Traité de Morale, ou Devoirs de l'homme envers Dieu, envers la Société, et envers lui-même : that is, A Treatife of Morality, or the Duties of Man to his Creator, to Society, and to himfelf. By M. Lacroix. 12mo. Paris, 1767.

HE Subjects treated of in this performance, as appears by the title, are of the utmost importance to the happiness of man, whether confidered as an individual, or as a member of Society. The narrow limits to which the Author has confined himself, lay him under a neceffity of paffing flightly over many parts of his fubject. Notwithstanding this, his work has very confiderable merit, and there are few books that contain fo many useful things in fo narrow a compafs. He writes with great perfpicuity, and, in general, with equal precifion; he appears to be a fincere friend to virtue, and a lover of mankind. In a few instances the prejudices of education fhew themselves, for which every candid reader will make proper allowances. On the whole, however, he writes like a perfon of a liberal and enlarged turn of mind.

He divides his work into three books; the first contains our duty to our Maker, the fecond our duty to fociety, and the third our duty to ourselves. As our feveral duties arife from our nature, and the situation wherein we are placed, he introduces his work with fome preliminary obfervations upon the nature of man, and the relation he has to other beings: he fhews briefly, but clearly, that the Deity could have no other view in creating man, but to make him happy; that all men are naturally equal; that virtue is the road to happiness; and that the author of our nature has implanted in us the faculties of reason, and the moral sense, to enable us to difcover our duty. As a specimen of his way of writing, we fhall lay before our Readers what he fays concerning the means of forming the morals of a fate.

If men, fays he, are not lovers of virtue, punishments will not be fufficient to keep them in their duty; they will gratify their paffions whenever they think they can do it with impunity. The best way, therefore, nay the only way, to make men obey the laws, is to give them morals; that is, to infpire them with the love of virtue.-Thofe who would govern a ftate properly, fays Ifocrates, muft not think of filling porticos with laws written upon tables, but muft take care that citizens have the maxims of justice engraved upon their hearts. It is not laws, indeed, but morals which ferve to regulate a ftate. Those who have had a bad education, do not hesitate to violate the clearest and moft determinate laws; whereas those who have been well educated, chearfully and readily fubmit to proper regulations.

The love of virtue is produced in a ftate, by giving youth a good education, by granting honorary diftinctions to virtue, by profcribing

profcribing luxury, and by diffusing the knowlege of the Chrif tian religion.

In order to educate men properly, they must be taken in their infancy, before their minds are filled with prejudices, and be-fore vicious inclinations have taken root in their breaffs: it is too late to form them after they are corrupted. Among the Perfians and Lacedemonians, the children of every citizen were confidered as belonging to the state; accordingly the state took the charge of their education, and directed it entirely towards the love of their country, and obedience to its laws. What, indeed, is the end propofed by a public education? Is it to make fcholars and learned men? It is of more importance to every state, furely, that its members fhould know how to live well than fpeak well; and there is no principle but virtue that can lead them to live well: Fear is without efficacy, when men think they may avoid punishment; and Honour or the defire of efteem is extinguished, when it is not animated by the public favour. Let the end propofed by public education, therefore, be to teach virtue, and to infpire youth with the love of the feveral duties incumbent on them as men and citizens. It is now feveral years fince an establishment has been formed in the heart of France upon thefe views, (L'Ecole Militare) and which promifes to the nation a new race of citizens. It is there that the young nobility of the kingdom, trained under the eye of the miniiter by able mafters, are taught the love of virtue and of their country, to know and to reverence the laws and maxims of the flate. It is there, that having the generofity and munificence of their prince conftantly before their eyes, they animate one another to copy after the example of their illuftrious ancestors, and qualify themfelves for defending the state and fupporting the honour and dignity of their fovereign, eveni at the expence of their lives: an establishment worthy of the highest praifes, and which will be an everlasting monument of the wisdom and beneficence of Lewis the Fifteenth.

Though virtue be naturally beautiful, though the constitutes the true felicity of man, yet fuch is the weaknefs and imperfection of human nature, that there must be rewards and diftinctions for her votaries. Let virtue then be crowned with honour; let the dignities of the ftate be conferred on her. Has vice any claim to them? They were originally established for the good of Society, and if vice ufurps them, the end of their inftitution is defeated. Has birth any title to them? A long train of illuftrious ancestors does not confer merit, nor tranfmit to their pofterity either talents or virtue. If the defcendants of a citizen, who diftinguished himself in the fervice of his country, have no perfonal merit, they are only monuments to pre

ferve the memory of a virtuous man, and in this view are only entitled to empty admiration and outward respect.

Luxury, above all things, ought to be checked by fevere laws. It inipires a paffion for frivolous ple.fures; renders money the fupreme good, makes men facrifice every thing to the acquifition of riches, enervates the body and enfeebles the foul. Can there be a more dreadful scourge in any government? It makes part of the money of the rich, indeed, circulate among the poor, but at the fame time it makes beggars of a vast number of citizens, by the enormous confumption it occafions of provifions of every kind.

Befide, if the rage of diftinguishing themselves by glare and parade be checked, citizens will employ their wealth in fchemes of public utility, and virtue will diffufe more bleffings among the poor than the moft extravagant luxury.

What are we to think then of the reason which an illuftrious modern afligns for permitting luxury in monarchies; viz. that if the rich do not fpend a great deal, the poor will be ftarved? Monarchies, adds the fame politician, (Montefquieu) are ruined by poverty. Hiftory furnishes no example of this. The firft empires of Ninivch and Babylon fell amidft the greateft opulence. Perfia, when poor, deftroyed the rich empires of Lydia, Babylon, and Egypt; when rich, he was not a match for a handful of Macedonians. When Macedonia became opulent, when the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt abounded in wealth, they were obliged to yield to the warlike poverts of the Romans, who feil a prey themselves to barbarians, after pillaging the univerfe.-Riches are the natural fource of luxury; luxury begets corruption, and corruption deftroys flates.

But the firmeft fupport of laws is religion; there is no motive which acts more powerfully upon the mind of man, than the firm belief of an all-powerful deity, who punishes vi e and rewards virtue: this too is the only motive capable of reftraining the in petuofity of the paffions, and counterbalancing private intereft. I know net, faid the Roman orator very juftly, whether by banishing religion and piety we do not destroy good faith among men, and confequently justice, which is the most excelent of al virtues..

Of the different forms of religion which are established upon the face of the earth, there is none whofe precepts and doctrines are better calculated than thofe of Chriftianity, to form the morals of a nation, to check the impetuofity of human paffions, to controul the influence of climate, and to infpire fubmiflion and obedience to the laws.

This religion gives civil laws the greateft efficacy they can. poffibly have, by lending them the aids of confcience. It is not in the leaft repugnant to the focial fpirit; for the focial spirit is only that attachment to one's country which makes a man con

fecrate

fecrate his talents, his fortune, and his life to the fervice of it. Now there is nothing that infpires this attachment so much as Chriftianity, fince there is nothing which inspires a man with a ftronger defire of performing his duty. Republican virtue, the principle of honour in monarchies, of fear in defpotic ftates, are feeble motives to influence a citizen to facrifice his deareft interests and strongest inclinations to the fervice of his country; it is Chriftianity alone that can raise man above the weakneffes of his heart,

It would be a great error therefore in policy not to introduce Christianity into a ftate, or not to maintain it if it is established. But as the good effects it is capable of producing depend upon the degree of authority it acquires over the mind, nothing ought to be employed, in order to spread or support it, but perfuafion. Violence would only make hypocrites. Writing or fpeaking, however, against this religion, ought not to be permitted; for this would be permitting an attack upon the most solid foundations of the ftate, and would give occafion to public diffenfions and commotions.

Though Christianity be very favourable in itself to public profperity and order, yet it has been the occafion of many calamities, and of the most cruel and bloody wars in Germany, Italy, and France; but it would be grofs ignorance, nay downright madnefs, to make it anfwerable for fuch calamities; they are only to be imputed to the barbarity of the times, and to curfed ambition. Let Chriftians only be well inftructed in the principles of their religion, and they will ever be the best of fubjects: the conduct of the first Chriftians is a fufficient proof of this.

This may serve as a specimen of our Author's manner; fuch of our Readers as are pleafed with it, and have a defire to read the whole work, will have no reason, we apprehend, to be

diffatisfied with us for recommending it to their perufal. R.

Hiftoire de l'Academic Royale, &c.

The Hiftory of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, for the Year 1764, with the mathematical and phyfical Memoirs for the fame Year. 4to. Paris, 1767.

N our review of this academical colleâion, we fhall follow, with some small variation, the arrangement adopted by the Hiftorian of the academy; and accordingly begin with the papers which treat of

GENERAL PHYSICS.

MEMOIR I. On the Fffects of Thunder, compared with thefe of Electricity,

Electricity; with fome Confiderations on the Means of preferving ourfelves from the firft. By the Abbé Nollet.

The identity of that very subtile and active matter which, in electrical experiments, is either mediately or immediately brought under the cognizance of every one of our fenfes, with that which produces the phenomena of lightening-an`identity which has of late been fo fully afcertained by the numerous and decifive experiments to which Dr. Franklyn's excellent theory has given ocafion, receives collateral proofs, if fuch were wanted, from facts related even by the writers of antiquity, who not having any thing analagous with which to compare them, could have no fufpicion of the agent which produced them. When Cæfar tells us that, in the African war, during a tempeft which happened in the night and difordered his whole army, the fpears of the fifth legion fhewed a light at their points: Quinta legionis pilorum cacumina fuâ fponte arferunt-every electrician readily recognizes the appearance exhibited by the electric matter, in its entrance into, or egrefs out of, a conducting fubftance, during a violent thunder-ftorm. The lights also which have been obferved by failors, ancient and modern, at the tops of their mafts, and called by the names of Caftor and Pollux, Feux de St. Elme, and Comazants, (particularly that fo excellently defcribed by the Count de Forbin in his Memoirs) enter naturally into the class of electrical phenomena: but no observations previous to the actual difcovery of this identity in the late experiments, are, we think, comparable to the very curious relation which the Author of this memoir gives us in the beginning of it, of a practice which has long been obferved in the caftle of Duino in Friuli, on the coaft of the Adriatic; where it has been customary, from time immemorial, for the centinel on guard, when there are figns of a thunder-ftorm, to examine from time to time the top of a pike fixed upright on one of the baftions, by bringing near to it the point of a halberd, which is always kept ready for that purpose; and when he perceives the fparks between them are strong and frequent, he rings a bell to alarm the peasants and fishermen, and to give them notice that a violent thunder-ftorm is at hand; on which they make the best of their way home. The antiquity of this practice is proved, we are told, by the constant and unanimous tradition of the country, as well as by a letter of Father Imperati, dated in 1602, in which, alluding to this cuftom of the inhabitants of Duino, he fays, Igne & haftá hi mire utuntur ad imbres, grandines, procellafque præfagiendas, tempore præfertim aftivo.

The Abbé's memoir is divided into two parts, in the first of which, after propofing fome conjectures concerning the manner in which the clouds acquire fo ftrong a degree of electricity, he

endeavours