PREFACE. Ixxi 



Whether k be the Platonic or the Ariftotelian Philofophy that 

 prevails at prefent among the learned of Greece, I do not certainly 

 know ; but from the work of Eugenius Diaconus above mentioned,, 

 it fhould feem it was the Ariftotelian, for hisfyftem of Logic is alto- 

 gether Ariftotelian ; nor, indeed,, could he find a fyftem of Logic 

 any Vv here elfe. 



Of the revival of the Greek Philofophy in Italy, I have given, 

 fome account in the 24th Chapter of the 4th Book of the Third. 

 Volume of the Origin of Language. It was brought about by fome 

 learned Greeks who fled from Conftantinople, when it was taken by 

 the Turks, into Italy, and were proteded and patronized by Cofmo 

 and Laurentius of Medicis in Florence, and at Rome, by Pope Leo 

 the Tenth, of the fame family. Thofe learned Greeks were obliged 

 tofubmit to the drudgery of learning the Latin language in Italy,, 

 which, at that time, v/as intirely loft in the Eaft, and of tranflating 

 the Greek Philofophy into Latin, a language much inferior, and much 

 lefs proper for Philofophy *. This ungracious tafk was impofed upon 

 them by the Popes, who wanted that all learning (hould be in the 

 language of the prayers of their church. If they had been otherwife 

 inclined, I am perfuaded they might very eaftly have made- the 

 Greek the language of learning ; for it was fo much in faftiion in 

 Italy after the Greek Refugees came among them, that: even the 

 ladies not only underftood it, but fpoke it ; and fome learned men 

 about that time wrote it moft elegantly ; and about the beginning of 



the 



* See Bruckerus's Hiftory of Philofophy, Tome, IV. p. 64. -Where the Reader 



will fee how much they laboured, and how fuccefsfully, to acquire the Latin, which 

 muft have appeared to them little better than a barbarous language compared with the 

 Greek. Bruckerus there tells a ftory of one of the moft learned of them, Theodoras 

 Gaza, who having tranflated Ariftotle's Hiftory of Animals into Latin, was fo ill 

 rewarded, as he thought, for his pains, that he threw the money he got into the 

 Tyber. 



