by an equal divifion of property, the inhabitants of England, whom he estimates at feven millions, were to be placed in this ftate, at the end of twenty-five years they would amount to fourteen; of fifty, to twenty-eight; and of feventy-five, to fifty-fix millions; but the product of this country at prefent no more than fuffices its inhabitants: and if it be admitted that, by improvements of skill, foil, and univerfal inclosure, in twenty-five years it might be doubled, and fuffice for fourteen millions, its augmen', in the next equal period, would not be more than equal to that of the former, or fuffice for twentyone millions; nor, at the end of the third period, would there be in the kingdom food for more than twenty-eight millions, or half the number the inhabitants would increase to. Hence he concludes, that our population would be conftantly augmented in a geometrical, and our product in an arithmetical progreflion only; and the former would foon arrive at a term when its proper increase must be ftopped, or those who are born must perish for want of food. What he obferves of the first progreffion being geometrical, in the cafe he puts, is true, although he has founded it on authorities that will not fupport it*. But he has laid down as an : * The falubrity of a country being taken as conftant, its product increafing as the demand, and the age of marriage of the inhabitants the fame, the births therein in every year will be in a conftant multiple to the population at the beginning thereof; which calls: the number of deaths will also be a fixed multiple of s : let now the former multiple exceed the latter, and their difference ben; this difference will be alfo fixed to the end of time; the fociety will be increasing; and its number having been s, the augment at the end of the first year will be n s and its number at the end of the term will be s + n s sx1n. The augment of the fecond year will be s xnx 1+n'; and its number at the end thereof s × 1+nxi+n n', or s× 1+ n)2. In like manner the augment of the third year will be s xnx In2, and its final population s x + n2 + sxn Xi+n =sX+n3.. Here the population at the end of each year, forms a series of geometrical progreffionals. It is to be obferved, that the fucceffive augments of population alfo form a feries of such progreffionals, being in the years 1, 2, 3, 4, s n, sn x', snx +n, and s nxI+n, refpectively. 2 3 Now if at the end of a certain number of years the population becomes ftationary in a certain part of the country, continuing progreffive at the old rate in the remainder, the augment of the next year will be less than it otherwife would have been, and the feries of augment an hypothefis, that products will be increafed by equal quantities in equal periods; and, fo brought forward, fpeaks of it as a demonftrated principle. We do not deny, but that the increafe of population must be ultimately topped by the recurrence of want of food, granting to the advocates of the Agrarian divifion of land all the impoffibilities they introduce among their poftulates; yet it appears certain, that this want will not of neceffity recur, at fo early a period as the eflayift affigns for, by giving up the ufe of fermented liquors, the land for bread-corn would be doubled, or fupport fourteen millions: and, by a change of the confumption of bread-corn for potatoes, and fome improvement in the keeping of them, according to Smith, the fame land could fupport forty-two millions. Cultivation by the fpade, with fuch a population, would fupercede that of the plough; beafts of draft be almoft difpenfed with; and the dung of animals for food, reared in a greater proportion, would furnish manure. Something extraordinary alfo is to be reckoned, for improvements in tillage, when it fhall be the fole employment and ftudy of men. The combined effect of all thefe augmentations of food would carry us nearly to the end of the third period of twenty-five years, if the causes not here confidered would not infallibly cause both population and product inftantly to fall into a most rapid decline, when the divifion firft took place. We have then a long and tedious application of the doctrine of the two progreffions, to the fucceflive ftates of human fociety; that of hunters, thepherds, and cultivators. The author ferioufiy proves alfo, that no arguments are to be deduced from analogy, or the apparent qualities of man, to prove he may become immortal; that the paflion between the fexes will become extinct; and that we shall ever be able to fubfift without augment be no longer a geometrical progreffion; and that law of increafe will alfo ceafe to take place, in the feries expreffing the whole population. In America, population is obferved to be stationary in great towns, and parts fully fettled; its increase is in the back fettlements. therefore its inhabitants must ceafe to increase in a geometrical progreffion, or become doubled in twenty-five years; or thofe remote from the coaft must be multiplied with a celerity, not uniform as taken above, but with a celerity perpetually accelerated, whereby that part of the people muft increafe more rapidly than in geometrical progreffion, which deftroys this writer's affumption; and this, if it take place, muft be owing to caufes, which have nothing to do with the regular courfe of the multiplication of the fpecies, and therefore are to be taken as accidental; and, as fuch, the accounts of American population lend no fupport to the general propofition of the writer. fleep: fleep and if here in fome places we might praife the ingenuity of fome of his arguments, or in others the neatness of a philofophical ftyle, we thould be obliged to add that ingenuity or ftyle are mifapplied to fuch fubjects. We fhall not however refrain from noticing, and with approbation, a great part of the fixteenth chapter of this Effay, where the author cenfures a fundamental error in the principle of Dr. A. Smith; that every increafe of the (tock (monied stock) of a fociety, is an increafe of the fund for the maintenance of labour.. Our readers may expect from what precedes, that Mr. M. is an enemy to the idea of perfectibility; but in this they will be deceived: he denies it to the human fpecies indeed, but liHe confiders berally confers it upon every particle of matter. "the creation as a procefs neceffary to awaken inert chaotic matter into spirit [a great chemical apparatus] to fublimate the duft of the earth into foul, to elicit an etherial spark from a clod of clay." In another place, he makes the world to be the furnace of a pottery, "for the formation of mind," by baking; and thence infers," that many veffels will neceffarily come out of this great furnace in wrong fhapes; these will be broken and thrown afide as ufelefs: while thofe veffels which are full of truth and loveliness, will be wafted into happier fituations, nearer," &c. &c. P. 247. We no longer, when we follow the poet*, "trace" with grief the degraded, but noble duft of Alexander, till we find it ftopping a bunghole;" when philofophy affures us, that "the loam" which was made of it, may, by this new procefs for the formation of mind, become even the foul of a conqueror equally illuftrious. How charming is divine philofophy! Not harth and crabbed, as dull fools fuppofe, ART. XI. Oratio in Theatro Collegii Regalis Medicorum Londinenfis, ex Harveii Inftituto, habita Die Octob. xvii, An. M,DCCC, ab Henrico Vaughan, M. D. Medico Regio extraordinario. 4to. 18 pp. White, Fleet-Street. 1800. IN N this elegant compofition the author deprecates, in a nervous and feeling manner, all attempts to feparate claffical and philofophical knowledge from the study of medicine, and * Hamlet, act v, fcene 1. + Milton's Comus, 1. 480. hence hence points out the neceflity of paffing through those preliminary steps, required by the rules of our univerfities, prior to entering on the practice of an art, allowed on all hands to be one of the highest importance and difficulty. After dwelling on this part of his fubject, in a proper and impreflive manner, he gives a thort fketch of the characters of the founder of the College, and of thofe who have fince improved it by their donations, or adorned it by the fplendour of their talents; and fhows that they who, in their youth, had laid the deepest and best foundations, and excelled in literature, became afterwards the most eminent in their profeffion. Defcending to the present times, he concludes with elegant and well deferved encomiums on the characters of Dr. Heberden, and Sir George Baker, living monuments of the excellence of the Inftitution, which the Oration is intended to celebrate. This part, as peculiarly well calculated to mark the ability of the author, and above others grateful to us, as praifing thofe who fo eminently deferve every fpecies of commendation, we shall with pleasure lay before our readers. Atque hic loci, pro more mihi liceret Orationi hodiernæ finem facere; quandò verò unde initia cœperim in memoriam revoco; quando non modò honeftam illam mecum reputo, fed neceffariam ferè medicinæ cum literis et philofophiâ conjunétionem, nequeo Illuftriffimum Virum prætermittere, qui vivo exemplari fuo ad majora nos provocat atque incendit. Vidiftis eum nuperrimè fummum apud vos magiftratum fummâ cum laude tenentem; et dum eo munere fungebatur, noviftis Pharmacopiæ renovande quam totum fe dederit.-Audivillis eum, hâc ipfâ ex cathedrâ, incorruptâ Romanæ dictionis fanitate, et eloquentiâ Ciceronianæ ætatis non indignâ, noftrorum Medicorum æterna ftatuere monumenta. Scripta ejus in manibus atque in deliciis habetis, quæ fivè rei propofita explicationem, et, quæ vera dicitur, Philofophiam fpectes, five verboruin pondera et venuftates, inter pulcherrima collocanda funt, ne dicam Medicinæ folùm, fed univerfæ eruditionis ornamenta. Inter alià teftari licet libellum egregiè fcriptum de Catarrho et Dyfenteriâ, morbis ejufdem anni epidemicis-et etiam Differtationes illas de Colicâ Pictonicâ-in quibus fingularis morbi historia ab omni ferè antiquatate ad hæc ufque tempora deducitur, et ejus caufa non nifi fimplex et una effe monftratur. At mitto plura, et mori Antiquorum obfequor, qui non nifi Solis occafu Heroibus fuis facra faciebant. "Cum autem de virtute nondum ex oculis fublatâ apud nos agitur, ecquis eft, Auditores, cui non mentem ftatim fubeat Vir ille egregius, multifque nominibus colendus, qui fpatio vitæ ultrà communem vivendi conditionem protracto, et æqualibus fere fuperftes nec ingenio fuo acri et acuto, nec fubtili judicio, nec rerum memoriæ, nec amori literarum, nec denique pietati in hanc domum etiamnum fuperfuit?-Ille, nimirùm, cui artem exercenti Medicorum gens adfurgebat, omnis --quem omnes in antiquà literaturâ verfati imprimis bab、n-quem Phyfici Phyfici agnofcunt fuum. Talem virum et vivere, et valere, et noftrum effe nobifmet gratulari licet. Quid memorem Ata Collegii Medicorum (nefcio quo malo fato intermiffa) ipfo auctore primùm inftituta effe, ipfo duce incepta ? Aut quid collaudem aureas iftas obfervationes, non aliundè quam ex naturâ et experimento hauftas, quas ille in paginas iftas, tanquam in commune medicinæ ærarium conjecit? Sed me reprimo, ne rei captus dulcedine, in areâ tam late patenti nimis ultrà terminum excurram. "Valeas! itaque fortunate Senex, otioque literato, et doctorum hominum colloquiis, et vitæ tuæ anteactæ recordatione diù perfruaris! infigne Medicis exemplum reli&turus, amplam dicendi materiam Oratori." P. 13. It is not eafy to determine whether the juftnefs of the fentiments, or the elegance of the Latinity, be the more remarkable. in this Oration; both however appear in a degree very highly creditable to the writer, who himself affords an additional illuftration of the precepts he enforces. In the apostrophe to Dr. Heberden, the "Valeas! itaque fortunate Senex,"-, &c. is one of those paffages which cannot be read without ftrong feeling of their pathetic energy. The praises bestowed throughout derive peculiar force from their characteristic propriety, as well as the ftyle in which they are expreffed. ART. XII. Confiderations on the Coronation Oath, to maintain the Proteftant Reformed Religion, and the Settlement of the Church of England, as prefcribed by Stat. 1. W. and M. c. 6. and Stat. 5. Ann. C. 2. Second Edition, with Additions. By John Reeves, Efq. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Wright. 1801. HOW much the public attention is directed to the subject difcuffed in this able pamphlèt, is fufficiently apparent, from its having paffed through two editions in the thort interval of a fortnight. A molt important queftion, involving every thing which can be fuppofed dear to an Englishman and a Proteftant, is here difcuffed without any thing approaching to afperity, either against the Catholics as a party, or against individual whatever. Neither will there be found any very strong declaration about the inexpediency of admitting the claims of the Catholics, any further than the obligation to preferve the law and conflitution eftablished in the time of King William. any The whole, indeed, may be confidered as a law-argument, confined to statutes, the law of the land, the fpirit and the letter 1 |