with fome probability, that the chief ufe is to avoid the inconvenience arising from the rapid flight, by furnishing air when the action of the lungs is incommoded by the refiftance of the medium. Refpiration feems to be, in a certain degree, neceflary alfo to fome fifhes. Others have the power of extracting air from the element which they inhabit; either by decompofing the water, or by feparating the gas which it contains. The organs of refpiration in infects are generally ftigmata, or fmall holes, ranged along the fides in regular and beautifully dotted lines. If these be covered with any unctuous fubftance, the animal foon perishes. Some infects are furnished with trachea, which protrude from different parts of the body, and sometimes have the appearance of tails, There is a fpecies of aquatic worms, of a greenifh brown colour, the bodies of which confift of eleven rings, the laft being open, and ferving as a conductor of air. From this proceed a number of hairs, which are real feathers in miniature, and exclude water or mud, that might obftruct respiration. Though air be, upon the whole, neceffary to the fupport of animals, yet they can continue for a great length of time in a state of inaction, and without appearing. to breathe. The facts with regard to the toad are very extraordinary. Three toads were lately buried in a box of earth, and, three months after, two of them were found still alive:

At the approach of winter, the toad retires to the hollow root of a tree, to the cleft of a rock, and fometimes to the bottom of a ditch or pond, where it remains for months in a state of feeming infenfibility, In this laft fituation it can have very little communication with the air. But ftill the principle of life is continued, and the animal revives in the fpring. What is more wonderful, toads have been found, in an hundred places of the globe, inclofed in the heart of folid rocks, and in the bodies of trees, where they have been fup posed to exift for centuries, without any apparent access either to nourishment or to air; and yet they were alive and vigorous. In the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for the year 1719 we have an account of a toad found alive and healthy in the heart of an old elm. Another, in the year 1731, was discovered near Nantz, in the heart of an old oak, without any visible entrance to its habitation. From the fize of the tree it was concluded that the animal muft have been confined in that fituation at least eighty or an hundred years. In many examples of toads found in folid rocks exact impreffions of the animals bodies, correfponding to their respective fizes, were uniformly left in the ftones or trees from which they were dislodged; and to this day it is faid that there is a marble chimney-piece at Chatfworth with a print of a toad in it, and a traditionary account of the place and manner in which it was discovered.'

Chap. IV. relates to motion. Motion, though the most familiar to our fenfes, is obfcure and difficult, when confidered in the abstract. Mr. Smellie very properly waves the metaphyfical difcuffion of the fubject. Motion may be divided into two kinds : that in which it originates in the body moved, and that in which it is derived from external action. The former includes the motions of animals, the latter those of inanimate matter. The energy which we exert has its fource in the brain and its ramifications, compofing the nervous fyftem; and we are stimulated into action by the fenfations made by the impreffions of the objects around. But there are other motions, which are termed vital or involuntary, fuch as the action of the heart, the periftaltic motion of the bowels, &c. ; in all which we are not confcious of the operation of our will. The motions of animals vary with their weight, their structure, their difpofitions, and their mode of life. Timid animals betray a reftleffness, and a continual flutter of action. Mr. Smellie felects feveral curious inftances of animals which we would suppose from their structure remain conftantly at reft, but which really perform a flow and painful motion. The mufcle tranfports itself by means of its tongue. It forms numberlefs viscous threads, with which it can at pleasure attach itself to the rocks, and refift the agitation of its element. The razor-fish defcends in the fand, by the projection and incurvation of its leg. The oyster retreats by fuddenly and forcibly ejecting water. The motion of a species of Medufa, or fea-nettle, is as flow as the hour-hand of a clock:

The fea-urchin, or fea-hedgehog, is round, oval, or shaped like a bias bowl. The furface of the thell is divided into beautiful triangular apartments, and covered with numberlefs prickles. These triangles are separated by regular belts, and perforated by a great number of holes. Each hole gives lodgment to a fleshy horn, fimilar to thofe of the fnail, and fufceptible of the fame movements. Like the fnail, the fea urchin ufes its horns when in motion; but their principal ufe is to fix the animal to rocks, ftones, or the bottom of the ocean. By means of the horns and prickles, which proceed from almost every point of the fhell, the fea-urchin is enabled to walk either on its back or on its belly. The limbs it most generally employs are those which furround the mouth. But, when it chooses, it can move forward by turning on itself, like the wheel of a coach.'

[ To be continued. ]

ART.

ART. II. On the Principle of Vitality in Man, as defcribed in the Holy Scriptures, and the Difference between true and apparent Death; a Sermon preached in the Parish Church of St. Andrew, Holborn, on Sunday, March 22, 1789, for the Benefit of the Humane Society. By Samuel, Lord Bishop of St. David's. 4to. Is. Rivingtons. London, 1789.

IT

T is impoffible to contemplate without pleasure this great champion of the church against the inroads of Socinianifm engaged in the benevolent office of preaching on the above occafion. But neither the obligations we owe to his induftry and learning, nor the high station he so defervedly fills, fhould prevent our discharging those duties the public has a right to expect If therefore it fhould appear to us that this able and eloquent divine reasons better in polemics than on subjects of phyfiology, we fhall not fcruple to hazard our credit in fo bold a conteft.

of us.

After admitting that, on fubjects of philofophy not connected with religion, it is poffible that an infpired writer may have entertained erroneous opinions, or have accommodated himself to popular language, his lordship endeavours to fhew that the compound nature of man, and the immateriality of the foul, are among thofe fubjects of pofitive revelation which a Chriftian cannot but believe. This is a point we shall not take upon us to difpute; though we cannot help doubting whether any of the terms by which the foul is described in holy writ neceffarily imply its immateriality, how much foever they may teach us that its existence is unconnected with the body. But the inquiry we would wish to make is, whether from fcripture or from reason we learn any just conceptions of the principle of vitality; or, if we do, whether they will enable us to distinguish between true and apparent death.

The following is his lordship's account of the compound nature of man :

• But now let the divine be careful what conclufion he draw from this plain doctrine, and what notions he engraft upon it. Although we must believe, if we believe our Bible, that the union of foul and body is the first principle of animation in the human fubject, it is by no means a neceffary confequence that the life of man is in no degree, and in no part, mechanical. Since man is declared to be a compound, the natural prefumption feems to be, that the life of this compounded being is itself a compound. And this experience and obfervation prove to be indeed the cafe. Man's life is com pounded of the life of the intellect and the animal life. The life of the intellect is fimply intelligence, or the energy of the intelligent principle. The animal life is itself a compound, consisting of the

vegetable

vegetable life combined with the principle of perception. Human life therefore is an aggregate of at least three ingredients; intelligence, perception, and vegetation. The loweft and the last of thefe, the vegetable life, is wholly in the body, and is mere mechanism; not a mechanism which any human ingenuity may imitate, or even to any good degree explore; but the exquifite mechanifm of a Divine Artificer. Still it is mechanifm; confifting in a fymmetry and fympathy of parts, and a correfpondence of motions conducive, by mechanical laws established by the Creator's wisdom, to the growth, nourishment, and confervation of the whole. The wheels of this wonderful machine are fet a-going, as the fcriptures teach us, by the presence of the immaterial foul; which is therefore not only the feat of intelligence, but the fource and centre of the man's entire animation. But it is in this circumftance only, namely, that the immaterial mover is itself attached to the machine, that the vegetable life of the body, confidered as a diftinét thing, as in itself it is, from the two principles of intelligence and perception, differs in kind (for in refpect of excellence and nicety of workmanship all comparison were impious; but in kind the vegetable life of the human body differs in this circumftance only) from mere clockwork.'

Nothing can be more painful to us than not clearly to comprehend the arguments of a learned and ingenious writer. When we read that the life of the intellect is fimply intelligence, and that the animal life is a compound of the vegetable life combined with the principle of perception,' we are led to fuppose that these last two are fufficient for the fupport of life divefted of intelligence; and by the term mechanifm, which is afterwards made ufe of, we are inclined to believe that this is his lordship's meaning. But it is afterwards added, The wheels of this wonderful machine are fet a-going, as the fcriptures teach us, by the prefence of the immaterial foul.' If by this be meant that the body, being once fet in motion by the foul, continues that motion without the aid of the latter, we can admit the propriety of the term used. But if the presence of the foul be always neceffary for the continuance of that motion, then either the body is not a machine, or the foul is a part of it. If it were neceffary to illuftrate this, we need only use his lordship's language, and obferve that a clock, when fet agoing by a man, continues, without his aid, its action afterwards for a time, according to the laws on which it is conftructed, unless any of its parts are deranged. We are ready to admit the inference, that this mechanifm is defcribed as fuch as no human ingenuity can imitate, but we mean to urge that it does not at all illuftrate it- Still it is mechanifm; confifting in a symmetry and sympathy of parts, and a correfpondence of 'motions conducive, by mechanical laws established by the • Creator's wisdom, to the growth, nourishment, and conferNation,

vation, of the whole.' If this means that the arrangement of the different parts are beft calculated for the above purposes, no man in his fenfes will doubt it. If it means, as we fufpect, that without the affiftance of the foul, all these purposes are brought about in other animals, and in vegetables; then either the foul is not neceffary to set in motion the wheels of this machine, or animals and plants have a foul as well as man.

Setting afide then the word machine, which, from its etymology and common acceptation, is ill applied to what no art can imitate, and what is no way the fubject of mechanical principles, let us fubftitute the word organ, which, being a primitive word, is lefs liable to mifconception. Let us then afk, whether any of the actions of this organ for the purpose of preferving and fupporting itself, are fo different from the organisation of other animals as to require a different mover; or if, as we are ready to admit because scripture language implies it, the intelligent or immortal principle is different in man from those organised materials; whether it neceffarily follows that this principle fhould be immaterial, when, by the above conceffion, we fee how far common matter is fufceptible of organisation. And, laftly, we leave it to his lordship's candour to determine whether the expreffions he has felected from scripture, as descriptive of the foul, neceffarily imply immateriality, how plainly foever they may describe an existence diftinct from the body.

Having made thus free with the production of this learned prelate, it is but juft, though hardly neceffary, to observe that the reft of the fermon is admirably fuited to the occafion, and replete with sound reasoning and judicious obfervations.

ART. III. The First Principles of Chemistry. By William Nicholfon. 8vo. 8s. London, 1789.

PERSPICUITY is the fole merit of an elementary treatise; and the great object is to preserve a clear, connected arrangement. The facts ought to arife naturally out of each other, and the mind ought to pass smoothly along a chain of continued fucceffion. The phenomena muft be gradually developed; fimple and independent subjects must be first surveyed; and the effects of their various combinations will afterwards be perceived with facility. No branch of physics is perhaps more difficult to reduce to fyftem than the science of chemistry; for the facts exift feldom independent, but are involved with colla teral circumftances. The prefent is the critical era of the science. Its form has long been expofed to fluctuation and change; and laboured hypothefes have often perished in the

inftant