PREFACE. xxxvii 



Egyptian, and Eleatic Philofophy. And therefore I hold, that 

 Ariftotle, with the heft genius for Philofophy, as comprehenfive as 

 it was acute and fubtile, and the greateft induftry, by which he did 

 more in the way of fcience than, I believe, ever man did in the 

 fpace of fo fhort a life *, had the advantage of being as well taught 

 as he could have been in Greece, or perhaps any where in the world, 

 at that time ; for the colleges of the Pythagoreans were then dif- 

 perfed, and Egypt was not what it was when Pythagoras was there ; 

 for then their monarchy and hierarchy was fubfifting : Whereas, 

 when Plato and Eudoxus were there, the houfes of the Priefts were, 

 as Strabo informs us, in ruins. 



In what remains of Ariftotle's Works, we fee the fruits of his great 

 reading; for he appears to have been very well informed of what 

 all the Philofophers before him had thought upon every fubjed: ; 

 though it has been obferved, even by fome of Ariftotle's own com- 

 mentators, that he often mifreprefents the meaning of the Philofo- 

 phers before him, that he might have the pleafure of refuting them ; 

 for his candour was not equal to his genius or learning f. His com- 

 mon way of beginning his inquiries upon any fubje6t is, by telling us 

 what the Philofophers before him had faid upon it. And now, fays 

 he, let us try whether we cannot add fomething to what they have 

 difcovered, or correct their errors. I would, therefore, have thofe 

 of this age, who pretend to philofophife without the afliftance of 

 learning, ferioufly confider, whether their genius or induftry be 



greater 



* He lived no longer than fixty-three years, three of which he fpent in hearing 

 Socrates, twenty in attending Plato, and he employed eight in educating the Con- 

 queror of the world. See Ammonius in Vita Jrijiotelis^ prefixed to Du Vall's 



edition of Ariftotle. And yet he found time to write no Icfs than four hundred 

 books, as Diogenes Laertius informs us, of which by far the greater pare, as appears 

 from the catalogue given us by Laertius, are loft. 



t See Origin of Language, Vol. I. p. 113 and 114. Second Edit. Mataphyfics, 



Vol. I. p. 79. 



