mafk are placed, by a prophane hand, upon the countenance of truth? In fuch cafes the fober and serious behold the object with contempt for the feducer, and compassion for the seduced; but we think they do beft who behold it with filence; while the corrupted imaginations of the ignorant and licentious, take the cap for the head and the mask for the countenance, and, being confirmed by a laugh, in the illufions of an unhappy fophiftry, go on in their frenzy, till the fhort-lived fcene concludes, and another arifes, which, without any ambiguity, fhall exhibit Folly and Wijdem in their native colours, to every eye.

The celebrated fatyrift of Ferney, indeed, has raked together arguments and objections with a degree of malignity, that we have not remarked in the other adverfaries of divine Revelation: a'kind of spite, a rabies, a canine fort of acrimony and peccant humour flows from his pen, when he points at Judaism and Chriftianity. The meek, benevolent, and fublime character of the Author of Chriftianity, and the candid fimplicity of its first minifters have, at leaft, procured decent language, nay, expreffions of refpe&, from many deifts; and we have even known fome, who doubted or difbelieved with a kind of reluctance, because they were ingenuous enough to difcern in this Religion the pureft precepts, the moft comfortable doctrines, and the nobleft profpects, tho' they pretended (ftrange indeed!) that the evidence of its divine origin was defective; but the Author, whom we have now in view, has grown grey in hatred to chriftianity, as it were in the lump, and his trembling hands are daily throwing impotent and feeble fhafts, against that fyftem of religion, which ennobles human nature, directs in profperity, confoles in adverfity, fupports in death, and lays a foundation for felicity in endless fcenes of Being.

He, however, meets with anfwerers, and good ones too. The work before us is a reply to fome of his attempts upon the Old Teftament. It is divided into nine chapters. In the first the Author defends the authenticity of the books of that part of the facred writings against the critical remarks of M. de Voltaire, which this famous wit had (it feems) drawn from his profound knowledge of the Syriac language. Our Author, indeed, is no joker, nor does he make any attempt towards pleasantry; but his plain expofal of the oriental blunders of the poet, is fuf ficient to provoke a fide-fhaking laugh in the moft puny profi cient in Hebrew literature. A fingle inftance, which we have just before us, will ferve as a fpecimen of our deiftical joker's erudition and reafoning.-He had learned from Philo, an Helleniftical Jew (who wrote excellent Greek, but knew very little either of the Hebrew or Chaldaic languages) that the term Ifrael was Chaldaic, and from thence he concluded that all the books of the Old Teftament, where this term is mentioned, were

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compofed after the Babylonian captivity, because the Jews could not give themselves the name of Ifraelites, until they had learned the Chaldaic language, and they could only have learned that language during the captivity.-This is a curious piece of criticism and reafoning! The Critic forgot that the family of Jacob, was originally Chaldean, and that Jacob himself, who had lived twenty years in Mefopotamia, might have brought from that country a Chaldaic proper name, which might naturally enough have been preferved among his defcendants. But this reflection is not neceffary, tho' it be fufficient to remove Voltaire's objection; for it happens that the term Ifrael is not Chaldaic, but is really compofed of two Hebrew roots; as will appear to any perfon, who, with the fmallest knowledge of oriental literature, cafts an eye on the Hebrew text and the Chaldee paraphrafe. Ex ungue Leonem.

In the fecond Chapter our Author proves the antiquity of the books of Mofes, to be much more remote than that of the books of other nations, and in this comparifon the fragments of Sanchoniathon, the Chinese King, and the Zend and Vedam of the Indians are particularly confidered.

In the third Chapter he fhews, with equal learning and judg ment, the poffibility of miracles and the reality of thofe of Mofes and Jofhua; and removes, with a masterly hand, the contradictions which his adverfary imagined he had feen, or endeavoured to make others fee in the facred text.-The following Chapter is defigned to fhew that Voltaire is mistaken, in affirming that the Jews borrowed the rite of circumcifion from the Egyptians; and fome Chriftian writers are here involved in the defeat of our Philofopher. The Jews (fays our Author) that is, the family of Jacob, practifed circumcifion, before their fettlement in Egypt; it was performed upon all the males of which that family was compofed, without diftinction; and it was a practice originally derived from Abraham, from whom it was communicated to the Arabians by Ifhmael, and to the Jews by Ifaac. If Mofes had borrowed this rite from the Egyptians, with his other ceremonies, why, inftead of deriving its authority (like that of the other rites) from the legiflation of mount Sinai, did he afcribe its origin to Abraham, preferably to all the other obfervances which he established and if the Hebrews had feen circumcifion univerfally practifed in Egypt, how could they look upon it as a rite peculiar to the pofterity of Abraham ? nay, what is more; (fays our Author) it appears fufficiently from the book of Joshua, that the Egyptians had not as yet practifed circumcifion, when the Ifraelites went out of their country, and, therefore, the latter could not have borrowed that ceremony from them.

In the fifth Chapter our Author proves the authenticity of the Prophetic Writings, and more efpecially that of the book of Daniel; L13

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and in the fixth, he takes a particular and accurate view of the religion of the Jews, in order to maintain against his adversary, that the unity of God and the immortality of the foul are politively taught in the Books of Mofes; concerning the first there can be no difpute, but it is only by induction from fome expreffions, which are not intuitively pofitive on this head, that the latter is proved to have been a Mofaic doctrine.

In the two laft chapters of this work, we have a learned difquifition concerning the different fyftems of Scripture-Chronology, and Reflections on the Primitive State of the Human Race.

This work is undoubtedly replete with learning and good criticism, and it deferves a place among the more folid publications of the French Literati in defence of revealed religion, fuch as those of a Bullet, a François, a Bergier, and a Guenne. It will not be improper to obferve here, that it is to the lat mentioned of thefe learned men, (the Abbé GUENNE, ancient profeffor of Rhetoric in the univerfity of Paris) that the public is indebted for the incomparable work which appeared a few years ago under the title of Letters of certain Portuguese, German, and Polish Jews, to M. de Voltaire *, in which erudition, ftrong fenfe, ease, and fimplicity, were blended with mild and decent touches of pleasantry, and made many a reader frown and fmile alternately at the expence of the Joker of Ferney. These excellent letters have lately appeared in a fourth edition, in three volumes, revifed, corrected, and confiderably augmented; and we scarcely know of any polemical production, in which inftruction and entertainment are fo agreeably mixed. In this new edition, there are large additions made to several important articles, an additional letter concerning the opinion of the ancient Hebrews relative to the duration of the human foul, and several new and excellent letters concerning the nature and spirit of the Mofaic legiflation,

ART. III.

Richerche Filofofiche, &c.-Philofophical Refearches concerning the Phyfical or Material Principles of the Animal Oeconomy; by the Abbot FONTANA, Domeftic Profeffor of Natural Philofophy at the Court of Tuscany. Vol. I. 4to. Florence.

THE defign of this work is, to examine the laws and pro

perties of irritability in the muscular fibres, in order to apply them to the various phenomena of the animal economy. With this view, the volume before us is divided into two parts. In the first, the learned Author proves, that at each contraction

A fhort account of this work was given in the Appendix to our 414 vol. p. 562.

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of a mufcular fibre, a new impreffion is neceffary to renew its irritability; that this irritability is not always permanent, but only returns into the mufcles, after a certain time, according to the difpofition of their fibres; and that muscles contracted, vellicated, compreffed or relaxed, for a long time, ceafe to be irritable. In the fecond part, the Abbot Fontana endeavours to prove, that the nervous fluid is not the cause of the motion of the heart. His reasons are, that the fluid in queftion irritates the nerves of that mufcle, without producing in it the fmalleft degree of contraction; that there is no ceffation of motion in the heart, when its nerves are fo bound as to ftop the courfe of the nervous fluid; that there is no void fpace between that muscle (the heart) and its small valves: that there is no animal in which the point of the heart, when it is contracted, removes to a greater diftance from its bafis: that the heart is not more irritable than other mufcles: that the nerves may be compreffed, crushed, nay even cut in pieces, without any motions refulting from thence in the mufcles into which they enter: and, that if a muscle, in a living animal, is fufficient to fuftain a great weight without breaking, (which cannot take place after the death of the animal) the reafon is, that, by its contraction, it acquires a degree of force which it had not before.

The Refearches of this ingenious and laborious Author, (whofe progrefs in the path of science is directed by the light of experience) concerning the probable caufe of the death of animals by the electrical shock, are perhaps the most curious part of this volume. Among the various kinds of animals, that expire inftantaneously by the electrical machine, the fudden death of the cold animals, in whom life is fo tenacious of its hold, fuch as eels, frogs, &c. furprized our author the moft. His first notion, on the obfervation of this phenomenon, was, that the electrical shock killed in the fame manner, with the venom of the viper, and the exhalations in coal-mines; and fucceeding experiments, often repeated, convinced him afterwards, that air not renewed, air in which a candle has been extinguished, fixed air, and the electrical shock, kill animals in the fame manner, even by removing the irritability of the fibres, and thus difpofe them to an immediate putrefaction. That electricity kills in this manner, and not by taking away refpiration, stopping the circulation of the fluids or humours, or by bursting any delicate parts or veffels through the violence of the fhock, appears to our Author evident from this confideration, that there are animals, who undergo these accidents, without ceafing to live, as the experiments of the late Mr. Heriffant upon toads abundantly testify.

To come to a full perfuafion, that the electrical shock attacks the principles of life and motion, by a force or cause more

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active and penetrating than those above-mentioned, the indefatigable Abbot made a great number of experiments upon animals of different kinds, fuch as turkeys, lambs, kids, &c. and from all the facts and phenomena that presented themselves to his obfervation, during thefe experiments, he thinks it demonftrable, that electricity and lightning kill only by depriving the mufcles of their irritability. In fome of the animals, which he had killed by the electrical fhock, he found all the parts entire, no veffel broken, no blood extravafated, no alteration in the animal machine or the pofition of the parts, capable of occafioning death. If we confider, fays our Author, how tenacious of life the cold animals are, how long the muscles, in them, retain their irritability, it is natural to conclude, that the whole force of the electrical fhock bears upon the mufcular fibre. If lightning killed animals as we ordinarily kill them, the mufcles would lofe nothing of their irritability, and, on being pricked or vellicated, the motions which they ufually, undergo, when thus affected, would be again excited; but nothing like this motion is perceivable in the animals who have been killed by electricity;-all is dead in them-the very principle of motion is deftroyed. Now, as according to our Author, the irritability of the mufcular fibre is the principle of life and motion, to which all animal movements, both voluntary and involuntary, are to be attributed, the immediate caufe of the death of animals, ftruck violently by the electrical fluid, must be the privation of that irritability.

The electrical fluid, in confequence of this privation, leaves the fibres in a state, fimilar to that which is produced in animals that die of the bite of a viper, and that ftate is an accelerated tendency to putrefaction. This is proved by experiments that are daily repeated, and conftantly fpeak the fame language. A fowl, or a lamb, which would require feveral days keeping, after being killed in the ordinary way, before it became tender, acquires this quality in five or fix hours after it has been killed by the electrical fluid, and many hiftorical relations inform us, that thofe who have loft their lives by lightning, have fallen fpeedily into a state of putrefaction. By this it would appear, that electricity deprives the mufcular fibres of tadir inability, by a tonfiderable alteration, which it produces in the internal difpofition of their parts; the order, harmony, and contact of the primitive particles (or molecules) being totally changed by this active and penetrating fluid.-Thus, the action of ightning is reduced, according to the Abbot Fontana, to the univerfal law of deftroying irritability, and preparing anin. bodies for putrefaction. This is all we can know, fern, was he; becagfe the arrangement of the particles of the mfg that renders thein irritable, and the precife

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