Ix PREFACE. 



they muft have got their arts, their reHgion, their learning, and, pro- 

 bably among other things, the dodrine of the Syllogifm from Egypt ;. 

 for I think there is as little reafon to believe that the Syllogifm could 

 have been invented by Pythagoras, or any of his difciples, as that 

 it could have been invented by Ariflotle. Nor do I think it could 

 have been produced, except in a country fuch as Egypt, where there 

 were a great number of focieties of men, fet apart for the purpofe 

 of religion and fcience, fuch as the colleges of priefts in Egypt, who 

 fucceeding one another from father to fon, and fo carrying on their 

 ftudies without interruption from generation to generation, through 

 a long period of time, might at laft have made this great difcovery ; 

 for I do not believe that even, in that land of learning, the labours 

 of one fmgle man were fufficient both to invent and perfed fuch a 

 fyftem of Science as Ariftotle's Logic. This fyftem, I fuppofe, Py- 

 thagoras brought with him from Egypt, together with the reft of 

 the Philofophy of the Egyptians ; and from fome of the books of his 

 followers (for it does not appear that Pythagoras wrote any thing 

 himfelf) Ariftotle got it, as we know he did the dodlrine of the Ca- 

 tegories, which he has fet at the head of his fyftem of Logic, and 

 alfo the dodrine of Oppofites^ and of Generation and Corruption, 



Thus, I think, I have vindicated to the true authors this great 

 difcovery of the Science of Logic, as well as the reft of the Philofo- 

 phy of Ariftotle ; and, upon the whole, have fhown that what Por- 

 phyry, in the Life of Pythagoras *, has informed us the Pythago- 

 reans faid, was true, that Plato, Ariftotle, Speufippus, Ariftoxenus, 

 and Xenocrates, had taken and appropriated to themfelves every 

 thing that was valuable in the Philofophy of Pythagoras, with fome 

 fmall alterations : But fome flight and trivial things which had been 

 thrown out by the Pythagoreans among the vulgar, and were laid 



hold 



* Sea. 53. 



