Chap. XI. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 223 



iv'ife men among the Greeks, fpoke and gave counfei, but the fools 

 determined. 



The other defed, which I have obferved in the heroic govern- 

 ments, was, that they were not proper for the cultivation of arts and 

 fciences, by which only man in this life can make any progrefs to- 

 wards recovering from his fallen ftate. But there never was a go- 

 vernment more fitted for the invention and cultivation of arts and 

 fciences, than the government of Egypt ; for there the race of the 

 beft men, they had, was fet apart for that purpofe, having noching 

 elfe to do, (not even to provide for themfelves the neceflaries of life,) 

 except that they had the care of the religion of the country, ar.d 

 that fome of them attended the king as his counfeilors. Now I 

 hold it to be impoffible, that arts and fciences ever could have been 

 invented or cultivated in any great degree among a people wholly 

 employed in procuring the neceflaries of life, or in the pradice of 

 arms and government, which was the cafe of the people of Greece 

 in the heroic age : For there muft be men fet apart for that pur- 

 pofe, and who have leifure from the occupations of life. 



If this had not been done when antient learning was revived in 

 Europe in the 15th and i6th centuries, — if learning had not been then 

 the public care, and if fchools, colleges, and univerfities, had not 

 been founded and endowed at a very confiderable expence, it is to me 

 evident, that antient learning would again have been loft ; and that 

 we fhould have been now as ignorant and barbarous as we were, 

 when the Greeks imported their learning into Italy after the tak- 

 ing of Conftantinople. This extraordinary care, therefore, that was 

 taken to cultivate arts and fciences in Egypt, where it was made a 

 part of the conftitution of their government, is of itfelf, I think, 

 fufficient to prove, that Egypt muft have been the parent country 

 of all arts and fciences, unlefs it could be proved, that in thofe early 



times, 



