Chap. XI. A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I C S. 237 



and xvhich, as Ariftotle informs us*, was permitted, and even en- 

 couraged by the polity of Crete, in order to prevent the too great 

 increafe of the people, I mean fodomy, w^as not known in Egypt. 

 And when to thefe confiderations we join this, that in fo healthy 

 a country as Egypt, few or no children would die under age ; 

 whereas, among us, many more than a half that are born, do not 

 live to be men and women; — When we join, I fay, all thefe confi- 

 derations together, it will by no means appear incredible, that the 

 numbers of people in Egypt Ihould have been fo very great; fo great, 

 that they muft have been quite overftocked with people, many more 

 than their land or water, fruitful as they were, could maintain, 

 and that in not many generations, if they had not difcharged them- 

 felves by colonies, which they fent to diiferent countries, by which 

 they at the fame time propagated their arts and fciences. Of thefe 

 colonies their Priefts named many, which no doubt were fet down 

 in their facred books, but of fome of which the Greek hiftori- 

 ans feem to have doubted. But, for my part, though they had not 

 faid a word of the colonies they fent out, I fhould have believed, that 

 it was impoffible by the nature of things, that they muft not have 

 fent out a great many. 



What made the numbers of the people in Egypt fo very great, was 

 a thing which happened in Egypt, and I believe no where elfe. In o- 

 ther countries a great deal of land has, at fome time or another, been 

 inundated by the fea, or by rivers, and in that way fo much land taken 

 from the inhabitants : Whereas in Egypt there was a very great addi- 

 tion made to the country ; and which I think muft have been richer, and 

 more produdlive of every thing for the fuftenance of man, than the old 

 country. What I mean is the addition of the Delta, or lower Egypt, 

 to the upper; which addition, as Herodotus tells us, was the gift of 

 the river, being produced by the earth, which the river brought with it 



from 



* Lib. 2. De RepuMica, cap. lo. 



