every thing relative to science that hath hitherto been published, we admire the courage of the man who could undertake a compilement of fuch great importance, and formed on fo extenfive a fcale; but our admiration is increased to aftonishment, when we perceive how greatly our learned Editor hath improved the original plan, and that by fecuring the approbation of the judicious and candid, he has fully maintained the credit and reputation that the Public, for above half a century, had defervedly and li berally allowed to Mr. Chambers's Cyclopædia. Among the many improvements made by Dr. Rees, we confider the hiftorical account which he has given of feveral fciences, as not the leaft important. A concife relation of new difcoveries, and of the Authors who have made them, are circumftances not to be met with every where. By fummary views of what has been already done and difcovered, we lay a foundation for farther improvements; and thus furnish the outlines of a compendious hiftory of science, by fhewing its gradual progrefs and advancement. Such hiftorical remarks,' to use the Doctor's own words, may not improperly be compared to a map, in which the line that terminates the terra incognita is diftinctly marked out for the direction of those, whofe ingenuity and industry are employed in extending the boundaries of knowledge, and in exploring thofe regions that are ftill unknown.' Is it not for a want of an early hiftory of fcience that many very important dif coveries of the ancients are now loft? The inventors of fome of the most useful machines in common and daily ufe among us are wholly unknown, although, on account of their fingular benefit to mankind, they are much more worthy to be had in remembrance, and to receive the grateful tribute of praise, than ambitious monarchs, whose hiftories are tranfmitted to us in characters of human blood, fhed on fertile plains, that now wear only the marks of devastation and ruin ! In order to give our Readers a fpecimen of Dr. Rees's improvement of the hiftory of fcience, we have felected what is here faid concerning the hiftory of Anatomy; which in the last preceding edition is confined to a few lines: With refpect to the antiquity of Anatomy, it seems scarcely poffible but that the flaughter of beafts for the ufe of man, cafualties, murders, and the accidents of war, must have furnished mankind with a general knowledge of the ftructure of the parts, in very early ages of the world. But it is not very certain at what period it began to be cultivated as a fcience. This, however, muit have been very early, especially if we pay any regard to Manetho the famous Egyptian writer, who, according to the report of Eufebius, relates that Athotis, an Egyptian king, wrote fome treatises on Anatomy. This king, if the Egyptian chronology is to be depended on, lived many years before Adam. This, however falfe with refpect to time, amounts to a fort of proof of the antiquity of the Science. It is inferred that Y 2 Solomon Solomon was no stranger to the structure of the human body, from fome paffages in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Ecclefiaftes. It is certain, however, that before, or at least in the days of Homer, anatomy was much cultivated; fince this author appears to have had a competent knowledge of the parts, and to have been very well versed in the enunciation of wounds, as the moderns caйl it, fo as to give an accurate account of their effects in almost all the parts of the body. But Hippocrates is the first author, at least extant, who treated anatomy scientifically. This writer, confcious of his noble and exalted genius, publifhed many anatomical obfervations, which, though disjoined and scattered here and there in his works, yet, when taken together, make up an entire body of Anatomy: but that he made it his principal bufinefs to understand and explain the bones of the human body, is plain from thofe valuable books upon Fractures and the Joints, which evidently difcover his perfect knowledge of, and inti mate acquaintance with, the bones; and that his diligence, his industry, and skill in this way, might the more effectually be tranfmitted to future ages, he confecrated, if we may believe Paufanias, a brazen fkeleton to the Delphian Apollo." The writings of this great man are interfperfed with many things relating to the blood, which feem to fhew fome knowledge of the circulation, and alfo of the fecretion of the various humours. Dr. Douglas has pointed out fuch of them as feem to be the most glaring and unexceptional proofs of this. Galen, by the general confent of writers, is the prince of anatomifts. By his early application, his unwearied affiduity, great fagacity, and penetration of mind, as well as dexterity of hand, he not only carried the art infinitely beyond what had been done by thofe before him, but even to that perfection wherein we find it at this day, abating only fome few difcoveries made by modern anatomifts. In reality, many of the difcoveries with which late writers plume them felves, are due to him. Dr. Douglas enumerates feveral of the difcoveries made by Galen in the ftructure and ufe of the parts of the human body. Anatomy fuffered with the other fciences by the invafions of the Goths and Vandals, and at length funk into total barbarifm; from which it was restored in the 14th century by Mundinus, a Milanese, who compofed the rudiments of that fcience in the year 1315, which, notwithstanding the barbarous ftyle wherein they are written, remain ftill in esteem, and are the only fyftem now taught in fome of the principal fchools in Italy. The statutes of the Univerfity of Padua expressly enjoin the profeffors to follow the text of Mundinus in their lectures and expofitions. Some, with Fallopius, rather afcribe the honour of the restoration of anatomy to Jac. Berengarius, called alfo Carpus, or Carpenfis, who lived about two hundred years after Mundinus. He fet out with commenting on that author, hut afterwards wrote a much better book on the fubject, of his own; in order to which he diffected above one hundred bodies. The honour of reforming anatomy, and bringing it to its prefent perfection, is commonly afcribed to Vefalius, whofe inclination to this fcience was fo great, that, when a boy, he could not forbear diffecting i his diffecting moles, dormice, cats, and the like. As he grew up, paffion increased; and when bodies were wanting for skeletons, he would steal them from gibbets; for which, as he informs us, he was expelled Louvain. He published his famous book on the ftructure of the human body at 28 years of age. He was chief phyfician to the Emperor Charles V. and Philip II. of Spain; but growing weary of a court-life, he undertook a pilgrimage to Jerufalem, and died on his return.' Our Author goes on in a fimilar manner, giving an account of all the discoveries that have been made in fucceffive periods of time down to the prefent day; he defcribes the feveral writers of note; mentions the times in which, and the places where, they flourished; and is very particular in giving the dates according to which their works were published. The accounts of the later difcoveries controverted between Monro, Hunter, and Hewson, who all claim the merit of firft making them, are impartially treated, the facts being related fimply and without the leaft feeming prepoffeffion in favour of any of thefe three great anatomifts, all of whom have, by their ufeful discoveries and labours, immortalized their names. Many fciences, of late years have made a rapid progrefs. The improvements in these produce very confiderable articles. Natural history, in all its parts, wears a very different face fince the time of Mr. Chambers's first edition, and has afforded much new matter to the Editor of the prefent. Botany, in particular, has undergone great changes; and though it was cultivated in fome degree among the ancients, chiefly with refpect to its medical application and ufe, yet, as they adopted no regular system of diftribution and arrangement, they made a flow progress, and the knowledge they gained was foon and eafily loft. This study is arrived at a degree of perfection among the moderns, to which the ancients were ftrangers, not only with respect to the method of claffing, diftributing, and characterizing plants, but also as to the copia, or number of plants, known and defcribed. The numerous travels and voyages of botanists have, of late years, very much contributed to the extent of the science. Our judicious Editor has followed it through all its improvements; he has defcribed the feveral fyftems of the beft writers ;-fhewn the excellencies and defects of each; and illuftrated the Tournefortian and Linnæan systems by a number of original and well-executed engravings. Zoology, a confiderable article in natural hiftory, comprehends whatever relates to the form, ftructure, method of living, feeding, &c. of the different fpecies of animals. Here we find the indefatigable Editor not only defcribing the several animals, and illuftrating his defcription with elegant as well as accurate figures, but entering into a minute recital of every writer upon the fubject, giving an account of their respective systems, and informing Y 3 forming his readers what particular part of this extensive study each author has more immediately elucidated. After mention ing zoologifts in general, and giving an analyfis of their different fyftems, he prefers, and not without reafon, Penant's Synopfis of Quadrupeds: in ornithology the works of Willoughby, Ray, and other esteemed authors are examined: in a fimilar manner we have a distinct and judicious detail of the most celebrated writers on Entomology, Conchology, Amphibiology, Helminthology, with every other fubdivifion into which either the ancients or moderns have divided this almost boundlefs fcience, Mathematics comprehend a wide extent of fcience; and, although they made a very confiderable part of the former editions of the Cyclopædia, yet Dr. Rees has found much room for many important and ufeful additions. Under the word Algebra, we meet with a concife yet particuJar hiftory of that fcience. Preferving the original plan of Mr. Chambers, Dr. Rees does not enter into a defcription of it, nor the method of performing its different operations, but refers to the feveral words Addition, Multiplication, &c. As we do not think a dictionary by any means a proper book to teach arts or fciences, we greatly approve of the method purfued in this work. The proficient in algebra will here find every thing relative to the improvements of different ages, with an ample account of the books that have been written on the subject: the particular application of it to many important purpofes in life is pointed out, and a detail of the authors who firft applied it to them; which are matters of very great confequence even to a profeffor; but much more to a perfon who wishes to be directed, in his purfuits, to the beft and fureft guides for inftruction, without the Jabour or lofs of time that would be requifite, in order to examine a great number of diftinct treatifes on the art. The construction of equations, efpecially the higher ones, is treated in a concife manner. It has been ufual to determine the roots of cubic, biquadratic, and other high equations by the interfections of a ftraight line with a curve of the fame dimenfions as the given equation, or by the interfection of two curves whofe indices multiplied produce the index of the given equation. This is the method which Dr. Rees has purfued; it is undoubtedly a true one, and the only one for equations of four or more dimenfions that has yet been difcovered; but the difficulty in defcribing the curves required, is a material obftacle to the practice of them, Emmerfon in his Algebra (of which fee an account in our Review, vol. XXXII.) has given a very elegant method of conftructing cubic equations by a circle only; this method, on account of the cafe with which a circle can be described, is certainly more practicable, and at the fame time more fimple than that which requires a curve of 3 dimenfions, or 2 curves of the first order, namely a circle, and an Apollonian parabola, as the Doctor uses. In a work like this we ought to have every improvement noticed, at leaft; and the moft eafy, which will alfo be the most elegant, method of performing an operation of any kind, would have been an acceptable addition to this article: we do not mention this as a material fault in the Editor; in many inftances we are aftonifhed to fee that one man has been able to collect the great variety of new difcoveries, and the many im-. portant improvements with which the arts and fciences have, within thefe few years past, been enriched. The application of geometry to algebra, and of algebra to geometry, has greatly improved each fcience; and the attention which the Editor has paid to this fubject is no fmall recommendation of the work. Conic fections form a confiderable article in this dictionary. Though the equations, geneles, and many of the most material properties, with the ratios, dimenfions, &c. of each of the fections be given separately under their respective articles Ellipfis, Hyperbola, and Parabola, yet to make the doctrine of conic fections (which is fo very confiderable a part of the higher geometry, and of fuch importance in aftronomy, the doctrine of projectiles, &c.) more complete, the Editor puts the whole in one contracted view. After enumerating the common properties of all the fections, he defcribes the properties of their ofculatory circles. The theory of the curvature of lines is of great ufe in geometry and phyfico-mathematical fciences. Hence mathema. ticians have written largely on this fubject, and Dr. Rees has very judiciously inferted as much of it as feems neceffary to enable fuch as are unacquainted with it, to form a juft notion of the fubject, referring thofe who defire farther information to M.Laurin, whom, in this, as in many other articles, he has ftrictly followed. We were much pleafed with perufing fuch articles of the performance before us as relate to the abftrufe parts of the higher geometry, because the Editor has always endeavoured to avoid that air of paradox and mystery which has been a reproach to modern mathematicians. It is an acknowledged truth that the doctrine of fluxions is the greatest, moft fublime, and most useful discovery that human ingenuity ever made; it opens to us a new world, it extends our knowledge, it carries us beyond the bounds which confined the ideas of ancient geometers (although thofe were very extenfive), and enables us to contemplate infinity. The hiftory of this important difcovery, fresh as it is, Mr. Chambers, in his former editions, fays, is nevertheless dark and embroiled.' Dr. Rees has endeavoured to throw all the light in his power on this fubject: two of the greatest mathematicians of their or any Particularly in his treatife on Fluxions. other |