the Saxon law, the civil law, the law of cuftom, the law eftablifhed by conquering nations in their colonies, the feudal law derived from the nature of fiefs and the several reciprocal obligations between the lord and his vaffals, the military law, the mercantile law or the laws of commerce in general, the cambial law or the laws and customs of exchange, the metallic law or the laws and cuftoms of miners, the law of the venery or those laws that relate to forefts and the game, the canon law for the ecclefiaftical affairs of Roman Catholicks, the ecclefiaftic law of Proteftants, the municipal laws of fome large, cities or particular provinces, the form of procefs before the tribunal of the German empire, the form of procefs in general, according as it is received and established in each country, the practice or application of all these laws to cafes that arife, called by the lawyers prudentia juridicalis, the confultatory prudence, or the rules to be observed in the decifion of particular cafes, and in the advice that is afked by unfkilful perfons of the men of the law, the marine law, the criminal law.

Having laid before the reader the feveral branches of this equally vaft and complicated science, we think it unneceffary to follow the baron through the labyrinth of universal jurifprudence, and fhall therefore content ourselves with taking notice of fuch particulars worthy of remark, as occur in the course of his analysis of the feveral parts of it. In page 96 our author lays it down as a maxim, that the reasons for which laws are made, fhould never be annexed to them; and that the people fhould be taught to rely on the wisdom of him or them, to whom they have affigned the legislative power. This maxim appears to be entirely calculated for the meridian of an arbitrary government, and furprises us the more, as a fpirit of liberty feems to breathe through the work before us. Such a doctrine feems only worthy of flaves, overawed by their mafters. The fubjects of a free state think they have a right to examine the conduct of thofe intrufted with the adminiftration of government in every particular. In the preamble to every British act of parliament, the reasons of its inftitution are conftantly recited.

In the fifteenth chapter our author fets his readers right with regard to a mistake that people are very apt to run into concerning the Roman law. This law, he justly obferves, has nothing Roman in it but the name. What is now called the Roman law is only a compilation of the laws that the eaftern emperor Juftinian I. caufed to be made by the jurif confults Trebonius, Theophilus, Dorotheus, and Johannes, in the fixth century, and ranged in a certain fyftem, according

Gg 3

to

to the order and nature of the feveral matters. It cannot be denied that Juftinian and his lawyers have included in this fyftem many of the laws that had been in force at Rome. But there is also a great number taken from elsewhere; as from the natural law, that of nations, thofe of the Greeks and Egyptians, and the particular conftitutions of Juftinian himself. The whole has been reduced into a body of law, and makes what is called the Roman law, because the emperors, though refident at Conftantinople, conftantly called themselves Roman emperors.

In fpeaking of the feudal laws, baron Bielfeld maintains that the origin of fiefs is derived from the ancient Germans. This he thinks probable from that warlike spirit in general, and from their law, of greatest force, in particular, by which it was allowable for every free man posselling portions of land to do himself juftice by force of arms. With regard to the feveral different laws which follow the feudal law, there occurs nothing worthy of the reader's notice, till we come to the criminal law; in treating of which our author obferves, that the laws of different countries and different ages have not inflicted the fame punishment for the fame crimes. Theft, for example, was not punished with death amongst the Hebrews, according. to the law of Mofes, but an adulterer was stoned to death. In France, on the contrary, a comeftic thief is hanged for a trifle, but the adulterer is discharged with at most a reprimand from a confeffor whom he defpifes. This the baron accounts for thus the Jews, fays he, have ever been a people addicted to larceny and fraud, their laws therefore have not been fevere against their favourite vice. The French, on the contrary, are a people of gallantry, who think there is no fuch thing as inviolable love, and that the conjugal bond for life is a contract too ftrict for human nature to endure.-We cannot help remarking upon this paffage, that the baron ex preffes himself too freely. Religion teaches us, that God himself was the law-giver of the Jews; but here the Jewish laws are reprefented as founded entirely upon caprice and partiality.

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From what has been faid, the reader will be able to form a judgment of the manner in which baron Bielfeld has treated the fcience of jurifprudence; after which he proceeds to give' us the elements of phyfic, a branch of erudition much more interesting to readers of all forts than the former. According to our author, to know the disease, the remedies, and the proper method of applying them, is that in which the science of phyfic confifts. In page 217, he juftly cenfures a too fyfte

matic

matic difpofition in phyficians, who, from miftaken fymptoms, and frequently from fuch as are doubtful, or not duly attended to, form an indication, that is, a fyftem of the diforder. It must, indeed, be acknowledged, that fyftematical phyficians are by much the leaft to be depended upon; and that the life of a patient, who is entrusted to their care, runs the utmost rifk. The physician who goes intirely by precedent is much fafer. Syftems are, however, of fome ufe to the ftudent of phyfic, as they are a help to the memory, and enable him to reduce physical phænomena to claffes; whereas, he who has only collected a number of facts, and a variety of receipts, is ever at a lofs in the application of them.

Amongst the feveral fyftems of modern phyficians, our auther confines himself to two only, whofe different opinions feem to deferve more attention than those of the reft. The first of thefe, having the celebrated Stahl at their head, fuppofes, that the primary cause of all the difeafes of the human body proceeds from the mind; and, confequently, that the mind being differently affected, produces different difeafes, and this opinion they found on reafon and experience. The others, who are called Mechanicians, and who, are headed by the re nowned Hoffmann, find the primitive caufe of all diforders in the ftructure of the body, and the mechanism of its organs. They believe, that ideas arife from an infinite number of minute fenfations, and that these fenfations arife from the manner in which the myriads of nerves, of fibres, and other springs of the body are moved, agitated, and affected. They feem to take the mind to be the refult of all these fenfations, and believe with Montefquieu that the imagination, the taste, fenfibility, vivacity, &c. and of confequence the paffions also, depend on them. This is the fyftem of the Atheists, and materialifts, a fyftem which is often adopted by the fmatterers in natural knowledge, and which many physicians affect to adopt, thinking that it proves their fagacity and penetration. Greater names, however, appear on the other fide of the question, and if it was to be decided merely by the number and reputation of those that have declared themfelves, it would certainly be a great inducement to any rational inquirer to accede to it. Amongst thefe may be reckoned Hippocrates, one of the greatest geniufes of antiquity, and the renowned Galen, who was converted from Atheifin to the belief of a Deity. Our author, however, profeffes himfelf a fceptic upon the occafion, and though he declares himself neutral by these words,

Non noftrum inter vos tantas componere lites,

yet he seems greatly to incline to the opinion of the materialists, when he afferts that every physician would do well to follow the fyitem of the mechanicians, and not vainly to bewilder himself with curing the mind, but apply himself to the cure of the body, to cleanse the organs, to renew and rectify the juices, to improve the blood, to ftrengthen the fprings of the ftomach and other vifcera, and to preferve each part of the human body in its natural state and in that action for which it is destined. Though this is in fome measure juft, certain it is that the mind claims the attention of the physician as well as the body; and the baron's representing the latter as the only fubject which he has to operate upon, feems to proceed from the fame way of thinking which has brought the general imputation of irreligion upon physicians, and which has given occafion to the proverb ubi tres medici duo athei. The branches of which the medicinal art is compofed, are, according to the baron, the twelve following, anatomy, phyfiology, pathology, the femietic or indicative, the therapeutic, the materia medica, botany, pharmacy or election, chymiftry, chirurgery, and obftetrics, the practice of phyfic, medicinal prudence and medicina forenfis. We fhould exceed the bounds of an article were we to follow the author through the explication which he gives of these various parts of phyfic, we fhall therefore just touch upon those particulars which are moft worthy of the notice of a reader. With regard to the first of these branches, anatomy, it is ufually diftinguished into the common and the fublime or refined anatomy. The former of these is the ordinary business of profeffors, phyficians, chirurgeons and students; the latter appertains to the Albini, the Boerhaaves, the Hallers, the Sydenhams, the Lieberkuhns. In page 242 we meet with another obfervation of the baron's which proves what we have already advanced concerning his turn to incre dulity and scepticism in religious matters. His obfervation is as follows, when all the springs of the body will become inflexible, their action will ceafe; and the feveral parts being no longer able to perform their functions, the aged becomes a fort of autometon, a burden to himself and to those that are obliged to attend him; or he ceases to be, and according to the fcripture phrase, returns to the duft from whence he came. This obfervation, continues the baron, by proving that immortality is abfolutely impoffible, gives occafion likewife to violent doubts relative to the affertion of Mofes on the subject of the age of the first race of men, and of the patriarchs. For either their muscles, nerves, fibres, &c. were constructed like ours; and in that cafe it was impoffible for them to last almost a thousand years without becoming inflexible, or elfe their vif

cera

cera were formed much stronger, more vigorous, and more durable than ours; from whence an infallible but very difagreeable confequence arises; for it is evident to demonstration that a man's difpofition for thinking, his vivacity, his ingenuity, his fenfibility, depend on the greater or lefs delicacy of his nerves, his fibres, and the whole of his machine. If therefore all their parts were fufficiently ftrong to laft almost a thousand years, it is manifeft that the patriarchs must have been mere brutes, infinitely lefs fenfible and alert than modern animals.'

This is too like the language of modern free-thinkers, who make their own knowledge the measure of the divine power, and think to circumfcribe the operations of Him whom heaven, and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain within the narrow

sphere of our ideas. Our author's reasoning, upon this subject, is very far from being conclufive.-Might not the fame power that formed the human frame, wind it up by the means of fprings imperceptible to every eye but one that fees infinitely, for a longer or fhorter term of years, as he judged proper? He feems to have forgot here, what he had before acknowledged, that we abfolutely know nothing of the nature of the mind, of the principle of life, &c. If the nature of the mind, and the principle of life be fo utterly unknown to us, and, in fact, inexplicable myfteries, why does he prescribe limits to its continuance ?-Thus the best reasoners involve themselves in contradictions and abfurdities.

Lucretius, after having argued against divine Providence, and exerted himself to the utmost to establish the system of atheism, is compelled by the force of truth to acknowledge fomething like a fuperintending Providence, and fo far forgets himself as to confefs, that there feems to be some fecret power, that controuls and governs all things.

Ufque adeo res humanas vis abdita quædam

Proterit, et pulchras fafces, fævafque fecures

Proculcare, atque ludibris fibi habere videtur. De Nat. Rerum. Our author, in the latter part of his objection, remarks, that Mofes in his pfalm affures us, that the days of our years are threescore and ten; and, if we attain to fourfcore, it is by reafon of ftrength.-But who does not fee that, upon this occafion, Mofes was not fpeaking of the antediluvians, but of men fuch as they were at the time in which he wrote? As what has been faid is abundantly fufficient to give the reader an idea of the manner in which our author has treated the fubject of medicine, we fhall now proceed to the fubfequent article, philofophy.