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lation, that created beings, of a fuperior order, can act upon us in any way. It is very true that Mr. Farmer has attempted to fhow this, as Dr. Mead had done before him; but Warburton has attempted the contrary with all his ufual force and ingenuity; and his fermon fhould have been referied to, as well as Farmer's effay, for it is worthy of attention from the moft profound philofopher, and we confefs carries conviction to our minds; and we know that it converted at least one of the admirers of Farmer's opinion, who was at the fame time one of the most learned men of the

age.

In the fection entitled relations, order, connection, neceffity, contingency, liberty, voluntary, Jpontaneity, we meet with many excellent things, and among them the best definition, perhaps, that we have feen of human liberty; but the author is furely miftaken, when he fays, that a man in extreme pain necel farily wills its ceffation. He neceffarily wishes its ceffation; but we apprehend that no man, poffeffed of reafon, wills, either in the ordinary or philofophical feufe of that word, any thing which he knows to be completely beyond his own power. We think too that in the following short paragraph there is much inaccuracy;

"An action is called Spontanecus when it arifes from mechanical, inftinctive, or other animal or chymical caufes, without any determination of the will to produce it, as growth, nutrition, sirculation of the blood, &c." P. 95.

Surely inftinctive caufes, or, as we fhould fay, impulfes, are very different from mechanical or chemical caufes; for who would compare the instinct which guides a bee to its hive, with the force which carries a mufket-ball through the air, or the force with which the nitric acid acts on filver? The bee moves fpontaneously and inftinctively, but we should hardly fay that gunpowder acts inftinctively or fpontaneously on the ball, or nitric acid on filver, or that the blood circu lates fpontaneoufly, or that food is fpontaneoufly converted into chyle, &c. A new born infaut fucks the breast of its nurse inftinctively and fpontaneously, without knowing why; but we apprehend that neither inflint nor fpontaneity can be faid to accompany the milk any further than to the flo mach.

The fection on pace and duration is extremely valuable as the reader will find in it a very good abstract of the cele brated controverfy on thefe fubjects, which was carried on with great earneftnefs and ability between Clarke and Leib, nitz. Dr. Kirwan's notion of space is the fame, or nearly the fame, with bifhop Law's, which agrees with that of the

Peripatetics, who defined empty fpace to be the capacity or poffibility of receiving bodies, and its extenfion to be only the poffible extenfion of fuch bodies as may be placed in it. The prefent author indeed thinks that it is more accurately defined by being called the relation of diftance between two bodies, or between the parts of the fame body; but we confefs that we perceive not the fuperior accuracy of this definition. In the courfe of his difquifitions on this fubject, this author adopts the notion of Berkeley, that if only one body were in exiftence, there could be no fuch thing as motion; but this is furely a mistake. They both agree that if two or more bodies exift, one or all of them may be moved to or from each other. Let motion then be impreffed upon one of them in empty and unrefifting fpace, and the others foon afterwards annihi lated by an act of Almighty power, would the motion of the moving body inftantly ceafe in confequence of this act upon the bodies at reft? Surely not, if it be indeed true that motion and reft are two ftates to which bodies are alike indifferent, Indeed whether this axiom of modern philofophy be true or not, it is not conceivable that a body in motion fhould cease to move, merely because other bodies, from which the moving force did not originally proceed, had ceafed to exift.

The fection on duration, time, and eternity, is eminently good, as is that likewife on human liberty. This laft fection, however, will be read with the greateft advantage immediately after Dr. Gregory of Edinburgh's effay on the fame subject; for though nothing is borrowed by Dr. Kirwan from that effay, yet as his reafoning depends upon the fact, that the difficulties in which this fubject has been generally involved, have arifen in a great meafure from the improper expreflions ufed in treating it, moft of which are applicable only to corporeal nature; and as the truth of this fact is demonftrated by Dr. Gregory, his demonftration muft of courfe prove the best introduction to Dr. Kirwan's reafonings, which, refting on fuch a bafis, will be found, we think, decifive of the question.

The fecond effay is very long and important, divided into eight chapters, which are again fubdivided into fections. It is in this effay that Dr. Kirwan endeavours to establish the principles of Berkeley; but before he enters on that undertaking, he gives a detailed account of what he calls the modi. fications of the human mind; of fenfations in general; of odours, founds, and taffes; of vifual fenfations; of tactile fenfations; and of the human body, and obfcure fenfations. Though we cannot follow him through all this minute detail, he has fallen into fome miflakes, which we must not país over, because

they

they appear to us to affect the very foundation of the theory which he withes to revive.

The thort introduction to this effay is unexceptionable. We entirely agree with the author, that none of Hume's impieties or scepticifin can be justly attributed to the celebrated bishop of Cloyne, who certainly anticipated the objections which, on this fuppofition, Dr. Beattie and others have urged against his principles, and fhowed how groundless they are, before thefe objectors were born. This introduction too is valuable on another account. It contains a perfpicuous abftract of Mr. Merian's arguments against Hume's fyftem, from the Memoirs of Berlin for 1793; and thefe arguments, even as they are here condenfed, appear to us conclufive.

We have already obferved that she mind is not wholly paffive in fenfation, and affigned one reafon for our opinion. Dr. K. however, again affirms that it is, and adds, that the extrinfic caufe of fenfations can be no other but the Supreme Being; taking for granted the very queftion at iffue between him and his opponents. That the Supreme Being is the primary caufe of every change in nature, we moft readily admit; but if he alone can be the immediate caufe of our sensations, there is an end of the controverfy, and the system of Berkeley is at once completely established.

The claffification which, foon after this affertion, the author makes of our impreflions into fenfual, fenfible, and fpiritual, we think good; but when he adds, alinoft immediately, that fenfations are the impreffions which we receive from the Supreme Being, we are not fure that we understand him. We know that our fenfations are excited by impressions made on our organs of fenfe; but the former appear to us to be as perfectly diftinct from the latter as an effect is from its caufe. We must have leave likewife to fay, that it is a mere begging of the quellion to affirm, that " a group of fenfations received through the different fenfes, but connected with, dependent on, and referred to each other, receives the fame name ;” nor indeed are we aware that fuch a group of fenfations ever received the fame name before. This is not the accurate language of Berkeley. Indeed Dr. Kirwan himself feems not to be pleafed with it, for in the very next page he justly obferves, that

"The aggregate properties perceived by the fenfes, in the fame circumstances, are the only (things or ingredients) which form the complex object to which a name is given: nothing elfe is found, or can be found, through the medium of the fenfes; fo that if we had ten more fenfes, they could convey to us nothing mere than new fenfations, but could not inform us of their caufe,

which must be inferred by reafon, and can be no other than THE SUPREME BEING, or OTHER BEINGS CONFORMING TO THE LAWS HE HAS PRESCRIBED."

To this doctrine, which is perfectly intelligible, we have no defire to object; but the author, in the very next fentence, feems to contradict himfelf, when he fays, that “each of thefe fenfations, confidered fingly, are the qualities (is a qua lity) of that to which they are referred." P. 174.

Senfations can be referred only to the mind which is fentient; but thofe things which, in the former fentence, are called properties, and are here confounded with fenfations, are exprefsly referred to the Supreme Being, or other beings conforming to the laws which he has prefcribed.co

When the author fays, that "the fenfations of fmells and founds may exift in the mind, without any reference to a particular object," he advances nothing more than what every man has experienced; but when he affirms that fuch fenfations "are fuppofed by many to iffue from tangible fenfations,” be is unquestionably miftaken. The vulgar, as well as the philofophers whom he calls byloifts, certainly fuppofe that the found of a bell ringing iffues from the body which they fee in motion, and feel to be cold and hard; but no man, not even the moft ignorant of the vulgar, ever fuppofed that the found iffues from his own feelings.

In the fection which treats of vifual fenfations, he fays, that the fenfations of light and colours, with their intermediate fhades and degrees, are alone immediately perceived by the mediation of the organs of fight, and hence called its proper object." To us this language appears to be extremely inaccurate. Light is not a fenfation, nor is it immediately perceived. Its exiftence is only interred from its effects; and it is not very long fince philofophers, even byloifts, were far from being agreed whether it be a material fubftance or not. In the opinion of the hyloifts of the Newtonian school, it is the inftrumental caufe of the fenfation of colour and of vifion; but it is not itself either colour or vifion, any more than a fword is death, or the agony of dying. Dr. Kirwan indeed quotes Berkeley, as faying that it is evident, that nothing which is not itfelf perceived can be the means of perceiving any other thing." P. 193. But had Berkeley really faid this, it would have at once demolished his whole theory. According to him, all our perceptions are caused by the immediate agency of the Supreme Being on our minds. but furely Dr. Kirwan will not contend that we have a fen fation of the Supreme Being, or fuch a perception of that Being, as we have of what we call vifible objects. It is but juftice,

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justice, however, to Berkeley to obferve, that in the place referred to, he does not fay that nothing which is not itself perceived, but that "no idea, which is not itfelf perceived, can be the means of perceiving any other idea;" and this is an incontrovertible truth; for an idea, which is not in Berke ley's fenfe of the word perceived, is a nonéntity.

When Berkeley publifhed his beautiful Effay on Vifion, his mind was teeming with the theory which he fo foon afterwards detailed in his Principles of Human Knowledge; and there are in that effay feveral expreffions evidently calculated to prepare the public mind for what was to follow; but as he made ufe of the language of Locke and Newton, wher treating on vifion, he fometimes fpeaks as if he thought extenfion and figure immediately visible. Such; however, could not be his meaning; for if fenfations had magnitude, there would at once be an end of his theory; and accordingly, he fays, that magnitude is perceived by the medium of fight, juft as diftance is perceived by that medium. This we believe indeed to be the truth; and fo, we think, muft this author, though he inadvertently fays in a note, "that magnitude is perceived immediately by fight, is evident from Chefelden's experiment; for the boy, who obtained the power of feeing, thought the things he faw extremely large +.” P. 211. But this boy had correct notions of magnitude before he faw; and if our memory do not deceive us, (for we have not an account of the case at hand) he was not fo abfolutely blind as not to diftinguifh night from day, thougly he could not difcern corporeal objects; so that, from this fact, we would not infer, though we are hylifts, that magnitude or figure is an immediate object of vifion. How indeed can a fenfation have magnitude? On the whole, we admit Berkeley's conclufions with refpećt to vifion, though we cannot always approve of the language which he makes ufe of in deducing them from his premiles; for with all the refpect which we bear to his memory, that language feems to us fometimes little better than quibbling.

In the fection which treats of tactile fenfations, we have the following paragraph, in which, though it gives a very fair view of Berkeley's theory, the reader will perceive that the question at iffue is taken for granted.

"The various fenfations of refiftance are thofe which we in general call bodies, whether the refiftance be made by them, as

Efay towards a new theory of vifion, § 10.

+ It is but just to obferve, that Dr. Kirwan adds—" but quere"-to this affertion. Rev.

that

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