Chap. XL A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I C S. 235 



ways gone together in all countries. But in thoie countries, wealth 

 confifted chiefly in coined money, which, as it circulates in the ea- 

 fieft and moft private way, enables men to collect wealth much 

 more eafily than they can do, when gold and filver is only a com- 

 modity like herds and flocks. 



There was not, therefore, in Egypt that inequality of fortune 

 among the citizens, that has produced fo much diforder in other 

 ftates. And, indeed, I may fay, that the diftin(Slion of rich and poor 

 has produced more internal difturbances, more fa(flions and difor- 

 ders, which have very often ended in the ruin of the ftate, than per- 

 haps any other thing. And as the Egyptians had not money, nor 

 any trade with foreign countries, they had no foreign luxury, but 

 lived entirely upon the produce of their own country. 



The lafl great article in the fyftem of government is the Numbers- 

 of the people. In this the Egyptians appear to me to have exceed- 

 ed all the nations that ever exifted, without exception even of the 

 Indian, which, we are told, was in antient times a very populous 

 nation, and is fo at this day. In the reign of Amafis, Herodotus tells 

 us, that there were 20,000 cic 'o in Egypt. Diodorus makes them 

 only 18,000 J and fays, that vvas the number recorded in the books 

 of the Priefts *. And even after they had fallen under the dominie 

 on of the Perfians, and then of the Macedonians, their numbers 

 continued to increafe, their polity ftill remaining the fame : For 

 Diodorus tells us, that under Ptolemy Lagus, the number of their 

 cities amounted to 30,000 ; which number, he fays, continued to 

 his time f. And we are not to fuppofe, that what they called ci- 

 ties were nothing but fmall villages ; but, that they were truly what 

 might be called cities, fome of them no doubt greater or lefler than 



G g 2 others.; 



• Lib. 1. cap. 31. 



f Ibidem. 



