reign plants; which, however, ought neither to be difcouraged nor neglected.

This volume is terminated by a request presented to the Emperor, relative to the ceremony of tillage, annually performed, by that Prince and the Grandees of the empire. This is one of the most ancient and folemn ceremonies in ufe among the Chinefe, and the Emperors of the present Dynafty have restored it to its primitive luftre. When our Miffionaries come to treat of the ftate of agriculture in China, they propofe giving a circumftantial account of every thing relative to the origin, hiftory, end, and apparatus of this famous ceremony.

ART. IX.

Theorie des Senfations.-The Theory of Senfations. By the Abbé RosSIGNOL. 8vo. Paris. 1778.

THIS

HIS little work, which treats of one of the most intricate fubjects that has hitherto exercifed the human underftanding, is worthy of its ingenious Author, to whofe philofophical merit we have more than once endeavoured to do juftice. It is compofed with precifion, and with as much perfpicuity as the fubject will admit; but ftill the philofophical analyfis must ftop fhort at the very point which is the main object of inquiry, viz. the connexion between impreffed motion and mental perception. This point the Metaphyficians have been labouring at for many ages; and, inftead of getting at it, they have only been turning about it and about it, without advancing a single ftep. They call in the power of Deity, and indeed the cafe requires it; dignus vindice nodus; but this does not explain the

matter.

The Abbé ROSSIGNOL recurs to this, at laft, as well as his predeceffors. After following, more or lefs, the method of investigation employed by Condillac, he arrives, in his analysis, ať the innate ideas of Defcartes and Mallebranche; and, if we mistake not, the time is approaching when innate ideas will come up again in the wheel of philofophy, which, in many things, is not unlike the wheel of fortune. Our Abbé, making ufe of a philofophical piece of machinery to exprefs his ideas, represents the Deity employing feven days (as in the creation of the earth) in forming a ftatue, organizing it, joining to it a mind or foul, which is placed in the corpus callofum, in the middle of the brain, and in bringing the statue ftep by step to fill farther degrees of perfection, fo that it has an intimate, experimental, and confcious fenfe of its mental part, and of the fenfations it feels, -You fee here, gentle reader, the inaccuracy of expreffions, when they are applied to objects concerning which we have inadequate or confufed ideas.-For what does the Abbé mean by the ftatue's having a confcious fenfe of its foul or mental part?

The ftatue confidered abstractedly from that foul cannot perceive, for it is no more than matter and organization; and these two Stupid entities though they have lately been fet up anew as Pretenders to the Throne of intelligence, are not likely to obtain either a lawful or peaceable poffeffion of it.-The Author's expreffion is ftill more exceptionable, if literally translated, than in the manner we here reprefent it, for he fays, the flatue knows its own foul; by this, however, he only meant, that the ftatue confifting of matter and fpirit is confcious of its exiflence, percep→ tions and fenfations. This is a fact, and (if the Author of this article is not much mistaken) the reflex act by which the mind is conscious of its own nature, faculties, fenfations and ideas, is one of the most surprising phenomena in the sphere of Pneumatics, and furnishes a ftriking argument in favour of the im materiality of the thinking fubftance.

According to our Author (and a man who did not think deeply would not be exposed to meet with these difficulties), the foul of the statue, lodged in an obfcure and folitary retreat, neither has nor can acquire any ideas of extension and space, and therefore can never, by the means of its sensations, arrive at the knowledge of bodies; and he pretends to prove, that even the touch or fense of touching, cannot produce this knowledge, notwithstanding the affertions of Mr. Locke, and several of his most eminent difciples, and the still more accurate and specious reafonings of the Abbé Condillac on this fubject. This part of his work is fingularly interefting, and is treated in a very mafterly manner, with clearness and fimplicity. The great difficulty however remains: for how does the foul, thus conftituted and placed, acquire the knowledge of bodies? Here our Abbé cuts the more than Gordian knot, and tells us, that it is, by a fort of infufed knowledge, by an immediate communication of the Deity, independent on any exertion of reason, that the foul perceives, and thus that the fenfations, which vary its mode of existence, proceed from an external caufe, from a principle diftinct from its own effence. Now it is by this revealed perception of the external origin of its fenfations, that the mind comes gradually to acquire a notion of the existence of bodies. The Author points out, in a very ingenious manner, the gradations or steps, by which the mind proceeds in the acquifition and improvement of this knowledge; and the metaphyfical reader, though he will not derive an entire fatisfaction from the theory of our Author, will, nevertheless, be much entertained in the perufal of his performance, which is compofed in a fpirited and lively manner. It is, indeed, a kind of revival of the fanciful hypothefis of Malebranche, which resembles, when closely examined, the pre-established harmony of Leibnitz,APP. Rev. Vol. lix.

M m

which

which refembles the giant that had his foot on the ground and. his head in the clouds.

ART. X.

Additions aux IX Volumes de Recueils de Medailles de Rois, de Villes, e-Additions to the Nine Volumes of M. PELLERIN'S Collection of Medals of Kings, Cities, &c. that were published in the years 1762, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 1770, together with Remarks on fome of the Medals, already publifhed. 4to. Paris. 1778.

M.

PELLERIN, is one of the moft intelligent and laborious collectors of medals, of our times; and his fagacity and erudition in explaining them, are equal to his industry in collecting them. His collection of ancient medals, which had employed him during the space of fifty years, was added, by purchafe, to that of the King of France, about two years ago. It was divided into feveral feries, and contained thirty-two thousand pieces of different fizes, in gold, filver or bronze. The defcription and iiluftrations of thefe medals, in nine Quarto Volumes, publifhed at different periods, have, in a great variety of inftances, difpelled the perplexity and darkness, that fo often render uncertain the chronology, hiftory, geography, and mythology of ancient times. Nor did M. PELLERIN only collect and explain a great number of medals, that had been omitted in the collections and publications of Vaillant and other antiquaries, who had gone before him in this line of erudition; he has alfo corrected their miftakes, and fupplied many things that were wanting, even in their moft accurate defcriptions.

In the fmall additional volume now before us, this perfevering Antiquary.exhibits a new discovery of twenty medals, hitherto unknown; and, afterwards, paffing in review those of which he had formerly given an account, he replies to the critical remarks which the latter had occafioned, particularly to thofe of Mr. Eckel, in a Treatife published in 1775 at Vienna, under the title of Nummi Veteres Anecdoti. He concludes the volume with a small Supplement, in which he describes three curious medals, one of which more particularly deferves to be mentioned. This medal, which has but lately fallen into the hands, of M. PELLERIN, is of gold, reprefents Euthydemus, the Third. King of Bactria, and, by a variety of concurring circumftances, appears to our Author to be one of the most interefting and pre.. cious monuments of this kind, that has, hitherto, been feen or published. It is certain, that the medals of the Kings of Bactria are extremely rare. The filver medal of Eucratidas is, according to our Author, the only one that can be attributed with cersainty to a Bactrian monarch; for it is not, as yet, evident,

that

that the medal of bronze, which is fuppofed to represent Diadotus or Theodotus, the founder of the kingdom, is really the medal of that Prince. The medal, here defcribed, is of the very best preservation, of the finest workmanship, and exhibits the features of a Bactrian King, whofe name has hitherto been only known by fome fcattered paffages of ancient authors. The reverse of this coin exhibits the figure of Hercules, reprefented in a manner and attitude that feem to convey an allegorical meaning. The attitude of the hero expreffes repofe: he is fitting on the fummit of a rock, with his right hand extended and holding his club, which is fupported by another little rock. Some interpreters of the monuments of antiquity may confider this as a fymbolical representation and characteristic of the King of Bactria, who, after having reftored by his prudence, tranquillity in a kingdom fubdued by his valour, refts from his long and glorious labours; but M. PELLERIN is rather inclined to think, that the only reason, which engaged Euthydemus to have Hercules reprefented on this medal, was the high degree of veneration in which this hero was held in Bactria and the neighbouring provinces, under the name of the Indian Hercules, as may be feen by the medal of bronze attributed to Theodotus, on which this heroic deity is also exhibited.

From this fingular reprefentation of Hercules our Author takes occafion to inform us, that a reverfe of pretty much the fame kind is to be feen on certain filver medallions of an Antiochus, King of Syria. It was for a long time doubtful to what prince of that name they were to be attributed, and in this uncertainty the Antiquaries were led to fuppofe, from fome features, which carried a refemblance of Antiochus II. that they were really medallions of that Prince. Our Author was for fome time in the fame perplexity; but the medal of Euthydemus, now under confideration, difpels every doubt, and the perfect conformity both in point of type and workmanship, between it and the filver medallions already mentioned, perfuades M. PELLERIN, that these latter are to be attributed to Antiochus III. He thinks it natural, that this Prince, during the war that he was carrying on in Bactria, fhould, in quality of lawful poffeffor of the country, have coined money for the pay of his troops, with the type or device of the principal deity which was worshipped by the Bactrians. It may be fo.

ART. XI.

Recherches Hiftoriques et Geographiques fur le Nouveau Monde, &c.— Hiftorical and Geographical Inquiries concerning America. By JOHN BENEDICT SCHERER, Member of feveral Academies; formerly Member of the Imperial College of Juftice at Petersburg, for the Affairs of Esthonia, Livonia, and Finland. First Vol. 8vo. with Cuts, and a Map of the Courfe of the River laskusk to the Port of Ofchofk. Paris. 1778.

R. SCHERER is the learned and ingenious man, to whom the public is indebted for the elegant edition of the late Mr. Steller's Defcription of the Country of Kamfchatka, of which we gave an account in a former Appendix *. His present labours have in view an object, that has ever fince the time of Columbus, employed the researches of the learned, viz. the queftion from whence was America peopled? This caufe has had many hearings in the courts of literature; and an eminent judge in matters of this kind, has lately fummed up the evidence on the different fides of the question, and given a verdict that is almost equivalent to a modest ignoramus. Mr. SCHERER pretends to throw new light on this fubject, and he seems, indeed (however he came by them), to have procured during his refidence at Peterfburg (his removal from whence to Paris is fomewhat mysterious), papers and materials, the candid use of which may, indeed, open new views of this fubject.

The first attempt of this learned man feems to have been, the collecting all the geographical fragments or paffages of the writers of antiquity, to prove the past existence of the famous Atlantis, which is mentioned by Plato, and is fuppofed by fome to have connected Europe, and perhaps Africa, with the American continent, by the facility of the paffage from one of these regions to the other. Solon compofed a poem on this fubject, and took his materials from the works of the priests of Sais, who were remarkable for their application to the ftudy of cosmography. Diodorus and Ariftotle are alfo employed by our Author to prove that the ancients had the knowledge of an ifle beyond the pillars of Hercules, that there were even fettlements formed there by the Carthaginians, who would not fuffer the Tyrrhenians to approach it. It is, nevertheless, by conclufions drawn from cuftoms and languages, that Mr. SCHERER investigates the origin of the Americans, and if the choice of his materials were always judicious, his progress would be more luminous, and his work more interesting.

The ingenious and juftly admired hiftorian of America has obferved, with respect to the conclufions in favour of the derivation of one people from another, drawn from the resemblance