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SCIENTIFIC REVIEWS. 



Elements of the Economy of Nature, or the Principles of Physics, 

 Chemistry, and Physiology, founded on the recently discovered 

 Phenomena of Light, Electro-Magnetism, and Atomic Chemis- 

 try. By J. G. M'VicAR, A.M. 8vo. Pp. 630. Adam Black, 



• Edinburgh, 1830. 



Mr M'Vicar is a gentleman and a scholar. He is moreover a 

 man of genius, and, better still, an amiable man, possessed of a 

 strong and searching mind, led — through a maze of erroneous spe- 

 culations perhaps, yet still led to the great end of all true philoso- 

 phy — to sublime and reverend views of the Framer of universal 

 nature. Ever since we knew any thing of Mr. M'Vicar, we have 

 thought well of him ; and though there is very much in his book 

 of which we disapprove, yet even for his book we think the better 

 of him. There is a vein of deep thought running throughout the 

 whole, a wide knowledge of nature and natural phenomena, and 

 general views extending still wider, which bespeak a man who caii 

 do something, and to whom therefore Science has a right to say, you 

 must do something. Whether the production of the book now be- 

 fore us be the best way in which its author could have employed 

 himself, is a matter on which we fear there will be but one opinion. 



Such regard we entertain for Mr. M'Vicar personally ; and we 

 have been thus open and honest in expressing it, as we mean to be 

 equally open and honest in examining the views and statements of 

 the book before us. It is a curious and interesting book, but at the 

 same time rather heavy and difficult to be read, — written in 

 a style occasionally flowing, but more generally stiff and harsh, 

 and often singularly obscure, especially where the author propounds 

 his peculiar views, as if his mind were labouring to bring out some 

 lofty thought, which he can only half express, perhaps because only 

 half conceived. But we shall pass from the manner of the book, 

 and turn to the matter of it, with which perhaps we have more to 

 do. One word only in regard to the general confidence of our au- 

 thor in propounding his opinions. We like him all the better for 

 advancing his opinions boldly ; for we hold that few men have ever 

 attained to literary or philosophic greatness, who felt not, long be- 

 fore, from some inward and irrepressible burnings, that they were 

 destined to and deserved their fame ; and yet we are bound to say, 

 that the self-confidence of an author, whatever it may do to him- 

 self, will carry no conviction to the public that his speculations are 

 deserving of being received. 



Elements of the Economy of Nature, — such is the title of the 

 book. It professes to unriddle all the phenomena of nature from 

 the movements of the planets, and the evolution of light and heat 

 to the hidden motions of atomic matter in developing the material 



