truths and reasonings, delivered in a dry and cold manner, or with a proper measure of elegance and beauty, will make very different impressions on the minds of men.

It is manifest that every philosophical writer must study the utmost perspicuity; and, by reflecting on what was formerly delivered on the subject of perspicuity, with respect both to single words and the construction of sentences, we may be convinced that this is a study which demands considerable attention to the rules of style and good writing. Beyond mere perspicuity, strict accuracy and precision are required in a philosophical writer. He must employ no words of uncertain meaning, no loose nor indeterminate expressions; and should avoid using words which are seemingly synonymous, without carefully attending to the variation which they make upon the idea.

To be clear then and precise, is one requisite which we have a title to demand from every philosophical writer. He may possess this quality, and be at the same time a very dry writer. He should therefore study some degree of embellishment, in order to render his composition pleasing and graceful. One of the most agreeable, and one of the most useful embellishments which a philosopher can employ, consists in illustrations taken from historical facts, and the characters of men. All moral and political subjects naturally afford scope for these; and wherever there is room for employing them, they seldom fail of producing a happy effect. They diversify the composition; they relieve the mind from the fatigue of mere reasoning, and at the same time raise more full conviction than any reasonings produce: for they take philosophy out of the abstract, and give weight to speculation, by shewing its connexion with real life, and the actions of mankind.

Philosophical writing admits, besides, of a polished, a neat, and elegant style. It admits of metaphors, comparisons, and all the calm figures of speech, by which an author may convey his sense to the understanding with clearness and force, at the same time that he entertains the imagination. He must take great care, however, that all his ornaments be of the chastest kind, never partaking of the florid or the tumid; which is so unpardonable in a professed philosopher, that it is much better for him to err on the side of naked simplicity, than on that of too much ornament. Some of the ancients, as Plato and Cicero, have left us philosophical treatises composed with much elegance and beauty. Seneca has been long and just. ly censured for the affectation that appears in his style. He is too fond of a certain brilliant and sparkling manner; of antithesis and quaint sentences. It cannot be denied, at the same time, that he often expresses himself with much liveliness and force; though his style, upon the whole, is far from deserving imitation. In English, Mr Locke's celebrated Treatise on Human Understanding, may be pointed out as a model, on the one hand, of the greatest clearness and distinctness of philosophical style, with very little approach to ornament; Lord Shaftesbury's writings, on the other hand, exhibit philosophy dressed up with all the ornament which it can admit, perhaps with more than is perfectly suited to it.

Philosophical composition sometimes assumes a form, under which it mingles more with works of taste, when carried on in the way of dialogue and conversation. Under this form the ancients have given us some of their chief philosophical works; and several of the moderns have endeavoured to imitate them. Dialogue writing may be executed in two ways, either as direct conversation, where none but the speakers appear, which is the method that Plato uses; or as the recital of a conversation, where the author himself appears, and gives an account of what passed in discourse, which is the method that Cicero generally follows. But though those different methods make some variation in the form, yet the nature of the composition is at bottom the same in both, and subject to the same laws.

A dialogue, in one or other of these forms, on some philosophical, moral, or critical subject, when it is well conducted, stands in a high rank among the works of taste; but is much more difficult in the execution than is commonly imagined. For it requires more than merely the introduction of different persons speaking in succession. It ought to be a natural and spirited representation of real conversation; exhibiting the character and manners of the several speakers, and suiting to the character of each that peculiarity of thought and expression which distinguishes him from another. A dialogue thus conducted gives the reader a very agreeable entertainment; as by means of the debate going on among the personages, he receives a fair and full view of both sides of the argument; and is, at the same time, amused with polite conversation, and with a display of consistent and well supported characters. An author, therefore, who has genius for executing such a composition after this manner, has it in his power both to instruct and to please.

But the greatest part of modern dialogue writers have no idea of any composition of this sort; and bating the outward forms of conversation, and that one speaks and another answers, it is quite the same as if the author spoke in person throughout the whole. He sets up a Philotheus, perhaps, and a Philatheos, or an A and a B; who, after mutual compliments, and after admiring the fineness of the morning or evening, and the beauty of the prospects around them, enter into confer

ence concerning some grave matter; and all that we know farther of them is, that the one personates the author, a man of learning, no doubt, and of good principles; and the other is a man of straw, set up to propose some trivial objections; over which the first gains a most entire triumph, and leaves his sceptical antagonist at the end much humbled, and, generally, convinced of his error. This is a very frigid and insipid manner of writing; the more so as it is an attempt toward something which we see the author cannot support. It is the form, without the spirit of conversation. The dialogue serves no purpose, but to make awkward interruptions; and we should with more patience hear the author continuing always to reason himself, and to remove the objections that are made to his principles, than be troubled with the unmeaning appearance of two persons, whom we see to be in reality no more than one.

Among the ancients, Plato is eminent for the beauty of his dialogues. The scenery, and the circumstances of many of them, are beautifully painted. The characters of the Sophists, with whom Socrates disputed, are well drawn; a variety of personages are exhibited to us; we are introduced into a real conversation, often supported with much life and spirit, after the Socratic manner. For richness and beauty of imagination, no philosophic writer, ancient or modern, is comparable to Plato. The only fault of his imagination is,