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..bམ་བ

MATHEMATICS.

FROM THE FRENCH OF GANGANELLI,
Pope Clement 14.

Mathematics will enable you to think justly. With
out them, there is a certain method wanting which is
necessary to rectify our thoughts, to arrange our ideas,
and to determine our judgments aright. It is easy to
perceive in reading a book, even a moral one, wheth-
er the author be a Mathematician or not.
I am sel-
dom deceived in this observation. The famous French
Metaphysician would not have composed The Inquiry
after Truth, nor the famous Leibnitz his Theodicé, if
they had not been Mathematicians. We perceive in
their productions that geometrical order which brings
their reasonings into small compass while it gives them
energy and method. Order is delightful; there
is nothing in nature but what is stamped with it, and
without it there could be no harmony.
We may
likewise say that the Mathematics are an universal sci-
ence which connects all the rest, and displays them in
their happiest relations. The Mathematician, at
the first look, is sure to analyse and unravel a subject
or proposition with justness; but a man who does not
understand this science, sees only in a vague, and almost
always in an imperfect manner. Apply your
self then to this great branch of knowledge, so worthy
of our curiosity, and so necessary to the uses of life;
but not in such a degree as to throw you into absence:
-endeavour to be always recollected, whatever are
your studies. If I was young, and had leisure, I
would acquire a more extensive knowledge of Geom-
etry. I have always cherished that science with a par-
* Melebranche.

ticular predilection. My turn of mind made me seek with avidity every thing that was methodical; and I pay but little respect to those works which are only the exercises of imagination. We have three

principal sciences, which I compare to the three essential parts of the human conposition:-Theology, which, by its spirituality, resembles our soul; the Mathematics, which, by their combination and justness, express our reason; and Natural Philosophy, which, by its mechanical operations, denotes our bod ies: and these three Sciences (which ought to maintain a perfect harmony) while they keep within their proper sphere, necessarily elevate us towards their author, the source and fullness of all light.

Philosophy without Geometry, is like medicine without chemistry. The greater number of modern Philosophers reason inconclusively, only because they are unacquainted with Geometry. They mistake sophisms for truths; and if they lay down just principles, they deduce false conclusions from them. Study

alone will not make a learned man, nor a knowledge of the sciences a Philosopher. But we live in an age where great words impose, and where men think themselves to be eminent geniuses, if they only contrive a set of singular opinions. Distrust those writers who employ themselves rather about the style than the matter, and who hazard every thing for the sake of surprising.

A NOTION OF HONOUR.

BY MR. PRATT.

Talk not so formally, I am so much a despiser of it, that I never suffer a slip of buckram, even in my coat. I heard that you were insulted, and, for the want of a few scoundrel guineas, unable to redress yourself. Now, insult I am so far from bearing myself, that I cannot endure it should be inflicted on another. If you had a purse in your pocket, a sword at your side, and a cane in your hand: if, sir, providence had thought proper to accoutre you in this manner, I should have left you to revenge your own cause, and fight your own battles: and had you hesitated to do this, under such advantages, I should have rejoiced to hear, that the purse had been taken from you, the sword run through your body, or the cane laid across your shoulders; because, for man to fear man, in my opinion, is the last error of idolatry, and ten times a greater shame, than bowing the knee to Baal.

ADVICE TO A PRINCE.

Wouldest thou, my prince, inform thyself of the situation of thy people, that thou mayest redress their grievances and promote their welfare, consult not the wealthy merchants of Damascus, nor the proud lords of landed inheritance; but turn thine eyes into the shop of the humble mechanic, the cottage of the industrious peasant, and the village of the laborious fisherContes Arabes.

man.

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aged three months and four days,
the body of
RICHARD ACANTHUS,

a young person of unblemished character: He was taken in his callow infancy from under the wing of a tender parent,

by the rough and pitiless hands of a two legged animal without feathers.

Though born with the most aspiring disposition and unbounded love of freedom,

he was closely confined in a grated prison, and scarcely permitted to view those fields to the possession of which he had an ancient and undoubted charter.

Deeply sensible of this infringement of his natural and unalienable rights,

he was often heard to petition for redress;
not with rude and violent clamours,

but in the most plaintive notes of harmonious sorrow:
at length, tired with fruitless efforts to escape,
his indignant soul

burst the prison which his body could not,
and left a lifeless heap of beauteous feathers.
READER!

if suffering innocence can hope for retribution,
deny not to the gentle shade.
of this unfortunate captive,

the humble, though uncertain, hope of animating some happier form;

or trying his new fledged pinions
in some happy Elysium, beyond the reach of

MAN,

the tyrant of this lower world.

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