246 
advantages of fuch an undertaking being 
public, and the inconveniences only per- 
fonal, there was no room to hefitate. 
In a memoir upon the life and writings 
of Plato, Citizen DeLisLe DESALES com- 
plains of feeing the hiltory of this philo- 
fopher disfigured in Apuleius, Diogenes 
Laertius, and other ancient authors, by 
the filly fables intreduced into them. In 
his cpinion, the author of the Travels of 
young Anacharfis is the only one among 
the moderns, who has fpoken in a manner 
worthy of Plato, and who may not be 
charged with tranfcribing injudicioufly an- 
ecdotes often improbablej and judgments 
often calumnious. Plato, at the court of 
Syracufe, was called by his enemies, the 
Philofopher of Princes: Citizen Defales 
reftores to him the title of Prince of Phi- 
loiophers. 
Citizen Defaies has alfo read a memoir 
on the national fovereignty, and he thinks, 
that to treat on this fubject properly, it 
would be neceffary to go back to the 
epoch when Plato, in the grove of Aca- 
demus, was reafoning on the origin of 
civil fociety. This memoir contains a 
definition of fovereignty, and an enquiry 
into its characters, its acts, and its gua- 
yantees. | 
Citizen Mercier has read three me- 
moirs, the firft entitled ** Views on Mo- 
-rals; the fecond,‘* Politico-Moral Views ;” 
and the third, ** an Hiftorical Fragment 
on Cato the Cenfor.” 
One of the refults of the firft memoir is, 
that man, in order to give decifion and 
influence to events, can do more by his 
charatter, by the energy of his will, than 
by his knowledge or his talents, or even 
than by bis virtues. 
In commencing the fecond memoir; Ci- 
tizen Mercier takes it for granted, that 
politics, like all the fciences, muit reft on 
the knowledge of faéts. He fuppofes that 
man muft learn to read the fucceffion of 
future events in anterior revoiutions, and 
to recognize the mora) phenomena, the 
immutability of which governs political 
chances. But the hiftory of nations ma- 
nifefts in them two propenfities which we 
mutt include in the number of thefe ¢on- 
ftant laws; the love of liberty and the love 
ef repofe. On one part, Citizen Mer- 
cier fees man always impelled towards 
republican forms, inviting them where 
they are not; ftriving to retain them, 
fometimes to exaggerate them, where they 
are; and preferring thefe by inftinct to 
every other {pecies of government- On 
the other hand, he confiders mankind as a 
great peaceable animal, which has repofed 
Proceedings of Public Societies, 
. [Oober ¥ 
fur ages under the law of. igertia, and 
which, agitated from time to time by the 
ative pailions of fome individuals, falls 
again of itfelf into the habitual calm which 
befits it. It would be confolatory to be- 
lieve, with the author, that hiftory offers 
more days of peace, than days of war, and 
that the nature of men of itfelf infallibly 
puts an end to their projeéts of perturba- ~ 
tion. | 
The fragments on Cato the Cenfor is a 
a portraiture, which cannot be faid to 
be flattering. It is a cuftom to fay, 
As wife as Cato ; Citizen Mercier rifes up 
againit this proverbial reputation. If he © 
grants to Cato equity, firmnefs, and even 
genius; he condemns rigoroufly his private 
manners, and efpecially reproaches him 
for that harfh and vain pedantry, which, 
in {chools and academies, is only ridicu- 
lous, but which, in magiftrates, is a vice 
capable of doing more injury to virtue 
than bad examples can do. The virtue 
Citizen Mercier would choofe, is not that 
fevere and milanthropic virtue which is 
practifed or difplayed lefs to procure felf- 
fatistaction, than to acquire the right of 
fhewing ourfelves diflatisfied with others. 
The author has inferted in the memoir 
fome ideas on the Cenforfhip,confidered as 
a political inftitution ; he does not think 
it a fit one to be eftablifhed among them ; 
but, adds he, admitting that this Cenfor- 
fhip fhould appear as neceflary; where 
fhould we find the Cenfor? 
In the courfe of the, preceding fitting, 
Citizen GREGOIRE had read to the clafs 
the firft part of a work in which he ex- 
pofes the conduct of different modern na- 
tions with regard to flaves, from the ori- 
gin of the flave-trade to our own days. In 
continuing this fubject at the prefent fitting 
the author traces the hiftory of Negroes, 
and of the trafic in them, in the United 
States of America. . This hiftory is that 
of the generous efforts of many focieties, 
and particularly thofe of the Quakers, of 
many philofophers,and efpecially of Frank- 
lin, to reftore liberty to all the blacks, 
and, above all, to teach them to make a 
proper ufe of it. After fo many labours, 
and even after different laws enacted in 
favour of the Negroes, it is painful to 
reflect that the number, of flaves is yet 
about 50,000 in the northern ftates, and 
about 650,000 in the fouthern! The au- 
thor bitterly deplores this ftruggle of ty- 
ranny againft philanthropic knowledge, 
of cupidity again{t juitice. 
The intellectual and moral qualities of 
the Negroes have been the objcét of ang- 
ther memoir*from the fame pen. This 
piece 
