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By the term fenfible beings, is here meant beings fufceptible of happiness and misery.

That

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That MEN are under no law, but that which refults from their nature- that each indi

That MEN ought to obey the laws, which have been clearly and explicitly given to them by the first caufe, that each individual feels this law, and convidual may not do, what his fequently ought to do and does, fancy looks upon as good in in effect, if he is not a dupe, general, and principally fo for whatever he thinks to be good him; and that explicit laws in general, but principally what tend to produce the greatest he efteems good for himself. degree of happiness among men. 8.

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8.

That MEN have nothing to hope, nor any thing to fear, beyond the present scene, and that therefore they do well to accumulate (what the vulgar and the civil laws call) crimes, if they can thus enjoy in peace and fafety the pleasures that are fometimes connected with them.

9.

That MEN fuffer by a neceffary confequence of the WHOLE or aggregate of the universe, and therefore without any hope of a future indemnification or recompence; nay, even without any affurance that their fufferings tend to the advancement of the general good;-that, of confequence, they have no refource left, but to learn to fubmit to their lot, as to a law of fatal neceffity.

FINAL CONSEQUENCE. They, who have unhappily imbibed the preceding errors, having lived without any certainty of obtaining the advantages they defired, or any hope of compenfation for the ills they fuffer, meet death with a forrowfu!

they have the certain hopes of infinitely fuperior enjoyments and advantages in a future fcene. Thus they finifh their preparatory courfe with much tranquillity as they have paffed through it.

as

leave behind them, because forrowful fentiment of the lofs of their existence. And if an act of reflection, in this moment of dejection, should fuggeft to them an apprehenfion of their philofophy's being an illufion, it is poffible that this late difcovery may be no longer a fource of confolation for them. They finish therefore their preparatory courfe with as much anxiety, as they fhewed little about true happiness, while they were going on towards its term.

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Oh! man (concludes our Author), this is thy greatest concern chufe. . canft thou hefitate?

examine

ART. II.

Nouveaux Memoirs de l'Academie des fciences et Belles-Lettres de Berlin, année 1777, 4to, printed at Berlin.

HISTORY OF THE ACADEMY.

HERE are feveral articles of confequence in the historical part of this volume. The confiderations of Baron Seidlitz, minifter of ftate to the King of Pruffia, on the public schools, and the poffibility of rendering fcholaftic inftruction more analogous to the duties and occupations of civil life, are fenfible and judicious.The obfervations made by the late M. Lambert at Berlin, and by M. Pucelle, King's counfellor at Mont-Didier, of a remarkable kind of aurora borealis, feen almoft throughout Europe, Febru ary 26, 1777, are here combined by the fecretary of the academy. But the most important article of this first part, is a Latin letter of Profeffor WALTER, one of the greatest anatomists that any age or country has produced, to the celebrated Dr. HUNTER, phyfician to the queen, F. R. S. and profeffor of anatomy at London. The fubject of this anatomical epiftle is, the veins of the eye in general, and particularly the deep veins of that organ, thofe of the retina, of the ciliary ligament, of the capfule of the lens, of the vitreous humour, and an account of the central artery of the retina. No anatomift, before M. WALTER, had formed a juft idea of this laft artery: M. Walter attributes the caufe of their imperfect fuccefs to their having filled, with their injections, the arteries and the veins at the fame time, and to the great facility with which the injected liquid paffes from the arteries into the veins. He followed a different, but also a moft. difficult and expenfive method, which was that of injecting the

veins alone, in order to discover, with more accuracy, their direction and termination; and the discoveries he made by following this method render his letter to the British anatomift fingularly interefting.

This letter is followed by a Memoir concerning the aëriform fubStance, which iffues, by emanation, from the human body, as alfa concerning the manner of gathering it. By the Count DE MILLY, colonel of dragoons, and member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris.After having fhewn the very eafy process by which this fubftance may be gathered, this ingenious man of war enumerates the experiments which he made, in order to afcertain the reality of thefe emanations. His experiments fatiffactorily prove, that the animal air, which issued from his body in a bath (whofe temperature was 27 degrees and a half of Reaumur's thermometer, and that of the atmosphere 17) was different from the air of the atmosphere, and has properties that give it a ftriking resemblance to what we call fixed air. These experiments are followed by others which Count DE MILLY made, to afcertain the affinities or relation of the animal air which iffues from the pores, to that which is emitted by respiration. This determination of the respective natures and properties of animal gas and pulmonic air will undoubtedly tend to the explication of a multitude of phenomena, concerning which there has been a diverfity of opinions.- -From these experiments we learn, among other things, that air emitted by refpiration is a mixture of fixed air diffufed through a large quantity of common air, by which the former is carried off, and the pernicious effects of its accumulation are prevented. This explains the principles of fuffocation, and the danger of clofe and crowded apartments, in which the introduction of common air being obftructed, the emanations of fixed air gain the afcendant.

The four laft articles of this historical part, are SEGNER'S demonftration of the general binomial theorem of Newton.-A lift of the MSS. or printed works, prefented to the academy in the year 1777-and the eulogies of Baron D' ESSCHEN and the celebrated chemift POTT, both late members of the academy, both eminent for their fuccefsful application to the study of nature, and the former diftinguished by his capacity and talents as minifter of state to the Landgrave of Heffe-Caffel during the war of 1756.

EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY.

I. Memoir. Concerning the Indian chefnut tree. By M. de FRANCHEVILLE. This tree is called Hyppocastanum by the Botanifts, from the property it has of curing purfiveness in horfes : its fruit is bitter, and the intention of this'memoir is to point out a method, hitherto unknown, of removing this bitterness, and making the tree produce as good chefnuts as thofe of Lyons.

The

The means he proposes are tranfplantion, and engrafting: and he circumftantially defcribes the manner of proceeding.

II. Memoir. Concerning the Principles of the Tourmaline. By M. GERHARD. In this excellent memoir we have, firft, a feries of curious obfervations on the Natural Hiftory of the Tourmaline, of which three diftinct fpecies are particularly described. These observations are followed by a chemical examination of this ftone, in which the academician has employed the green and transparent tourmalines of Brafil. From a laborious detail of experiments, made in this examination, it appears, that the conftituent principles of the Tourmaline are, earth of allum,earth of flint,a fmall portion of calcareous earth, and a fat or oily fubftance. M. GERHARD proceeds afterwards to enquire. into the class of ftones to which the Tourmaline belongs, and he thinks it comes nearest to the bafaltes, both with respect to its figure, and the principles of which it is compofed; the latter being of the fame nature, and in the fame proportions, with thofe of the Bafaltes. Nevertheless, as the analogy between the principles of which precious ftones, the bafaltes, the tourmaline, and the zeolite, are compofed, is fo great, our academician thinks, that the Mineralogifts will be obliged to arrange these stones in a new order, under the general title of flones fufible, by way of eminence. Under this new order four kinds may be comprehended -the precious ftone-the tourmaline-the bafaltes or fchorl-and the zeolite. The two first are diftinguished by their electrical virtues, with this difference, however, that the attractive power of the precious stone must be excited by friction, whereas the tourmaline, in order to become electrical, must be placed on hot afhes, and poffeffes moreover a repellent virtue. The basaltes is a fufible, but not electrical, ftone, and the zeolite is fufible, fometimes electrical, and emits a confiderable portion of froth when it is in the period of fufion.Though want of space obliges us to terminate here our account of this curious and elaborate memoir, we cannot conclude it without obferving, that there are two phenomena, which furnish feveral judicious reflections to our academician; the firft is, that the lava contains the fame principles that compofe the tourmaline and the bafaltes, and the fecond (which is ftill more fingular and remarkable) is, that the principles of fufible ftones, that have been separated, and have afterwards been mixed again in the fame proportions in which they had been found, do not fubmit to fufion, as the ftones themselves do.

III. Memoir. Experiments, relative to the celerity, with which bodies of different forms or shapes are charged with the electrical fluid, and to the proportion that there is between the quantity they abforb, and the distance they are at from an electrified body. By M. ACHARD,

IV. Memoir.

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