PREFACE. 



XIX 



tain inflrudion from them, except as to the hlftory of the country, 

 in which he has fhewn that the Priefts from their facred books in- 

 ftruded him very well ; for the hiftory he has given us of Egypt is 

 by far the mofl complete we have, much more fo than that of Dio- 

 dorus Siculus, who pretends alfo to have feen thofe facred books : 

 But either the books were not then entire, or he had not fo good 

 an interpreter of them as Herodotus had. It feems indeed to be 

 certain that the ftudy of Aftronomy at leaft was preferved in Egypt 

 when Plato was there, yet we muft fuppofe that it was much de- 

 cayed ; but even what was known of it, it is evident from the paf- 

 fage above quoted from Strabo, they did not impart, except in a 

 fmall degree, to him. 



It feems therefore evident that, , if ever the Philolophy of Egypt 

 was brought out of the country, which, as we have feen, was a 

 very difficult matter, it was by Pythagoras. What addition he may 

 have made to his knowledge in Phoenicia, and among the Chaldseans 

 of Babylonia, is not eafy to fay ; but this we know, I think, with 

 great certainty, that both the Phoenicians and Chaldaeans had their 

 learning originally from Egypt ; for the Phoenicians lived once upon 

 the Red Sea, in the neighbourhood of Egypt, and learned the ufe of 

 letters from the Egyptians, as well as other things * ; and the Chal- 

 dseans were the Priefts of Jupiter Belus, and were a colony from 

 Egypt f. As to what he learned by being initiated into the myfte- 

 ries in the feveral places where he fojourned, that learning muft 

 have come from the fame country from whence the myfteries 

 came, that is, from Egypt ; for at that time there was an infeparable 

 connection betwixt Religion and Philofophy, nor indeed ought they 



d 2 ever 



* Of the connection betwixt the Egyptians and Phoenicians, fee what I have faid 

 in the firft Volume of the Origin of Language, p. 631, 632, Second Edit. 

 t Ibid. p. 652. 



