pulmonary artery and vein,' belongs to him. With the Doctor's leave, the world has just cause to bless the memory of Servetus, not only for this important discovery; but also for the noble stand he made for christian liberty and the rights of conscience, against bigots and persecutors; for his steady exertions to discover and promote truth; and for the sacrifice he made of his reputation and his life, in attempting to extirpate deep-rooted errors and prejudices.

SECTION IV.

His Edition of Ptolemy's Geography.

The Doctor is said to have made some very important corrections, with the assistance of ancient manuscripts, in Pirckheymer's translation of Ptolemy; but not to have made the least alteration in the description of Judea, which he gave word for word as it stood before. His first edition of Ptolemy's geography was printed at Lyons, in 1535, in one Volume Folio; that of Pirckheymer had been published at Strasburgh ten years before.

This book is divided into three parts. The first part contains one hundred and forty-nine

pages. The first four pages contain an advertisement to the reader by Servetus; the epistle dedicatory of Pirckheymer to the former edition; and a table of the chapters in the first part. Then follows the text of Ptolemy. The second part which is not paged, contains Ptolemy's index of lands, seas, rivers, countries, distances, and so on. The third consists of maps, with historical explanations.

The following passage occurred in the description of Judea. 'The books of the bible, and Josephus, who has followed them, call this land Canaan, and say, that it abounds in various riches, fertile in fruits, well watered, full of balm, and situated in the middle of the world, which makes it neither incommoded by too great cold, nor burnt up with heats: on account of a climate so happy, the Israelites, formerly called the Hebrews, believed that this was the country flowing with milk and honey, which God had formerly promised to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For this reason forty years after their departure from Egypt, they took possession of it under the conduct of their valiant general, Joshua. Know, however, friendly reader, that this is either a mistake, or pure ostentation, that they have ascribed so much goodness to this country; for the experi

barren, and Therefore but not in

ence of many merchants and travellers have discovered it to be uncultivated, destitute of every thing agreeable. it may be called the promised land, the modern vulgar sense of the word, which implies that it deserves the highest praise.'

But it appears that

Supposing this passage to have been written by Servetus, and that it be construed in the most unfavorable light: it cannot amount to a proof of either atheism, or blasphemy against God: it can only prove that he was misled in his ideas of what the land of Judea was formerly, by the description which travellers have given of its present state. he did not write it. It may be said he made it his own by republishing it. But he might republish it without due consideration: and he did actually suppress it in the next edition. If he really thought that all the fine things which had been said of that country could not be reconciled with evident facts, surely this was not a capital crime. He might be mistaken on such a subject, without being chargeable with blasphemy, and deserving to be burnt alive. It is not clear that he meant any reflection upon Moses, or to deny the scripture account of Canaan; but rather the modern interpretation of

Y

it; for he said, 'It may be called the promised land, but not in the modern vulgar sense of the word, which implies that it deserves the highest praise.' Servetus was neither an atheist, nor a deist; it appears by his writings, that he was firmly persuaded of the truth of the Old Testament; therefore it is absurd to suppose he intended to make any reflection to the prejudice of Moses. It seems, however, that upon further thought, he judged the passage improper, and accordingly suppressed it.

It may justly be questioned whether the descriptions which the writers of the Old Testament give of the land of Canaan ought to be taken in the rigid literal sense, in which they have been generally construed by christians. It is well known that the hebrew writers very commonly used a highly figurative style in their description of things. Hence, in their writings, we read of cities walled up to heaven, of armies as numerous as the sand on the sea shore, and of a land flowing with milk and honey. Some allowance should be made for the hyperbolical language they used, in attending to the accounts which the jewish historians give of their country. Besides every country is to be judged of by comparison with some other. If the land of Canaan was not absolutely

deserving of the highest praise, it might in comparison of the adjacent countries. Though, at the time of its greatest prosperity, it could have been proved to be less fertile than some of the highly cultivated countries of modern Europe, it would by no means follow that it was not superior to the lands which surrounded it, and perhaps to any other part of the world, in those early ages; which is all the description given of it by Moses implies. To the Israelites, after having been so long in slavery in Egypt, after having wandered forty years in the desert, it would appear every thing their leader had represented it. A land which had springs of water and rivers, which produced corn, wine, oil, honey, and pasturage for their cattle, which was watered by rain from heaven, and already cultivated to their hand, would, according to their views, deserve the highest praise. Besides, though the land of Canaan, in the highly cultivated state in which the Jews found it, might, in this restricted sense, answer the description Moses gave of it, we are not hence to infer that it would continue the same when its cultivation was neglected. He by no means taught them that it would produce all good things without their labor and industry. The observance of