*

goreans. Many axioms, demonstrations and methods were foreign, and were transplanted to Greece, from Egypt especially; but the scientific form of mathematics, and every thing that has reference to their first principles, is Greek. In arithmetic, Pythagoras acquired considerable merit, and after him, Archytas and Philolaus. Geometry was enriched, by Pythagoras, with the known theorem styled after him; it was cultivated, not without success, by many others, and particularly by Anaxagoras. The most remarkable advancement which geometry received, was from Plato, who far surpassed his teacher. Theodorus of Cyrene, founded the transcendent geometry, the geometrical analysis, and earnestly recommended the study of stereometry. Next to him, Archytas and Eudoxus were the most renowned geometricians. Mechanics, which until then were cultivated only practically, first obtained a scientific form from Archytas of Tarentum, (400.)+ Military science, to which mechanics were soon applied, was cultivated by Xenophon and the Arcadian general, Æneas, (378) of whom we possess a treatise on the defence of forts, and fragments on tactics.‡

Astronomy consisted, for a long time, in traditional observations and cosmological presumptions. The Ionic philsophers, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, knew the causes of the equinoxes, calculated the solar year or ecliptic, and fixed the constellations. Pythagoras and his scholars discovered the spherical extent of the surface of the globe. Cleostratus of Tenedos, (550) proposed an unsatisfactory period of eight years in order to reconcile the motions of the sun and moon, which proposition was improved by Euctemon's and Meton's cycle of nineteen years, or the golden number, (16 Jul. 433) and perfected by Callippo's combination of four Metonic cycles. Much was done for astronomy by Plato, Anaxagoras, and their scholars; the simple Eudoxus established observatories at Cnidus and near Heliopolis. Pytheas of Massillia, (332) applied many astronomical theorems to geography, and is often quoted. Of Autolycus, (322) have been preserved two books on the sphere, and the rise and set of the fixed stars.

Natural philosophy was, before Socrates, the most important object with which philosophy was occupied; yet it remained very limited, dependent on traditional views and frequently on very strange suppositions and presumptions. The penetration

* De Lambre on the Arithmetic of the Greeks. Fabr. vol. i. 831.

Ibid. vol. iv. 334.

§ Ibid. 10.

of the Eleatics was lost in the vast fields of the boldest speculations, and only Leucippus and his adherents betook themselves to the safe road of experience, which was, in the next period, pursued more extensively, and with less polemic partiality.*

From

Medicine, which was for a long time exclusively practised by the clergy, especially by the disciples of Asclepiades in Thessaly, gradually lost its close connexion with religious superstition, when the lonic philosophers, in the course of their researches, examined the nature of the subject. Pythagoras connected it with diplomacy and legislation, and took particular notice of Diatetics. Alemæon and Empedocles made examinations into the theory of productiveness and particular parts of physiology, which was also done by some philosophers of the modern eleatic school, and by Anaxagoras. Perceiving that the fictitious value which the medical knowledge of the priests had gained, from its exclusiveness, was rapidly declining, the Asclepiades reduced their experience to principles, and founded the empiric school at Cnidus, and the philosophical at Cos. the school at Cos issued the father of scientific medicine, Hippocrates, (b. 460, d. 372) an Asclepiad, and the most renowned among men of the same name. He acquired much knowledge in his distant travels, and by his study of philosophy, for which he was chiefly indebted to Democritus of Abdera. He lived in different Greek countries, and is supposed to have died at Larissa, in Thessaly. Long, true and ingenious observations of nature procured him a rich treasure of experience, out of which he composed with a true, philosophical spirit, very sure and general principles, as may be seen in his book-altered by a younger hand-on human nature, and by which he founded an empiric, philosophical synthesis of medicine. His physiological views were less limited than his anatomic; pathology, he enriched with the most important observations; to diatetics he gave a scientific form, arranged therapeutics, and has much merit in chirurgy.

His seventy-two works, composed in the Ionic dialect, intermixed with Atticisms, have come to us in a very altered shape; the least suspected are distinguished by brevity of expression, often bordering on obscurity, simplicity of representation, and richness of thought. In the time of the Ptolemies, many writings were falsely ascribed to him, so that it was found necessary to undertake a critical separation of the works of

Comp. Scipio Aquilianus de placitis Philosophorum, &c.

Hippocrates; under Hadrian, Artemidorus, Capito and Dioscorides effected a recension upon free and bold principles: Galen is the best authority for the authenticity, if not of the works, at least of their spirit and scientific sense. From the combination of the dialectic speculation with the Hippocratic system which soon took place, arose a dogmatic school, among the adherents of which, Diocles of Carystus, (365) for his diatetics and doctrine of medical remedies, and Praxagoras of Cos, (347) founder of the humoral pathology, and a good surgeon and anatomist, deserve attention.

ART. III.-Memoires et Souvenirs, d'un Pair de France, ex Membre du Senat conservateur. Paris. 1829.

It is a pleasant thing to run over the memoirs of an interesting writer, who has lived through a busy period in the history of any country. It recals to mind familiar events, but they are presented in a new light. The intermixture of the private affairs of the writer, his feelings, his hopes and his disappointments, with the course of public transactions, sheds an enlivening gaiety over the narrative. The utile dulci is more charming here than in the historical novel, though it partakes of the same character, with this difference, that we here expect all truth. We are not sure, however, that we have fallen on it in this instance, for we have little more than the bare assertion of an anonymous writer. He is, it is true, the eulogist of our friend La Fayette, of Larochefoucault, Liancourt, l'Abbè Gregoire, and many other virtuous and highly distinguished men; from which, we infer he is a lover of virtue; and then he carries with him much internal evidence of the general truth of his assertions. The pleasing characteristic of the work is the tone of impartiality which pervades it. There is no concealment of the faults of the royalists, or the crimes of the revolutionists, and where praise is due, on either side, it is liberally paid. The style is light, easy, and generally unaffected; the stories are

told with wit, and when it was required, with pathos. It abounds in amusing anecdotes of the persons and events of which it treats. Some of these are quite too gay for our dull circles, but they are, no doubt, applauded in the salons of Paris. The wri-ter admits he was tempted to wipe them from his narrative, as they seemed to furnish too strong a contrast to the other parts of his task; but on reflection, he became satisfied they were indispensable to a faithful picture of the manners of the times to which they belong. We are rather afraid he listened to the suggestions of that depraved taste which is too often found to sully the bright pages of French literature.

We cannot, however, but regret that he has not boldly named himself. His concealment detracts from our gratification. It is not enough that we have the detail of probable events and their secret causes, we require the production of the witness himself, that we may have his testimony corroborated by his character. He tells us he has seen and heard much for the last half century from an eminent position, which by good fortune he attained. That he was a witness of almost all the events of the Revolution, and took part in a sufficiently great number of those that led to the remarkable changes in the government of France. If his statements are to be relied on, he was certainly in the way of attaining all the information he could desire, for there is scarcely a remarkable person, during that period, with whom he was not personally acquainted. He may be a Peer of France, or he may have assumed that character; be this as it may, he is opposed to tyranny and corruption, and friendly to constitutional freedom-he never shrinks from giving vice its proper appellation, and virtue her merited eulogy. Of himself, he says "I have approached some of the most celebrated personages of our age; I have not only known them in society, amidst the affairs of the court, but more fortunate still, I have obtained the friendship of many of them, and they have confided to me the most secret transactions. The disclosures which I shall make, the interesting and rare documents I shall produce in support of these confidential disclosures, will leave no doubt of their authenticity. As long as such of my friends lived, whose tranquillity these memoirs may have compromised, I have preserved silence; it was a respect which my delicacy owed them they are dead, and posterity begins to exercise on them the severity of its judgment. I now step forward, and I think opportunely, to furnish some documents for the political trial. I will exhibit them as they have appeared to me, which is not as they have always been represented."

This is in rather too boastful a vein. His disclosures are not so extraordinary, and we are at a loss to discover the rare documents he speaks of. Perhaps they are reserved for the third volume, which had not been published, when the two we are reviewing, left France; though this is improbable, as the last must comprehend the period between the landing of Bonaparte from Egypt and the year 1828. But if our author has overrated his disclosures, he certainly deserves the credit of having furnished us with an entertaining, though light work, that vividly refreshes our memory of the most awful period of the French history.

The range he has taken over so many interesting years, leaves us at a loss where to begin our selections; for we are not disposed to follow him through the history of the eventful period. We have neither time nor place for this; and shall therefore content ourselves with touching lightly upon some of the causes of that revolution, whose effects are not even now wholly disclosed, and whose interest can never be entirely extinguished: we shall quote freely from many parts of the work to show the manner in which the writer treats his subject, and to introduce to our readers some of his notices of events, and anecdotes of persons, with whose names and works they are already familiar.

The French monarchy down to the period of the revolution, as is well known, was not many degrees removed from a pure despotism. The fiat of the monarch, even on matters of finance, when registered by the Parliament, became the law; and it was not until the age of Louis XV, that these bodies ever ventured to attempt an abridgment of kingly authority. They had succeeded, at that period, in banishing the Jesuits; but they failed in restraining the power of the crown. One important thing, however, they accomplished, and that was partially to remove the film from the eyes of the people, which despotism had thrown over them, and to give them a glimpse of liberty which they never after lost sight of. Kings are naturally adverse to any intermeddling in what they deem their own affairs, and Parliaments from that time ceased to be called, until the embarrassed state of the finances, in the reign of the unfortunate Louis XVI, rendered them indispensable. The French people, however, could procure no sufficient guarantee either for life, liberty or property; for, though the last named monarch recognized their rights to a constitutional charter, and was really desirous of permanently securing to them its blessings, yet his offer came so late that it was suspected of insincerity; and his patriotic, and we may add, revolutionary designs, were unhappily frus