Star.
London, England, 1818-02-20 00:00:00

4iTERATURE.

Few who have attended to 'the progress of Litera-
ture can question the services that have been ren-
dered to Science by the numerous Encyclopedias
that have beep from time to time presented to the
public ; nor can any reason so satisfactory be advan-
ced for the general success that has attended these
publications as the facilities they afford to the com-
munity in general for acquiring information on any
particular subject which would otherwise be beyond
reach, from the sacrifice of time which would other-
wile be required to search libraries and general col-
lections—a sacrifice which many cannot afford from
other avocations, even in pursuit of knowledge.—
These different publications have each their respec-
tive merits ; but all have been rendered, more or less
inconvenient by the branches of the same subject
often requiring illustration by reference ; and hence
it became obvious that any plan calculated to render
this less necessary would not only save trouble, but
facilitate the acquisition of knowledge.—These, and
similar considerations, seem to have suggested the
idea of a new work of this kind, embracing more of
re.-Viod, in the strict sense of that teirr., than has yet
been apparent in Cydopeeditts.
Some time ago we noticed a Prospectus that was
then issued of a work to be entitled Encyclopedia
Mdropolitana, and laid a sketch of the plan, intended
to be pursued, before our Readers. We have real
pleasure in announcing that the First part of this la-
borious, and we may add, judging from what is be-
fore us, most promising undertaking, has just made
its appearance. Three great natural divisions have
been adopted for the purpose of rescuing the' great
body of Philosophy and History from the confusion of
miscellaneous and incidental information—viz. the
nalneephical, the Historical, and the Miscellaneous ;
and, for a reason which shall immediately be noticed,
the first of these has been sub-divided into the domain
of pure and that of mixed science—making, in all,
four divisions. Of each of thesethe Editors propose
to publish a portion in every Part, to make, in all,
2; volumes, the last of which is to be au Index to
t wilole work.
W have said thus much of the general arrange+
went of the work. because it is entirely new, and all
far as we can kedge, very admirably conceived; but
another and still more important consideration next
presents itself—what are the principles on which it
rests ? Are they such as may be expected to contri-
bute to the pease and good order of society, to the
preservation of our best interests, to the amelioration
of our lot, to the essential happiness of mankind here
and ht-eafter? It is but right to let the Authors
ansu er in their own words. " The master thought,
(say ,hey) on which our plan rests, is the moral ora
gin end tendency of all true science : in other words,
our great objects are to exhibit the Arts and Sciences
in their philosophical harmony ; to teach Pinto-
iotlie in union with MORALS ; and to sustain Mo-
rality by RSVEALED Rattcrioe." Elsewhese they
very justly say—" A slight glance at the particular
departmeat of literature which we have chosen, es-
pecially as it has been filled on the Continent,. from
the memorable combination of deistical talent in tho
Dictionnaire Encydopedique, to a work on the same'
principles said to be now publishing in France, will
demonstrate that the best interests of mankind have
suffered serious injury from this cause ; that the
fountains of education may be poisoned, while the
stream appears to flow on with increasing power and
smoothness ; and that the insinuation of sceptical
principles into works of science is fraught with the
greatest danger to posterity."
Diderot and D'Alembert, the authors of the pre-
liminary discourse to the French Encyclopedia, pro-
fessed to follow Bacon ; but it it menifest that they
were either unable to comprehend his philosophical
principles, or that they wilfully perverted them to
serve their own impious and detestable pdtpoees.—
Their blunder in the very first step of theta reason-
ing is so gross, that one eannot suppose it to be other
than intentional.
" All our knowledge," say they, "may be dis-
tingu:shed into direct and reflected. All our direct
knowledge reduces itself to what we receivethrdegh
the senses:in= whence it follows, that it is to our
sensations that we owe all our ideas." Sueh logic
as this is only fit for the support of such wicked de-
signs is these impostors meditated. The conse-
quence has no more to do with the premises than it
has with the age of Methusaleh, or the invention of
gunpowder. The writers of the Encyclopedia Me-
trbpolitana, on the other hand, profess to unite an-
c.ent with modern phllosophy, to discover in Plato
and bacon, one and the tame truth, which is immu-
table, and which necessarily leads up to the spirit of
truth itself, displayed in the glorious revelation of
the Christian R,eligien.
" We rest our strongest pretensions to approba-
tion," say they in the Preliminary Treatise, " on
the fact that we have only re-proclaimed the coin-
ciding precepts of the Athenian Verulam and the
British. Plato." 'And again, " from all that has been
said, it seems clear, that the dnly difference between
Plato and Bacon was, that, to speak in popular lan-
guage, the one more especially cultivated Natural
Philosophy, the other Metaphysics. Plato treated
princlpaily of truth, as manifested in the world of
Intellect ; Bacon, of the same truth, as manifested in
the world of Sense ; but far from disagreeing as to
the mode of attaining that truth, far from differing
'in the great views of tile education of the mind, they
both proceeded on the same principles of unity and
progression, and consequently they both cultivated
alike the Science of Method, such as we have here
described it."
It is to the developement of what is here called
the Science of Method that the portion belonging to
the Pure Sciences is devoted in the Book before us.
It forms, indeed, a necessary introduction to the
whole, inasmuch as it not only lays before the
Reader a general analysis of knowledge, or arbre
ener9pedique, differing from those of all former
5, but states the methodical principles on which
the union of the sciences depends. This is, in truth,
doing what the term Encyclopedia implies ought
always to be done, namely, forming a circle of
sciences, all radiating as it were from one common
centre—whereas in other works of the like kind we
have seen, at the most, but segments of very different
magnitude, and 111-assorted position.
We are not prepared, indeed, to defend the actual
space assigned to each particialar science in the pro-

posed plan. It may be, that in the prog'rees of the
Work the writers will find it advisable to melte some
corrections in that respect, but what we think of the
highest importance is, the laying down those con-
necting principles, on which method essentially de-
pends, and the applying them in tbe.gyeat outline,
to a general concatenation of arts and sciences. Hence
we consider that as method is avowed to be the
chief aim and distinguishing feature of thin publica-
tion, so the principtei of method exhibited in the
'Preliminary Treatise are what must furnish the true
criterion of superiority, at least in the philosophical
branch of the work. The word method, like most
others, is used in common discourse, with greater or
less precision. We are apt to apply it to any sort of
arrangement, or settled habit, however casual in its
origin or trivial in its aim.
The worthy citizen, who duly smokes a certain
number of pipes every week in the year, and extends
his Sundays walk always to the same mile-stone,
'called a methodical man ; but the word method,
when employed wick reference to our scientific pur-
suits, has a far different meaning, and it is well and
skilfully explained in the essay before us, of which
it is impossible here to give any other than a faint
outline. Method, it is argued, implies in this sense
a principle of unity with progeetsion. It is chiefly
conversant about the relations of things, which rela-
tions are either necessary, or inferred front observa-
tion. On the one depends whatever isproperly called
a law ; the ether constitutes a theory. The relation
of law ;lees to our thoughts a necessary ferns, which
the ancients called an ides. • Lifts are in their sato*
progressive. They are either pure acts of the mind,
in which case their progressions constitute the pure
sciences, or they ire mixed with and applied to
things external, in which case they constitute the
mixed and applied sciences. A good method, there-
fotee in all vases, depends on a Blear preconception,
or guiding thought or intuitive act of the mind, and
cannot result from the more casual observation of na
tun.—Theswriter illustrates this position in a great
variety of witys, as it bears on domestic econorr v, o:i
the art of conversation, oa moral conduct, on ecien-
tifie discoveries, on Mathematics, on Experimental
Philosophy, on Natural History, on Poetry, and on
Philosophy in general, which last consideration leads
to a masterly argument on the identity of the Plato-
nic and Baconian Philosophy. remainder of the
Preliminary Treatise is taken up with an application
of the principles of method to the proposed arrange-
ment of science in the present work, and exhibits, at
the conclusion, a general plan of the work.
The second division begins, in pursuance of that
plan, with a treatise on Mocha:tics, that science stets.
ding at the head of the class called the mixed, and
applied. We have not room to enter into its detail :
it appears, however, to be well and carefully written.
It is introduced by a short historical sketch of the
rise and progress of Mechanics, as relating to solid
bodies. Then follows a general view of Statics, their
definitions and theorems, leading to a consideration,
first, of the simple mechanical powers, the lever, in-
dined plane, funicular machine, wheel rind axle, pul-
ley, screw, and wedge, and afterwards of their com-
binations ; and in this part is introduced an account
of the very recent experiments of Celt :el Pasley, at
Chatham, on the pressure of earth, with the new and
unexpected results to which they led. Dynamitic/ are
next treated of, their definitions, theorems, and pro-
blems, etc. elle the remaining portior. of this science
will be continued in a future number.

The Historical Division is introduced by a Chap-
ter, in two parts, viz.-1. On the uses of history as a
study; and 2. On the separation of the early facts of
history from fable. This latter part is perhaps the
more material. It traces the corruptions of early
history principally to mythological fable, beginning
with the history of. Egypt, of which the earliest ac-
count is to be found in the Ifible. This account is
then compared with that of the profane historians,
and shewn to be not only score rational than any
which they afford, but to supply the only means of
discerning any thing like truth in the thick obscu-
rity of their fable* Reasons are urged to prove that
the Egyptian Mythology travelled to India some
time after the year B. C. 1635; and that a modifica-
tion of the same-system was carried from India to
the Northwestern extremity of Europe previously to
the yoar B. C. 542, the pretended antiquity of the
Chinese annals, so much boasted of by Voltaire and
his shallow admirers ; and it is *hewn that this na•
tion, as yet half baritarous, was probably not united
under a regular government more than six or eight
hundred years betore the Christian era. The writer
then reviews the early history of the Scythian and
Celtic nations, the Assyrians and Babylonians, the
Medes and Persians, lisc. and chews that every ac-
count or tradition of their early state not to be found
in the Sacrel Scriptures, is merely a rhapsody of fad
ble and superstition.
Profane history, it will have been Observed, is trea-
ted as subordinate to Sacred History, which forms
the subject of a separate Essay, which assumes as its
basis the necessity of revelation, and then proves that
no pretensions to it have been tenable, but those ad-
vanced by the Bible.
These introductory Essays are followed by a chap-
ter on the Antediluvian Period—another on the Pa-
triarchal Age, and the lives of Moses, Joshua, Sesos-
tris, and Theseus.

We regret that our limits do not permit us to speak
more at large on the Fourth Division, which is far-
med on a plan perfectly original, combining all the
uses of an English Lexicon with those of a miscella-
neotis Dictionary of Science. In the fortther charac-
ter it will present a much more complete history of
our languag thaw has yet been atternited, if we are
to judge of the execution of the whole by the portion
now grien to the Public.
" By commencing with authorit:eQ wherever they
can be cif:teat:4, from the bari:eet periods> of Zaglish
composition, and continuing them successively through
the different stages by which it has arrived. at its
sent state of copiousness and refinement., this Dictioa-
nary," say its writers, " will aspire to the prelusion'
of exhibiting to the English reader a sketch at least
of some very interesting and instructive porticos of a
history of his own language."
IWe cannot :lose this article without noticing the,
plates by Davis, Landeser, icc. which are nevi y and
, even elegantly executed.

Fritc.—Wedgeoday oeserdelt, the male of In q4keres
cooty, !mow, were Tomtit, of corn, tbegy do.
strayed : one Mod Ino UntimiatiCy rsdo:sted.