146 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



As Egypt was the firft civilized country, I think it is certain that 

 the Egyptians muft have firft difcovered the ufe of fire^ without 

 which none of the arts of Vulcan or Minerva could have been prac- 

 tifed. That it was not known to all nations, even in the firft ages 

 of civilization, and after they had learned the ufe of fpeech, is evi- 

 dent from the example of the men of the Ladrone Iflands, who 

 had not the ufe of it when they were firft difcovered by the Euro- 

 peans : And the Wild Girl, 1 faw in France, told me that they had 

 no ufe of it in her country*. But whether the antient Egyptians had 

 learned to ftrike fire out of the veins of flint, to ufe an expreffion 

 of Virgil, which the Ghinefe have not learned at this day, does not 

 appear. 



Not only were bread, and wine, and beer, which are ufed in the 

 civilized life, and alfo cloaths, invented by the Egyptians, but 

 likewlfe houfes and other buildings of ftone, of which won- 

 derful monuments are ftill to be feen in Egypt. Before the 

 invention of houfes, men lodged in caves, or dug for themfelves 

 habitations in rocks t> fuch as thofe to be feen at this day in 

 fome parts of the world, particularly in the Ifland of EJephan- 

 lis off the coaft of Bombay %. But before the Egyptians could raife 

 buildings of ftone, they muft have difcovered, as 1 have faid, the ufe 

 oi fre, and learned the pradlice of Metallurgy. So that, not con- 

 tent with converting to their ufe every thing that the land, the wa- 

 ter, and air furniflied, they dug into the bowels of the earth, aad 

 from thence^ befides many other things, they brought metals, of 



which, 



• Of the ufe of fire being unknown to feveral nations, fee p. 38. of vol. III. of this, 

 work. 



t See p. 44 of this vol. 



\ See further what I have faid on this fubjefV, in vol. III. of this work, p. 83. 

 v?here I have acknowledged, that what I have learned concerning that ifland, I owe to 

 Dr Lind now of Windfor, who (howed mc a plan of the extraordinary excavations 

 there. 



