630 Vico. months in a state of insensibility in which he did not know- even his own children, he expired on the 20th of January, 1744. - Vico had published a second edition of the Scienza Nuova in 173O5 but by the more synthetic form which he gave to it, he rendered it more obscure in this edition than in its original state. The third edition was published a short time before his death, and while he was in the deplorable condition which we have already described. The additions which were made probably by Gennaro Vico from his father's MSS. without venturing to alter any thing, only aggravated the obscurity by interrupting the connexion. It is from this edition, as having received the author'^s latest additions, that the sub- sequent reprints have been made. With the life of Vico the interest of the Italians in his system appears to have ceased, and no other edition of the Scienza Nuova was pub- lished during the 18th century. Since 1801 it has been several times reprinted ; it was translated into German by Weber in 1822, and a Redaction of it vmder the title of Principes de la Philosophie de Y Histoire, traduits de la Scienza Nuova de J. B. Vico, was published at Paris, 1827? by M. Michelet, Professor of History in the College of St Barbe. It is not a translation of either of the Italian editions, the editor taking from each what was necessary for his purpose of giving a clear and intelligible view of the system, retrenching the tautologies and restoring the dis- located parts to their places. Whoever is not in love with difficulty for its own sake, will do well to seek his know- ledge of Vico's system in M. Michelet"'s work ; for Vico himself is the Heraclitus of modern philosophers. His Opuscoli were published in four volumes at Naples in 1818 by the Marquis de Villa Rosa. From the additions made to Vico'S autobiography, by his son, in the first volume of this collection, some particulars mentioned above have been derived, through the medium of Michelet's book. The object of the Scienza Nuova is to show, that the history of the hiiman race is determined by laws as cer- tain in their operation, as those by which the material world is governed. The harmony and simplicity of these laws had been demonstrated by natural philosophy, and
