THORNTON’S NEW ILLUSTRATION OF LINNEUS’S SEXUAL SYSTEM. 
which it was accompanied, is in our 
estimation entitled to more credit than 
the frantic ravings of an intoxicated 
Delphic prophetess. We, therefore, do 
not hesitate to pronounce with oracular 
confidence, that once upon atime Dr. 
Thornton, happening to be left alone in 
the parlour of a friend, took up a book 
on astronomy, which lay by chance in 
the window, or on a table, and opened 
it at the chapter where an account is 
given of the discovery made soon after 
the invention,of the telescope, that 
_ Venus, in different parts of her orbit, has 
different phases, like those of the moon ; 
and that unwilling to lose the knowledge 
which he had thus incidentally obtained, 
as soon as he got home he carefully en- 
tered it in his immense common place 
book ; but through the natural infirmity 
of his memory, and the habitual con- 
fusion of his ideas, he mistook the ap- 
pearance for the reality, and has ever 
since believed that Venus fas a moon, 
instead of being in some respects ike 
one. If a nocturnal revelation could 
stand in need of confirmation, we might 
produce a strong analogical argument 
in its support. For what can be more 
probable than that a writer, who does 
not discern the difference between a sub- 
stance and its case, and between a whole 
and its part, should fancy identity and 
similarity to be one and the same thing ? 
The affirmative side of the question 
with respect to the earth’s internal heat 
is, of course, that which Dr. Thornton 
himself espouses. He agrees with that 
set of philosophers, who entertain the 
opinion that it arises from the conflict of 
elements contained within her bosom. 
The mention of central fires produces a 
profusion of learning, and a multitude 
of quotations poetical and prosaic, oc- 
cupying, in the form of notes, nine ciose 
printed pages, in which, among other 
curious particulars, all intimately connected 
with the Sexual System of Linnaeus, we are 
told, that “the Greeks entertained the 
idea that hell, or place of the manes of 
departed people, was in the centre of the 
earth—ihat the Jews seem to have en- 
tertained the same notion, and that 
hence our Saviour, adapting his dis- 
course to their conceptions, gives the 
parable of Dives.and Lazarus—that the 
word infernal comes from inferus; and 
that on the stage these (he leaves.us to 
guess who) are always represented with 
torches in their bands, and involved in 
flames—that there is nothing in natural 
Axy. Rav. Vor. Il, 
881 
religion to authorize such a conception— 
that the innumerable stars above us are 
probably replete wich inhabitants, and 
that we probably pass from one star or 
world to another star or world, accord- 
ing to our spent lives—that the pre-ex- 
istence of the human race is supported 
both by revelation as well as reason—that 
the wisest of the ancients conjectured 
that there were no infernal regions and 
eternity of punishment—that Lucretius 
is one of these sages—and that the fables 
of the giants, and of the rape of Pro- 
serpine, are descriptive of burning moun- 
tains.*’ 
Earthquakes and volcanos draw our 
author into another series of notes, to: 
the length of fifteen entire pages, and 
nearly the whole of almost as many 
more. In these notes, which are little 
more than quotations, we are favoured 
with Bishop Berkley’s account of the 
eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1717, 
and Sir William Hamilton’s of those in 
1779 and 1794—with a description of 
Mount Aftna, and of its eruptions in 
1669 and 1755, and of the earthquake 
at Lisbon in 1755—with the composition 
and theory of gunpowder, aqua regia, 
fulminating gold, and fulminating sil- 
ver—with an explanation of the cause of 
animal heat, which Dr. Thornton as. 
sures us was first discovered and maine 
tained by himself—-with the rationale of 
the affinities of aggregation and ‘com- 
position—with the theory of animal di- 
gestion—and with a history of the cases 
of several persons who have been con- 
sumed by an inward combustion. 
Dr. Thornton, conceiving that he has 
amply considered the source and influ- 
ence of heat on the seed, but of which 
(lost, we suppose, in the mass of mul- 
titudinous and multifarious matter which 
he had heaped about him on every side) 
he has forgotten to say even a single 
word, now proceeds to contemplate the 
power of the electric fluid in promoting 
the progress of germination. .And as 
he presumes that his readers are no less 
ignorant of electricity than of botany, 
chemistry, and astronomy, he gives them 
the history of this science; of the various 
theories which have been formed con- 
cerning it by Dr. Franklin, Du Faye, 
and others 5 of the identification of the 
electric fluid with lightning, &c. &e; and 
then, less forgetful than he had been on 
the subject of the @urthis internal hext, 
concludes with ‘the experiments of Nol, 
let, Borthollons, and D’Ormay, to shew 
3L 
