and the lines of separation necessary to be drawn between it and the science of chemistry, transmutation of metals, &c.

The professor of Morality is Bernardin de St. Pierre, the celebrated author of Paul and Virginia, and of the Etudes de la Nature. Called suddenly from the country and his family to give lectures at Paris, he came unprepared for the undertaking; and therefore, in the sitting appointed for the subject of morals, he delivered no lecture, but requested time for collecting and arranging his thoughts. The sagacious professor knew the difficulty and dignity of the science which he was appointed to teach.

The lecture on the Analysis of the Understanding was delivered by M. Garat; who remarks, in order to shew his competency to this task, that, although he had published no treatise, yet he had for twenty years devoted much time and attention to the study of metaphysics. Viewed as a reasoner, however, he appears to us too declamatory: but that he is not deficient in eloquence, his character of Lord Bacon will evince:

The physical sciences, and the science of the human mind, of which the extent is immense, were too narrow to contain the whole of Bacon's genius. In Europe, erudition has generally impeded the birth and the growth of philosophy; and philosophy, not always the progeny of reason, has affected high disdain for erudition.-Bacon, placed equally between the learned and the philosophers, is distinguished among all other writers by this peculiarity; that of being at the same time the person who has laid open most new routes and views to future ages, and who possessed a knowlege of all that was grand and beautiful in the discoveries of preceding times. The most striking events of antiquity, its most brilliant thoughts, its richest phrases, its most forcible expressions, were perpetually present to the memory of Bacon; and such was his genius, that, as he delivered them again from his pen, he invested them with additional embel lishment and grandeur. Among the divinities of antient mythology, we find Janus, who was represented with two heads, of which one was turned towards past ages, and the other towards ages to come: such a divinity may be said to be the image and emblem of Bacon's genius.'

In another passage, the Professor has experienced an acci dent which is not uncommon: he was in search of a striking expression, and stumbled on a conceit. Where Locke (says he) is diffuse, the other (Charles Bonnet) is close: he indeed affects too much to be so; and we fancy sometimes that we hear the rattling made by the links of the compact chain of his ideas.'!! In his programma and first lecture, M. Garat takes no notice of either Berkeley or Hume; writers who, whatever be the absurdities of certain parts of their system, have given to metaphysics an astonishing degree of perspicuity and precision.

M. La

M. La Harpe delivered the lecture on Literature. His observas tions on commentators are good, but expressed perhaps with too contemptuous an air.

The celebrated Berthollet pronounced the lecture on Chemistry; and both his programma and his first lesson are drawn up with admirable perspicuity. Not led astray by the example of many of the other professors, he does not expatiate on the progress of his science, and on the advantage which may be derived from it, but at once enters upon business, and begins to define, to state facts, experiments, &c.

The lectures on the Art of Speech are the productions of M. Sicard; and, in general, they are ably composed. The account of the manner in which the Deaf and Dumb are taught is particularly pleasing and instructive: but we have lately dilated on this subject more than once *.

French writers have always assumed the licence of scattering a few flowers of oratory over the dry and laborious. paths of science: but, since the revolution, this freedom has much increased, and the fondness for declaiming on subjects which are ill-suited to declamation has gained strength. It is surely well and proper to cheer the student in the drudgery of detail by bright prospects, and to enliven the dullness of mere statement by philosophic remark: but this must be executed with moderation; and we should feed the mind with substantial knowlege, before we suffer it to riot in ideal luxury. Some of the professors appear to us to waste time in rhetorical flourishes, and in expatiating on the beauty of philosophy, the mis ry of ignorance, the future progress of science, and the happy destinies prepared for the youth of France-while they should teach principles, facts, and deduction, they are filling the ear with generalities;- -and from the "elevated temples of wisdom +," they indulge too long in bright but dis tant prospects, before they descend into the plain road of demonstration. This, however, cannot be said of all: on the contrary, several of these philosophers maintain, in their extemporaneous lectures, the high reputation which they have so long and so justly enjoyed.

Our preceding account relates chiefly to matter contained in the first volume. In the second and succeeding volumes, Political Economy is made one of the subjects:-its professor is M. Vandermonde, long known to the mathematical world by his. ingenious researches, and since distinguished among modern, republicans by his violent zeal for the cause of liberty, or at least what he thought was the cause of liberty.

* See Rev vol. xxxi. N. S. p. 456. and vol. xxxvii. p. 133. -t"Edita sapientum templa."

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We have already said that the Normal schools were intended rather to demonstrate the art of teaching properly, than to inculcate the particular facts and details belonging to the several branches of science. This object of the institution (as we have also before intimated) seems to have been particularly kept in view by M. Berthollet: who, in his Lectures on Chemistry, takes a comprehensive view of that science, seizes on the most important facts, abstains from all hypothesis, and by precept and example enforces the maxims of a sage yet not a timid philosophy;-a philosophy which may be slow and cautious in its inferences, but is not so in its researches, and which can tower in speculation while its foundations are strong and deeply laida The lectures of this excellent chemist are clear, precise, and without rhetorical declamation.

As in describing so disconnected and multifarious a work as the one before us, it is difficult and perhaps useless to preserve any order, we here observe that, in the Debates, several pertinent questions are put to the Professor, rela tive to the new Chemical Nomenclature. A pupil of the name of Buttet inquired why, according to M. Chaptal's proposal, nitrogen has not been substituted for azote; and he ob served that, if the denomination of nitrogen be not adopted, the names of Azotat and Azotite should be given to the combinations of the acid, of which azote ought to be considered as the radical M. Berthollet, in his answer, stated that azote in great quantities enters into the composition of ammoniac, and that, probably, it forms part of the composition of fixed alkalis: it did not seem commodious, therefore, to give the name of nitrogen, drawn from the radical of the nitrous acid, to a substance which might equally be considered as the radical of the ammoniac, and perhaps of several alkalis. On the other hand, it was not judged proper to change the denomination of nitre, though too common and too extensively employed: Nevertheless, (said the Professor,) it would perhaps be preferable to follow rigorously the principles of the nomenclature, and to adopt the denominations of azotat and azotite.'

A pupil named Latapie observed, concerning the words azote and hydrogen, that they designate a simple effect, whereas the operation of these substances is very extensive and important. Azote (he said) signifies only the air which obstructs life, the substance that hinders respiration: but it acts a more important part. In like manner, hydrogen signifies simply the substance which generates water: but hydrogen, by distinction, is the inflammable air; and therefore the expression hydrogen, gives us a notion neither natural nor instructive: because, ap parently, there is nothing in nature more opposite than water:

and

sight

and the principle of inflammation. The word hydrogen ought, then, to be changed.' - M. Berthollet accorded with this opinion. The Professor being interrogated concerning his assertion that the existence of caloric was not demonstrated, he replied; Heat follows laws which have been submitted to observation, and leave no uncertainty on the mind: but the existence of a material principle of heat, although it seems to be proved, must not be placed in the same tank of truths with that of oxygen, for instance, which may be weighed and contained within a space.'

The mathematical Lectures of M. M. La Grange, La Place, and Monge, although they fully merit an equal rank with those of M. Berthollet on account of arrangement, clearness, and precision, yet deviate more from the purpose for which they were specially designed, and descend into the minutiae of operations and methods. They abound, however, with many just reflections and enlarged views. Yet, great and celebrated as the authors of these Lectures are, we wish not to include in one sweeping clause of commendation all that they have done because some of their reasonings and demonstra tions are not, to use a French phrase, "hors de toute atteinte;" as we could shew, were the opportunity convenient.

In the mathematical conferences between the professors and pupils, not much new truth seems to be elicited. The reply of M. La Place to a question concerning the series 1-1+1&c. is not satisfactory to our minds. The pupils of the Normal schools, who are destined to become teachers in the inteFior, are above the race of pupils in ordinary seminaries, as their questions and observations sufficiently indicate. One of them, named Geruzzez, remarks (after Condillac) that geometricians in their methods have abandoned the true generation of ideas after the definition of a point, they cause the point to move and generate a line; the line to generate surfaces; and the surfaces to generate solids. In the first place, the geometers erred in defining a point; the point being a thing so simple, that it does not need definition; and next they followed not the true genesis of things and ideas. Take a solid, consider its boundary without thinking of its depth, and an idea of surface presents itself: take the surface, think of its length without considering its breadth, and an idea of a line will be formed: reflect, finally, on the extremity of a line without attending to its length, and a point becomes manifest to the imagination.-Professor Monge, in his answer, grants that it would be proper, in the commencement of a treatise on Elementary Geometry, to begin with a solid; and to shew by what successive abstractions of the mind, the notion

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of a surface, a line, and a point, are formed: but this order, he says, is requisite only for the definitions; and when they are once settled, it is not only not contrary to the severest method to -conceive surfaces generated by lines, &c. but it is absolutely necessary. It is our sole mode of considering the families of sur faces, (familles des surfaces,) the knowlege of which, so essential to the arts and so useful to the sciences, has contributed to the perfection of analysis itself, by putting it in a condition to overcome new difficulties. For example, (M. Monge adds, and this is a curious and important observation,) we have seen that cylindrical surfaces have the property of developing, and applying themselves to a plane without rent or fold; a thing impracticable in most other surfaces, and principally in that of the sphere: but these surfaces do not solely possess this property conical surfaces of any base whatever, of which the former cylindrical surfaces are only a particular case, possess it likewise; and conical surfaces themselves are only a particular case of those which have the property of developing themselves on a plane surface. In the arts, the knowlege of these surfaces is important, since they are the only ones that can be constructed with flexible substances, such as card-paper, iron, tin, and copper-plates, &c. without beating these plates by the hammer on a stamp or model; thus locksmiths, tinmen, coppersmiths, goldsmiths, &c. are interested in knowing these surfaces.'

At the time of the sittings of the Normal Schools, freedom of discussion on subjects both philosophical and religious was allowed. It will be supposed, therefore, that the question of miracles could not pass unnoticed by such a professor as Volney, and such pupils as the Revolution must have given to him. One of these élèves states the case imagined by Diderot, of Cicero and Quintus disputing concerning the fact of the stone cut by the razor, as related by Livy; and which is said to have been witnessed by all the people of Rome; but it is improbable: how, then, are we to decide? By this rule of Rousseau, says the pupil; Human testimony is sufficient for deciding on things that are agreeable to the order of nature, but not on those which are contrary to that order." Another pupil then cited Hume's authority and decision on the subject of miracles: but the Professor made some objection to the known statement of the English philosopher, viz. that, in the case of an attested miracle, the mind has to decide between two miracles; and he concluded the conference with two reflections:-first, that every proposition has the alternative either of its being useful to an individual or to society, or of its being purely speculative and useless. If Herschell relates what passes in the moon, APP. REV. VOL. XXXVII. and

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