Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Britain and Ireland. If our Author is not always correct, there is this in his favour, that he appears to have spared no pains to get information, and to have confulted proper materials. We have, indeed, differed from him in the arrangement of his accounts, and with a double view; one, for the ease of our readers, the other, for the fake of taking up as little room as poffible. Under our circumftances, of being much in arrear for many publications, brevity, so far as it can be made compatible with due information, is the one thing, at prefent, particularly needful for us to study.

This Section concludes with an account of the Public Revenues of the island: these are of two forts; one for the fervice, and under the immediate direction of the Crown, raised by established laws for that purpose.

[ocr errors]

Ift, By duties on foreign wines, and other • fpirituous liquors; on foreign indigo, cacoa, tobacco, cotton, and English refined sugar, which, at a medium, for seven years past, • amount [annually] to about

[ocr errors]

2dly, By the quit-rents of about one mil• lion and five or fix hundred thousand acres of land, that are already patented in that island, and pay at the rate of a halfpenny per acre; and the intereft on quit-rent bonds, at 10 per cent. which, taken at a medium for feveral years, amounts to

[ocr errors]

3dly, By efcheats and cafualties, which feldom amount to less than

1.

s. d.

11000 OO

4000 0 0

1000 0 0

(p) 16000 o o

(p) His Majesty has been graciously pleased to confent, that the monies [thus raifed] fhould be always laid out in promoting the ⚫ welfare and fecurity of the ifland, and in paying the public Officers, whose falaries he was pleafed to confent fhould be regulated ⚫ and appointed in the following manner, viz.

[ocr errors][merged small]

To the Governor for the time being 2500 00 o per Ann.

To the Auditor-General

To the Chief-Juftice

To the feveral Landwaiters

To the Captain of the Train

[blocks in formation]

The other part is levied by certain impofts, proportioned to the occafional neceffities of the Colony; nor can the monies fo raised, be appropriated or difpofed of without the confent and approbation of the community. Thefe at prefent are, Ift, By duties on wine, rum, and other fpirituous liquors, • fold by retail (q), about £.8000 0 0

2dly, By a deficiency tax, or tax laid on fuch as do not keep and maintain a number of white fervants proportioned to the number of their flaves and cattle. This tax was firft inftituted to promote the importation of white people; and to oblige every man of interest to encourage them, both for the fafety and • welfare of the Colony; but the neglect of the public on this occafion, now produces a fettled revenue of about

3dly, By an impoft on imported Negros, computed, at a medium, to produce about

8000 0 0

7500 0 0

£.23500 0 0

Out of this fum the Governor, for the time being, we are told, is ufually complimented with an additional falary of 2500l. a year; and every Officer of the regiment with an annual prefent; its further application is to encourage new fettlers, to relieve the diftreffed, and promote industry.

In fection 4, the inhabitants, and their manner of living, are defcribed; and a few natural curiofities mentioned: The inhabitants our Author has, not injudiciously, claffed into Planters, Settlers, Merchants, and Dependents; befides Negros. He appears to have ftudied the manners of each clafs with fome attention, and to have done equal juftice to the feveral characters. With respect to their method of living, their buildings, furniture, and habits, are, as in other countries, proportioned to their fortunes. The rich live fumptuously every day; and thofe in inferior circumstances, as well as they can.-The curiofities here noticed are, 1. The

(9) Kington alone, according to our Author, pays to this tax about 1151. a week; which is more than two thirds of the whole produce. Confidering the number of fhipping places round the ifland, in moft, if not all which, there are tippling houses, reforted to by the failors, who are generally known to be no enemies to liquor, nor very fparing of their money, it may, perhaps, be doubted whether the produce of this tax is not here fomewhat under-rated.

Water

Water-fall in Mamee river, a little above Bull-Bay, in the parish of Port-Royal. 2. The Cascade, and 3. the Grotto, both in the Parish of St. Anne. 4. The Fogs in the parish of St. Thomas in the Vale. The laft of these will fall under our notice, with more propriety, when the latter part of the Doctor's work comes before us: and the three first appear too immaterial to command a particular regard here; for which reason we shall, at prefent, take leave of our Author, referving the confideration of his natural History, to another opportunity.

An Efay on the Origin of Human Knowlege. Being a fupplement to Mr. Locke's Effay on the Human Understanding. Tranflated from the French of the Abbé de Condillac, Member of the Royal Academy of Berlin. By Mr. Nugent. 8vo. 5s. Nourfe.

N the year 1689 the celebrated Mr. Locke published his In compofing that work, he propofed to himself, not glory, but improvement. Unfatisfied with the prevailing opinions of that age, concerning the fource from whence knowlege is derived, and wanting to inform himself how far the human mind could proceed with certainty of evidence in its fpeculations, he entered into his own mind, reviewed the materials of his own knowlege, difcovered whence they came, and marked the bounds of their extent. His book was the transcript of that fair and accurate enquiry: a tranfcript fo fair, that it always approves itfelf to the understanding of every man capable of peruling it; and fo accurate, that it hath ferved ever fince for the groundwork of every other inveftigation of the kind.

I Effay concerning human understanding.

Among the principal books bearing any affinity to Mr. Locke's fubject, there are three which feem to have most defervedly attracted the attention of the public: one by the late Bishop of Cloyne, printed in the year 1710, entitled, A Treatife concerning the Principles of Human Knowlege. Another by the late Lord Bolingbroke, entitled, An Essay concerning the Nature, Extent, and Reality of Human Knowlege. And a third by the Abbé de Condillac: of which we now proceed to give an account.

This ingenious Abbé divides his work into two parts. The firft treats of the materials of our knowlege, and particularly of the operations of the mind; and the fecond, of language

and

and method. In the conduct of his enquiries on both these fubjects, he owns his obligations to two of our countrymen: to Locke, almost every where; and to Warburton, in the fecond part of this Eflay. This afforded an occafion to Mr. Nugent, the Tranflator of this work, to dedicate the book to Dr. Warburton. The dedication is followed by the Tranflator's preface, which gives us a very ftriking picture of the philofophic character of our fagacious Abbé, whom we cannot but admire for his difinterested and unbiafed purfuit of truth. We are not only pleafed with his aim, but with the ability he difcovers in accomplishing his intention; and what not only gains our admiration, but fixes our esteem, is the ingenuity and candor with which he acknowleges an error, and corrects a mistake. But we refer our Readers to the Tranflator's preface, where they will find this account of the Abbé ftrongly fupported, not only by obfervations on the performance now under our confideration, but by a fubfequent piece, entitled, A Treatise on Senfation; with an analyfis of which, Mr. Nugent has favoured the public.

The principal defign of the Abbé de Condillac, in the firft part of his Effay, is to explain to us how the mind opens, and how its functions fpread. To this first part, and principal intention of our Abbé, we fhall at prefent confine ourselves; for as to the materials of our knowlege, he produces nothing Our abftract take as follows; it is almoft every where in the words of the Tranflator.

new.

The perception, or impreffion, caufed in the mind by the agitation of the fenfes, is the first operation of the understanding. In vain would outward objects folicit the fenses; the mind would never have any knowlege of them, did it not perceive them. Hence the firft and finalleft degree of knowlege is perception.

But fince perception arifes only from the impreffions made on the fenfes, it is certain, that this firft degree of knowlege will have more or lefs extent, according as men are organized to receive a greater or lefs variety of fenfations.

Among feveral perceptions, which we are confcious of at the fame time, it frequently happens, that we are more strongly apprized of the existence of one of them, than of that of all the reft. Nay, the more our consciousness of fome increases, the more will that of the others diminish. This operation, by which our consciousness concerning particular perceptions is fo greatly increased, that they feem to be the only perceptions of which we take notice, I call Attention.

I difcern therefore two forts of perceptions among those we are conscious of; fome which we remember at leaft the moment after, others which we forget the very moment they are impreffed. We not only, in the ordinary courfe of things, forget a part of our perceptions; but, fometimes, we forget them all. If the feveral objects around me, acting upon my senses with an almost equal force, produce perceptions in my mind, all of them nearly of the same degree of vivacity; and if I acquiefce in the impreffion they make, without striving to obtain a higher degree of consciousness concerning one than another; I shall retain no idea at all of what has paffed within me. Let us therefore conclude, that we are incapable of giving any account of the greatest part of our perceptions, not because we were not conscious of them, but that we forget them the next moment.

Our attention is engaged by external objects, in exact proportion as they fuit our conftitution, paffions, and state of life. This fuitablenefs of objects caufes them to act upon us with greater force, and to imprefs us with a more lively fenfation. To this it is owing, that when a change is made in us, we view the fame objects differently, and form quite contrary judgments of them. Men are generally fo apt to be deceived by this fort of judgments, that he who at different times fees and judges differently, thinks nevertheless that both now and then he fees and judges aright. And this bias becomes fo natural to us, that led thereby to confider objects only as they regard ourfelves, we never fail to cenfure the conduct of others, as much as we approve our own.

When objects attract our attention, the perceptions they produce within us are connected with our confciousness of ourfelves, and of every thing relative to us. Hence it is, that consciousness not only gives us a knowlege of our perceptions, but also, if those perceptions be repeated, informs us that we had them before, and reprefents them as belonging to us, and as affecting, notwithstanding their variety and fucceffion, a Being which is always the fame felf. Consciousness considered in regard to thefe new effects, is a new operation, which serves us every inftant, and is the foundation of experience. Without it, each moment of our life would seem the first of our existence, and our knowlege would never extend beyond a first perception. I fhall call it Reminifcence.

The progrefs of the operations, whose analysis and origin have been here explained, is obvious. At first there is only a fimple perception in the mind, which is no more than the impreffion it receives from external objects. Hence arife, in

« AnteriorContinuar »