault, whom he had had the honour to instruct in the mathematics, dated in 1778, he has this observation.

In their elementary treatises of mathematics and phyfics, the French writers take fo little trouble about the foundations of those calculations which they accumulate without end, that it seems as if they wanted to make all their pupils mere clerks in a banking house, or affiftants in an obfervatory. They treat geometry the leaft geometrically poffible, under the pretence that algebraic demonftrations are the shortest: as if the only object were to get to the end, and as if the road leading to it were of no importance. They are in hafte to give a few notions, rather grammatical than intellectual, of the fublimer parts, before they have fufficiently developed the elements. They feem defirous of reducing aftronomy, the science of motion, and chemistry, to be nothing but the humble attendants on navigation, gunnery, and the arts; as if all the world was destined for infpectors of the marine, of artillery, or manufactures; and as if the cultivation of reafon was nothing in comparifon with the art of getting wealth. This was not the proceeding of • Defcartes or Newton.' p. 272.

This character of the French elementary writers, though, in certain refpects, juft, evidently has fomething of the air of fatire, and muft not be received as perfectly correct. Of too little regard to the methods of pure geometry, and too much hafte to reach the more profound parts of the calculus, they may certainly be accufed. But a general preference of the methods of algebra and analysis, cannot be regarded as an error, if the foundations of thofe methods are carefully and accurately explained.