air, diflodged from their respective bases, suddenly rufh into union, and produce a fhining heat.

The Author illuftrates this doctrine in various manners, and not without occafionally referring to fome known experiments, from which he deduces confequences fubverfive of the prevailing theory relative to combuftion; particularly of that part of it which fuppofes that phlogifton is combined elementary fire, let loofe, and rendered elastic in that procefs; and that the heat and light of flame proceed from the avolation of this disengaged principle. He acknowledges that the light proceeds from it, though the heat does not; and that the latter proceeds from difengaged fire, as chemifts indeed at prefent imagine; who are miftaken only with respect to the origin of that fire.

Hitherto the Author's hypothesis and that of Mr. Crawford nearly correfpond, though the two Writers had no communication with each other. In what follows, the present Author proceeds further, and varies from his brother theorist, when he inquires into the origin of the fire above mentioned. For this he accounts by an hypothes, principally founded on a variety of conjectures more or leis probable, and inferences from a few experiments; with refpect to the attractive and repulfive powers, and other qualities, of the particles of air, fire, phlogiston, earth, and ather-not the chemical, but the hypothetical, fluid fo called.

The Author next, in a more experimental manner, confiders the phenomena of the light and colours exhibited by ignited fubftances; and then proceeds to apply fome of the preceding obfervations refpecting combuftion, to refpiration and animal heat (proceffes that bear a strong analogy to it), as well as to mufcular motion.--But here we must refer the Reader, who has a tafte for fpeculations of this kind, to the work itself for information. The Author has given a favourable fpecimen of his ingenuity, at leaft, in fabricating a fyftem principally founded on fpeculation, that carries any face of confiftency in it, with fuch delicate and difficult materials to work upon as those above recited; the properties of fome of which are not well afcertained, and the very existence of one of them at least, is very problematical. Indeed it appears that the Author's fituation and circumstances have not furnished him with opportunities of following the more fafe and fober mode of ftrict experimental investigation. It would be unfair, therefore, and invidious in us, to mark any defects that we may have obferved in an at tempt of this kind, made by a perfon thus circumftanced. For the fake, however, of the Author, as well as of those who perufe his performance, we take a pleasure in complying with a sequeft, which he has tranfmitted to us by letter, to convey to

the

the public the following additional obfervations, where he rectifies his own errors, and this we shall do in his own words.

'Since the book was published,' fays Mr. Elliot, in his letter to us, I have, by a more attentive comparison of it with Mr. Crawford's admirable difcoveries, convinced myself that I had erred in my idea of the manner in which fire exifts in bodies; though a prepoffeffion in favour of my own theory hindered me from perceiving it before.-I had imagined that it exifted in bodies only in its elaftic ftate, as defcribed in the first five cafes of the feventh fection. When air is heated and cooled, the phæ nomena seem to answer to that theory; and do not the expanfion of bodies, and the feparation of their particles by heat, depend on the fame principle? Fixable air, however, is not much lefs elastic than common or dephlogisticated air; though the former, by Mr. Crawford's experiments, contains 67, and the latter near 300 times more fire. Their specific gravities are to one another only as the numbers 281, 187, 185, or thereabout; and, confequently, the fire which is extricated by phlogiston was in a fixed or combined ftate. And, with regard to their elafticities, I have this to obferve; that, as bodies which contain moft phlogiston refract light moft ftrongly; fo bodies which contain the greateft quantity of fire in a fixed ftate attract elaftic fire moft powerfully in the manner defcribed in the cafes above alluded to. But, as happens with the refraction of light, this difference will be but fmall, though the different proportions of fire in the bodies be very great, and only perhaps fuch as to anfwer to the numbers given above. The elafticity of air, the expanfion of bodies by heat, and the feparation of their particles, depend therefore on thefe principles;-the fenfible heat, on the attraction of bodies for fire, or abfolute heat, according to the law in Cafe 11th, &c. and their abfolute quantities of fire, on the quantity of phlogifton, and the force of its combination; or, in other words, on the attraction of those bodies for fire. It appears, therefore, that I was right enough in my falls in these cafes; but, through not diftinguishing the two kinds of attrac tion, wrong in my manner of explaining them.'

On the whole, we cannot help being greatly prejudiced in favour of our prefent theorift; on account of the many marks of real ingenuity exhibited in this performance; particularly in the theory relating to combuftion and refpiration. His merit in this refpect is the greater, as it evidently appears, from various paffages that occur in this work, that his neceffary avocations, and other circumstances, had not enabled him to know what had been done by others, or to make the neceffary experiments himfelf. He is entitled to equal praife on account of his unaffuming manner, and the great candour, and even warmth, with

which

which (in an Appendix written after his having feen Mr. Crawford's publication, while his own performance was at the prefs), he praises the work of a man, who, in point of time, had anticipated him in the publication of a capital difcovery; and had thereby robbed him of a part, at leaft, of the glory which he expected to derive from it.

Such inftances are rare among philofophers; and, in the prefent cafe, are fufficient to cover a greater multitude of fins (against philofophy) than are to be met with in this performB...y

ance.

ART. VIII. The Evidence of Reason in Proof of the Immortality of the Soul, independent on the more abftrufe Inquiry into the Nature of Matter and Spirit. Collected from the Manuscripts of Mr. Baxter, Author of the Inquiry into the Nature of the hunan Soul, and of Matho. To which is prefixed, a Letter from the Editor to the Rev. Dr. Priestley. Svo. 7 s. bound. Cadell. 1779.

TH

HOSE who are acquainted with, and admire, the metaphyfical writings of the late Mr. Baxter, will think the world much obliged to Dr. Duncan for the prefent publication; and for refcuing from oblivion the papers which he left behind him in which he had collected together fuch proofs of the immortality of the human foul, as were independent on the metaphysical fubtleties concerning its effence, its materiality or immateriality. In a prefatory letter, addrefled to Dr. Priestley by the editor, the latter gives an account of the circumftances by which he was enabled, and induced, to preferve these remains of a refpectable writer, and to methodife and arrange them in fuch a manner as to render them fit for the infpection of the public.

Upon the rife of the late controverfy concerning the materi ality of the foul, Dr. Duncan conceived a defire of offering his fentiments on the fubject. He wished, however, to fee the public attention diverted from a metaphyfical difpute, which, in the opinion of fome, threatened great mifchief to the moral world; though, in the judgment of others equally well intentioned, no préjudice was likely to enfue, either to religion or morals, from fuch a controverfy; of which scarce one in twenty of thofe, who, at this day, pafs for learned men, have ever properly confidered the first principles.'In fhort, he ftudied to place in a clear and ftriking light, the arguments which natural reafon fuggefts in proof of a life to come, from the faculties of the human mind; from the moral law, written by the finger of God in the heart of man, and the voice of confcience, enforcing our obfervance of it; from the relation in which we ftand to the Creator and Supreme Ruler of the univerfe; from his known perfections, in fhort; confidered refpectively to the present state of his intelligent fubjects upon earth.'

While he was engaged in preparing for the prefs, a treatise composed on this plan, Alexander Baxter, Efq; of Odiham, Hants, the worthy fon of the late Mr. Baxter, was pleased to put into his hands a collection of manufcripts upon the fame fubject, written, at different times, by his late father. This fortunate incident,' fays the Editor, has enabled me to profecute my defign, with a profpect of better fuccefs, by arranging and digefting his arguments into a form fomewhat more regular and conclufive than his laft lingering illness had per

mitted him to do himself.'

6

The intention of the late Mr. Baxter to publish the papers which Dr. Duncan has here collected and methodifed, appears from the following paffage, contained in a letter annexed to the end of this work, written about fix weeks before his death (which happened in March 1750), and addreffed to John Wilkes, Efq.

"I own, if it had been the will of heaven, I would have gladly lived, till I had put in order the fecond part of the Inquiry, fhewing the immortality of the human foul: but infinite wildom cannot be mistaken in calling me fooner. Our blindnefs makes us form wishes. I have left feven or eight manufcript books, where all the materials I have been collecting, for near thirty years, are put down, without any order, in the book that came next to hand, in the place or circumstances I was in at the time. There are a great many mifcellaneous subjects in philofophy, of a very ferious nature, few of them ever confidered before, as I know of. But (as I hinted above) a short time of feparate exiftence, will make every good man look with pity on the deepest researches we make here, and which we are apt to be vain of."

From the Editor's addrefs to the reader, it appears, that no part of these writings, except that which conftitutes the first fection of this performance, was esteemed fit for the public infpection, in its original form; and that throughout all the reft, it was found indifpenfably neceflary to caft anew many paffages, to lop redundancies in fome, and to fupply deficiencies in others, He elsewhere obferves, and with fome juftice, that the ftyle and manner, though retouched throughout, where it was most requifite, may probably ftill appear to many readers rather uncouth and dry; and that to thefe, a lighter work, in a more fashionable garb, and lefs replete with folid fenfe, might have been more entertaining. It is unhappily,' he obferves, in that more acceptable form, that fuch readers commonly receive the poifon, against which the proper antidote is here administered without difguife, or fpecious colouring.'

After having given this hiftory of the origin, &c. of the prefent publication, we fhall confine ourselves to the forming a

Short

fhort fummary of its contents; after premifing, that the arguments contained in it are not of the metaphyfical and abstracted kind, but are founded chiefly on observations more level to common apprehenfion, or which come home to men's bofoms. After proving the existence of a first cause, infinite in goodness, wisdom, and all other perfections, the Author proceeds to fhew that, if the human foul were mortal, our existence would be a thing without defign, irrelative, incomplete :'-that the im mortality of the foul is indicated by the natural affections of man, or by the nature of his rational pleafures, and by that of the infinitely rational being who is the Author of the foul:that, on the fuppofition of the foul's mortality, many things confeffedly unreafonable to be practifed become reasonable, becaufe confiftent with the prefent nature and conftitution of man; and, on the other hand, the perfection and improvement of reafon becomes irrational, on the fame fuppofition:-that man, by the nature and conftitution of his body, and in every condition of life, is fufceptible of more pain than pleasure; and that therefore, on the hypothefis of the mortality of the foul, we are brought into being, to be inevitably miferable while we exift, and then fink back into nothing;a propofition that contradicts that fundamental truth, the exiftence of an infinitely good being that the fuppofition of the mortality of the foul is fubverfive of morality, or incompatible with the right rule of action and that the prepoffeffion that we fhall always exift, or always continue confcious of our existence, is infeparable from the conftitution of human nature; this belief influencing, more or lefs, the fentiments and actions of all men, even those not excepted who affect to maintain the negative*.

Thefe are the principal topics, delivered nearly in the Author's own language, that are, very copioufly, difcuffed in this performance; which carries the moft convincing internal evidence of its being the production of the ingenious and worthy Author of the Enquiry into the Nature of the human Soul; to which

On this head, the Editor takes notice of the remarkable inconfiftency between two paffages, extracted from a late work of a celebrated hiftorian.-"Several tribes have been difcovered in America," lays the celebrated Dr. Robertson, "which have no idea whatever of a Supreme Being, and no rites of religious worship." [Hift. of America, B. IV. p. 381.] Let the refiting reader compare this with the following paffage from the fame elegant writer, and judge of their confitency. "We can trace this opinion (of the immortality of the foul) from one extremity of America to the other; in fome regions, more faint and obfcure, in others, more perfectly developed, but nowhere unknown. The most uncivilifed of its favage tribes do not apprehend death as the extinction of being. All hope for a future and more happy ftate."-Ibid. p. 387.

the