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‘THROUGH SWEDEN. Wis
dantry. Thefe never think of changing their own forms: nature,
they fancy, and the courfe of human affairs ought to bend to
their forms and inftitutions; and they would deem it below their
dignity to fubmit their eftablifhed notions to experiment and ob-
fervation. The plan of the national inftitute of France is too fi-
beral, comprehenfive and grand, to be the work of fchoolmen.
The diyifions of fcience and {cientifical purfuits in the academy
at Stockholm appear to have been made witha view to give ge-
neral fatisfaction, and to open a door for the reception of all men
who fhould be of confequence enough to add luftre to the fociety
by their rank, or rich enough to bribe, or mean enough to gain
the members by flatteries. There is not a gentleman of landed
eftate who may not become a member of the firft clafs, nora
merchant who has not very plaufible pretenfions to be chofen inte
the fecond; every entomologift and ornithologift, every collector
of fifhes or infects, may belong to the third or fourth clafs. By
various divifions and fubdivifions of the department of mathema-
tics, any clerk or fimple arithmetician, any conftructor of triangles
or compiler of almanacks, might have been introduced into the
fifth clafs, if this abufe had not been refifted by Mr. Melander-
hielm and :other gentlemen of true philofophical difcrimination.
Thus the feventh clafs is open to every compofer of ballads, novels,
madrigals, vocabularies and grammars. ‘The great number which
compofe this academy has been made the fubject of much boaft
in Sweden. It fhould however be confidered that the more co-
Q2 pious:
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