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that they should eat human flesh, and not even spare their own parents, and they took the example from their gods, of whom the same things are spoken; and the poets themselves commend incestuous mixtures, He shews that the christians, far from doing any of these iniquities, would not attend at any of the public diversions, nor even look at the contests of the Gladiators. To prove the antiquity and superiority of the true religion, Theophilus produces the chronology of all the grand epochs from Adam down to the Babylonish captivity, with which he connects the Roman chronology down to the death of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. In the course of this book Theophilus mentions a vast number of ancient writers, from several of whom he gives important extracts, Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus, Aratus, Euripides, Sophocles, Menander, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Pythagoras, Diogenes, Democritus, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Plato, Zeno, Cleanthes, Solon, Anaximander, Clitomachus, Carneades, Pherecydes, Leucippus, Protagoras, Critias, Euhemerus, Aristotle, Melissus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Philemon, Aristo, Simylus, Chrysippus, Thales, Empedocles, Hippo, Dinarchus, &c. and almost all the writers of the Old Testament. How extensive must the reading of

such a person have been !

AD AUTOLYCUM, libri iii. a Conr. Gesnero, Gr. fol. Tigur. 1546. Edit. princ.

ab Oberthur, Gr. et Lat. 8vo. Wurceb. 1777. In the third volume of the Greek Polemical Fathers.

The Apologetics of St. Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, &c. By Joseph Betty, M. A. 8vo. Oxford, 1722. Annexed to Tertullian's Prescription against Heretics. While consulting this translation, the reader should always have the original at hand. pp. 129-133.

We suggest for the author's consideration, the propriety of inserting, in their respective places, the names of all those who are nsnally ranked among the Ecclesiastical Writers, although their works may not have reached our times. The succession of sacred literature will thereby be kept unbroken; and the information where the fragments of their writings are to be found, may be acceptable to the inexperienced reader.

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We trust that one of the good effects of this very useful work will be, to lead those whose duty it is to be acquainted with such subjects, " to a more careful perusal of the Fathers and Writers of Antiquity than is at present fashionable.' Mr. C. has certainly laid the student in Ecclesiastical Literature under great obligations, for the facilities which he has afforded him in his pursuits; and all who can appreciate the value of the present volume, will cheerfully join us in wishing that it may please the Great Arbiter of human life to afford the author that length of days and enjoyment of health, which may enable him to complete the plan of which it is the

commencement.

Some part of this work, having been printed at a provincial press, will require from the author a table of errata, and from the reader a portion of that candour which the really wellinformed are always most ready to exercise.

Art. III. An Essay on the Theory of Money, and the Principles of Com-. merce. By John Wheatley. 4to. pp. 414. Price 17. 5s. Cadell and Davies.

1807.

IT is somewhat remarkable, that of all the branches of political economy, money should be the subject which, in this country, has of late years attracted the greatest number of inquirers. In an age far from distinguished by a growing taste for the abstract sciences, the most abstract disquisition in the philosophy of national economy has become the most popular. The crisis in our pecuniary concerns, witnessed in the suspension of payments in cash at the Bank of England, is the period from which we may date the commencement of the numerous writings on this subject. First appeared Mr. Thornton with his book on paper credit, which was intended to explain the difficulties of the Bank; and to prove that they arose from no deficiency in the credit either of the Bank or of the nation. A multitude of writers followed, all aware that Mr. Thornton had left the subject in much darkness, and each pretty full of confidence that he himself had furnished the light which was necessary; for it may be remarked as a circumstance of some singularity, that the writers who since the time above mentioned have followed one another on the subect of money, have, with scarcely one exception that we can ecollect, entertained the very highest opinion of their own discoveries, and no slight contempt for all that had been discovered before them. Each of these writers has thus in succession found but little value in the writings of his predecessor, and, in his turn, has been discovered, by the first *that came after him, to have equally little merit in his own. If the public are therefore to be guided by the authority of these speculators themselves, they will not ascribe the highest value to their collected discoveries. Mr. Wheatley has the advantage of being the last, and may thus perhaps retain his place till a successor appears. In the mean time, it may be of some utility to the science, if we endeavour, on the present occasion, to lay open one of the most copious sources of the errors which have appeared in the numerous writers who of late have endeavoured to prosecute this important investigation. It is earnestly to be wished, that so many industrious and ingenious authors were put in the way of making discoveries; for we are fully aware that the darkness which hangs about the subject of money, and the loose and confused ideas of it which are entertained, are the true cause of many of the errors in political economy which are still in circulation. It may be proper to add, before we enter upon the speculations of Mr. Wheatley, that it is only one of two volumes, which he has yet presented to us. But "the work," he tells us, "admits of a

distinct division; the first part relating to the refutation of our existing commercial system, and the second to the developement of a new one."

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Mr. Wheatley commences his work in a manner which is not very promising. He favours us with the speculations of his predecessors before he produces his own; and that not historically, which might be highly useful, but in exposition of their errors; that is, their discordance with his own principles, which he has not yet explained. This is to begin with the objections to a doctrine before the doctrine itself; an arrangement which suggests several ludicrous images to the imagination, and, in fact, is not the most respectful or customary way of going into company. We shall only observe how this disorders the author's inquiry, and renders the work more confused and tedious than it would otherwise have been. He is obliged to anticipate the doctrines which he means afterwards more fully to explain. When these doctrines, therefore, are afterwards presented, they appear like mere repetitions. They are not sufficiently explained where they are first introduced, on account of the full exposition which is afterwards intended. The objections of the author, therefore, to the principles which he means to refute, are not easily apprehended; and even the exposition itself, which follows in its destined place, is rendered imperfect, by the references which the author is obliged to make to what is anticipated, and the omissions which on the same account he considers himself bound to admit.

We shall take the liberty to follow a different course. We shall first endeavour to explain the author's opinions, and examine their evidence; we shall next weigh the objections which he brings to the doctrines of other political philosophers; and, in the last place, we shall consider the consequences which he deduces from his principles. This order will render the exposition much more perspicuous, and will enable us to express ourselves with much greater brevity.

I. The propositions which he lays down, as involving the essence of his doctrine respecting money, are the three following:

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1. That an increase of the national stock of specie, is an increase of currency, and not of capital."

2. "That an increase of currency is not an increase of wealth."

3. "That no one nation can possess a greater relative currency than another."

1. A leading defect of this writer, is one which is common to him with a very great proportion of those who point their thoughts in this line for the public benefit. This defect arises

from the want of that important part of a philosophical education which the course of our schools and colleges is so ill calculated to furnish, a habit of accurately marking the ambiguity of language. The import of general phrases is almost always taken up by him in a vague and indeterminate manner; and he explains, and reasons, and draws conclusions, in language so loose, so diffuse, and so ambiguous, that it is often very difficult to say whether he is right or wrong; as he may be right in one sense, and wrong in another.

Thus, for example, there is an ambiguity in the first of his propositions, "That an increase of the national stock of specie is an increase of currency, and not of capital." In one sense it is true, and in another it is false. If the nation whose stock of specie is increased, has a free intercourse of trade with other nations, its increase of specie is an increase of capital, because it can purchase with it from other nations whatever constitutes capital. If we suppose a nation surrounded with Friar Bacon's wall of brass, and that it has specie sufficient to answer, in the most commodious manner, all its occasions, an additional quantity of specie rained down from the clouds would be no increase of capital, because it would be perfectly useless. But so would be any other commodity whatever; and any addition to its ploughs and harrows, if it had already a sufficient stock, would be just as useless as an addition to its guineas and shillings. When, therefore, Mr. Wheatley says, "that an increase of the national stock of specie is an increase of currency, and not of capital;" we may add, as a proposition of equal truth and equal importance, "that an increase of the national stock of ploughs and harrows is an increase of utensilcy, (if we may make a correspondent word) but no increase of capital.”

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We should have thought it easy for Mr. Wheatley to have reflected, that wealth does not consist in any one commodity. It consists in the due proportion and supply of all the commodities which are useful or agreeable to man. Were corn itself to come beyond what would either be used or disposed of, it would form no part of national capital; as we see in the case of water, a necessary of life equally indispensable. From these short observations, which the limits of a review will not permit us to extend, it may easily be seen what indistinct ideas an author must have attached to his words, who, though a man of ingenuity and information, could advance, as a fundamental doctrine, a proposition so void of meaning as that which has been the subject of our strictures. He appears to have been betrayed into this futility, by a desire to expose what Dr. Smith calls the commercial system of political economy. But he seems to mistake the view of the subject by

which the adherents of that doctrine are misled. They do not lay down as a fundamental proposition, that money alone constitutes wealth, or that it adds to capital when it ceases to be useful. They will as readily allow as Mr. Wheatley, that, within Friar Bacon's wall of brass, if the most commodious supply of money already exists, any addition will be superfluous. Their misfortune is, that, in the view of the complicated transactions of a trading nation, they cannot perceive that the principles which they adopt lead to this very conclusion. It is a reductio ad absurdum, the application of which they do not admit. This is the real state of the controversy between them and the more accurate philosophers of the school of Smith. Sir Janies Steuart, the most eminent perhaps of the writers on the commercial system, frequently even warns his readers against the supposition that mere gold and silver is wealth. His mistake is, that he does not reason consistently with this doctrine, but lays down propositions which it entirely overthrows. Mr. Wheatley therefore has fallen into the logical blunder, of proving the reverse of an absurdity, which is a self-evident proposition. He has presented, with great pomp, as a discovery, what no mortal will think of denying.

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Such being the nature of Mr. Wheatley's first proposition for disclosing the nature of money, it is necessary to exhibit but a slight specimen of the proof which he employs to support it. He begins with the following enunciation. The exclusive utility of money consists in its properties as an universal measure of value, and an universal medium of exchange." Here it is worthy of remark, that the proposition to be proved, as we have seen above, is true of money only in a particular sense, as it is used by a particular nation, shut out from all intercourse with others; yet he begins immediately, in the proof, to talk of money in its universal capacity, as it circulates among all nations. This is that shifting from one meaning of a word to another, which, when it happens to an author unconsciously, is called confusion; when it is employed intentionally, is called sophistry.

There is something in the phrase, "measure of value," which is worthy of a few remarks. That money is a measure of value, is a favourite assertion of our author; and it enters so largely into the reasonings both of him, and of most other writers on this abstruse subject, that it is unfortunate_the meaning should be so very obscure and ambiguous. It is a phrase so familiar, that it requires some reflection to see how little its meaning is ascertained. In the literal sense, a yard or a foot is a measure; and so is a gallon or a pint; the first exhibiting relations of length, the second of bulk. But in what sense is it that things are measured by money? Not,

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