26o ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IT. 



fourth. And, I am perfuaded, they knew not any more than the Hu- 

 rons, what a fourth was, viz. that it was, with refped: to the fundamen- 

 tal, in the ratio of three to four. It is a fad not difputed, that it was 

 Pythagoras who taught them to raife their mufic to an oftave; and, I 

 cannot doubt of his having brought that difcovery with him, as well 

 as many others, from Egypt, where he was 2 2 years. At the fame 

 time, 1 am perfuaded, that he gave them a fcale of mufic, and taught 

 them the ratios that the feveral notes bear to one another. And 

 thus the Greeks learned the Diatonic fcale of mufic, which, I am 

 perfuaded, was at firft their only mufic ; as I believe there was no 

 other at any time known in Egypt. But the Greeks, though they 

 got from Egypt not only the neceifary arts of life, but the elements 

 alfo of the liberal arts, fuch as painting and ftatuary, and of mufic 

 among the reft, having, as I have elfewhere obferved, a genius 

 peculiarly fuited to thofe arts, made refinements and improvements 

 upon them, and particularly with refpedt to mufic ; for they added 

 to the Diatonic fcale, by which the tone was only divided into two 

 parts, or femitones, a fcale, which they called Chromatic, by which 

 the tone was divided into three parts; and, not flopping there, they add- 

 ed another they called the Enharmonic, by which the tone was divid- 

 ed into four parts. By thefe refinements, their mufic was no doubt 

 •more foft and delicate, and more proper for pleafing the delicate ear 

 of the Greeks, but not fo proper for the purpofes to which the E- 

 gyptians applied their mufic — Devotion, and the inftruftion of 

 youth. For thefe purpofes the mufic muft be fuch that it can be 

 eafily apprehended by the vulgar and even by children : Whereas 

 the refinements, the Greeks made upon mufic, were fuch, that even 

 thofe who had ftudied the art among them, denied, or at leaft doubt- 

 ed, that fuch a note, as the fourth part of a tone, could be executed 

 by any voice or inftrument, or could be perceived by the ear; and not 

 content with thefe refinements upon the Egyptian mufic, they add- 

 ed 



