and the artifice of Pretenders to Surgery, have been looked on as cancerous, and which have at laft been cured by means of Pultices much more fimple than that of Meffrs. Plunket and Guy. This very difinterested Author, in feveral parts of his book, earnestly advises those afflicted with complaints of this kind, to apply early where they may find a fafe and effectual Cure; that is, by implication, to himself. This, no doubt, is aamong the honeft advantages he thinks himself intitled to derive from his Purchafe. He urges speedy compliance from the most cogent motives: For, from the general confequences of leaving Scirrhufes to Nature, (fays he) it will be found, that <in twenty cafes, eighteen will turn out Cancers; almost every • Cancer in the breaft I have met with, has verified this affer tion.' Here, however, Mr. Guy fhews himself but an indifferent realoner; for to verify his affertion, it ought to be fhewn, that almost every Scirrhus becomes a Cancer; as no Surgeon, we imagine, ever doubted, even before this formal intimation, that almost every Cancer in the breaft was preceded by a Scirrhus. If Mr. Guy means to fay, that almost every hard, indolent Tumour will become a Cancer, experience will prove that he is miftaken.-We will, however, with humble deference to the affertion of the Purchaser of Mr. Plunket's Poultice, hazard one of a different kind, namely, that there are many women, in the various circumstances of mothers, nurses, &c. fubject to hard tumours, and fwellings in the breasts, which may be treated by Quacks, and Pretenders to Noftrums, as incipient Scirrhufes, and occult Cancers. We doubt not, likewise, but every scrophulous and scorbutic fore will be termed a fpecies of the fame diforder. Mr. Guy furely is a little unreafonable in complaining, That it is too much the fashion in this kingdom, for the pro• feffed Members of the Faculty, both of Phyfic and Surgery, to oppose every thing out of the common road of Practice.'He cannot but know, that it is alfo too much the fashion in this kingdom, for the profeffed Members of another Faculty to efpouse the practice of impofing upon their dear fellow countrymen; who, while they pretend to extract Cancers by the Root, aim in fact, at extracting what the Scriptures term the Root of all Evil.-He ought the rather to pardon their incredulity, when he confiders what he himself says, that the effects of his medicine are fuch as were never seen or beard of. After all, it is not impoffible but Mr. Guy's Medicine be a very good one; like the beft Medicines we are acquainted with, it may, in certain cafes, under proper ma may nagement, nagement, be very efficacious. When we fay this, we allow all that can be allowed to any application whatever.-We will not even call in queftion his having performed fome extraordinary Cures: - although, when a man boafts of curing a disease which is generally deemed incurable; when we hear him using the illiberal ftile of making every boneft advantage of his Purchase; we are naturally led to fufpect the validity of his pretenfions; and to require more fatisfactory and more difinterested evidence than his own. What will confirm the expediency of fuch caution, is the conftant obfervation, that the men whose learning, fkill, and integrity have done moft honour to their profeffion, candidly acknowlege the infufficiency of their art, in certain maladies, which persons the moft weak and illiterate, generally pretend to cure. Of the Ends of Society. By Fettiplace Bellers, Efq; 4to. Richardson. TH 6d. HIS curious little piece is ufhered into the world without any Preface or Advertisement to explain the nature and defign of the work, or to account for its falling into the Editor's hands. There feems no room, however, to doubt its being the genuine production of the ingenious Author whose name it bears; and who is well known to the learned, by a former treatife, intitled, A Delineation of Univerfal Law*. . It will not be expected that we should attempt to analyze an Analysis; but to give our Readers fome general notion of the nature of this treatife, we fhall briefly premife, that the Author treats of his fubject 1. Generally, Wherein he confiders, 1. The Foundations of Society. 2. The most general Ends of Society, and the most 2. Particularly, Wherein he examines ge Where, by fuch, he means those which, though firft in view, are laft in execution; being those ultimate Ends, for the execution of which the intermediate or lefs principal Ends, as fo many inftruments, are inftituted: and they are evidently two. 1. The Determination of Rights, * For an account of this treatise, see Review, vol. II. page 57. 2. The 2. The Maintenance of them fo determined.. The less principal or fecondary Ends, which, though laft in view, are the first in inftitution, as the means to perform the other. And they confist in inftituting 1. A Public Treafury, or Finances for public ends, 2. A fupreme Legislature, which is neceffary, becaufe, without it neither what are Rights can be fettled, nor how those maintained, determined. Our Author pursues his plan through a multitude of divifions and fubdivifions, in which he discovers great analytical genius and folidity of judgment. His reflections moreover are, in many places, fo extremely fhrewd and liberal, that his very propofitions feem to have the weight of conclufions. For inftance,-treating of the modes in which several parti cular kinds of actions are performed by perfons actually engaged in life, he confiders thofe actions which are the refult of men's Intellectual Faculties; where, he says, In general, it is evident that the particular acts or habits Whether there be any fpeculative opinions or errors, whose public profeffion and propagation the State fhould prevent, in confideration of their confequences? Whether the prevention of the propagation of fuch can be reconciled to the former Maxim, and how? Because to me, (fays he) there feems a wide difference between punishing a man for his private opinion, or preventing the propagation of it. These reflections, to a thinking mind, open an ample field of fpeculation. To enter into a difquifition of this nature, would carry us beyond our limits: we wish our Author had pursued it; but, in few words, we cannot help thinking, that an attempt to prevent the profeffion or propagation of; any speculative opinion, by means of penal laws, is an inhance of narrow minded policy. FOREIGN ACCOUNT OF FOREIGN BOOKS. Lettres de M. de Mairan, au R. P. Parrenin, Miffionaire de la Compagnie de Jefus, a Pekin, contenant diverses Questions fur la Chine. 12mo. Paris. Defaint. 1759. Ŏr, Letters from Mr. Mairan, to Father Parrenin, a Jefuit Miffionary at Pekin, containing feveral Enquiries relating to China. F OR the publication of thefe Letters, which have been read at different times before the Academy of Sciences," we are indebted to that of two ingenious pieces lately publifhed; the one on the Phenician Alphabet, by Mr. L'Abbé Barthelemy; and the other, on the' Chinese Characters, by Mr. de Guignes. As the fubject is become alfo a matter of controverfy, we fhall, under this article, give an abstract of what has been advanced by all thefe Gentlemen, on the side of the Queftion they have embraced. It is many years ago fince Mr. Mairan adopted the opinion of Mr. Huet, the celebrated Bifhop of Avranches, refpecting the modern Chinefe being defcended from a colony of Egyptians, which firft civilized the Savages of, and peopled, that vaft country: the ftriking fimilitude obfervable in the Characters, Manners, and Cuftoms of the Egyptians and Chinese, being the motive for his embracing that opinion. Father Parrenin, being one of the Miffionaries in China, entertained, on the contrary, the higheft notions of the greater antiquity of that nation; and endeavoured to invalidate the arguments made ufe of by his Correfpondent. This drew from Mr. Mairan the ingenious Parallel, of which Mr. Fontenelle makes mention, in his Hiftory of the Academy; and which is contained in the fecond Letter now publifhed. On reading this piece, it must be confeffed, that the conformity between the two people appears furprizing; and amounts to the greatest probability of their being derived from the fame ftock. Mr. de Guignes confirms this opinion by different reafons. Having been convinced by Mr. l'Abbé Barthelemy's Memoir on the Phenician Alphabet, that the Chinese Characters were many of them nothing more than a compofition of Phemician Letters, he made ufe of that information as a key to the names of the firft Chinese Emperors; and found that thefe names were alfo thofe of the firft Kings of Thebes; and and that they fucceeded each other in the fame order; from whence he concluded, that China muft formerly have received fome Egyptian colony, who had placed the hiftory of their former country at the head of their prefent one. But to defcend to particulars. The arguments of Mr. Mairan may be confidered under three heads, viz. those refpecting the fimilitude of the manners and cuftoms of the Chinese and Egyptians. Those relating to the Chinese Chronology; and laftly, to what regards the Genius of the Chinefe for arts and science. As to the firft, both nations, fays he, were remarkable for a variety of fimilar customs, and prejudices for inftance, a -prodigious, and even fuperftitious, veneration for their anceftors, was common to both. Each had two kinds of language, one for speech, and another for writing. A tafte for -buildings of a vaft fize; a particular regard to maintain the fame profeffion in the fame family; an uninterrupted tradition of the arts and sciences, particularly Aftronomy; a long feries of dynafties; an unalterable Body of laws, as well religious as political; a ridiculous, tho' conftant, attachment to the dogma of Tranfmigration; a fingular veneration for the figure of a Dragon, and for the bird called Phenix in Egypt, and Tom-hoam in China. Thefe, with many others, are enumerated by Mr. Mairan, as examples of a fimilarity in the notions and cuftoms of both people. As to their Chronology, indeed, Mr. Mairan thinks, that, -tho' the conquests of Sefoftris, and the fettlement of an Egyptian colony in China, gave entirely a new face to the governinent and manners of the country, that empire has fubfifted, at least, ever fince Yao; i. e. 2357 years before Chrift. With respect to the third head, the Genius of the Chinefe for the arts and fciences, our Author remarks, that tho' this people have always piqued themselves on the cultivation of the fpeculative fciences, yet hardly any one man has been ever found among them that was even a tolerable proficient therein; the more fimple propofitions in Euclid's Elements, the Sphere of Clavius, and other little elementary treatifes, that have been tranflated into their language, affording them objects of the greatest admiration. Nor were the oft learned among them lefs furprized at the Charts and Globes of the Europeans, by which they were taught that the earth was fpherical; their notion being, that it was fquare, and that* the empire of China was fituated in the middle. Nay, fo little genius do they appear to have in this respect, and fo Rev. Dec. 1759. NA little |