i6g ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



fentiments and difpofitions of our minds more. And particularly it 

 may be fo compofed, as to infpire devotion more perhaps than any 

 thing elfe. And accordingly it was by their church mufic, chiefly, as 

 I have elfewhere obferved*, that the Jefuits converted the barbarians 

 of Paraguay. Nor was the Religion of Egypt wanting in this reipedl; 

 for their proceflions were accompained by mufic f, and Plato tells 

 us, that they had feveral fongs of Ifis, that were 10,000 years old. 

 And they confidered mufic as fo eflential, both to the religion and 

 the good government of the country, that they would fuffer no in- 

 novations to be made in it, nor any other mufic to be practiced but 

 that which had defcended to them from the age of their Gods X- 



The Egyptians, befides the intercourfe they had with their Gods, 

 by facrifices, proceflions, and many rites and ceremonies, had a more 

 dire£l and immediate communication with them by the means of 

 their oracles, which they confulted, not only in their public affairs, 

 but in matters of private concern, fuch as difputes between man 

 and man. And the refponfes of their oracles were not myfterious 

 and ambiguous, as among the Greeks, but plain and dire<St, as far 

 as I can colledt from Herodotus. The Egyptians fought to be in- 

 formed of future events in no other way. But the Greeks, befides 

 their oracles, which, like many other things, they got from Egypt, 

 (as is evident from the account, which Herodotus gives us, of their 

 moft antient oracle, that of Dodona§,) divined by the entrails of the 

 beads they facrificed. As to the Romans, they had no oraele worth 

 mentioning, and none that they confulted in their public affairs. But 

 they divined not only by the entrails of beafis, but by the flights of 

 birds, and even by the feeding of chickens, which they called fa- 

 cred, and kept for that purpole. 



The 

 * Page 10 1, of this volume. 

 j- Herodotus, Lib. 2. cap. 60. 



If Plato De Legibus, lib. 2. p. 656. and 65^7. Edit. Serrani,. 

 5 Herodotus, Lib. 2. cap, 52 — 54. el Sfq^ue/i. 



