of his flock returning Ganganelli's bows, which he dealt freely about him, faid: "Jeft not with that ugly man, he will one day be your mafter." The merit of Ganganelli, in this cafe was totally out of the question, as he was an infignificant Friar even in his own convent. But an extraordinary gift of nature, a fomething that is not to be defined, never failed to make favourable impreffions on those who obferved him. It feemed as if Providence, unwil ling to deviate from the ufual courfe of natural agency in his favour, bestowed on him the ready means to raife him to the highest fortune. His afcendency and his affability fecured to him a numerous party in the cloifter, efpecially among the younger friars, enabled him to command a majority of votes in the election of superiors, and fecured him from many inconveniencies, which muft otherwife have enfued from the irregularity of his conduct, and his total disregard for monaftic difcipline. Again, this afcendency, joined to his profound diffimulation, difcouraged his brethren from entrufting him with any degree of authority among them, apprehenfive that he would abuse it, and poffibly might never chufe to quit it. But conventual honours were never the objects of his ambition. Perfectly fatisfied with the liberty of acting according to his own fancy, he never envied those who were appointed to command. He did not chufe to become accountable for his conduct to a numerous community; and from the time, that the holy religious man of Affifi foretold his future elevation, his mind and heart were entirely fixed upon it.

As to his perfon, Ganganelli was of a strong clumsy make, and his features were hard and forbidding. It remains only to fay fomething of his manners, his connections, and his political principles. By affuming the habit of a Cordelier, Ganganelli did not get rid of the scoundrel habits of a low education. The bold confidence, and martial fiercenefs, remarkable among most of those friars in Italy, were ill calculated to foften, to polifh, to refine the clownish indelicacy and low vulgarity which debased his character. He was not to learn in this fchool the little punctilios of honour, or the niceties of good-breeding, but he foon learnt to excel in an illiberal coarsenefs of behaviour. Nothing could be more vulgar or indecent than the language he always had in his mouth. The confidence of his friends, or the flighteft provocation drew from him. vollies of indelicate language. Nor were his amufements more elegant.'.

Our author gives various hints and innuendos concerning Ganganelli, from which he feems defirous, that we should infer that he did not diflike the fair fex, and that he frequented fome public houfes, (but all this before he was raifed to the papal chair, or even to the purple) and that he had but little, if any affection for his own order. On the whole from the inclination our author betrays to fpeak evil of Ganganelli, and from the penury he difcovers of fuel to feed this flame, we may reafonably conclude, even from these letters, that Pope Clement XIV. was a very amiable and refpectable character. The vengeance of bigotry is

the

the best tribute of praife that could be paid to the liberality of his mind.

The letter writer having made various obfervations on Ganganelli's private life, follows him in his political career, from the cloifter to the conclave, and from the conclave to the throne. He makes a panegyric on the inftitutions of the order of the Jefuits, and celebrates the fortitude and the piety of Pope Clement XIII. who, notwithstanding the menaces of fo many catholic powers, refused to abolish that order, and even by a new Bull confirmed it.

This work is written in an eafy and familiar manner, without any mixture of levity or negligence. But, excepting fome anecdotes of Ganganelli, there is nothing in the performance that was not before fufficiently known to the literary and the political world.

ART. IX. Efays on the Intellectual Powers of Man. By Thomas Reid, D. D. F. R. S. Profeffor of moral Philofophy in the Univerfity of Glasgow. 4to. l. 5s. boards, Bell, Edinburgh. Robinfons, London, 1785.

IT is

Tis not a lefs juft, than a fine obfervation of Cicero, that were a man fecluded from human fociety, confined to folitude, and furnished with all the neceffaries of life, he would wholly employ his time in a fearch after truth. Among the different divifions of human nature which we find in the writings of philofophers, there is none more juft, accurate, or comprehenfive, than that into appetites, animal, focial, and intellectual. The wants of the animal fyftem, on the fatisfaction of which life depends, are the most importunate. Thefe being gratified, a love of fociety manifests itself in the moft favage tribes. But even fociety palls upon the tafte, and would foon become infipid, if to the pleasure of interchanging fentiments and affections, that of gratifying curiofity were not added. Curiofity, then, is an eminent principle in human nature. To difcover connections, to trace analogies, to refer particular objects to general claffes or or ders, and to invent principles or laws, by which we may be enabled to command particulars, is a very great part of human employment. Rude as well as refined nations, indulge this propenfity in fome degree; the peafant as well as the philofopher. Here human nature appears in its greatest grandeur. Here all is calm and ferene: and the mind elevated above the humiliation of animal appetite, and the turbulency of inordinate paffion, endeavours ftep by step, to

grafp

grafp and comprehend the universe.* From the external world, it turns its reflecting power inward upon itself, and aftonished at its own powers, labours in vain, to analyse itself, and to find out the true measure of truth,† the nature of belief, the juft ftandard of knowledge.

On the one hand, if we confider the mind as a mirror which reflects the images of things, and attempt to trace every idea and notion to fome original fenfation and impreffion; we are conscious of ideas and notions, which by all our efforts we cannot difmifs, which adhere, and mingle with the very form and effence of our nature, and are indeed the foundation of reafoning itself, but which cannot be referred to any external archetype, without plunging us for a time into the Lethe of Scepticifm. On the other hand, if we fuppofe, that the communication between mind and matter, is carried on in a manner nowife analagous to the laws which govern the material world. If we fay, that the mind, directly, and without the intervention of ideas, and the mechanifm of habit, perceives objects as they really are in themselves, their permanent existence which fuppofes a connection between the paft and the future, and space, and duration infinitely extended beyond the eager purfuit of toiling fancy, we cut short all inquiry into our ideas of things, and our belief concerning them on the principles of reafoning: we confider the mind, as a being folitary, and of a nature which rejects all affinity and connection with other beings; as a magician whofe ways are paft finding out, and to whom there is nothing, as the poet faid of Jupiter, fimilar in kind, or fecond in degree. The medium through which the influence of bodies on the mind, or the active energy of mind on bodies is exerted, may be examined, and the laws of communication between the object and the brain afcertained: but here, if impreffions and ideas are rejected as fabulous, we quit the paths with which we are acquainted, and wander in regions wholly unknown regions which present to the eye of curiofity, a waste almoft as gloomy, and certainly more lafting, than that temporary fufpenfion of belief which is the effect of fcepticifm. For what in reality is the refult of that philofophy which pushes the doctrine of the existence of ideas into fceptical confequences, and what the refult of that philofophy which pretends to think, and reafon about bodies, and their qualities, without having ideas of them? The result of both

* Sed animus æternus incorruptus agit atque habet cuncta, neque ipfe habetur. Salluft:

The To My 7s As concerning which we find fo much fubtile difquifition in the writings of Plato. ENG. REV. SEPT. 1785.

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plainly

plainly is, that we yield obedience to the feelings of nature without knowing how. The queftion is not concerning the truth or reality of our fenfations, whofe force is allowed by all men, and acknowledged by the greatest fceptic to be irrefiftible, but concerning the caufes of thofe fenfations, and the connexion of our ideas with one another. They who affirm that all information is received in a manner analagous to the reprefentations given by means of images or pictures, endeavour in this manner, to explain the manner in which body operates on the fpirit. The action of the material world on the nerves and brain, or perhaps, fome other, and fome very fpirituous matter, the vehicle or feat of the foul, is fuppofed to re-act upon the material world, to re-echo, to reverberate, to reflect the various impreffions of things. We here make ufe of the various metaphorical terms, to re-act, to re-echo, to reverberate, to reflect, in order to obviate the witticifis of those who take notice, that no image or idea was ever difcovered in the brain, and that extended and divifible fubftances cannot be painted or engraved upon a fubftance, if not abfolutely unextended and indivifible, yet of fuch exceeding fubtility and narrow dimenfions, as cannot poffibly afford either room or retention, to that infinite variety of thought and information with which the mind is furnished. It does not appear neceffary to what fome writers ironically call the Ideal Syftem, to affirm, that any picture is either painted, or engraved on any part of the human frame: but only, that the intimate nature and effence, the form and the neceffity, if we may fay fo, of the existence of things, and of their mutual relations and connections, are involved in an obfcurity, which human fagacity cannot penetrate: that all we are fenfible of, or know, is, the impreffions or effects of things on our minds; that is, our own feelings, fenfations, and ideas. That thefet must have a caufe the fceptic allows when he fearches for it in reafon, though he fearches in vain. That he most feriously believes in a neceffary connection between the paft and the future, the whole tenour of his life demonftrates : but, of this belief, he cannot give any other account than that he is carried along by the irrefiftible, the inexplicable force of his nature. He is unable to refer it to any known fpecies, or clafs of beings or of qualities; he cannot refer it to any eftablifhed rule or known phyfical law, nor to any metaphyfical or geometrical axiom.

*

*The term phyfical is here taken in its moft enlarged, and its juft fenfe, in which it comprehends mind as well as body.

The adverfaries of this ideal philofophy, of whom BUFFIER, a French Jefuit, as far as we have been informed, was the firft, and Dr. Reid in our judgment, the ableft, as Dr. Beattie is the moft vague, clamorous, and violent, affirm, that fenfation, memory, and belief are all fimple and original, and therefore inexplicable acts of the mind, which muft, all of them be refolved into the will of our maker. And in order, that thefe acts of the mind, may be dignified with all the authority of reafon, they fometimes fpeak of them as judgments of the mind. It is upon the propriety or impropriety of the ufe they make on fuch occafions, of this term, that the truth or fallacy of their theory turns.

The general principle, the moft prominent feature, the foul and fpirit of their philofophy, is, that in our perception of external objects, the object is conceived to be external, and to have real existence and permanent qualities or powers, independent of our perception; and, confequently, that we have precifely the fame evidence for the permanent existence of things, that we have for the truth and reality of our own perceptions and fenfations. Nay, it would feem that if there be, of if it were poffible that there fhould be any difference between the evidence we have for the reality of our perceptions and the evidence we have for the reality and permanent exiftence of external objects, it is on the fide of the latter, fince the decifions of the judgment are more fstable and respectable, than the fluctuating and varying authority of sense.

We fhall first prove, that this new philofophy makes use of the word judgment in this manner, and fecondly, make fome obfervations on the doctrinal propofition which that ufe implies, and is meant to infinuate.

Senfation and memory are fimple, original, and perfectly dif tinct operations of the mind, and both of them are original principles or belief. Imagination is diftinct from both, but is no principle of belief. Senfation implies the prefent exiftence of its object; memory its paft existence; but imagination views its object naked, and without any belief of its existence or non-existence, and is therefore what the fchools call fimple apprehenfion.

But here again the ideal fyftem comes in our way: it teaches us, that the first operation of the mind about its ideas, is fimple apprehenfion; that is, the bare conception of a thing without any belief about it; and that after we have got fimple apprehenfions, by comparing them together, we perceive agreements or difagreements between them; and that this perception of the agreement or difagreement of ideas, is all that we call belief, judgment, or knowledge. Now, this appears to me to be all fiction, without any foundation

Whofe Traité des premiers Veritez et de la Source des nos jugements, was published in 1724.

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in.