1802.) 
which once gave fuch luflre and confe- 
quence. to Rome and Florence, has been 
much vifited by foreigners, who wifhed to 
contemplate the wonders of other days.— 
Many of our own artifis have been lately 
i that capital, and fome of them: ftill re- 
gain there. We may fairly hope, that, 
BN 
Proceedings of Learned Socteties. 
35S 
by infpecting fuch produ&tions, they wil] 
endeavour to form a manner fuperior ta 
that which has hitherto marked their 
works, and enable their contemporaries to 
fay—Thefe men aljowere ambitious of paint- 
ing for pofterity. © ‘ 
? 
Dal ig 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 
mn 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATION- 
“AL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 
(Continued from page 246.) 
Te French have for a long time tefti- 
fied much indifference for the philo- 
fophy of. Kant, which has occupied and 
thrown into fermentation the whole ofGer- 
many. Some works, in harfhly reproaching 
them for this indifference, have, as it were, 
forced them out of it ; but it is not cer- 
tain that the doétrine of the philofopher 
of Koenigfberg will gain much by the 
examen which fome of our writers have 
begun to make of it. 
> No one has hitherto explained it im 
French with more perfpicuity than Citizen 
Kinker, a Batavian Profeffor, who has 
compreffed in a {mali volume all the effen- 
tial points of that part of the philofophy 
of Kant, which is known under the title 
of Critique of Pure Reafon. This expof- 
tion has been the object of a memoir read 
to the Clafs by Citizen Desrurt TRa- 
cy. sists 
In this memoir, after doing the moft 
ample juftice to the extenfive knowledge 
and to the great talents of the German 
philofopher, and to the learned Batavian 
who has made himfelf his interpreter, he 
combats their fyftem of ideology. 
He has made it his particular bufinefs 
to prove, that there cannot exift in our 
minds any thing like to what they call pure 
reason, pure underftanding, pure fenfibility, 
and pure coaétion ; and that we cannot have 
any pure knowledge, in the fenfe that is 
given to tho!e words. 
The reafons that he alleges are not 
fulceptible of extra& ; they are of them- 
felves an extract in {ubttance, both of the 
theory of Kant on thofe fubje&ts, and of 
the more extenfive demonftrations that 
might be made of the errors contained in 
that theory. 
We can only remark, that Citizen Tra- 
éy does not pretend to eftablifh any parti- 
eular fyftem of philofophy, He enly 
wifhes to fhew, that the one which he re- 
futes is not founded upon any good me- 
thod of reafoning. He thinks that it only 
refts on the abufe of abftraét ideas, and 
of general principles, and on the miftake 
of fuppofing that we are to judge of par- 
ticular ideas by general ideas. 
On this occafion he obferves, that there , 
is no fyftem of philofophy generally re- 
ceived at prefent in France ; that piilofo- 
phy there does not conftitute a fect, as it 
has hitherto done in all times and in all 
countries. He thinks that this ftate of 
things is very favourable to the progrefs of 
knowledge, and is an effect of the method 
that we follow in all kinds of refearches 
and of inftruction. It is this good method 
which he confidérs as the diltmétive cha~ 
raéter of the French philofophy. He ate 
tributes it to the progreis whicu the know- 
ledge of our intelleétual operations has 
made amongit us, and to the labours of 
our ideologiis, who have proceeded in the 
track of Condillac, and, faithful to his 
principles, have taken him fora guide, 
without receiving him for a matter. 
He concludes by exprefling his with that 
this found logic, the theory of which is 
near being completed, may have its influ- 
ence every day more and more on our ha- 
bitudes or practices of every kind. 
Whilft Citizen Tracy bas been examin= 
ing the doctrine of Kant, Citizen Mer- 
cier declares himfelr an advocate fora 
part of that do&trine, ina memoir which 
he intitles, De Ll Ate du Mot: Of the A? 
of Myfelf. He has, himfelf, condenfed ia 
the following extraS, what is mott effen- 
tial in his curious but obfcure memoir : 
‘© We are alarmed at the muttiplied ef 
forts which tend to nothing lefs than to 
transform the moral infiinct and the con- 
Science into accident. 
<¢ Morality is the moft elevated point of 
our nature, and the primordial fentimen's 
which are inherent tothe nature of man, 
exit by virtue of the fynthetic unity du 
03. 
“ Wha 
