Chap. X. ANTIENTMETAPHYSICS. 215. 



wanted, by the public, out of that portion of the land which was 

 fet apart for religion. The philofnphers, therefore, of Egypt were 

 freed from all care and folicitude about money, which, as it is well 

 known, employs the thoughts oi fo many men at prefent in Eu- 

 rope, and indeed I may iay of evrry man more or lefs : And 

 which, of neceflity, muft divert the mind, in fome degree at leaft, 

 even of the moft ftudious among us, from the cultivation of arts 

 and fciences. The diet of the Priefts, as Herodotus has defcnbed 

 it, was of the beft kind ; for they were allowed Reih, and alfo drank 

 wine : But, we know, they ufed both in great moderation. Then 

 they had the enjoyment of leifure, without which it is impof- 

 fible that any man can excel in any art or icience ; for there was 

 no particular office of the ftare which they difcharged, other than 

 that fome of them attended upon the King, giving him council and 

 diredlion in the management of the affairs of the nation. That men 

 fo living, and fo educated, fhould excel in philolbphy and every 

 fcience to which they applied, i think was of abfolute neceflity, 

 even if they had not been men of fuperior genius and natural parts j 

 which, however, it is certain that they were. They muft,. therefore, 

 have excelled the Greeks and every ( ther nation of thofe days, in 

 philofophy and every art and fcience, to which they applied. We 

 need not wonder, therefore, that the Greeks got arts and fciences 

 from them in the carlieft times; and that in later times, when they 

 applied to philofophy, what they had moft valuable of that kind 

 came from Egypt, as, I think, I have very clearly Ihown in the pre- 

 face to the third volume of this work. 



But, though the Egyptians appear to have cuhivated every branch 

 of fcience, there were fome arts which they did not at all cultivate, 

 and others that they did not cultivate near fo much as the Greeks. 

 It does not appear that they had any poetry at all : And as to 

 rhetoricj it could not exift in a government of which the peo- 

 ple 



