464 D'ALEMBERT. 



thought every one had long since admitted there can 

 be none." 



Among D'Alembert's other writings of the inferior 

 kind, to which I have been referring, must be reckoned 

 his ' General Reflections on Eloquence/ They are super- 

 ficial and inaccurate, though, like most of his literary 

 pieces, somewhat dogmatical with their shallowness. His 

 very definition of Eloquence is entirely faulty ; he calls 

 it the faculty of communicating to others the feelings 

 that fill our own minds ; according to which, however dull 

 or impotent these feelings may be, their impression being 

 truly conveyed, they produce all the effects of the highest 

 eloquence, and so every person may be eloquent, nay, 

 almost all may be equally eloquent. His reflections on 

 History are of no higher merit. Of his notions respect- 

 ing Poetry we have already spoken. 



It remains to speak of his general treatise on the 

 ' Elements of Philosophy/ It is one of his best literary 

 works, and certainly preferable to the one it approaches 

 nearest in the subject-matter, the Introductory Discourse 

 to the Encyclopaedia. It is exceedingly comprehensive; 

 it is rapid without being hurried or hasty; it is as 

 clearly written as possible ; and it is accompanied with 

 illustrations judiciously given and very convenient for 

 the general reader. But though it be well entitled to 

 these commendations, it is not easy to follow Condorcet 

 in his eulogy of this piece as containing an important 

 " metaphysical discovery." He regards it as settling for 

 the first time the controversy "whether the laws of 

 motion belong to the class of contingent or of necessary 

 truths," and he considers D'Alembert as having first dis- 

 covered the demonstration that these laws are necessary. 



