XXXVl 



PREFACE, 



henfion, I think it is of abfolute neceflity that there fhould be fome 

 errors in the original MS. of Stobsus, or perhaps in the MSS. which 

 he tranfcribed ; and many more ftill in the after-copies that were 

 made from Stobseus's MS. ; and, no doubt, fome in the printed 

 editions of thofe MSS. Several of thefe errors Gale has correded iq 

 his edition ; but many more remain to be correded. I hope, there- 

 fore, that if the noble attempt begun at Oxford to revive the antient 

 Philofophy goes on, there will come from the Oxford prefs a more 

 .corred edition of this colledion made by Gale, and which will do as 

 much honour to the critical genius of England as the edition of 

 another very valuable work of Antient Philofophy, I mean Hierocles 

 upon the Atirea Carmina of Pythagoras, which has been publifhed at 

 Cambridge in 1 709, by Mr. Needham, with the Notes of Dr. Beniley, 

 in which that moll ingenious Critic has reftored a very corrupted 

 text, with a knowledge both of the Greek language and of the 

 fubjed, and an acumen criticmn^ which makes me admire the Dodor 

 exceedingly. 



I come now to fpeak of Ariftotle, who was not felf-taught any 

 more than his matter Plato. He did not, however, travel in fearch of 

 knowledge like Plato, and the other fages of Greece before him ; but, 

 befides what he learned from his mafters, Socrates and Plato, he was 

 a great reader of books, of which he colleded a great many, and is 

 faid to have been the firft that formed a library, and Ihowed an 

 example to the Egyptian kings, who, in imitation of Ariftotle, col- 

 leded the famous Alexandrian library *. Among thofe he colleded, I 

 have no doubt that there were feveral of the Pythagorean writers, 

 fome of which, it appears, he has made great ufe of. And he would, 

 no doubt, learn from Plato all that he knew of the Pythagorean, 



Egyptian, 



* Strabo's Geography, Lib. xiii,— See the paflage prefixed by Du Vail to his 

 edition of Ariftotle's Works. 4 



