1799.] Fifty Articles of Literary and Philofophical Intelligence.

the legiflature of the different states of Europe, that by a confentaneous act of authority they might decree the extinction of the small-pox as easily as France decreed the abolition of royalty. J. C. G. JUNCKER, professor of medicine at Halle, and the poet REINEIKE, have seconded the humane views of Profeffor FAUST in his laudable design: they have together in concert presented three different addresses to the congress at Rastadt, upon the neceffity of taking general measures against the small-pox: C. LENZ has alfo presented one of a like tendency to the French Directory: it is therefore probable at least that an experiment may be tried how far the hope will be realized of extinguishing this loathsome and frequently fatal disease, and with it doubt less, as the means cannot be more difficult, the meafles. Professor JUNCKER has formed a fociety of more than a hundred and fifty physicians, German, Dutch, and Swiss, who have folemnly engaged unitedly and personally to employ all their energy for stopping the ravages of these pests of the younger age*.

There has been published at VENICE, a work of some importance in the science of OPTICS, by a philosopher, whose name is AMBROGIA FUSINIERI. Its object is to prove, that the resistance of the refracting Media, and by no means the laws of Newtonian attraction, can alone account for the phenomena of the refraction of light.

In their hopes of Oriental empire, the French have been induced to apply, with extraordinary zeal, to the study of the living languages of the east. The Perfian, the Arabic, the Turkish, and the Armenian languages form a particular course of inftruction, which is taught at the NATIONAL LIBRARY in Paris by a different profeffor for each language.

The French, as was announced in the last Monthly Magazine, have formed a national institute at Cairo. In the uncertainty and the difficulties of their present situation in Egypt, this institution can scarcely appear otherwise than ridiculoufly premature. And yet we cannot but view with respect a scientific and literary activity, of which the ardour is not to be repreffed, even by such hardships as those of the Egyptian expedition of the * The Cow Pox, which continues to be practifed by fome of the principal physicians in London with unvaried success, will, perhaps, effect more towards eradicating the Small Pox, than all the well meant projects of the German profeffors.

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French. The list of the members of this inftitute contains, among others, the illuftrious names of Monge, Bauchamp, Berthollet, Dolomieu, and Denon. The following questions were proposed at their first meeting: 1. How improve the ftructure of ovens for the preparation of bread to the army? 2. To find a fubftitute that may be used instead of barley in making beer? 3. What are the best means for clarifying and cooling the waters of the Nile? 4. Are wind or water mills the more fuitable for use in Egypt? 5. What are the fittest resources to fupply the French army in Egypt with gunpowder? 6. What is the present state of legislation in Egypt? and how may it be ameliorated? 7. To produce a plan of general regulation. At the second meeting of this institute, Andreofsy, one of its members, reported, concerning the article of gunpowder, that Egypt had always received its supplies of fulphur from Venice, that its charcoal was fupplied from the burning of the stalks of the lupine, that, however, faltpetre is fufficiently plentiful in Egypt, where it is found both in native veins and also manufactured, as in Europe. The faltpetre of Egypt he farther reported to be a nitrate of potash, and not like the French faltpetre, nitrate of lime; the stalks of Turkey corn are used in its preparation, and it is purified with white of eggs. The gunpowder is manufactured by workmen who remain naked while they are at work. It is of an excellent quality, and cheaper than gunpowder is in France. The Egyptian gunpowder was formerly an article of exportation to Leghorn. The Beys poffeffed no large magazines of gunpowder. At the third meeting of the institute of Cairo, Berthollet read a memoir on the formation of Ammoniac; Sulkowsky read a description of the road from Cairo to Salehieé; some conversation took place on the subject of mills, in which water-mills were concluded to be the fittest for use in Egypt. Berthollet read an account of the analysis of the gunpowder of Cairo, in which he shewed it to contain only of faltpetre, and to be, as to its other ingredients, a mixture, of fulphur, charcoal, earth, and muriate of foda, which requires to be lixiviated anew before it can be fit for ufe; Monge read a memoir on the monuments of antiquity in Cairo, in which he proposed that a particular vase of granite, covered with hieroglyphics, should be fent to France.

32

The literature of GERMANY is still fo much more under the influence of men of trade

trade than of men of genius and science; The former it is, in his opinion, an in

and its ancient spirit of laborious compis lation still retains so much of its wonted afcendency, that extracts, abridgements, and compilations from the fucceflive, new literary productions, continue to fill a very large proportion of that multitude of volumes with which the German presses inceffantly teem. The French narrative of the voyage of M. de la Pérouse; those details which were communicated in the English newspapers concerning the African travels of Mr. Mungo Park; a French publication by the brothers D'Arbois, on the ifles of Corcyra and Ithaca, and on the Egean fea; Waastrom's short account of the colonial establishment of Sierra Leone and Boulama, on the western coast of Africa, have excluded almost all other articles of importance, from the two latest numbers which have fallen into our hands, of one exceedingly respectable German journal.

By the progrefs of events in the Turkith dominions, and by the late descent of a Ruffian fleet through the Black Sea, the attention of the inhabitants of Germany appears to have been, in a particular manner, turning upon those parts of the globe. We find in a recent number of a German periodical work a very curious hydrographical memoir, concerning the navigation and the coasts of the Black Sea, which has been produced to gratify this temporary curiosity. The publication of a valuable German map of the Black Sea, with great and important alterations, was announced in our last number.

That spell of mysticism which involved the writings of KANT, and to those who delight in the unintelligible, proved their beft recommendation, now begins, in spite of the extravagancies of his pupils, to be gradually difpelled. KANT perceived the reasonings of Malbranche, Berkley, and Hume to have rendered the belief of the reality of things, material or fspiritual, incompatible with the old metaphyfical doctrine,-that ideas are the only medium of communication between the human mind and all other things. He was anxious to give a new stability to the first principles of human knowledge. For this end, he diftinguished all our knowledge into the two claffes of (1.) primary, original, perhaps innate knowledge, which must be poffeffed and believed before we can make any progress in obfervation and renfoning; and (2.) experimental knowledge, founded upon that which is primary, and discoverable by reasoning and obfervation.

dispensible law of our existence, to be
lieve, without demanding those proofs, of
which it is, by its nature, unfufceptible.
The latter is never to be received by the
mind without the most rigorous discus-
fions of reasoning. KANT's primary
knowledge is equivalent to the knowledge
of fentiment in the Savoyard Curate's
Confeffion of Faith, by ROUSSEAU,-
to the First Truths of BUFFIER, -to the
Common Sense of REID, BEATTIE, and
OSWALD, -to those instincts and fenfes
which are so multipled in the writings of
Lord KAIMES. His experimental know-
ledge, which every perfon recognizes, as
acquirable by reasoning, observation, and
experiment. But, KANT, in expreffing
his doctrines, was led to use the technical
language of Wolffius, of Leibnitz, of Bur-
gerfdicius. He himself delighted, like
Ariftotle, to speak in the language of ab-
straction and generalization; religiously
avoiding the inaccurate terms of common
life and hence arises the greater part of
his obscurity. Emulating Bacon, he
withed to comprehend all human know-
ledge in his arrangements.
In the at-
tempt he was obliged to invent new terms,
and to apply to objects, many new defi-
nitions, the very accuracy and truth of
which give them often an air of odd and
uncouth peculiarity. Like the late Dr.
Hutton of Edinburgh, he seems to have
accustomed himself to meditate much more
than he read and hence he fails to em-
ploy with ease the language of books. He
has certainly often erred in ranking among
the primary principles of knowledge,
truths, which are but fecondary and expe-
rimental; nor are those reasonings always
juft, from which he deduces those which
he accounts to be truths of experiment.
But he is, undeniably, a great man, and
the first metaphyfician in Germany. It
is in this light that KANT's philosophy
is now viewed among his fellow-coun-
trymen. Those who would understand
his works ought to be, first, familiarly
converfant with the metaphyfical writ-
ings of Locke, Hume, Reid, Condillac,
Leibnitz, Wolffius, and Bacon, other-
wise they will read KANT in vain.

The favourite feats of German literature are still Leipfig, Gottingen, Jena, Weimar, Hamburgh, Berlin, Vienna, Frankfort. These places, either as eminently commercial, as the feats of universities, and the residences of men of letters, on account of particular establishments of printers and bookfellers, or for other reasons, have become to the litera

1799.] Fifty Articles of Literary and Philofophical Intelligence.

ture of Germany, what Athens, Elis, and Pifa were to that of ancient Greece. Books are incessantly manufactured and fold in them and amid much mere bookmaking there are alío many labours of genuine erudition, occafional inventions and discoveries evincing true philosophical penetration, and not a few effuftons of poetical genius of fuperlative excellence.

Those Imperial prohibitions which have been recently opposed against the importation of the production of foreign literature into Ruffia, cannot but very materially retard the advancement of knowledge and civilization in that extensive empire. But the establishment of fo many of the emigrant nobility of France in the Ruffian provinces will, neceffarily, tend to counteract this effect to a certain degree. Nor will it be easily possible either to drive the literary arts from that footing which they have already gained in Ruffia, or to prevent them from continually acquiring there new influence. A new Ruffian Atlas is mentioned in the continental literary journal as a work worthy of applaufe. There is reason to believe that we might yet borrow from the Rufsians, as from other nations, various improvements in our arts of domestic accommodation. We have had a recent opportunity of feeing a model of a Ruffian stove for warming an apartment, which, on account of its equable diffufion of heat, its long preservation of that heat, without waste, and its capacity of affuming the form, even of any elegant piece of furniture, may, perhaps, more than vie with any thing of the fame fort that has been mentioned in the ingenious and beneficent communications of Count Rumford.

DENMARK does not, just at this moment, present to us any thing so interesting in literature as the celebrated account by NIEBUHR of the discoveries and observations of that famous miffion of Literati, which was fent under the aufpices of Count Bernstorff to explore the geography and natural history of the East. But, we have the pleasure of informing our readers, that Niebuhr, the only furvivor of those who went upon that expedition, still lives in comfort and good health at Copenhagen. The fon, a very elegant and well-informed young man, is now in Britain; is in no mean degree a master of the English, and will, very probably, be induced to give to the British public a complete tranflation of his father's whole work work, which is, in truth, one of the most faithful, the most scientifically MONTHLY MAG. NO. XLII.

mplete

153

accurate, and the most unaffected narratives of voyages and travels which have ever been published in Europe. It is but a meagre abridgment of Niebuhr's travels, of which an English tranflation was some years fince published. Of the DANISH Drama, there has been recently presented to us an elegantly translated specimen, under the title of "Poverty and Wealth," which shews it to be, in comedy, very nearly of the fame character with that which now prevails on the theatres of Britain and France.

men.

66

SWEDEN no longer poffefses a Linnæus, a Scheele, or a Bergman, but there are not wanting in it eminent chemifts and naturalifts, the pupils of those great The Elements of Chemistry," by FoURCROY, fo well known by various translations in the English language, have been recently tranflated as well into the language of Sweden as into that of Denmark. The university of Upsal is still adorned by men of diftinguished literary and scientific activity.

A Profeffor GURLITT, of KlooterBergen, an eminent feminary of education in the Pruffian dominions, has recently published at Magdeburgh a very curious production, on the nature and history of the ancient art of working in Mofaics. The lovers of the fine arts will, of course, be eager to procure this erudite and elegant treatife, and to assign it a place in their libraries, beside the writings of Winckelman.

A French gentleman, resident at Munich, in Bavaria, has executed a tranflation of the valuable essays of Count Rumford, which is now printing in the prefs of Manget at Geneva.

The FRENCH continue to cultivate science and literature with much of that energy with which they conquer countries and dethrone kings. Some important experiments on GALVANISM, of which we thall be able, next month, to present an abstracted account to our readers, evince the national institute to poffefs all those abilities for scientific research which were formerly displayed in the memoirs of the academy of sciences. At a late meeting of the fociety for the improvement of the art of healing, at Nancy, in Lorraine, there were read two valuable essays on the medicinal properties of Iron, and on the natural history of feveral varieties of the Laurel tree. The former of these essays was the production of Profeffor Mandel, and was replete with interesting mineralogical and medical facts. The diversities of form under which iron

U

THE NEW PATENTS lately enrolled.

MR. THOMASON'S FOR STEPS TO