The ' Histoire des Oracles,' even if it has no claims to originality, being taken entirely from the learned work of Van Hanle, ie deservedly celebrated for clearness and precision in the style, which is an exact and distinct image of the thought, and for the regular march of the reasoning, which is so natural and so easy as to present no difficulty to the understanding, and to need no divining. It scarcely deserves however the high title of history. It comprises two essays, in one of which the object is to show that the oracles were not given by the supernatural agency of demons ; the other, that they did not cease with the appearance of Christ. Lastly, the Geom6trie de the 'Apologia des Tourbillons,' and similar works, although they display a philosophical spirit, are neither vigorous nor profound.
Generally Indeed we ought not perhaps to look to the works of Fontanelle to discover the secret of the great influence and reputation which he enjoyed in his lifetime. The *elution lice rather in his posseesion of unequalled social qualities, and of the most brilliant acquirements, by which he was able to enact at once the man of fashion and the man of letters. By his wonderful skill in adapting
himself to the capacity of others, be was able to improve and em Lettish the lightest conversation with scientific) and moral allusions; and by applying the language of ordinary life to the most abstruse topics and ideas, he oontributed greatly to transfer the tribunal of letters from the scholarly few to a large and miscellaneous olive of seeders, and, by this revolution, to favour and advance a spirit of scientific research in the 17th century. Such services may be for gotten, for the names of three who have laboured not so much to discover new truth, as to preserve and transmit the old, aro too often left unrecorded; but they have not laboured in vain, for to diffuse truth is as useful as to discover it. If the minion of the discoverer be more dazzling in its course, and its track more permanent, that of the disseminator is not less beneficial to mankind, and leaves, in a more extended civilisation, a nameless but imperishable monument The works of Fontanelle were collected and published in 8 vole. See Paris, 1760.