the cinchona of Peru, if ever the supplies of this medicine fhould fail.' Medical Students and the public in general are much indebted to Mr. Aikin for the pains he has taken to furnith a new edition of this valuable work, and to enrich it with many judicious and ufeful obfervations. The Philofophical Tranfactions, and writings of Cullen, Saunders, Stork, Duncan, Percival, &c. &c. have contributed to render the work perfect, and Mr. Aikin delivers their fentiments with a becoming candour, and proper diffidence. The alphabetical arrangement is ftill retained, and perhaps anfwers every purpose better than the claffifications of Cullen and Duncan, which we always were of opinion had more of affectation than utility in them. ART. XIII. Thoughts on the prefent Mode of Taxation in Great Britain. (The ruin that it leads to and the way to avert it.) By Francis Dobbs, Efq. 8vo. IS. Stockdale. T AXATION is one of thofe fubjects that has exercised the acuteness of legiflators, the invention of ftatesmen, and the ingenuity of the fpeculative politician, for fucceffive centuries. Upon this rock adminiftrations have fplit; by the intervention of this obftacle the profoundeft defigns have been ruined, and the fublimeft fyftems of government annihilated. No immortality has been built upon a nobler, a broader, basis, than that of the complete financier; and it is not abfolutely certain, whether the department of a Neckar does not admit of the difplay of as great abilities, as the ftation of a Chatham. But the author of this treatife has the happieft talent in the world at penetrating to the bottom of those subjects which have hitherto defied the wit of man, and of comprizing in a small compafs, that which lefs able writers have dilated into libraries. Has Ireland armed itself in the caufe of independence; and have the wifeft ftatefmen trembled, left, on the one hand, they fhould give birth to irresistible rebellion, or, on the other, they should display a daftardly want of fpirit, in furrendering that, upon which the bread of thousands, and the exiftence of Britain, might poffibly depend? Mr. Dobbs enters and decides this intricate queftion precifely in the compafs of twenty pages. Is the conftitution of England the object of difcuffion, the respective merits of democracy, ariftocracy, and monarchy, and to which fide the balance inclines in this country? Mr. Dobbs fums up the whole merits of the queftion, and ftill in twenty pages. Is Britain declined in commerce, and overwhelmed with 1 with debt? Mr. Dobbs removes all our misfortunes, takes the burthen from the fhoulders of our people, and clears an account of unfummed millions, and that in just twenty pages. He does not, indeed, enter very curioufly and elaborately into the arguments of this fide, and the arguments of that. He is too wife to mifemploy his time, and wafte his labours. He decides from the intuition of genius, and the infpiration of an apoftle. He appears before us in the plenitude of infallibility. He pronounces his decrees ex cathedra, and from Mr. Dobbs there is no appeal. The project of this gentleman is, to abolish all the prefent exifting taxes, and to substitute in their room nothing. elfe but a tax upon hearths, ́or, as he phrases it, fire-places. He then fixes the rate of his tax, and fuppofes it to produce about 25,000,000 1. To a man of Mr. Dobbs's fufficiency, we dare not pretend to fuggeft thofe idle objections to which vulgar financiers have paid fo much attention: that new taxes are the principal fubject of odium; that habit and antiquity reconcile the people to what is leaft pleasant; that it may not always be wife to change a bad tax of long ftanding, for a new one, demonftrably excellent and that the maxim is as valuable in politics as in phyfic, Malum bene pofitum ne moveto. We will therefore take it for granted, that Mr. Dobbs's fcheme is of the very wifeft defcription, and that his difciple, Mr. Pitt, will fhortly introduce it into the fenate. In this view, we would fuggeft a few hints, which we would venture to call improvements, could it be supposed, which for our parts we do not fuppofe, that any thing that comes from Mr. Dobbs is capable of improvement. The writer of this pamphlet is a man of too much intuitive wisdom, to condefcend to the vulgar modes of arithmetic and calculation. He flourishes his pen, and dash you fhall pay 20l. and your next door neighbour 20,000l. By trufting however a little too much to his intuition, Mr. Dobbs has been guilty of an inconfiderable overfight. He takes his tax at 25,000,000l. and if every houfe in this kingdom contains precifely eight hearths, and five inhabitants, 25,000,000 1. would be the exact produce, at 211. per houfe. But a part of Mr. Dobbs's outline is, that a houfe with twenty hearths pay 1000l. and that for every hearth above twenty, 500l. be added. Now allowing for Peers, members of the Houfe of Commons, and men with overgrown fortunes, that belong to neither houfe, fome of whom have thrce manfions, fome four, and the generality two, it would probably be no very extravagant fuppofition, fhould we fay, that upon an average, there are two thoufand houfes in Great Britain, with fifty hearths each. Now taking it for granted, that Mr. Dobbs's eftimate will ftand for the reft, his 25,000,000Į. will receive the trifling addition of 32,000,000 1. more. For our parts, we have the utinoft refpect for Mr Dobbs, we entertain the profoundeft veneration for his fcheme, and we think it no more than equitable, that any fmall mistake in the calculation of a projector, when it turns out to be on the favourable fide, fhould be applied to his private emolument. With all humility, therefore, we would fubmit it to the confideration of the legislature, when Mr. Dobbs's fcheme comes before them, to vote, that this 32,000,000 1. per annum, be prefented to the author, as a fmall compenfation for the ingenuity of forming a fcheme fo complicated and valuable, and the labour it must have coft him, to bring his calculation within fo small a matter of the point affigned. A. FOREIGN LITERATUR E. ART. XIV. Principes de Morale. Elements of Moral Science. By M, L'Abbé de Mably. 12mo. Paris. 1784. T HE name of abbé Mably is fufficiently diftinguished in the literary world, to render any thing that comes from him worthy of an early and particular notice. The fubject of the prefent publication is of all others the nobleft and most interefting that can employ the faculties of the human mind. To give the reader however a clearer idea of what that fubject is, it is neceffary that we should observe, that the questions concerning liberty and neceffity, the original of our ideas of virtue, and the foundation of its obligations; in a word all that divifion of moral science, which is eminently the object of metaphyfical enquiry, form no part of abbe Mably's difquifition, We fay not this to depre ciate from his work. For though we by no means think lightly of the importance of thefe queftions, we esteem the more obvious and lefs fpeculative part of the fcience, as at least of equal dignity. It is indeed a subject, that has been much too far neglected; that has been treated for the most part only cafually; and has feldom been difcuffed in a syste matical manner. We are happy therefore to fee the attention of the public recalled to it by a writer of fo much refpect. Such is the nature of thefe elements, which may properly be confidered as a treatise of practical virtue. They are written in the form of dialogue, and are di vided into three parts. The defign of the firft, is to eftablish the empire of reason, and the necessary and indifpenfible fubordination of the paffions. The paffions he obferves are in ENG. REV. Vol. III. May 1784. A. a their their own nature indifferent, and may become equally ufe ful or pernicious. He admits them to be indifpenfible in the ftructure of the human framne, but at the fame time affirms, that they have a tendency to depravation. This tendency he founds upon a connection, that he does not attempt to make out, between a propenfity to vice, and the union of two fubftances fo different as matter and fpirit. The general propofition, confidered as a theorem in ethics and in relation to the individual, though valuable in itself, is too trite and too univerfally admitted ro require the being difcuffed very much at large. Confcious of this defect, M. de Mably has employed the greater part of the first dialogue, in confidering the maxim in reference to politics, where it has been more difputed. Here he affumes, what is pretty much fupported through the whole courfe of the compofition, the character of a Cato. He treats thofe writers, who have affirmed in whole or in part, that private vices are public benefits, with equal derifion and contempt, as unworthy the name of philofophers. Though a Frenchman, he gives no quarter to any of thofe paffions, which have been moft fpeciously apologized, but fupports with great vigour and ftrength of argument the univerfal and unlimited empire of reafon. It has been the fingular attribute of this polite nation, though the fubjects of an abfolute monarchy, to produce the best writers upon government; and though the flaves of every fluctuating paffion, to boast of their Pafcals, their Nicoles, their Fenelons, and, in a partial fenfe, we may add, their Rouffeaus: men, who have afferted the purity and dignity of virtue in all its extent, and declaimed with the greatest energy against the corruption and frivolity of modern times. That public virtue is the only folid foundation of the happiness or profperity of a ftate, is a maxim that we esteem highly valuable, and capable of the moft perfect demontration. But unfortunately thofe perfons who have undertaken to fupport it, have uniformly connected it with another propofition, that is neither equally certain, nor at all neceffary to the cftablishment of the former. We mean the propofition, that only the earlieft periods of fociety are favourable to virtue, and moral excellence; and that every deviation from their manners is an approach to vice. This is the propofition, that Mr. Hume has fo well examined, and fo ably refuted. The manners of the early periods of fociety are fierce, and favage, and lawlefs; and their virtues are not at least the virtues of humanity. The conclufion of the second Punic war has ufually been stated as the crifis of the Roman virtue. From From thence their decline commenced. But it proceeded. very gradually; and it was only by the importation of all the riches of the eaft, that their manners were entirely corrupted. It is fufficiently remarkable however, that in no more than fixteen years after the battle of Zama, a discovery was made of the celebrated confpiracy of the Bacchanals. In their affemblies every fpecies of indecency, falfe accufation and murder were perpetrated, and their numbers amounted to upwards of feven thousand of both fexes, and fome of them of the first families in Rome. In like manner in our own country, the age of Elizabeth has usually been fixed upon, as the most favourable specimen of the English character. But Mr. Hume has produced in his hiftory, fome very remarkable inftances, to prove that the purity of that reign is ufually eftimated at too high a rate. The public roads were fo infested with robbers, that travelling was in the utmost degree dangerous. The number of their gangs fometimes amounted to more than an hundred. A public ambaffador, with a train, if we remember right, of feventy perfons, was fet upon in the day time, and in the high road from London to Dover, and ftripped of his baggage. How greatly are much less enormities than either of these frequently deplored, in order to demonftrate the degeneracy of modern times! But the purity of thefe early periods is a dogma by no means neceffary to the establishing, that they are the most favourable to public virtue. His adverfaries have confounded the two propofitions together, and Mr. Hume has fairly enough imitated their example. But let it be granted that we are more mild, more humane, more extenfively civilized. It will yet remain true, that in a well conftituted state, those who live in an earlier period are more manly, more under the government of reafon and policy, and more capable of united exertion. Abbe Mably's theory will yet remain true, that as the factitious wants of the individual increase, his attachment to the public intereft will decay. Having in the first dialogue established the fuperiority of reafon, he proceeds in the fecond to open that fyftem refpecting the order and the dignity of the virtues, in the purfuit of which he imagines that reafon will be the most fuccefsful. In doing this he lies, in our apprehenfion, under a great fundamental error; that of deriving all our paffions and building all our virtue upon felf-love. It is a fingular phænomenon, and we do not feel ourselves perfectly competent to affign the cause of it, that all the French philofophers without one exception maintain this theory, while it A a 2 is |