XVIll 



PREFACE, 



after which he returned to Samos, having been abroad thirty-four 

 years, and collefted all the learning of Egypt, Chaldaea, and Perfia, 

 which, with what he had got before in Ionia and Phoenicia, muft 

 have made him mafter of every thing that was then to be known 

 in the world, at leaft on this fide of India, though it be reported, 

 but upon no good authority, that he was likewife there. 



How much he muft have profited in Egypt we may judge, not 

 only from the time he ftaid there, fo much longer than the ftay 

 made by any Greek philofopher before or after him, but alfo from 

 this circumftance, that Egypt was then in its glory, being a free 

 country, governed by its own monarchs, its learning and arts 

 flourifhing, and its Priefts, who were the depofitaries of their learn- 

 ing, in the higheft credit and eftimation. At that time their books 

 and other monuments of antiquity muft have been entire. Nothing 

 therefore of Art or Science can be fuppofed to have been then loft 

 among them : And if they made a free communication to Pytha- 

 goras, of which there is no reafon to doubt, he muft have got all 

 the learning that had been accumulated among them for thoufands 

 of years. How much things were changed in after-times, we 

 may learn from Strabo, who fays, that when he was at Heliopolis,. 

 where of old there was a moft famous college of Priefts for their fkill 

 in Aftronomy and Philofophy, he faw nothing but the ruins of the 

 houfes where the Priefts dwelt ; and inftead of learned Priefts and 

 Philofophers, he found nothing there but fome facrificuli, or low mi- 

 nifters of the altar, who explained to ftrangers their rites of facri- 

 fice *- Things were, no doubt, better when Herodotus was there, 

 which was not long after the Perfian conqueft. But as Herodotus 

 was not a philofopher, he could not be fuppofed to have the curio- 

 fity, or to be at the trouble that it coft Pythagoras and Plato to ob- 

 tain. 

 * Strabo, Lib, xvii.. 



