Lancelin's Introduction to an Analysis of the Sciences.

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treated of the elements which contribute to form the qualities of the head and heart, the fifth and last division examines what is the course of education, and what is the plan of legislation, best adapted to secure the highest felicity of the human species. In this part, he vindicates civilization against the sophistries of Rousseau, and asserts an original difference in individuals in opposition to the paradoxes of Helvetius.

He labours also to shew that the fundamental laws of nature are not immutable, and concludes that, in a course of time, the variations even in the law of gravitation itself will be such as may be observable. He is the advocate of an endless progression in discovery and improvement.

In confirmation of what we have said of the less grave parts of this work, we shall abstract the author's account of the various species of minds which distinguish different human beings. A great mind (he remarks) includes within it the whole known universe; its ideas on all subjects are distinct and clear; it perceives the most remote relations of things; it promptly and energetically calls up the traces of its perceptions; and it seizes instantaneously those that are requisite for its present purpose. On the contrary, confined views, a habit of entering into minute and obscure details, the indulgence of low and mean passions, debased sentiments, and vexatious proceedings, generate the little mind. A strong mind is stated to be that which rejects whatever possesses not the characteristics of truth, and which shews boldness and enterprize in the search of that object. Weak minds think not for themselves, but are always found in the tracks which others mark out for them; they only repeat what they hear others state. A luminous mind is described to be one that has a happy method in statement, and is represented as not belonging to the first order of minds, which (it is contended) are more bent on discovering new ideas, than engaged in arranging those already known. In a confused mind, we are informed, words have no fixed sense, nor are notions classed; its horizon is illuminated by a weak, unequal, and varying light. The well-judging mind has clear ideas, which it expresses with precision, while it accurately discerns their relations, and deduces from them just consequences. Ill-jud ging minds comprehend not the connection between secondary and primary ideas, and are unable to deduce the latter from the former by a just analysis. Light and playful minds select for their contemplation agreeable and pleasant objects; they teadily perceive and happily express delicate relations; those who possess them are the persons who constitute what is called good company; they are correct judges of all matters of amuse

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With Hume, the author resolves the mind into a compound of ideas; and he asserts with Berkley that external objects are to us no more than the sensations which we perceive to arise in our minds. This coincidence is remarkable, because he does not appear to be at all acquainted with either of those celebrated writers.

M. LANCELIN states that his researches into the nature, qualities, and habits of mind may be denominated the art of constructing the head of man. He justifies this expression, on the ground that each person has it in his power to admit into his mind, as well as into that of those who are intrusted to his management, whatever ideas he chuses; to arrange them in the order which he prefers; and to combine and analyse them as he pleases. Hence, he thinks, it follows that his description of his undertaking is strictly true.

The author is a materialist in the antient sense of the term, since he not only denies to man an immortal spirit, but excludes a presiding and controlling mind from the universe. Yet he differs from the atheists of the revolution, in not holding that religion is to be restrained or suppressed by force; and from those of the monarchy, in regarding it as a thing barely to be tolerated, as a suspicious and merely temporary auxiliary to the state, rather than as a beneficial ally. If he would not crush it by force, he wishes all gentle means to be taken, indirectly to accelerate its extinction.

Two things rather surprized us in this paradoxical writer; namely, his respect for our nation, and his zeal for the liberty of the press. We are beholden to him for the compliments which he is pleased to pay to our countrymen; and he even places the English on a footing with the great nation. This is rather singular in so zealous a subject and so devoted an admirer of the chief consul.-The unrestrained freedom of the press, he asserts, is the most sure mark, the infallible test, of the goodness of a government, and of public liberty; it is their most firm safeguard and protection; and it is the sole check on the constant tendency which governments have to grow despotic. Take away a free press, he says, and liberty is no more; public opinion has no mode of speaking to the ruling power, nor of controlling its proceedings. Among other observations which he makes under this head, he remarks that a good journalist should regard himself as a centinel in society, whose duty it is to raise an alarm against despotism, as it is that of a watchman to cry out "thief" This passage appears in a work

* In this view, it must be owned, such liberty can have no utility in France, because there the government can have no tendency to despotism.

dedicated

dedicated to Bonaparte! It may be that this personage deems the claim of such freedom, in the abstract, an offence below his notice; and considers that it is sufficient to visit with his`vengeance each instance of the actual exercise of it.

We would not be understood wholly to deny the abilities of this author, nor his general qualifications for inquiries of this sort; we only charge him with temerity in having treated arduous and difficult subjects before he had made himself ac quainted with the efforts of his predecessors; and with advancing in his course with inordinate haste. If he can be

brought to think more humbly of himself, and to affect a more chaste manner, he possesses talents and industry which may ensure him a respectable station in the republic of letters; although his atheistical tenets must exclude him from the praise of the Christian Philosopher.

ART. II. Influence de l'Habitude, &c.; i. e. The Influence of Habit on the Faculty of Thinking;-a Work which obtained the Prize offered by the Class of Moral and Political Sciences in the National Institute, on the following Question: "To determine what is the Influence of Habit on the Faculty of Thinking; or, in other Words, to shew the Effects of a frequent Repetition of the same Operation on each of our intellectual Faculties." By P.. MAINE-BAIRAN. 8vo. pp. 402. Paris. 1803. Imported by De Boffe. Price 6s. sewed.

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HIS successful candidate admits, that he has not bestowed on his prize-essay all the extension and practical importance of which it is susceptible: but he says that his friends urged him to a prompt impression; and a prompt impression they have obtained, with its usual concomitant, incorrect typography. If the regulations of the National Institute do not prohibit the writer of an essay, whom they have distinguished by their approbation, from publishing his sentiments in any other form which he may judge proper, we conceive that M, BAIRAN might have founded, on the elaborate and scientific views of his subject, a popular system, adapted to the occasions of real life. It is fortunate for an individual, when he can beguile the hours of sickness and solitude by turning his thoughts within himself; and with such commendable privacies, a stranger intermeddleth not; but, if the same individual should solicit the attention of the public, it is reasonable to expect that he will make them either wiser or better; or that he will, at least, contribute to their amusement,

In a tedious, and rather pedantic introduction of 84 pages, we are told that a faculty of receiving impressions is the first and most general of all those which distinguish organized beings endowed with life; that all our impressions are either

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active or passive; and that each class of them has its appropriate determinations. If any of our readers be desirous of examining the author's mode of illustrating these propositions, we doubt not that the translation of a single paragraph will form our excuse for referring them to the original:

Whether the sensitive determination be produced by the repeated action of the object, or spontaneously, in the absence of the latter, the result can only be a modification more or less weakened, but without relation to existence, cause, or time; for it is obviously impossible to admit these relations without a distinct and previous personality. In order that the sentient Being may distinguish the recollection of the sensation, or that he may have within himself the equivalent of what we call recollection, it is necessary that the me, actually modified, should be compared with the me, modified in another instant; it is necessary, as Condillac has said, that he should have a faint sensation of what he has been, and, at the same time, a ively sensation of what he is. But is it the same thing to feel faintly, and to feel that one has been? How shall we discover a relation of time in this single circumstance of faintness? Is not the faint sensation present as well as the lively one?-Here we have the same difficulties as in reminiscence.'

We really can dwell no longer on such introductions.

The work consists of two sections, the first of which treats of passive and the second of active habits.

Sect. I. Chap. I. Of the Influence of Habit on Sensation.-Sensations, continuously or frequently excited, gradually lose their force, and are finally annihilated. To account for this phenomenon, the author has recourse to the supposition that the vital principle, which pervades the animal machine, is distributed according to certain proportions in the several organs; and that its state of equilibrium is destroyed by the excitement of any particular organ, and the intensity of the object which produces such excitement.

Chap. II. Of the Influence of Halit on Perception. In whatever manner the delicacy of the sentient organ may be blunted by habit, it is thus rendered fit for the purposes of perception; a facility and precision in the movements of the organs are acquired; and the movements and impressions are associated

in a common centre.

Chap. III. Of associated Perceptions, and of the various conse quent Judgments formed by Habit. - Habit is here represented as employing the laws of simultaneity, successive order, and comparisen of familiar impressions with their corresponding images, in forming trains of associated perceptions and judgments.

Chap. IV. Of the sensitive and peculiar Habits of the Imagination. When our ideas are images of external objects actually existing, the effect of habit (i. c. of their repeated appearances)

is to strengthen their impressions: but there is a class of ideas or habits of an undefined description, originating in the mind, and placed beyond the reach of the external senses, such as hope and fear. The history of individuals and of nations daily teaches us the force of delusive impressions, whether of an agreeable or a disagreeable nature; and the fancied objects of our love, of our hatred, or of our dread, frequently usurp the entire possession of our hearts. M. BAIRAN assigns three causes for the transformation of fantasies into habitual impressions, viz. the permanence of the exciting object, which acts directly on the cerebral organ; the association of the fantastic image with real objects, or ordinary ideas; and the fixed dispositions of an internal organ, or sensible centre, which, first excited by the image produced in the brain, re-acts, in order to retain it.

Sect. II. Chap. I. Of the Association of articulate Signs with various Impressions. The Foundation of Memory and its different Kinds. In attempting to trace the first associations of the signs of language with ideas, and the source of the different habits of memory in the manner in which these associations are effected, the author observes, 1. that in the vocal notes which the individual affixes to the objects of his perceptions, or to their different modes of existing, he is naturally led to follow the twofold analogy which prevails between signs and objects, or impressions, and between signs with one another. Certain inflexions of voice are uttered as the natural signs of pleasure or pain, and these inflexions are soon applied to the objects which are peculiarly calculated to excite such emotions. 2dly, The individual who forms a language for himself will not at first multiply signs in proportion to the variety of objects which surround him, but, directed by analogies rather than by differences, he will class similar objects under the same appellation, and frequent repetitions of the same names will render their enunciation easy and expeditious. 3dly, In noting an object, an impression, or an idea, in the circumstances which we have supposed, an individual will direct his attention both to the thing signified and to the sign, and will thus enchain their association. 4thly, From the images of his percep tions, he will extend the use of signs to the representation of all that he is capable of feeling, distinguishing, or conceiving within himself.

Memory may be termed mechanical, sensitive, or representative, as it recalls signs destitute of ideas, or such as express either a sentiment or some internai modification, or such as represent objects of sense.

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Chap.