from a comparison of our own safety emotion; for the near relation in with the danger which is viewed. How numerous is the crowd which accompanies the criminal to the place of execution: neither the pleasure arising from a love to see justice satisfied, nor the ignoble delight of an appeased revenge, can explain this phenomenon. The criminal, in the hearts of the beholders, may perhaps stand acquitted, and their ardent wishes may rise for his preservation; yet a curious desire impels the beholder with greater or lesser force to direct both eye and ear to the expression of his sufferings. If the man of education and refined feelings may, on this point, be quoted as an exception, it does not therefore necessarily follow that the same impulse does not exist in him; but that he yields to the painful impressions of compassion, or that he is held in subjection by the laws of propriety. The rude son of nature, whom no feelings of tender humanity restrains, yields himself up without reserve to this mighty impulse. It must therefore be founded in the original dispositions of the human mind, and is to be explained by a general physiological law. If we, however, find that these rude feelings of nature are inconsistent .with the dignity of human nature, and therefore raise an objection to establish a law for the whole race, yet there are sufficient examples, which place beyond all doubt the reality and universality of pleasure from painful emotions. The painful contest of opposite inclinations and duties, which to him who suffers it, is a source of misery, delights us in the reflection of it, we follow with always increasing pleasure the progress of a passion to the fatal abyss to which it entices its unfortunate victim. The same tender feeling which repels us from the view of a physical suffering, or from the physical expression of a moral one, suffers us to feel in the sympathy with the pure moral pain a greater degree of pleasure. The interest is general with which we tarry at the representations of such objects. This can, however, be only naturally asserted of the participated which the original emotion stands to our desire of happiness, occupies and possesses us in common with a force too great to allow the space for that pleasure which free of every disinterested relation it requires for itself. Thus the feeling of pain is paramount with him who is actually under the subjection of a painful passion, notwithstanding the representation of the state of his mind can delight the auditor or beholder. On the other hand, the original painful emotion is not wholly devoid of pleasure to him who is subject to it; but the degree of this pleasure varies according to the constitution of the minds of men. If fear, doubt, and inquietude did not possess an enjoyment, games of hazard would be deprived of their principal charms; no one of undaunted courage would rush into danger; and even sympathy with the sufferings of others would not be attended with the greatest delight in the very moment of the highest illusion, and in the strongest degree of transition. It is not thereby intended to affirm that the disagreeable emotions, in and of themselves, confer pleasure; no one would undertake to maintain it; it is sufficient if these situations of the mind present those conditions under which certain kinds of pleasure are possible. Those minds, therefore, which are particularly susceptible of those kinds of pleasure, will, with greater ease, be reconciled to these disagreeable conditions, and not lose their freedom in the most violent storms of passion. From the relation of its object to our sensual or moral pleasure, the displeasure proceeds which we feel in unpleasant emotions; in the same manner the pleasure in the agreeable emotions springs from those sources, namely the agreeable emotions. In the proportion, therefore, in which the moral nature of a man stands to his sensual, the degree of freedom is founded which can be maintained in emotions; and, as it is acknowledged that in the moral no choice exists for us, and, on the other hand, the sen sual impulse is subject to the legislation of reason, and therefore is or at least should be in our power, it is therefore evident that it is possible to maintain a perfect freedom in all those emotions which are related to the interested impulse, and to have a command over that degree which it is intended to attain. This will be weaker in the degree in which the moral sense maintains the superiority over the impulse for happiness or pleasure; and his interested attachment to his individual person will be diminished by his obedience to the general laws of reason. Such a man will, in the state of emotion, feel with much less force the relation of his object to his impulse for pleasure, and consequently experience, with lesser force, the displeasure which after the publication of Mr. Davy's arises from that relation; on the other views that the French chemists, parhand, his attention will be stronger technic school, repeated the same ticularly those attached to the Polydrawn to the relation in which this very object stands to his morality, experiments. German chemists also and therefore be more susceptible of soon undertook to verify them. Vide Annalen der Physick, Jahrg, 1808, the pleasure which the relation to the No. 1; Le Journal de Physique,nummoral not seldom mingles in the most bers for February, March, April, and painful sufferings of sensuality. A June; The Schouwburg, numbers for mind thus constituted is the most capable of enjoying the pleasure of January and February; Korrster Letcompassion, and even to maintain the terbode, first part of the same year; original emotion within the limits of the compassionate emotion. Hence the value of a philosophy of life, which, by a continual direction to general laws, enervates the feeling for our individuality, teaches us in the connexion of the whole to lose our little self, and thereby places us in the situation to converse with our"For the first principle of the new selves as with strangers. This noble discoveries respecting the decomposidisposition of the mind is the lot of tion of the alkalies we are indebted to strong and philosophic souls, which Mr. Davy, a young English chemist by incessant labour have learned to of extraordinary abilities, who has subdue in themselves the interested already, within a few years, made impulse. Even the most painful loss many other important additions to leads them but to a placid melancho- our chemical knowledge. Mr. Davy ly, in which an evident degree of was trying the decomposition of vapleasure is mingled. They, who rious substances by the action of the alone are capable of abstracting them- electric column of volta, which has selves from their individuality, enjoy been improperly called the galvanic the privilege of feeling their own apparatus. It is, indeed, known that suffering in the mild reflection of this admirable instrument decomposes sympathy. his Majesty the Emperor and King, on the PROGRESS of the SCIENCES, of LITERATURE, and the ARTS, from the Year 1789 to the present. -Page 238, &c. N the sitting of the 4th of Ja nuary, 1808, the Institute adjudged the annual prize of galvanisin to Mr. Davy, a member of the Royal Society of London. A very particu lar report on the works of the English philosopher is to be found in the Moniteur of the 18th of February, 1808, and in the Annales de Chemie number for December, 1807. It was [To be continued.] R. H. EXTRACT from the NOTES of Dr. KESTELOST, of the Royal University of Leyden, on the REPORTS made by the Institute of France to recently the Annales de Chemie, May 1808; and the Mercure de France of the 10th of September, in which Mr. Biot has published a notice, which we think it our duty to present to the reader, as the best account of the different opinions expressed on the subject of Mr. Davy's experiment. the most intimate combinations, by means of the two contrary electricities, which it possesses at its two poles, the opposite forces of which being applied to the molecles of bodies, tend with the greatest energy to disunite their elements. Mr. Davy Submitted to this action small fragments of potash and soda, two of the alkaline bodies which chemists have Iron appeared to them very proper hitherto not been able to decompose for this purpose; for thus it is that it by any process. Immediately the acts in the famous experiment of the most surprising phenomenon was decomposition of water, when, being produced. The soda and the potash itself made red-hot, some aqueous were heated to a high degree; flowed vapour is made to pass on its surface. like liquid, or rather were transform- It disunites the two principles of ed into drops of a new substance, which the vapour is formed, absorbs susceptible of being inflamed by the the oxygen, and leaves the hydrogen simple contact of the air, burning free. M. M. Gay-Lussac and The with rapidity when thrown into wa- nard attempted a perfectly analogous ter; but which, when collected and experiment. They caused alkali in a preserved in oil of naphta, presented state of vapour to pass over red-hot a brilliant metallic aspect; in short, filings of iron, contained in the barrel had altogether the appearance of a of a gun. The effect answered their real metal. The substance yielded by expectations: they saw the new me the potash was solid, at a low tempe- tal flowing in abundance out of the rature; it assumed the appearance of lower extremity of the barrel." mercury, at 16 degrees of the centigrade thermometer, was completely liquid at 38. The soda lost its cohesion a. 50 degrees, and became quite liquid at 77. The specific gravity of the former, that of water being taken at 10 was about 6, and that of the latter 9. "These phenomena were invariably produced at the negative pole of the pile, that which possesses the property of repelling oxygen. Mr. Davy infers from it, that the metals of the potash and soda were only the potash and soda themselves deprived of oxygen, and that the alkalies in their ordinary state are real metallic oxyds, the elements of which are disunited by the electric column, This theory explained how the new metals thrown into water disengaged hydrogen from it. This effect was ascribed to the attraction of the metals for oxygen: they absorbed it from the water, reforined alkali, and left free the hydrogen, the second principle of which water is composed. This result was so much the more precious, as it afforded the means of obtaining the new metals in sufficient quantities to be accurately studied and their properties clearly determined. "This beautiful experiment was, as we have just seen, a natural conse quence of Mr. Davy's theory. The result could be previously foreseen, and it perfectly confirmed the theory. Who would not have thought, after so perfect a coincidence, but that the theory was accurate? But, to be assured of the truth in the sciences, it is not sufficient to satisfy a certain number of phenomena, and to represent them in a general manner; it is necessary to shew that the cause to which they are ascribed is the only one capable of producing them; and if it be impossible to obtain so complete a proof, the phenomena and the applications of the theory should be so multiplied, that the probability of the latter may be rendered infinitely great." The first species of demonstration "This beautiful experiment was was impracticable in these experino sooner known in France, than it ments. It would have been necesstrongly excited the interest and cu- sary to combine a given weight of the riosity of the French chemists. M. new metal with a given weight of M. Gay-Lussac and Thenard hastened oxygen, and to obtain for a result a to repeat it, and found it accurate.- weight of alkali, equal to one of the But, in pursuing the idea of Mr. two substances employed. Thus was Davy, they undertook to obtain the conducted the process relative to the new substances by the assistance of composition of water, and thus was chemistry, by raising the two alkalies to a high temperature, and presenting to them in that state a body which, having great affinity with oxygen, might deprive them of this principle. obtained the incontestible proof of it. But in the present case, the high temperature to which the alkalis must be raised, and the nature of the apparatus, rendered the thing impossible. gen. This hydrogen, therefore, did not proceed from the ammonia, as it was at first supposed, but from the metal; consequently, this metal was not alkali minus oxygen, but alkali plus hydrogen. water by heat, becomes very greedy of it: wherever it meets with any, it seizes it, and abandons the hydrogen with which it was combined.". Hence it follows that the alkalies It was therefore necessary to have recourse to the second method, to examine attentively the properties of the new metals, to observe their action on other substances, to multiply, in short, the phenomena, and to see if they agreed with the first idea that "Hence is also to be explained, in had been formed. This M. M. Gay- a different way, the evolution of hyLussack and Thenard have done, and drogen, which takes place when the they have been led to an endless va- alkaline metals are thrown into water, riety of curious experiments and new or into any fluid substance containing results, such as may be expected from water. The water is not decomposed a reagent entirely new, possessing in this experiment; it is the combivery energetic properties, and mana- nation of the alkali with the hydroged by such able chemists as those gen, which is decomposed or dissolvwhom we have named. In the course ed. The alkali being deprived of of these experiments they examined the action of their metals upon ammoniacal gas, which, according to the beautiful discovery of Mr. Berthollet, is formed of hydrogen gas and azot gas. The metal and the ammo- are not yet decomposed. But Mesnia combined together and formed a sieurs Davy, Thenard, and Gay-Lussolid product of a peculiar aspect, and sac have nevertheless made a most there remained at the same time, un- important discovery, by finding a der the bell, in which the experiment combination possessing properties so was made, a quantity of hydrogen new, so energetic, and which offers nearly equal to two-fifths of the vo- to chemistry a reagent so powerful lume of the gas employed. Whence and so sure for ascertaining the precould this hydrogen proceed? It was sence of water. This faculty is alevident, according to the supposed ready become, in the hands of M. theory, that it must have been pro- M.Thenard and Gay-Lussac, a source duced by the ammonia; and its azot of many other discoveries, In short, combined with the metal should have it is a very curious result to see a body, yielded the substance newly obtain- composed of alkali and gas, assume d; but, on verifying this conse- an aspect perfectly metallic, with all quence, it was found to be false. the external characters of metals, The new combination being exposed their gravity excepted, which is less to heat was decomposed. It yielded, than that of the common metals. it is true, besides the metal, an acri- May not some of those, which we form product; but this product was have hitherto considered as simple not azot, it was pure ammonia with- bodies and as real metals, be likewise out any mixture of foreign gas. The compound? And if the metallic apammonia had not therefore been de- pearance alone be no longer sufficient composed in the first experiment, as to characterize metals, what then is it was supposed to be in the begin- the cause which gives it to them, and ning. What confirmed this result by what other property can they be was, that in resuming the ammonia in future distinguished from other disengaged by the heat of its combi- bodies? These are questions which nation with the metal, and by introducing a new quantity of metal to it, hydrogen was still obtained from it, as the first time, and the new solid combination reproduced still yielded ammonia. Thus by successive essays it was found possible to evolve, by means of a given quantity of ammonia, an indefinite quantity of hydro belong to the most profound chemistry, but capable of exciting reflections in those who wish to penetrate to the principles of things, and who, accustomed to observe nature, know the gratification which it affords to meditate on her laws. THE MR. BURDON on the DESTRUCTION sacrilegiously pulled down the_beauof ANCIENT CATHEDRALS, &C. tiful chapter house built by Bishop Walter Skirlaw, in the purest style SIR, of English architecture, and celeTHE imagination of man is never brated for its elegant proportions and excited to so high a pitch as in ornaments. The motive which led the contemplation of a great first to this unparalleled act of barbarism Cause; hence it arises that the most and contempt for their statutes, must sublime works of art are those which have been no other than a paltry, are consecrated to the worship of the old-woman-like love of snugness and Deity. The temples of Egypt, of comfort; and even this they might Greece, and of modern Europe under have indulged in, without pulling popery, are justly considered as the down what they could never rebuild; most stupendous monuments of hu- they might have built themselves a man ingenuity. Among the latter, snug dining-room any where else, our Gothic cathedrals, as they are to have settled the affairs of the chapvulgarly called, excite in all minds of ter in, had they but suffered this venesensibility and taste the strongest ideas rable monument of former times to of grandeur and magnificence; and, stand. The estates they now possess independent of any religious feeling, were most of them given for the reit is impossible to contemplate even pairs of the church and the buildings their remains without admiration and attached to it, and their statutes strictdelight. The elegant simplicity of ly enjoin that their revenues should some, the exuberant ornaments of be employed for that purpose, after others, and the immensity of them paying a fixed stipend to the prebenall, seem to have engrossed all the daries and other ministers of the cataste and labour of the ages in which thedral. I much question, therefore, they were built; and had the priests whether they are not liable to be who now possess them, either zeal or called to account by the legislature knowledge equal to those who first for this violation of the laws by which raised them, they might endure al- they are governed; by the bishop most to eternity: but the generality they certainly are, for the statutes of our deans and chapters are deficient have given him a power of triennial not only in religious zeal, which in visitation. The luxury, sloth, and this enlightened age may be pardoned, indolence of the monks of former but they are deficient also in a taste times have often been held up to for grandeur and beauty, which in ridicule and contempt, yet we must possessing the finest remains of allow that they employed their reantiquity cannot be pardoned. They venues in works of piety and magnieither neglect the noble cathedrals ficence, and have left monuments of which belong to them, or they at- their genius, taste, and liberality, tempt to adorn them with incongruous which will never be equalled. ornaments; and they suffer them to what do modern prebendaries employ be defaced with clumsy, trumpery their time and their money, but in monuments which poorly imitate the eating, drinking, and dissipation; remains of Grecian art, and spoil those they will leave few memorials of their of the Gothic; nay some of them splendour and munificence; and have gone so far as to pull down could we be sure their cathedrals buildings of surpassing beauty, and would be preserved, they might all erect others in their places of most be dismissed without much detriment surpassing ugliness, because they to the present age or to posterity. men could not, like their hardy predecessors, endure the cold air of a chapter house, but chose rather to it by a warm fire-side in a modern dining room. The fact I allude to is, that the Dean and Chapter of Durham having UNIVERSAL MAG. VOL. XIL I remain, &c Hartford, near Morpeth, E In W. BURDON. |