surpassed their predecessors :-but still without exhausting the subject. Biography, which had been so much cultivated by the antients, and which in the middle ages was so sadly neglected, revived with the revival of literature. Among the writers in this line, some of the most prominent have been Camerarius, Gassendi, Le Clerc, Middleton, Mosheim, Gesner, Schroeckh, Fabroni, Schirach, Eberhard, Vogel, Meiners, Eichhorn, and Schlichtegroll. Some, too, have distinguished their names by the memoirs of themselves, as Cardan, Buchanan, de Thou, Huet, Rousseau, Hume, &c. Chronology in this period derived much light from mathematics and history,-and in return it reflected much light on them. Great labour was employed in collating antient dates, and in reconciling the chronology of the classical writers with that of the Holy Scriptures. By means of compen dious treatises and tables, this once obscure and intricate subject is now rendered familiar to every student. Geography, antient and modern, mathematical and physical, had hitherto been little understood: but the voyages of Magellan, Drake, and Cook, round the world, and the great extension of commerce, have given to it an importance suffcient to interest alike the learned and the adventurous, and to call forth their ablest exertions. The authors most distinguished for their works in antient geography are, Cluverius, Heidmann, Janson, Cellarius, Schwartz, Mannert, Bochart, and Michaëlis. In Mathematical Geography, Ptolemæus had been hitherto considered as having reached the ne plus ultra of accuracy but the two Bienewitz, Münster, Gemma, Mercator, and others, of the sixteenth century, have in this respect considerably surpassed him. In the eighteenth century, by the measurement of a degree at the polar circle, and on the equator, the French were enabled to ascertain the real form of the earth; and similar measurements have since been made by the English and Germans. The principal mathematical geographers of this period have been Picard, Sturm, Cassini, Kraft, Maupertuis, Clairaut, Le Monnier, Bouguer, Condamine, Boscowich, Frisi, Mason, De la Lande, De la Place, Klugël, Fode, Klostermann, and Zach.-Mercator's system of projection has been the grand foundation for the improvement of our modern maps and charts. He was followed, in the seventeenth century, by Hond, Münster, Sanson, and others. The amplest strides, however, towards perfection in this article, have been made in the eighteenth century by De l'Isle, d'Anville, Gosselin, and others of the French;-by Jefferys, Faden, and others, of the English; by Schmidt, Güsseman, &c. of the Germans; and by various others. In the department of Physical Geography, we are most indebted to the labours of Süssmilch, Lulof, Bergman, Wallerius, Haidinger, Forster, De Luc, Pallas, Dolomieu, Zimmermann, Meierstto, Otto, and other ingenious writers of voyages and travels. Statistics. This subject was never seientifically treated before the eighteenth century; for, though the antients have handed down to us some statistical accounts, (as Xenophon, for instance, of Athens and Lacedæmon,) yet these all want that regular and systematic form which is essential to a science. During the fifteenth century, when Venice became, as it were, the focus of all European politics, the Venetian government enjoined its ambassadors to draw up accounts of the internal state of those countries and courts to which they were delegated. These, as they came to hand, were carefully deposited in the archives; and, in the sixteenth century, they were partially published. Other powers adopted the practice;-and thus, by degrees, the strength and weakness of states, which till then had been little regarded, or had been cautiously involved in mystery, became topics of general discussion; and this give rise to the works of Sansorino (1567), of Botero (1592), and of others: hence also the Thesaurus Politicus of Gaspar Ens (1609). The Germans very early took the lead in this investigation; Conring, professor at Helmstädt (1660), first rendered it an university study; and he gave lectures on it, treating it as an appendage to political science. His example was followed in the eighteenth century by various universities. of Germany. Eberhard Otto (1726), separated the science of statistics altogether from that of politics; he called it Notitiam præcipuarum Europa Rerumpublicarum; and by his lectures on it, he excited a great zeal for the study. M. MEUSEL, however, styles Achenwall of Gottingen (1749), the father of statistics; he was the first, indeed, who called the science by that name; and he exhibited it under a form incomparably more correct, complete, and regular, than any of his predecessors. The Ger mans, it should seem, assume the honours of this science almost exclusively; and "Salmon's Modern History, or the present State of all Nations" (1724) is, according to M. MEUSEL, the chief work of any consequence that has been published on this subject in England. The recent and elaborate English publications in this class could not, in course, have reached the author's knowlege. He mentions, with respect, Raynal's Hist. Philos. et Politique des Etablissemens et du Commerce dans les deux Indes, but more particularly Büsching's magazine, which he : considers Mm. 4 considers as beginning comparatively a new epoch in statistics. Much attention was also paid, during the latter part of this period, to the subjects of Genealogy and Heraldry, of Medals, and the Diplomatic Art; on the last of which articles, the works of chief importance have been the Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, by Toustain and Tassin (1750), Gatterer's Elementa Artis Diplom. (1765), Schwartner's Introductio, Baring's Clavis Diplomatica, &c. State of Mathematical Science. A more extensive study of antient authors had enabled the learned, about the beginning of the sixteenth century, to publish, with a translation and commentary, some of the best mathematical works of antiquity. Their next step was to venture into the path of original invention. The earliest attempts of this kind were made in Italy, and referred, as might naturally be expected, to the easier parts of pure mathematics. Tartaglia, teacher of mathematics, in Venice (1557), was the first who in any degree distinguished himself. Commandine and Maurolycas followed the same course (1575); and Lucas Valerius of Rome (1618), went beyond the boundaries of antient discovery: he particularly determined, what had been neglected by Archimedes, the centre of gravity in all solid conoïds, sphæroïds, and their segments; and he invented a new quadrature of the parabola. In France, little was done till the seventeenth century. nation,' says M. MEUSEL, could at that time boast of more geometricians than Germany;' he especially mentions Byrge, as having contrived the proportional compass, which others have ascribed to Galileo, and as having paved the way for the subsequent invention of logarithms. This splendid discovery was reserved for Baron Napier (1614); it was at first, indeed, · imperfect, but was afterward improved by Kepler, Briggs, and others. No Algebra is almost entirely the production of this period; for the little which had been exhibited by the Greeks since the 4th century, and after them by the Arabs, could scarcely be called a beginning. In the early part of the 15th century, Leonardo da Pisa seems to have been the first writer who made known to the world the discoveries of the Arabs: but it was Lucas Pacioli who, nearly at the end of the century, brought the science, for the first time, into any general esteem ;-and even be did not advance beyond equations of the second order. Ferrei was the first person who found out a method of solving cubical equations: he confided the treasure to his scholar Fiore: but Tartaglia, getting possession of the secret, communicated it to Cardan; who then,-under the pretence that the rute rule itself only had been imparted to him, and that he had invented the demonstration of it,-published it as his own (1545), in his work intitled, Ars Magna; and hence it has unjustly been called, ever since, Cardan's Rule. Ferrari, a scholar of Cardan, invented a solution of biquadratic equations. Bombelli (1579,) united, improved, and considerably extended the discoveries of his predecessors. The subsequent history of this science is pretty generally known. M. MEUSEL here gives a long and detailed account of the progress of geometry, perspective, mechanics, and the other branches of mixed mathematics, including gunnery and fortification ;-to which we must refer the reader. The facts stated by him are, for the most part, familiar to those who have investigated these sciences; and to those who have not studied them, a more contracted account would appear unsatisfactory and uninteresting. State of Philosophy.-Unfitted as were the Peripatetic doctrines to combine with the Christian religion,-since they completely excluded the Deity from the government of the world, and contained no proofs of the immortality of the soul, -yet they had so thoroughly infected the scholastic philosophy, that it was long ere the world could resolve to shake them off, and think for itself. They were studied, admired, and propagated in the early part of this period by persons the most celebrated for their learning, as well Protestants as Roman Catholics. The Ionian, the Stoic, the Pythagorean, and Eleatic Systems, had also each of them its votȧries. In the 16th and 17th centuries, flourished the sect of Theosophi; who styled themselves Philosophi per Ignem, being much given to chemistry, and distinguished their philosophy by the title of Cabbala. At length, on the revival of the doctrines of Rosenkreutz by Andrea (1586), they united themselves with the Rosicrucians, and assumed their name. In such a confusion of antient and modern systems of philosophy, it is not surprizing that scepti cism also should find its place; and accordingly, the sect of Modern Sceptics, as they were called, has been dignified by the names of many illustrious members, from Sanchez, Charron, Huet, &c. of the 17th century, down to David Hume. In the 16th century, some of the learned, tired of perpetual contest, endeavoured to combine two or more several systems, and thence obtained the name of Synkratists: but the system of Synkratism was soon overturned, partly owing to the endless contradictions which it was found to involve, and still more on account of the numerous phænomena of nature, unknown to the antients, but discovered in the progress of science, with which it was shewn to be incompatible. This gave rise to the 1 wiser practice of rejecting all that in the antient systems was, by later experience, proved to be false, and of connecting with the new discoveries all parts of them that could be retained the set of doctrines thus formed constituted what was called the Eclectic Philosophy. Its first great founder was Francis Bacon; and it has been generally predominant ever since his time. For the opinions of Hobbes, Des Cartes, Thomasius, Leibnitz, Buddeus, Wolf, Hollman, Crusius, Bentley, and others of this period, M. MEUSEL may be consulted with advantage for us, it is sufficient to consider them as various modifications of the systems already mentioned. Logic was cleared, during this period, from the thorns and briars of the antient Dialectics, by Ramus, Acontius, Bacon, Des Cartes, Malebranche, and others :-but little farther progress was made, or could be made, until our immortal Locke had paved the way, by pointing out the true origin of our ideas. The different branches of Metaphysics, Ontology, Psychology, &c. so engrossed the genius of the middle ages, as to leave little leisure for the study of practical philosophy. For the knowlege of the rights of nature, and the law of nations, M. MEUSEL refers to Winkler, Grotius, Selden, Hobbes, Bacon, Puffendorf, &c. Though the antients, particularly Plato, Aristotle, Dionysius, Longinus, Quintilian, and others, have furnished us with many elegant and useful remarks on the beautiful in nature and art, yet the moderns have the merit of having first esablished any general theory of it on sound philosophical principles. Baumgarten, of Berlin, first undertook the subject in this light, and gave to the new science the title of Esthetics: he has been followed by Salzer, Blankenburg, Abbt, Mendelssohn, Lessing, Lord Kaimes, Kant, and others. [To be continued.] G.But. ART. XII. Histoire de la Revolution de France, &c. i. e. A History TH * Vide M. Rev. N. S. Vol. xxvii. p. 508. us |