who understands the art of applying it to discover more readily, and to seize the relations of utility that may be presented by persons and things, the shades of the human heart, and the fugitive occasions, that must be caught, as it were, flying, if we would derive advantage from them. This law is essentially connected with all the others, and especially with the two preceding:

1. With the law of obstacles converted into elements of success, because it is always relatively to things and circumstances that evil may be modified into good;

2. With the law of the universal mixture of good and evil, because most human things may be reputed good or bad relatively to some other thing or circumstance, and according to the point of view in which they are considered;

3. With the particular consideration of mistakes, since mistakes arise solely from our not knowing how to appreciate properly the mutual relation of things, and to examine them comparatively with others: for most men form opinions only with reference to their individual situation and passions, and preposterously separate their private interest from the public interest. Here

* The observation of mistakes and their causes ought to instil, into young people in particular, great reserve and circumspec

again occurs an application of the law of the chain (all things are connected), or of the study of the relations which subsist between all created beings. The selfish man, regardless of this great law of nature, imagines that he may with impunity insulate himself, and break one of the links of the chain.

All things are relative. This law of adaptation's or proportions is susceptible of general application in nature and society; in the physical and mathematical sciences; in the metaphysical, moral, and political sciences; in all the arts and in general philosophy.

In physics we cannot ascertain the absolute power of gravity, but merely the relative force to the obstacles which it can or cannot overcome, and the law of the acceleration produced by this force according to the time occupied by the descent of the heavy body.

In chemistry, the success of the manipulations and operations, tending to bring together or to separate the particles of bodies, and to combine

tion in forming their own judgment, and great toleration and indulgence for the opinions and judgment of others, which are in general relative to the situation and interests, real or apparent, of the persons disposed to adopt them.

them in a thousand different ways, depends entirely on the exact observance of the proportions in which those particles are made to concur in the combination which we intend to produce.

In natural history we cannot obtain an accurate knowledge of the different beings, the study of which that science embraces, but by means of comparative anatomy, which shews their identities or their analogies, and appreciates their different proportions. Each species has its peculiar organisation and manners, habits and wants, springing from, or harmonizing with, that organisation.

The three great branches of natural history, mineralogy, botany, and zoology, cannot be improved, nor can their respective spheres be enlarged, but by judicious application of the study of the proportions between the different beings.

Astronomy directs the human eye to the immeasurable etherial vault, that it may there observe the proportions between the masses and the motions of the celestial bodies, and thence deduce the laws of their continuous and regular courses.

Geology penetrates into the interior of our globe, into the abysses of the earth, and every part of its surface, to examine the different strata of which the soil is composed, to observe the formation of the substances concealed in its bosom, the pro

portions and conformities between the directions, elevations, inclinations, and depressions, of mountains, plains, and valleys, and thus to detect the hidden processes of nature in the material organisation of the universe.

Mathematics, geometry, and mechanics, are the: sciences more immediately dependent on proportions.

In physiology and anatomy, the same relations and the same concordance between the complicated works of the animal machine and of the human body prove to the observer, that nature, adhering invariably to her laws, applies them to a single individual as well as to the whole of her creatures and to the courses of worlds.

Anatomy, if cultivated to the extent of which it is susceptible, would convey so intimate a knowledge of the relations between the parts, and the different results of the changes to which they are subject in their respective situations, that, on seeing the state of the one, we should be able to judge of the state of the others; as in geometry, when we know one side and two angles of a triangle, we necessarily know the other two sides.

Philosophic physiology, which compares the varieties of the human species, observes, that in consequence of the principle of correspondence

which the parts of the human body ought to pos sess in order to appear beautiful, each race of men living in society places beauty in a certain perfection of the characteristic features common to the individuals of that race. A man may be thought handsome in China with very different forms and proportions from those which are required to constitute a handsome person in Europe.

The variation of temperature and climate, and the difference of the nature and quality of soils, according to which we ought to modify our operations and processes, with an exact proportion ascertained by observation, furnish fresh occasion for applying our principle in meteorology, agriculture, and medicine.

Medicine ought always to seek with sagacity a regimen and remedies relative and analogous to the constitution of the patient, the climate, the season, the state of the atmosphere, and the nature of the disease.

A philosophic physician, examining the difference of the sexes with regard to anatomy and physiology, asserts, that it does not merely depend on certain superficial variations, but is the result of perhaps as many proportional differences as there are organs in the human body, though they are not all equally perceptible. The delicate and