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lofe ourselves in an abyfs of his purpofes; fhall that God depart from his wisdom and goodness in the general deftination and difpofition of our fpecies, and act in thefe without a plan? Or can he have intended to keep us in ignorance of this, while he has difplayed to us fo much of his eternal purposes in the inferior part of the creation, in which we are much lefs concerned? What are the human race upon the whole but a flock without a fhepherd? In the words of the compi ining prophet, are they not left to their own ways, as the files of the fea, as the creeping things that have no riner over them? Or is it unneceffary to them to know this plan? This I am inclined to believe: for where is the man, who difcerns only the little purpose of his own life? though he fees as he is to fee, and knows fufficiently how to direct his own fteps.

In the mean time perhaps this very ignorance ferves as a pretext for great abufes. How many are there, who, because they perceive no plan, peremptorily deny the existence of one; or at leaft think of it with trembling dread, and doubting believe, believing doubt! They conftrain themselves not to confider the human race as a neft of emmets, where the foot of ftranger, himfelf but a large emmet, crushes thousands, annihilates thousands in the midst of their little great undertakings, where lastly the two grand tyrants of the earth, Time and Chance, fweep away the whole neft, destroying every trace of its existence, and leaving the empty place for fome other induftrious community, to be obliterated hereafter in its turn. Proud man refuses to contemplate his fpecies as fuch vermin of the earth, as a prey of all-deftroying corruption: yet do not hiftory and experience force this image upon his mind? What whole upon earth is completed? What is a whole upon it? Is not time ordained as well as space! Are they not the twin off. spring of one ruling power? That is full of wisdom; this, of ap parent diforder: yet man is evidently formed to feek after order, to look beyond a point of time, and to build upon the past; for to this end is he furnished with memory and reflection. And does not this building of one age upon another render the whole of our Species a deformed gigantic edifice, where one pulls down what another builds up, where what never fhould have been erected is left ftanding, and where in the courfe of time all becomes one heap of ruins, under which timid mortals dwell with a confidence proportionate to its fragility? P. vii.

Whatever may have been M. Herder's object, his work, in general, is a history of animated nature, and chiefly of man in his various forms and fituations, either as a natural being, or as a gregarious and civilifed one. This volume, with fome philofophical inquiries into the caufes of the variations -obfervable in different races, published originally in five octavos, contains therefore an immenfe collection of facts on all thele fubjects, with the author's opinions on different parts of their

tendency to one vaft whole, arranged and animated by the deity. The pureft religion and the warmeft benevolence breathe in every page; the beft-informed mind will, in this work, add to its knowledge, and the most religious inquirer may, by the perusal, extend his views. Yet, in the philofophical part, we meet with many errors; and, as ufual in affigning final causes, the author feeins to us to have injured that of religion, which he wishes fo fincerely to promote. In this part, and perhaps in the whole of the Philofophy of History,' we attempt to fathom the defigns of Omnipotence by the thallow and imperfect line of human reafon--infinity by an atom. We fear to follow the moft intelligent philofopher in fuch a path; but, fortunately, the moft intelligent tread it with caution, with an holy awe.

The first book relates to the general hiftory of the earth as a planet, and as the habitation of animated beings. In the fecond, the author rifes from a more particular hiftory of the ftructure of vegetables, by gradations, to that of man, whom he fuppofes to be the connecting link between the beings of this world and of a fuperior and more perfect existence. This beautiful idea is expanded with great judgement and ability. In the third book, the author advances to the phyfiology of vegetables and animals, ftill comparing their properties and powers with thofe of man, his principal object, concluding with the organic difference between man and beaft. In the fourth book, he treats of the organisation of man as a rational creature, capable of attaining arts and language, fufceptible of inftincts finer than thofe of brutes, and organifed, in confequence, to a freedom of action.' Man is organifed alfo to endure the heats and colds of different climates,-formed for humanity and religion, for the hope of immortality. From this book we fhall felect a specimen of our author's reafoning. We select it not invidiously, though we own that we ftarted on the perufal as much as Yorick did at the immenfe power of the auxiliary verbs in Mr. Shandy's fyftem of education; but we extract the paffage as a fpecimen of the phi lofophic turn given to common obfervations by the German metaphyficians. It amounts to no more than the fact, that intellect is connected with the bulk, probably the shape of the cerebellum.

'Thus we come to the fuperiority of man in the ftructure of his brain. And on what does this depend? Evidently on his more perfect organization in the whole, and ultimately on his erect posture. The brain of every animal is fashioned after the fhape of its head: or the propofition might with more propriety be reverfed, as nature works from within to without. To whatever gait, to whatever proportion of parts, to whatever habits, the deftined the creature;

for thefe fhe compounded, to thefe fhe adapted, its organic powers. According to thefe powers, and to the proportion in which they operated on each other, the brain was made large or fmall, narrow or extenfive, light or ponderous, fimple or complicated. According to this the fenfes of the creature became feeble or powerful, paramount or fubfervient. The cavities and mufcles of the forepart of the head and of the occiput fashioned themfelves, according as the lymph gravitated, in fhort, according to the angle of the organic direction of the head. Of numerous proofs in fupport of this, that might be adduced from various genera and fpecies, I fhall mention only two or three. What produces the organic difference between the head of man and the head of an ape? The angle of direction. The ape has every part of the brain that man poffeffes: but it has them thruft backward in fituation according to the figure of its fkull, and this becaufe its head is formed under a different angle, and it was not defigned to walk erect. Hence all the organic powers operated in a different manner: the head was not fo high, fo broad, or so long, as that of man: the inferior fenfes predominated with the lower part of the vifage, which was the vifage of a beaft, as its back-fhoved brain muft ever continue the brain of a brute. Thus, though it has all the parts of the human brain, it has them in a different fituation, in a different proportion. The Parifian anatomifts found in the apes they diffected the foreparts fimilar to thofe of man; but the internal, from the cerebellum, proportionally deeper. The pineal gland was conical, with its point turned to ́ward the hind-head, &c, Thus there is a manifest relation between the angle of direction of the head, and the mode of walking, figure, and way of life of the animal. The ape diffected by Blumenbach had ftill more of the brute; being probably of an inferior fpecies, whence arofe its larger cerebellum, and the defectiveness of the more important regions. Thefe differences do not exist in the ourangoutang, the head of which is lefs bent backward, and the brain not fo much prefled toward the hind part, though fufficiently fo when compared with the high, round, and bold curve of the human brain, the only beautiful apartment for the formation of rational ideas. Why has not the horse the rete mirabile as well as other brutes? Because its head stands erect, and the carotic artery rises in fome meafure like that of a man, without having occafion for this :contrivance to impede the courfe of the blood, as in brutes that have depending heads. Accordingly it is a nobler, fiery, courageous animal, of much warmth, and fleeping little. On the contrary, in creatures with heads hanging down, nature had many precautions to take, in the construction of the brain, even feparating the principal parts by a bony partition. Thus every thing depends on the direction in which the head was formed, to adapt it to the organifation of the whole frame. I fhall not proceed to any other examples, hoping, that inquifitive anatomifts will turn their atten

tion, particularly in diffecting animals that resemble man, to this intimate relation of the parts to their fituation with respect to each other, and to the direction of the head as it forms a part of the whole. Here, I believe, lies the difference, that produces this or that inftinct, that elaborates a brutal or a human mind: for every creature is in all its parts one living co-operating whole.' P. 79.

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In the fifth book the author afçends ftill higher in the fcale, and traces the progreffive compofitions of powers and forms, each affuming a more noble nature, and acting a more important part, till the visible feries end in man, the connecting link of two worlds.' The organifation of particular races is next examined and explained; and, in this part, we meet with many curious, many interefting, remarks. The whole of this book will afford the reader particular pleasure, though we with that the tranflator had rendered the picture more complete, by adding, in notes, what has been difcovered by the numerous travellers of this country within the last fifteen years; a fupplement which will be highly proper in another edition. We may here remark, that M. Herder confiders the Chinese as the defcendants of the Mongols, a Tartarian race, called in this work Mungals;' that the form and colour of negroes are derived from the heat of their climate, from their fenfuality and their active fpirit. Many authorities are adduced to fhow, as we have always contended, that a negro race once inhabited the Afiatic islands of the Indian Ocean: in fhort, without exprefsly faying fo, M. Herder feems to confider the negro as the original man, and, fo far as organifation is concerned, the more perfect being. The Americans he fuppofes to be derived from the north-west of Afia.

Man, however, notwithftanding his varieties, is, in his opinion, of one fpecies only, naturalifed in every climate, and modified by it. The generic power, the conftitution, the indoles, form the chief variations, climate only operating as an auxiliary. Thefe alfo vary the appetites and influence the fancy, though in the laft tradition adds fome fhare. The fhepherd, the fisherman, and the huntfman, have in each country their diftinguishing characteristics, for the practical understanding is influenced both by tradition and cuftom. The feelings and inclinations are influenced in a great degree, according to our author, by organifation; and this fubject leads him to an elegant difquifition on the difference of manners in different climates, and in different fexes, as influenced not only by organifation but by cuftom.

Whatever man has, however, attained, the accumulated riches of ages are only handed down by tradition and language. Religion refts chiefly on the former, but certainly is connected with both. This more obvious part of the fubject

is dilated fomewhat too much, and fills the ninth book; but, if this part is unufually meagre, the tenth book is highly valuable and original. It contains the fubftance of the various traditions of the origin of man, and traces the original feat of the human race, with a bold and original pencil. M. Herder agrecs, with every enlightened inquirer, that the first created pair was placed in thofe high mountains of Afia, not covered with the chaotic fea, or foon emerging from it. There are the four rivers, mentioned in the Mofaic hiftory, on which our author wholly relies; and many others might be added, for fcarcely a great river falls into the Indian Ocean, or the North Sea, but what derives its fource from the Tartarian mountains. The Pifon is, he thinks, the Ganges, Gihon the Oxus, and the Hiddekel perhaps the Indus. The fourth river cannot be the Euphrates, as its fource is diftant, but the Phraath is an appellative from its fituation, and in reality means 'the most celebrated eastern river,' a term applied with ftrict propriety to the Euphrates by a more western race. M. Herder has left the real appellation in modern times undetermined, but we can have little hesitation, at present, in confidering it as the Irrawaddy, the river of Ava, which rifes, we know, from the fame mountains, and is most strictly a celebrated eaftern river. It is certainly the most eastern stream which thefe mountains fend forth. But our author in general adheres to the fpirit, not the letter, of the facred writings, and he confiders the Cainites and Sethites as appellatives of hepherds and cultivators, as Cabeils and Bedouins, for Cain, in the Arabic, is ftyled Cabil. This may give offence to the rigid believers of verbal infpiration, but rational piety cannot object, and we will defy the most exact fcrutiny to draw an atom of infidelity from the prefent work. With this precaution we may venture to tranfcribe a paffage before us.

It is the fame with regard to Noah's flood, as it is called. For, certain as it appears from natural hiftory, that the habitable earth has been ravaged by an inundation, and Afia particularly bears inconteftible marks of fuch a deluge; yet what is delivered to us in this narration is nothing more or less than a national ftory. The compiler has collected together feveral traditions with great care, and delivers the journal of this tremendous revolution poffeffed by his tribe at the fame time the style of the narrative is fo completely adapted to the mode of thinking of this tribe, that it would be highly injurious to it, to extend it beyond thofe limits, which alone ftamp on it credibility. As one family of this people, with a confiderable houthold, efcaped, fo other families of other nations may have been faved, as their traditions fhow. Thus in Chaldea Xifuthrus cfcaped with his family, and a number of cattle, which were then neceffary to the fupport of men's lives, in a fimilar man

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