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 (againft philofophy) than are to be met with in this perform

ance.

ART. VIII. The Evidence of Reason in Proof of the Immortality of the Soul, independent on the more abftruse Inquiry into the Nature of Matter and Spirit. Collected from the Manufcripts of Mr. Baxter, Author of the Inquiry into the Nature of the human Soul, and of Matho. To which is prefixed, a Letter from the Editor to the Rev. Dr. Priestley. 8vo. 7 s. bound. Cadell. 1779.

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, addreffed to Dr. Priestley by the editor, the latter gives an account of the circumftances by which he was enabled, and induced, to preferve thefe remains of a respectable writer, and to methodise 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 see the public attention diverted from a metaphyfical difpute, which, in the opinion of fome, threatened great mischief to the moral world; though, in the judgment of others equally well intentioned, no prejudice was likely to enfue, either to religion or morals, from fuch a controverfy; of which scarce one, in twenty of those, who, at this day, pafs for learned men, have ever properly confidered the first principles.'-In short, 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 conscience, 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 compofed on this plan, Alexander Baxter, Efq; of Odiham, Hants, the worthy fon of the late Mr. Baxter, was pleafed 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 permatted him to do himself.'

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 second part of the Inquiry, fhewing the immortality of the human foul: but infinite wisdom 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 fubjects in philofophy, of a very serious nature, few of them ever confidered before, as I know of. But (as I hinted above) a fhort time of separate existence, 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 efteemed fit for the public infpection, in its original form; and that throughout all the reft, it was found indifpenfably neceffary to caft anew many paffages, to lop redundancies in fome, and to fupply deficiencies in others. He elfe where obferves, and with fome juftice, that the ftyle and manner, though retouched throughout, where it was moft requifite, may probably still appear to many readers rather uncouth and dry; and that to thefe, a lighter work, in a more fafhionable 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 adminiftered without difguife, or fpecious colouring.'

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

fhort

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 obfervations more level to common apprehenfion, or which come home to men's bofoms. After proving the existence of a first cause, infinite in goodness, wifdom, and all other perfections, the Author proceeds to thew that, if the human foul were mortal, our existence would be a thing without defign, irrelative, incomplete :'-that the immortality of the foul is indicated by the natural affections of man, or by the nature of his rational pleasures, 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, because confiftent with the prefent nature and constitution 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 existence 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 copiously, 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

86

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 discovered in America," lays the celebrated Dr. R bertfon, "which have no idea whatever of a Supreme Being, and no rites of religious worship." [Hift. of America, B. IV. p. 381.] Let the reflecting reader compare this with the following paffage from the fame elegant writer, and judge of their confiftency. "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 fate."-Ibid. p. 387.

the

the prefent publication forms an excellent, though perhaps rather too bulky an appendix.

ART. IX. Eays Moral and Literary. By the Rev. Mr. Knox, Master of Tunbridge School, and late Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford. Vol. II. Small 8vo. 3 s. 6 d. fewed. Dilly, 1779. T is, perhaps, a proof of his modefty, that this ingenious and

fcale of Authorship, than Essay-writing, in its present exhausted ftate, can poffibly raise him to. The first volume + of Eays moral and literary, difplayed a juftnefs of thinking and an elegance of expreffion, which we wished to fee directed to the elucidation of fome particular and interesting subject, instead of being scattered over many. To reclaim one acre from the wafte, and to bring it under cultivation, is of greater utility than to bestow the fame portion of toil on ninety and nine that are already manured by art and industry.-On subjects that lie level to common obfervation (and to these the Effayift is chiefly confined), what is left us in this late age but to repeat what has been often repeated, and to exprefs that which has been expreffed a thousand times before? The fkill, indeed, of placing received truths in new lights, and of clothing them in fprightly and graceful language, implies a fecondary kind of merit which ought not to be undervalued. And this fkill and this merit fome celebrated writings of the periodical form have aimed at and have attained but even here the hope of fuccefs is daily leffening; and with all the praife that is due to Mr. Knox's Effays, we may be allowed to fufpect, that had they been published periodically, i. e. SEPARATELY, they would have attracted no great share of the public notice. If, however, in the fecond volume of this Gentleman's detached performances, now before us, his readers be not much enlightened by any difcoveries of what is new, nor much enlivened by any uncommon turns given to what is known, they may at leaft reap an innocent pleasure from the perufal of juft fentiments, clothed in polished language.

The fubjects difcuffed in this volume are the following:

On Effay Writing. Claffical Education vindicated. Strictures on Modern Ethics. On the Retirement of a Country Town. On Epiftolary Writers. On the Happiness of Domeftic Life. On the Merits of Cowley as a Poet. Letters the Source of Confolation. On Oriental Poetry, particularly that of Isaiah. On the Principles of Converfation. On the Grave and Gay Philofophy. On the Pleafures of a Garden. The Story

+ For an account of Mr. Knox's first volume, see our Review, vol. lviii. p. 136. The Author's name was not then printed with his work,

of

of a Student. On Satire and Satirifts. On Preaching, and Sermon Writers. On Logic and Metaphyfics. On Latin Verfe as an Exercife at Schools. On Novel Reading. On Monumental Infcriptions. On the Character of Atticus. On Biography. On Hofpitality, and the little Civilities of Life. On the Merits of Illuftrious Birth. On Lord Chancellor Bacon. On the Profeffions. On Simplicity of Style in Profaic Compofition. On Affectation of the Character of Sportfmen. On fome of the Minor English Poets. On the Neceffity of Attention to Things as well as Books. On the Amusement of Mufic. On the choice of Books. On the Influence of Fashion. On Female Literature. On Parental Indulgence. On the ill Effects of proving by Argument Truths already admitted. On Affectation of Female Learning. On Speculative Criticifm, and on Genius. On the Superior Value of Solid Accomplishments. On the Propriety of adorning Life by fome laudable Exertion.

Thefe Effays take in fo large a compass of difcuffion, and the fubjects of them lie fo wide of each other, that it is no easy matter to afcertain their feparate merits, and utterly impoffible to enter into them with minuteness. We fhall juft obferve, that those of a moral caft evidently flow from a heart warmly attached to the interefts of fociety and the cause of virtue. fixth Effay, in particular, On the Happiness of domeftic Life,' cannot fail of impreffing the Readers with an amiable prejudice in favour of its Author, and with a consequent belief that he is in private life what Pope defcribes Mr. Gay to have been,

"Of manners gentle, of affections mild."

The

The fentiments contained in it are certainly not new; but can we expect novelty on this fubject? or would it be for the honour of human nature that novelty fhould be found on a theme like this?

In Effay VIII. we are prefented with a series of reflections which may serve as a comment on an elegant paffage in the Preface to this volume. Mr. Knox there tells us, that in whatever manner his book fhall be received, he will not think the time loft that was spent in compofing it, fince it was paffed at leaft innocently, and furnifhed a fweet relief in those moments of forrow which are occafionally the lot of all who feel and think, and from which he has not been exempted.' The arguments by which he proves Letters the Source of Confolation' will readily recommend themselves to men of tafte and fenfibility. The fuperiority which the purfuits of literature enjoy over those of intereft or ambition, is a favourite topic with the fons of learning. In lavishing all their eloquence upon it, they fometimes forget that they make themselves judges in their own caufe; and that in the fentence they pronounce, pride and vanity will be fufpected

to