EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, OR LITERARY MISCELLANY, FOR AUGUST 1798; With a View of CATHCART CASTLE, in the Parish of Cathcart, and Shire of Renfrew. CONTENTS: Page Regifter of the Weather for Aug. 82 On the Pride of Grand Rela ib. High Water at Leith for Sept. Defcription of the View, Thoughts on various Subjects, Of Appeals,-Of the Liber- 84 87 88 89 ib. 90 Account of Lincoln's Inn, 106 tions, Page 124. 118 120 L Proceedings of Parliament, London Gazettes, Affairs in Scotland, Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 160 State 1798. Barom. State of the BAROMETER, in inches, and decimals, || Thermom. Rain. Weather. 3. 7 48 8 15 T. 4. 8 42-9 10 W. 5. 9 39 Th. 6. 10 39-11 10 - -10 9 F. 7. II 41-11 59 329.7825 52 62 0.025 Showers Sa. 8. 110 41 65 Clear M. 10. 2 6- 2 34 Cloudy Clear T. II. 3 Ditto Rain 0.653 Ditto F. 14. 5 38. II 29.665 54 61 Clear 12. Th. 13 3 53 4 45 327 4 19 5 12 6 5 659 Su. 16. 7 27- 7.55 Su. 23. . 0 56— 1 17 M. 24. 1 38 Su. 30. -- I 58 2. 18- 238 258- 3 18 3 39 4 421- 4 43 5 5 5 29 5 53-6 18 MOON. 11 29 30.025 48 64 Ditto Lak Qrtr. 3. O 13 aftern. 30 30.0625 48 63 Ditto 31 30.05 4666 Cloudy Quantity of Rain 2.285 New Moon IO. 6 50 morn. THE THE EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, OR LITERARY MISCELLANY, FOR AUGUST 1798. SIR, TO THE EDITOR OF THE EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. YOUR Correfpondent R. R. of Alnwick, has called the attention of your readers to one of the moft abftrufe and difficult queftions of philofophy. But however plaufible his folution of the difficulty ftated may be, I apprehend it is more ingenious than folid. His argument feems to have the following relation to the general queftion, Whether the difference obfervable in human intellect refults from education or organization? Different men are found to poffefs different degrees of intelligence. This diverfity is either the refult of education or of organization. It is the refult of education, fays Helvetius, for it is impoffible that any two perfons can receive the fame education. Your Correfpondent denies the fact, and afferts that two perfons receive precifely the fame education when the objects that furround the one are of the fame class with those which furround the other; and excite the fame fenfations in the one, when they are the objects of thought, that they do in the other, even tho' these objects are not individually the fame. What your Correfpondent understands by, the fame, in this cafe it is difficult for me to conceive. Does he mean to affirm, that an education is exactly the fame with another, with which it only agrees in its general modes and relations. He might as well affirm that the intelle&t of all human beings is precifely the fame; for it is granted by every philofopher to be the fame in its general modes and relations. Your Correfpondent evidently mistakes the statement of the queftion; for it is not, Whether the intelligence which one man poffeffes be originally of the fame kind with that which another poffeffes? of this there is no doubt. But the queftionis, Whether the original capacity of intelligence be the fame? and whether the different degrees of intelligence poffeffed by different perfons be the refult of organization or education? The difference of human intellect confifts in degree, not in kind. One man has a greater degree of acuteness of vifion than another, a greater fenfibility in the fense of touch, or a greater degree of quicknefs or facility in combining the ideas which he receives from his fenfes : yet the powers of vifion, touch, and affociation of ideas, in thefe different perfons, have the fame general modes and relations. A faint light will not enable a man to fee fo clearly as one that is brilliant, tho' they have the In 2 fame fame general modes and relations. Therefore, while the qualities of objects differ in degree, though they agree in kind, they can never affect perfons precifely in the fame manner, and confequently two perfons affected by them can never "be faii to be educated precifely in the fame manner." Edinburgh, Aug. 11th, 1798. J. L. For the Edinburgh Magazine. OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF GREEK AND LATIN GRAMMAR. -Sed in longum tamen ævum Manferunt, hodieque manent veftigia RuHORACE. IN ris. N taking a retrospective view of the fucceffive labours of Grammarians both before and after the reftoration of letters, we are disappointed in finding that these have by no means perfected their science, which of all others, from its near connection with common life, and from the nu merous lift of its cultivators, we should now have expected to have found complete. Whether the odious name of Grammarian, at present so deteftable to every man of genius, may not have had always an equal influence in caufing the fcience to be abandoned to the ignorantly laborious, or that even the most ingenious may not have miftaken the mode of inveftigation, are fubjects which may occupy the leisure of the curious. In whatever way, however, the defect may be accounted for, the works of Horne Tooke, of more value than all the lumber of Greece and Rome, give fufficient evidence of its exiftence. The fcholaftic trifling of Ariftotle has vanished from other sciences ever fince the days of Bacon, but in Grammar it pollutes the yesterday pages of Lowth and Harris. But allowing this to be the fituation of Grammati cal science with regard to our own language, we are inclined for a moment to impute it to the difficulty of analyfing a structure formed of fo many rude materials, until once we have furveyed the labours of the learned on the original and polished languages of Greece and Rome. Thefe have had the advantages of many Grammarians of their own, while they ftill continued to be generally spoken; and numberlefs Commentators and Philologifts, of every nation in Europe, have reduced to order their properties fince the revival of learning. But wonderful to obferve indeed, can it be faid with truth that we have either Lexicon or Grammar, of any of the two, written with even tolerable much lefs philofophical accuracy. This affertion may perhaps appear to fome arrogant, and without foundation, but a flight examination of fome of the moft common and celebrated books will confirm the truth of it beyond any poffibility of doubt. The books which are usually employed to initiate the ftudent of Greek and Roman literature in the most respectable univerfities of Scotland, are certainly the beft of the kind extant, though their defects are fo great as often to discourage and always to difguft the intelligent inquirer. The Grammar by Moor, whofe genius was much above the common, had his industry been equal to it, is defective to a degree which is obvious to every one. the indeclinable parts of fpeech, or (to ufe the foolish Grammatical term) the Particles, are omitted. This clafs of words, by far the moft difficult to acquie a true knowledge of in any. language, but more efpecially in Greek, has neither been understood nor yet explained by any Grammarian either ancient or modern. The Greeks themselves, who should have known them beft, have declared to our aftonishment that many of them have no fignification at all, that they were merely expletives, or monofyllables, to fill up the chafms. Plato makes frequent and extenfive use of All them them in his Dialogues, and a modern Grammarian has pronounced them to be the cement of his difcourfe. Where then shall we turn to for information on this important philo logical fubject to Vigerus, or to Hoogeveen? Peace be to their manes, their labours were immenfe, but they laboured in the dark! Their books confift of a rude chaos of paffages, collected from ancient authors, with conclufions annexed, fo contradictory and abfurd, that frequently a word is found to mean a thing and its oppofite. To give an inftance common in all of thefe Grammarians; the fame prepofition which at one time fignifies above, is occafionally turned into Latin fignifying under. Diftinctions, without difference of meaning, arc fo plentiful in thefe authors, that they would reduce any reasonable, but unexperienced reader, to conclude that the language of Demofthenes and Homer was instead of the most beautiful, the moft jarring and anomalous in the universe. Leaving these fcholaftic productions, and they are the beft to be found on the fubject, it were injurious to the memory of fo great a genius to pass over in filence the investigations of Dr Moor. He examined a very few of the Greek indeclinable words; he reduced their various meanings into order, by finding the principal one and tracing it through all the reft. His conclufions were juft, because they were formed from a fufficient number of actual obfervations of paffages; which method might be termed with fome qualifi cation the Experimental Philofophy of Grammar. But the labour was only begun by Moor, and none have attempted to follow him! With regard to the manner of explaining the meaning of Greek vocables, the medium has always been It Latin. No language whatfoever could *See Orig. and Progrefs of Language, &c. + See Ruddiman's Defpauter's, and all the common Grammars of any reputation in ufe. |