3

2

not, in the eighteenth century,* have had reafon to acknowledge with fhame, that stealing a fwan, breaking down a cherry tree, letting out the water of a fish pond, being feen in the company of gypfies, with upwards of a hundred and fifty other actions which a man is daily liable to commit, ' are declared, by English Acts of Parliament, crimes worthy of inftant death!

Is not this a fact at which Englishmen fhould blush? And ought not our legiflators to undertake, without delay, the great but neceffary work of reforming these fanguinary and impolitic ftatutes? Our country gloriously led the way in the abolition of torture; let us not be afhamed to follow the good example which others have fet us in return, and ftill further

Blackstone. vol. IV. p. 4.

'Dalt. Juft. C. CLVI.

2

231ft Geo. II. C. XLII.

3 9th Geo. I. C. XXII.

4

5th Eliz. C. XX.

5 Ruffhead's Index to Statutes.

66

After this, will not any one acknowledge that Judge Forster, in the preface to his Crown Law, recommends its ftudy with fingular propriety, as a matter of univerfal concernment? "For," fays he, no rank or elevation "in life, no uprightness of heart, no prudence or circumfpection "of conduct, fhould tempt a man to conclude, that he may not, at fome time or other, be deeply interested "in it."

66

humanize our civil inftitutions. We fhall then have performed a work for which pofterity will regard us with gratitude; and our age will then ftand a chance of ftill acquiring the fame reputation for humanity and public fpirit, which it justly merits for the encouragement it affords to improvements in the arts and sciences.

To conclude; It has been the object of this difcourfe to prove,

That the end of all punishments is, not to torment a fenfible Being, but to prevent the future commiffion of crimes;

That thofe only can be deemed proper fubjects of human punishments, who have been proved guilty of offences against the peace and good order of fociety;

That the political enormity of offences, or that which fixes the proportion of their punishment, is to be estimated by the degree of detriment they occafion to the ftate;

That the nature of all punishments should be fo fuited to their refpective offences, as that they shall naturally tend to prevent their future commiffion, by correcting the principles which gave rife to them:

That the magiftrate has no right to inflict punishments unnecessarily fevere;

That he ought to be very sparing (if he have recourfe to them at all) in the ufe of capital punishments;

And

And that in every inftance he ought to appoint only fuch fanctions to his laws, as fhall be adequate, and no more than adequate, to prevent the crimes which are the objects of them.

If, in the course of this flight Effay, any thing has been offered in the leaft degree worthy the attention of this refpectable Society, and more especially, if it should be the means of furnishing agreeable and ufeful topics of debate, its end will be answered, and its author fatisfied.

Mem. The rule, "That the measure of punishment "fhall be fuch as may be adequate to the prevention of "the offence," muft only be extended to fuch offences as it is in the magiftrate's power to prevent without occafioning a greater evil than will arife from its permiffion. Judge Blackftone happily obferves, "The damage "done to our public roads by loaded waggons is univer"fally acknowledged, and many laws have been made "to prevent it, none of which have proved effectual." But it does not therefore follow that it would be just in the legiflature to inflict death upon every obftinate carrier who defeats or eludes the provifions of former ftatutes. Vol. IV. p. 10.

On the PURSUITS of EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. BY THOMAS PERCIVAL, M. D. F. R. S. and S. A. &c. Read May 14, 1784.

Homo, naturæ minifter et interpres, tantum facit et intelligit, quantum de naturæ ordine, re vel mente, obfervaverit ; nee 'amplius fcit, aut poteft. BACON, Nov. ORGAN. APH. I.

THE

very learned and ingenious author of Hermes has ftigmatized the pursuits of modern philofophy, by treating them as mere experimental amufements; and charging those who are engaged in fuch pursuits, with deeming nothing demonftration, that is not made ocular. Thus, instead of afcending from fenfe to intellect, the natural progress of all true learning, he observes, that the philofopher hurries into the midst of fense, where he wanders at random, loft in a labyrinth of infinite particulars. It would be eafy to retaliate on this celebrated writer, by pointing out the futility of the fyllogiftic mode of philofophizing, inftituted by his favourite Ariftotle. I might also oppose to his authority, that of Lord Verulam, the brighteft luminary of

* See a Philofophical Enquiry concerning univerfal Grammar, by James Harris, Efq. p. 361.

fcience,

fcience, who objects, in the strongest terms, against that reverence for fpeculations, purely intellectual, by means whereof," as he expreffes himself, "men have withdrawn too much "from the contemplations of nature, and the "obfervations of experience, and have tumbled

up and down in their own reafon and conceits. "Upon these intellectualists, who are notwithftanding commonly taken for the most fub"lime and divine philofophers, Heraclitus gave "a juft cenfure, faying, men fought truth in their "own little worlds, and not in the great and common "world."*

But, without depreciating metaphyfics, science which I have always ftudied with delight, and which invigorates the faculties of the mind, and gives precifion and accuracy

our rational inveftigations by inftructing us in the nicer difcriminations of truth and falfhood, no doubt can be entertained of the high importance and dignity of natural knowledge. To this we owe the neceffaries, the conveniences, and all the gratifications of our being; and in the pursuit of it the understanding is exercised and improved, and our

* Bacon of the Advancement of Learning, book I. p. 20. 4to.

* Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt. BACON, Nov. Org. Aph. III.