Zoonomia; or the Laws of Organic Life. Vol. II. 4to. By Erafmus Darwin, M. D. F. R. S. 1796.

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AVING in our volume for 1794, given an account of the first volume of this ingenious work, it might perhaps be fufficient for us barely to announce to our readers the appearance of the fecond volume of a work, the former part of which has already excited the attention of most of those who purfue the fludy of of medicine as a branch of science, and intereft themselves in all its ingenious novelties; and indeed, we mean to do little more than give fuch a general idea of its contents, as may ferve to afford information of what may be expect ed from it. A full analyfis of the work would be dry; a minute criticism would occupy too many of our pages with a topic addreffed only to profeffional men; and partial criticisms would be unfair and impertinent, where the whole is concatenated by a fyftem, only to be properly comprehended in an univerfal view.

The volume confifts of part 2d and 3d of the Zoonomia. The 2d contains a catalogue of difeafes diftributed according to their proximate causes, with their fubfe

quent orders, genera, and fpecies, and with their methods of cure.' The 3d comprizes the article of the Materia Medica, with an account of the operation of medicine.' Thus the volume is properly a practical fyftem of phyfic, founded on the doctrines of the animal economy laid down in the preceding volume. The claffification of diseases follows that of the faculties or powers of the fenforium, established in the first part of Zoonomia. As all diseases are affirmed to originate in the exuberance, deficiency, or retrograde action, of these faculties; and to conûft in difordered motions of the fibres, the proximate effect of the exertions of these difordered faculties; four natural claffes of diseases are derived from the four powers of the fenforium; which the author denominates those of irritation, of fenfation, of volition, and of affociation. The orders under each of thefe claffes are formed from the circumstances of increase, diminution, and retrogradation of the actions: the genera are derived from the proximate effect; the fpecies from the locality of the disease in the fyftem.

It is not to be expected that a claffification, founded on fuch peculiar and abstract notions, should coincide

coincide with thofe of former pathologists and nofologifts. The reader must therefore prepare himfelf for a confiderable portion of furprize, at the view of affemblages of which he has had no previous idea and at the appearance of many things in the catalogue of difeafes which he had reckoned mere fymptoms, and even fome that are natural actions, and reducible to no received definition of disease. It would be eafy for us to anticipate his furprize by the production of examples of this fort but this would be acting unfairly towards the truly ingenious author; who could doubtlefs thew that a regular pursuit of his fyftem led to analogies and affociations, which no other train of reafoning could difcover.

Meantime, it is obvious that an arrangement of diseases from their proximate caufes is a bufinefs fo thoroughly fcientific, that it muft fuppofe a degree of perfection in our knowledge of the animal body in its healthy and difeafed ftate, which elevates medicine from its humble rank of an experimental art, to that of a true and full formed science. This state, indeed, is that in which every friend to its progress would wish to view it, and that which every man of gepius will attempt to acquire for it:-but the misfortune is that fuch attempts, if premature or inadequate, interfere with the hum. bler efforts of practical utility, and mislead by falfe views as much as they inftruct by true conceptions. It is not easy to imagine an arrangement of difeafes lefs applicable to common purposes than that in the prefent work; nor is it probable that even those who receive, and comprehend, the au

thor's fyftem of medical philofophy, will always agree with him in his pathological conclufions.

We by no means intend, however, to give a hafty decifion on a performance which is the refult of much thought and labour, and is certainly replete with ingenuity: Though we do not think that it will make an era in medicine, yet it feems calculated to throw new light on many fubjects, and confiderably to improve the principles of medical reafoning. It likewife contains much curious and entertaining fact, and many valu able practical hints and directions. With a marked propenfity to try new expedients, in cafes that call for extraordinary exertions, the author difplays a thorough acquaintance with all the old rules; nor does he, more than the late Dr. Cullen, feem over-folicitous to make his practice fquare with his theory, but freely allows its due preference to the former. Many fuggeftions are given in the modeít form of queries; and though quickness of imagination may be the most prominent character, yet it is not emancipated from the rule of fober judgement. As a fupplement to the fourth clafs of difeafes of affociation, he gives a fympathetic theory of fever, derived from the most intricate and recondite fpeculations belonging to the Zoonomia, which requires not lefs attention in the reader to follow, than ingenuity in the writer to have conceived. The diftribution of the Materia Medica into feven claffes poffeffes as much novelty as the reft of the work; it turns entirely on the supposed power of the feveral articles in influencing the different motions of the fyftem.

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Principle:

Principles of Legislation. By Charles Michell, of Forcett, Efq. Sve, 1796.

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S the most useful publications are not always the moft entertaining, thofe which are calculated chiefly for the inftruction of mankind are rarely perufed, except by the fmall circle of readers who are en 'owed with a clear understanding and found judgment; and who, divefted of patlion or party fpirit, feek only for the improvement of the mind, or the means of meliorating the condition of the bulk of their fellowcreatures. The great mafs of men in every nation, though they feel oppreffion with as much fenfibility as the most enlightened, are rendered incapable, through the want. of education, . of finding out remedy of precifely that degree of ftrength which is fuflicient to remove the evils of which they complain, without producing in its place any other grievance of equal or greater magnitude. Thofe who feel pain are unquestionably beft able to tell in what part they are affected, and how acute are their fufferings: but it does not follow that they beft know how to get rid of it without deftroying themfelves. The cafe is the fame in the political as in the natural body. The poor can tell, for inftance, when the fcarcity of provifions raifes the price of them, and when the ufual fum with which they go to market will not produce the ufual fupply of food; but we may venture to fay that they are not the belt judges of the caus of fcarcity, nor of the means ei ber of guarding against or removing it. Some may 4

think that it arifes from too fmall a division of farms, others from too great a confolidation of them; fome from the policy of allowing an exportation of grain, others from want of a bounty on the importation; and fome from a radical defect in the organization of government, while others afcribe it to fome particular measure pursued by adminiftration. Thefe various caufes having numbers of partizans, each propofing different remedies, and having nothing in common between them but the certain experience of the fcarcity, the remedies, if left entirely to thofe who fuffer, mutt be as various as the parties propofing them; and, confequently, the evil, inftead of being deftroyed, would neceffarily be aggravated.

Fully convinced of the calamities that may be brought on fociety by a departure from found principles of legiflation, or by the adoption of fuch as are fuggefted by the uninformed, the prejudiced, or the defigning, the author of the work before us makes an appeal to the found fenfe of his countrymen, and calls them to the serious confideration of the grounds on which political conftitations ought to be raised and maintained. Those who look into books only for amufement; thofe who are incapable of feeing objects with calm philofophic temper and clearness, or whofe judgments are chained down in adamantine fetters by their paflions or by party connec tions; we advife to throw afide, without reading, the volume that we are going to review: but let it be feriously perused by those who are in fearch only of truth, and who are ready to embrace it under

whatever

whatever form it may prefent itfelf. Let fuch perfons open it, in the fully certainty of meeting with principles, we will not fay in all cafes irrefragably juft, but in general irrefiftibly true. They may be fure of finding calm difcuffion, and a fair appeal to their understanding. They will find the author the fteady friend of rational liberty, and the determined enemy of defpotifm, whether arifing from the cold blooded tyranny of an individual, or from general confufion and anarchy. They will fee that Mr. M. combats many opinions which are at prefent extremely popular, not because they are entertained by a great part of the people, but because they are calculated, in his opinion, to injure the public, and to endanger the throne of liberty. There are many points in it on which we differ widely from Mr. M.: but what work of equal extent, particularly in the prefent ferment, could be produced, that must command the acquiefcence of mankind in all its doctrines? His conceptions, indeed, are generally juft, and. his arguments powerful; his knowledge of human nature is profound; his acquaintance with the hiftory of antient and modern times is extenfive and correct; and his powers of reafoning are to be furpaffed only by his moderation and temper-which failed but once (we believe) in the courfe of 513 pages, and that was when fpeaking of Thomas Paine.

Having thus characterized the publication before us, we will now proceed to give a fummary of its contents. It is divided into two books, the former fubdivided into eight, the latter into ten chapters.

The author fets out with a quotation from Mr. Burke's celebrated Reflections on the French revolution, "that circumftances alone render every political principle beneficial or obnoxious ;" and he ftrongly controverts the truth of it, or at least thews that it might lead to error from the ambiguity of the term "political." Politics, he obferves, is a word that ferves to exprefs both the whole fcience of government, and the art and practice of adminiftering public affairs. It ought, therefore, to be afcertained in which fenfe it is ufed. Legiflation he employs as a more proper, becaule an unambiguous term, for expreffing the former. He fays it may be refolv ed into principles that are invariable; and that the mode only of applying them depends on the circumftances of the moment. The doctrine of expediency, he admits, may be ufeful to a statesman actually engaged in the government of a particular nation: but even with him the author would have it operate only negatively.

Circunftances (fays he) may render pernicious a meafure abftractedly good, but no circumstances can render permanently beneficial a meafure abitractedly bad. A virtuous and intelligent ftatefman is influenced by expediency no further, than if occafion requires to defift from action. Unlike the mariner who is ignorant of navigation, and who therefore, for the fake of immediate cafe and fafety from whatever point the wind may blow, fteers his thip right before it: he proceeds in spite of adverfe winds, by an oblique courfe, to his defined port, or at the work. cafts anchor For from tha. extremity

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