204 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book 11. 



Egyptians would never be without a King*. This King was chofen 

 out of the mihtaty clafs of men among the Egyptians. But he was 

 intrufted only with the executive part of the government. And 

 there was a higher clals of men ftill, who were his counfellors and 

 who, at the fame time, were trufted with the religion of the country, 

 that moft eflential part of government : And to them alfo was in- 

 trufted the cultivation of arts and fciences. 



The excellency of every man in every art and fcience depends 

 upon two things, his natural genius, and liis education. Of thefe 

 two, I hold nature to be the firft and fundamental quality : For if 

 nature has not laid the foundation in every art, and particularly in 

 the great art of government, no education or culture can make a 

 man excel in it. 



And here we may obferve the difference betwixt the ivifdom, or 

 l\it philofophy, as the word ought to be tranflated t, of the Egypti- 

 ans, which Mofes learned, and the philofophy of the Greeks : For 

 the Greek philofophers, fuch as Plato and Ariftotie, who write up- 

 on government, fpeak fo much of the education of the governors, 

 and fo little of their nature and genius, that one fliould think they 

 believed, that education alone was fufficient to make a governing 

 ■man. And Plato is fo far from thinking that there was any difference 

 of natures among men, or, if there was any, that it ought to be 

 preferved, that he makes it an effential part of his polity, that the 

 wives and children of his citizens fhould be common; So that every 

 diftindion betwixt the races of men muft in his fyftem have been 

 deftroyed. In this, however, his fcholar Ariftotie differs from him, 



but 



* Lib. 2. cap. 147. Ed. Weflelingli. 



f Afls of the Apoftles chap. 7. v. 22. The Greek word is ^of;«, which fignifics 

 philcfiphy, not what we call wi/dom, that is prudence in the conduct of life. 



