Chap. HI. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 135 



thatj in fuch a country, a clafs or order of the beft men among the 

 :peop]e, fliould be fet apart for the invention and cultivation of arts. 

 Now, in t is refpedt, I {hall fhow, when I come to treat of go- 

 vernment, that the Egyptian government was the beft we have ever 

 heard of, and particularly that it was more fitted, than any other, 

 for the invention and cultivation of arts and fciences. 



The laft thing I required was, that befides a good form of polity, 

 tending to promote arts and fciences, the people fhould have a genius 

 and natural parts which made them fit for the invention and cultiva- 

 tion of arts and fciences. If that be wanting, though the country have 

 all the other advantages I have mentioned? the people will make 

 very little progrefs in the invention of arts and fciences. Suppofe 

 Lapland to be poilefl'ed of all the advantages which I have found in 

 Egypt, I do not believe, that the people there could have invented 

 any art worth mentioning : Nor, do I think, that any of the other 

 countries of Europe, though more favoured by the fun than Lap- 

 land, could, with the genius they have, have made any confider- 

 able pr-ogrefs in the difcovery of the liberal arts and fciences : For 

 men of ordinary capacity may be taught or may learn by imitation ; 

 but to invent requires more than ordinary underftanding. Now, 

 that underftanding the Egyptians had ; and were acknowledged, 

 •even by the Greeks, to be men of fuperior parts, as appears from 

 feveral palTages in Herodotus, particularly from that where he re- 

 lates how the Elians confulted them about the way they fliould de- 

 termine to whom the prizes of their games were to be adjudg- 

 ed *. Mofes, we are told in our Scripture, was learned in all the 

 ^fdom of the Egyptians f : And it is faid of Solomon's wifdom, 

 that it excelled all the ivifdom of Egypt %. The Greeks, however, 



called 



* Herod, lib. 2. cap. 160. 



f A£ls of the Apoftles, cap. 7. v. 22. 



X I. Kings, cap. 4. v. 30. 



