PREFACE. Iix 



his Analytics, as he informs us in the beginning of them, was to 

 {how what Science and Demonftration were ; and, in order to do 

 this, he has thought it necefTarv to explain mod accurately the na- 

 ture of the Syllogifm. 



Laftly, There is a very curious fad reported by the Jefuit Father 

 Pons, a miffionary in India, concerning the Philofophy of the Bra- 

 mins. He fays, that befides other parts of Philofophy, they have 

 a Logic, and the dodrine of the Syllogifm, as perfed as it is to be 

 found in Ariilcrle * ; and -he adds, that they have as many fubtile 

 difputes about the different kinds of Syllogifm, as we had in Europe 

 two hundred years ago f. Now I think it is not at all probable 

 that the Indians invented fo great a Science, and it is flill lefs pro- 

 bable that they got it from the School of Ariftotle, with which it 

 does not appear that they had ever the leaft connedion : It remains, 

 therefore, that it came to them from Egypt, from whence they had 

 the firft rudiments of arts and civility, if we can believe either the 

 books of the Egyptian priefts, or the traditions of the Indians them- 

 felves ; And there appears, at this day, fuch a conformity betwixt 

 the antient Egyptians and the Indians in their religion, and particu- 

 larly their veneration for the Cow, the dodrine of the Metempfy- 

 chofis, their aftronomy, and the divifion of the people into different 

 profeffions, or calls, to which every one is by his birth allotted, that 

 it is impoffible but that the one nation mufl have copied from the 

 other ; and as there is not the leaft proof or probability that the 

 Egyptians borrowed any thing from them, but, on the contrary, we 

 are told, that the Egyptians imitated no other nation J, it remains 



i 2 that 



» Lettres Edtfiantes et Curuufes^ Vol. XXVI. p. 241. 

 ■\ Ibidem^ p. 246. 



X Herodotus, Lib. II. Cap. 91. See what I have further faid to prove that the In- 

 dians got their Religion, Arts, and Learning from Egypt. Origin of Language, 



Vol. I. p. 653 and 654, 2d edit. 

 I 



