XXX 



PREFACE. 



them, that the Sophifls who pretended to InftruS: them, were as 

 ignorant as he profeiled to be ; the coniequence of which was, that 

 his followers, and particularly Plato, applied to better mafters, and 

 fo became Philofophers. 



And this brings me back to Plato, who was fo far from being felf- 

 taught, like his mafler Socrates, that he fought for learning wherever 

 he could find it, whether from men or from books : And firft he was 

 a fcholar of Socrates, after whofe death he applied himfelf to 

 Cratylus, the fcholar of Heraclitus, then to Hermogenes of the 

 School of Parmenides ; after which, he went to Megara, to hear the 

 Philofopher Euclides ; and from thence to Cyrene, to be the fcholar 

 of Theodorus the Mathematician ; next he went to Italy, to the 

 Pythagoreans there, Philoliius and Eurytus ; and from thence- to 

 Egypt, to converfe with the Priefts there, or Prophets, as they are 

 called by the Greek Writers ^. And not content with this, he 

 would have vifited the Perfian Magi, but was prevented by the wars 

 then in Afia. As to bocks, there were very few at that time to be 

 got ; but as the Pythagoreans were then beginning to commit their 

 Philofophy to writing, it is faid, that he purchafed from Philolaus, 

 the Pythagorean, three books of that philofophy, at a great price f. 



From 



* Eij Ai^-jTTTcy, Tratpa tov; Trpoy-^raf, fays Diogenes Laertius in his Life of Plato, 

 from whom this account of Plato's Travels in fearch of Knowledge is taken. 



-f- Thefe three books are mentioned both by Diogenes Laertius, and Jamblichus, 

 in their Lives of Pythagoras. The titles' of them were, Uoci^ivriKov, UoXirmcv, 

 and $va-»xou. Under the firft of thefe, I fuppofc, was contained every thing relating to 

 Education, and thofe ftudies I have already mentioned, preparatory to the ftudy of 

 Philofophy ; The f;:cond comprehended, not only what we call Politics, but alfo 

 Afvals, which, as I have faid, were underftood by the Antients to be a part of the 

 Political Science. The third comprehended, I have no doubt, not only Phyfics in our 

 fcnfe of the word, but alfo what we call Alctaphyfics ; for as thofe pious philofophers 



undcrftooo 



