Sadler (King Henry the eight's ambaffadour) his wilie and fubtle ne gotiations for that effect. He being committed to the caftle of Dalkeith a prisoner, removed from that to Seatoun, and without warrant or authoritie he went thence to St Andrews, taking his owne libertie. By his cunning the Earle of Arran, then governour of Scotland, against his promifed faith and obligations, and againft gratitude, was first brought to forfake England's interefts, and then to join the cardinall; and, at length, by his craftie practifing with and for France, and the Queene dowager, he contrived the governour's fall, at least a demillion of his office, although that did not happen till after the cardinall's death. He attempted the work his uncle had begun about the New Colledge, to adorn and enlarge the fame; and having demolifht fome old buildings, he laid the foundation of a handfome church, within the colledge, but his barbarous murder occafioned the work to be abruptlie left off, as alfo his defigned reparations about the caftle of St Andrews. He gave to the New Colledge the kirk of Inchbryock, [He was murdered 29th May 1546, aged 52 years. All his murderers are faid to have died violent deaths.]" P. 240. The editor has certainly rendered an acceptable service to the literature of his country, by publishing this manufcript. We think that his Advertisement fhould have preceded the Dedication of the original author. There are three plates; of the Cathedral of St. Andrews, with the Chapel of St. Rale; of the Caftle of St. Andrews; and a View of St. Andrews from the Eaft. The editor affirms of them, that they are beautiful views, engraved by the best masters; they are, however, but of moderate execution. ART. XII. A Treatise A Treatise on Mortal Diseases, containing a particular View of the different Ways in which they lead to Death, and the best Means of preventing them, by medical Treatment, from proving fatal. Tranflated from the Latin; corrected, improved, and confiderably enlarged, by the Author, Conrad George Ontyd, M. D. 8vo. 6+3 PP. 9s. Johnson. 1798. THE author includes, under the term mortal difeafes, all those that may end in death, consequently nearly all gene. ral, and many topical diseases. To understand rightly in what manner difeafes extinguish life, or occafion death, the author thinks it neceffary that we fhould know what life is, or in what it confifts; and particu farly inquires, whether lite is fimply the effect or confequence of organization, or confifts in fomething added to organiza tion, called the vital principle. He feems to join in opinion with with thofe, who confider it as fiinply the effect of organiza tion, "Few phyfiologifts," he says, "fufpect, that life is to be looked for in the organization itself, and is to be confidered as an effect of it. The very ingenious Dr. Aikin, however, is well aware of the fact.” Pv4 The effect of this organization, or of this vital principle, for the terms are used indifferently, is to render the body unfufceptible of thofe chemical attractions, to which dead matter is subjected. " For, as foon as life is deftroyed, and there remains in the animal body only the powers of thofe elements of which it is compofed, thefe, being no more checked in their action by the vital principle, are difengaged, and caufe the phænomena that follow the laws of che mical affinities, and effect the fpontaneous deftruction of the compages formerly organical or vital." "P. 1. Another effect of organization, or of the vital principle, is, to render the body fufceptible of ftimuli. "Death confequently is nothing but the extinction of the faculty of anfwering a ftimulus. Whatfoever therefore occafions bodies to lofe this faculty, fhould be looked upon as the proximate cause of death." P. 3. "To disturb the equilibrium," the author fays, "of the vital powers, or to caufe illness, there are required a morbid ftimulus, affecting the body, and a reaction of the vital powers." P. 6.- Whatever may be objected," he adds, " to this definition of difeafe, will be of no weight, fince no morbid ftimulus can be devised to operate in our body, without its being fenfible of it. Now the morbid ftimulus being perceived, it must neceffarily follow that the vital powers, incited to act by the preternatural ftimulus, will oppofe force to force, and, as it were, endeavour to fight against the morbid stimulus; or, in other words, any noxious power whatever being applied to the human body, the reaction of the vital powers muft certainly enfue." P. 8. Difeafe therefore confifts, according to this explanation, in a conflict between the vital principle, and fome morbid poifon; the one affailing and attempting to deftroy the organization of the body, the other labouring to preferve it, and eject the enemy from its premifes. This, the reader will fee, is the old doctrine of the vis Medicatrix Natura, decorated with new terms. In the application of this principle, to explain the mode by which difeafes extinguifh life, we fee nothing to entitle the new doctrine to a fuperiority over the old. It feems full as rational, and is equally intelligible, to fay that, as we advance in years, the fibres become gradually more dry and inflexible, and at length, being no longer able readily to dilate and contract, death enfues; as to fay that their faculty of an fwering ftimuli, or their excitability, as John Brown called it, gradually diminishes, and at length becomes extinct. The hiftory of the feveral mortal difeafes, and the mode of treating them which follows, is in general taken from the best practical writers, and may be read with advantage. The manner in which they occafion death, is added at the end of the history of each complaint. "If putrid fever," the author fays, p. 157, "proves fatal, life is deftroyed in three ways;" or, perhaps, he fhould have said, in one of these three ways. 1. The vital principle being extremely weakened by the violence of the nexious power, becomes at length wholly abolished by the continuance of the morbid action. "2. The putrid fever is frequently attended with fpurious inflam mation of the prime vie, quickly running into gangrene; in which cafe, the patients are carried off by a mortification of the ftomach and bowels. "3. The morbid matter is not unfrequently depofited by metaftafis on the vital organs, especially on the brain and lungs, in which cafes the patient is either fuffocated, or dies from an apoplectic fit.” That is, fome organ neceffary to life is materially injured or deftroyed by the difeafe, and the patient dies. No light feems to be thrown, either on the nature of difeafes, or on the mode of treating them, by this new arrangement. ART. XIII. Ariftotle's Ethics and Politics, e. tranflated by Dr. Gillies. (Concluded from our loft, p.63.) WE proceed now to the part of this work which at prefent is rendered peculiarly interefting, by the unfortunate prevalence, and melancholy effects, of principles diametrically oppofite to thofe inculcated by the great Philofopher. In this inftance, the praife of attending to experience and to nature, in preference to hypothefis and arbitrary theory, is due exclu fively to the ancient teacher; while the modern writers, who have been moft admired and moft followed, have published dreams on the fubject of human fociety; but dreaths which have occafioned much waking madnefs, and moft extenfive mifery and calamity. The introduction prefixed by Dr. Gillies to the first book of Ariftotle's Politics, moft clearly and decifively explains thefe diftinétions; and, by denying Locke's pernicions pernicious fancy of the Social Compact, on the high authority of Ariftotle, cuts up by the very roots the poífonous tree, the baleful Upas of Jacobinifm. Man, fays the fagacious Sagyrite, is a political animal. (TATIX (v) His led by nature to form focieties and governments, as much as animals by their respective inftincts are led to act according to the laws of their fpecies. This is the grand and folid foundation, placed in a real and experimental knowledge of human nature; and on this Dr. Gillies thus admirably proceeds. "Government, then, is cöeval with fociety, and fociety with men. Both are the works of nature; and there ore, in explaining their origin, there cannot be the fmalleft ground for the fanciful fuppofition of en gagements and contracts, independently of which the great modern antagonist of Aritotle declares, in the following words, that no government can be lawful or binding: The original compact, which begins and actually conftitutes any political fociety, is nothing but the confent of any number of freemen capable of a majority, to unite and to incor. porate into fuch a fociety. And this is that, and that only, which could give beginning to any lawful government in the world*. From this maxim, which is perpetually inculcated in Locke's two treatifes on government, is fairly deducible the unalienable right of mankind to be felf-governed; that is, to be their own legiflators, and their own directors; or, if they find it inconvenient to affume the adminiftration of affairs in their own perfons, to appoint reprefentatives who may exereife a delegated fovereignty, effentially and unalienably inherent in the people at large. Thence refults the new unalienable right of all mankind to be fairly reprefented, a right with which each individual was invefted from the commencement of the world, but of which, until very re cently, no one knew the name, or had the leaft notion of the thing. From this right to fair reprefentation, there follows, by neceffary confequence, the right of univerfal fuffrage, univerfal eligibility, and the univerfal and just preponderancy of majorities in all cafes whatever. * Locke's Works, vol. ii. p. 185.. Edit. of 1714. + According to the fyftem of Locke and his followers, reprefentatives are appointed by the people to exercife in their ftead, political functions which the people have a right to exerçife in their own per fons. They are elected by the people, they derive their whole power from the people; and to the people, their conttituents, they always are refponfible. Of this doctrine, Mr. Locke is the first or principal author. But reprefentatives, in the ufual and legal acceptation of the word in the English conftitution, meant, and itill micans, perfons in virtue of their election exercising political functions, which the people had not a right to exercife in their own perfons, and fa little refponfible to their electors, that they are not even bound to follow their inftructions. That the ancients were not unacquainted with reprefentation in the ufual and only practical fenfe of the word will be fhewn hereafter." "Such. "Such is the boafted and fpecious theory begun in the works of our Locke and our Molyneux, continued in thofe of our Pricet and our Priestley, and carried to the utmoft extravagance in. thofe of (I with not to fay our) Rouffeau, Paine, and the innumera ble pamphleteers whofe writings occafioned or accompanied the American and French revolutions. "Such works, co-operating with the peculiar circumftances of the times, have produced, and are ftill producing, the moft extraordinary effects; by arming the pations of the multitude with principle, fortífying them by argument, and thereby ftirring into action thofe difcordant elements which naturally lurk in the bofom of every commu nity. It is not confiftent with my defign, in defending the tenets of my author, to anfwer his political adverfaries with declamation and obloquy, (a rafh and dangerous attempt! fince the voice of the mul titude will always be the loudeft and the ftrongeft) but merely to exa mine whether the fundamental maxim of their great master Locke be itfelf founded in truth. To prove that government is merely a matter of confent, he affumes for a reality a wild fiction of the fancy, what he calls a state of nature; which he defines to be men living together according to reafon, without a common fuperior on earth with authority to judge between thema'. But he himself feems aware that this fuppofed natural ftate of man is a ftate in which man never yet was found; and in which, if by violence thruft, he could not for a fingle day remain. Locke, I fay, faw the difficulty, which, instead of meeting, he only endeavours to elude. Where are there,' he asks, or ever were there, any men in fuch a ftate of nature**?' He answers, that fince all princes and rulers of independent governments, all through the world, are in a state of nature, 'tis plain the world never was, nor never will be, without numbers of men in that flate+t.' But this, I affirm, is not to answer the proposed question; for princes and rulers of independent flates do not live together, nor affociate and herd,' as he himself expreffes it, in the fame fociety. If they did fo, they could not fubfift without government: for government and society are things abfolutely infeparable; they commence together, they grow up together; they are both of them equally natural; and fo indiffolubly united, that the deftruction of the one is neceffarily accompanied by the destruction of the other. This is the true fenfe of Ariftotle, as understood and expreffed by an illuftrious defender of just government and genuine liberty. As we ufe and exercife our bodily members, before we understand the ends and purposes of this exercise, so it See his Cafe of Ireland, reprinted by Almon, p. 113, and again p. 169, I have no other notion of flavery, but being bound by a law to which I do not confent.' + Obfervations on Civil Liberty, &c. Effay on the first Principles of Government. Du Contrat Social, ou Principes du Droit Politique, Locke's Works, vol, ii. p. 164. ** Ibid, p, 162, P ++ Ibid." is |