corrected this mistake had it been pointed out to him; but he certainly falls into it, and employs it as a principle of reasoning against his adversaries. 2. You think that we ought to admit his distinction between "ideas in the mind," and "ideas in the memory." I admit the distinction with all my heart, provided you take the word idea in the same acceptation as I do. In that sense an idea is in the mind, when the mind actually considers the proposition which is the object of its idea, that is, of its glance or perception; and an idea is in the memory when the mind, having formerly cast that glance on it, finds thereby a greater facility in recalling it, remembering at the same time that it formerly was the object of its perception. But if But if you understand by ideas these chimerical species, the mere fictions of metaphysicians, and as it seems to me, not sufficiently disproved by Mr. Locke, I return to my assertion, and maintain that the distinction is unintelligible between "being in the mind," and "being in the memory." A violent headache, which I brought with me from our venerable class, hinders me from continuing this letter, or rendering what I have already written shorter and more perspicuous. I intreat you to excuse its imperfections. Your penetration will perhaps discern how all difficulties may be solved concerning innate practical principles. Mr. Locke treats this subject better than he does the others; but in several parts he is somewhat puzzled. I rejoiced at the hopes of seeing you for a moment at Vevay, and was surprised at being disappointed. If I rightly understand this .word of your language, it cannot be well translated into ours. I met with Mr. Pavilliard only in the assembly. If the march of an hundred and twenty thousand Russians is not a fable, what must become of the King of Prussia? Does it not appear to you, that we are threatened with great revolutions? I have long suspected a design of reducing the general system of Europe to three great empires; that of the French on the west of the Rhine, of Austria on the east, and of Russia in the north. Yet we read of nothing of this kind in the Revelation. But let them divide the world as they will, provided it be lawful for us to believe that "whatever is, is ;" and "that two contradictory propositions cannot both at the same time be true." Those three empires will be great only when measured on this earth; viewed but from the moon, they will be small enough; and how far do philosophical eyes soar beyond that luminary! I have the honour to be, with much respect, yours, &c., ALLAMAND. M. de N*** writes to me-that things go better and better now; that his niece Madame D. is extremely ill; and that 200,000 men are ready to cut one another's throats at the rate of five sous a day. He is provoked at the maxim, "all for the best." IV. PROFESSOR BREITINGER TO MR. GIBBON, AT LAUSANNE. Though I am Davus, not Edipus, I will give you my opinion concerning the difficulties in Justin, which you propose for my consideration. 1. In the third chapter of his second book he says, "That Asia was tributary fifteen centuries to the Scythians, and that Ninus put an end to those contributions." The number of years is so manifestly erroneous, that it is astonishing such a reading should ever have been admitted into the text; for it makes Ninus later than Sesostris by a period of fifteen hundred years. Orosius, who abridged Justin with the greatest fidelity, speaks to the following purpose: "The Scythians would have ravaged the whole of Egypt, had they not been prevented by the marshes. When they returned from that country, they made a bloody conquest of Asia, and rendered it tributary. Having remained there fifteen restless years, they at length returned home, at the earnest entreaty of their wives; who said, that unless their husbands came home to them, they would, for the sake of having children, cohabit with their neighbours."-Orosius, lib. i. c. 14. There cannot be any doubt, therefore, that "fifteen hundred" has been substituted for "fifteen." You investigate very ingeniously the cause of the error; but the emendation which you propose, by changing per mille into permissa, cannot be well founded, if the number was expressed, as is most probable, by arithmetical marks in the ancient copies. 2. In Justin, lib. xii. c. 8, we read, "They (the Macedonians) returned, after beating the enemy, with congratulations, or thanksgivings, into the same camp." In this passage you seem to me needlessly to disturb the ancient reading. You assume, without proof, that they did not venture to attack the Cuphites. Orosius, Justin's faithful interpreter, declares the direct contrary. “When they came to the country of the Chosides, they fought with two hundred thousand of the enemy's cavalry; and, having conquered them with much difficulty, because they themselves were now worn out with years and fatigue, and sunk in spirit, they formed a camp more magnificent than usual, to commemorate their exploit."-Orosius, lib. iii. c. 19. They did not, therefore, return into their camp until they had combated and conquered the enemy. Justin himself gave us to understand as much, when he says, That Alexander, moved by such just prayers, caused, at the end of his victory, a camp to be formed, whose walls might inspire terror into the enemy." If the Macedonians, therefore, as you imagine, had been frightened at the innumerable forces of the Cuphites, and therefore returned hastily into their camp, I do not see why Justin should say, at the end of his victory, inspire terror into the enemy, or that they returned to their camp with thanksgivings. It may here be remarked, in opposition to Sebisius' emendation, that the expression, cum gratulatione, if translated with thanksgivings, will include the cæsis hostiis, ra Evxapornpia Over; that is, the sacrifice of thanks: so that your alteration of cæsis hostiis into omissis hostibus, is equally inconsistent with historical truth and the words of Justin. 3. In Justin, lib. xxiv. c. 8, we read, "Part of the mountain carried away by the earthquake overwhelmed the army of the Gauls; and its thick masses breaking in scattered pieces, fell down with great force, not without wounding the enemy." You need not be offended with the harsh transposition of the word hostium, which you think ought to be joined with confertissimi cunei; as if that last word meant, the military cunei, or wedges, of the Gauls; whereas it really means the thick masses detached from the rock or mountain, which, breaking into smaller fragments, fell down and wounded the enemy, that is, the Gauls. There is no transposition, therefore, in the case; the sentence flows in the most natural order; and the confertissimi cunei ought not to be joined with hostium, lest the ambiguity of the word cunei should make it be applied to the military cunei, or wedges of men. 4. In Justin, lib. xxviii. c. 2, we read, "That the Romans could not save their city from the Gauls; and when it was taken, instead of defending it by the sword, had ransomed it with money." If this passage required or admitted emendation, there is no correction I would adopt more willingly than yours, which, instead of captamque, substitutes capitoliumque. Schefferus objects, without reason, that a city captam, taken, cannot properly be said defendi ferro, to be defended with the sword; for the Roman historians agree that their city, when taken, was defended, though in a cowardly manner. Orosius, among others, says, lib. xi. c. 19, "The Gauls penetrated into the open city; Rome was now taken; the rest of the youth were shut up and besieged in the citadel of the Capitoline Mount; where they were a prey to hunger, pestilence, terror, and despair." You may perceive, therefore, that though the city was taken, its defence was not entirely abandoned; and if it had not been taken, it needed not to have been ransomed. It seems not to have occurred to you, that your correction implies the Capitol only to have been ransomed, which is not historically true. 5. In Justin, lib. xxxi. c. 1, we read, "Ambassadors were first sent by the Roman senate, to persuade Antiochus, King of Syria, that he should not make war on the cities of Cole-Syria, which the Egyptians had occupied in the former war, and which were therefore subject to Egypt; using with him this argument, that these cities belonged to a young prince, their pupil, who had been committed by his father to the protection of the Romans." This same author, lib. xxx. c. 3, says, "M. Lepidus was sent into Egypt to govern that kingdom, with the title of tutor to the young king. A second embassy was sent, after Antiochus had taken possession of these cities, demanding that they should be restored; and without making any mention of the pupil king, merely on this ground, that these cities belonged to the Romans by the right of war."-Justin, lib What this right of war is, in contradistinction both to war itself, and to conquests made by war, appears from the two following passages, the first of which is part of Quintus Flamininus's speech to the tyrant Nabis, in Livy, lib. xxxiv. c. 32: "By what measures is the friendship between states violated? Principally by these two; when you treat with hostility our allies, and when you make alliance with our enemies. Are not you guilty of both, since you, though our ally, have seized, by arms and violence, Messene, a city as much our ally as Lacedæmon itself; and since you have entered into an alliance with Philip our enemy?" The other passage is in Florus, lib. iii. c. 5: "The king (Mithridates) did not consider Asia as a country not belonging to him; but as it had been formerly taken from him by violence, he sought to recover it by the law of war." I need not mention that "the law of war," in Justin, may have a reference to both the circumstances by which friendship between states is violated; but principally to the attack made on the dominions of Ptolemy, an ally of the Romans, who desire him to be reinstated by Antiochus in his possessions; for the author immediately adds, that when Antiochus refused to comply, war was denounced against him. 6. In Justin, lib. xxxi. c. 1, we read, "The senate, therefore, wrote to Flamininus, that if it seemed expedient to him, as he had delivered Macedon from Philip, so he should deliver Greece from Nabis." The glory of Flamininus, the general in the Macedonian war, is sufficiently attested by the words of the senate's decree, in Livy, lib. xxxiii. c. 32: "The senate and Roman people, and L. Quintius the general, having conquered King Philip and the Macedonians, declare free and independent republics, the Corinthians," &c. Florus, lib. ii. c. 12, says, "Perseus succeeded his father Philip, and did not think it becoming the dignity of Macedon, that it should remain in subjection, in consequence of being defeated in one war." You ask, whether Quintius, who conquered Macedon, can be said, in any sense, to have delivered it from Philip, although it appears that Philip was really not deprived of that kingdom? and whether, if the Roman general conquered Nabis, as he had already conquered Philip, he did not thereby free Greece? These difficulties are solved by Justin, lib. xxx. c. 4. "The fortune of the Romans conquered the Macedonians; so that Philip, after his defeat, having obtained peace from the consul Flamininus, preserved indeed the name of king, but kept possession only of Macedon, having lost all those cities of Greece, which, like scattered members of the Macedonian kingdom, lay beyond its ancient boundaries." In the letters, therefore, of the Roman senate to the consul Flamininus, Macedon signifies, not the country strictly so called, which alone was not taken from Philip, but that part of Greece which lay beyond the original limits of Macedon; to which is opposed the rest of Greece, which was then harassed by Nabis, but which had never been subject to Macedon. Hence the meaning of the senate appears to have been, that Quintius, as he had delivered Macedonia, that is, the part of Greece belonging to Macedon, from Philip, so he should deliver the rest of Greece from Nabis, who had actually made himself master nearly of the whole of that country. Who shall say This is not merely a conjecture sage, But truth as certain as the Sibyl's page? November 17th, 1756. Those who apply themselves to criticism ought to be cautious in conjectural emendation, and diligent in classical study, that they may perceive what vast application this critical art requires, and how rashly those behave, who immediately alter a passage which they do not at first sight understand, or which seems to them inconsistent with their rules of grammar or logic. This rashness is justly reprehended by many, and particularly by the illustrious Burman, in his valuable preface to Phædrus: which, as I have always made it the rule by which my own critical labours have been directed, so I would warmly recommend it to all those who pursue the same walk of literature. Having made this preparatory observation, I proceed to the difficulties in Justin, about which so much learning has been employed. 1. The emendation of the manifestly corrupt passage in lib. ii. c. 3, § 18, (a corruption depending on numbers, and therefore as natural as frequent,) which corrects the error by changing "fifteen hundred" into "fifteen," must be approved by all judicious critics. The cause which introduced the faulty reading into the text is uncertain; and the question that has been so industriously agitated concerning it, appears to me more curious than useful, since the error might have originated in a thousand different sources. The corrupt reading runs thus: "Asia was tributary to the Scythians fifteen hundred years." We agree that it should be corrected thus: "Asia was tributary to the Scythians fifteen years." But in the corrupt text you think that obscure traces of the genuine reading may be discerned, and imagine that per mille had crept into the text, instead of permissa; explaining the passage as if "Asia had been permitted to be tributary to the Scythians for fifteen years.' I observed that this emendation, for which I see not any necessity, is rendered highly improbable, because in ancient manuscripts the names of numbers are expressed, not by words, but by letters used as numeral marks; and though they are sometimes expressed by words, yet this is not frequent, especially in works of history. This assertion is confirmed by innumerable testimonies: I shall be contented with referring to that of Galen de Antidot. I. Τα δε δη βιβλια, τα κατα τας βιβλιοθηκας ἀποκείμενα, τα των ἀριθμων ἔχοντα σημεια ραδίως διαστρέφεται το μεν πεντε ποιεντῶν ἑννεα, καθαπερ και το Ο. το δε ΙΓ προσθέσει μιας γραμμης ώσπερ γε και αφαιρεσει μιας έτερας κ. τ. λ. It is a subject indeed both of surprise and grief, that this part of criticism, which consists in ascertaining exactly the rules of numeral notation, should not have met with due attention; although thereby the rashness of wild conjecture would be greatly restrained, and more certainty might be attained in determining the age and authenticity of manuscripts. But let it be supposed that your correction were safe on this side, yet it would be destroyed by the passage which you yourself quote |