Chap. I. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 283 



have been qualified to govern Eg\^t, or even the houfehold of Po- 

 tiphar, if he had not underftood the Egyptian language. And, when 

 Jofeph's brethren w^ent to Egypt, though Jofeph fpoke to them by 

 an interpreter *, 1 think, it is evident, he did {o, only to conceal 

 himfelf ; for they fpoke to Jofeph's fteward without an interpre- 

 ter f; and fo did Jacob to Pharoah J. At the fame time, I am per- 

 fuaded, that the Hebrew, which the family of Jacob then fpoke, 

 was a corrupt dialedt of the language of Egypt ; for we know what 

 changes language fuffers even in the fame nation, and almoft always 

 for the worfe. But when a language travels through feveral nations, 

 as the Egyptian muft have done before it reached Chaldsa or Ca- 

 naan, it muft have fuffered great alterations and been much corrupt- 

 ed, not fo much however as not to be underftood by Pharoah and 

 the Egyptians; though Jofeph, in order to conceal himfelf, got an 

 interpreter, who fpoke to his brethren in their own dialed. But, I 

 hold it to have been impoflible, that the family of Jacob, or any of 

 his predeceffors, living, as they did, a paftoral and nomade life, could 

 have invented a language of art, fuch as the Hebrew was, though 

 not of fo great art as the Shanfcrit or the Greek, or even could have 

 learned to articulate their animal cries, or to invent a language the 

 moft rude and barbarous that can be imagined. That the Hebrews 

 had learned the writing art in Egypt, or at leaft that Mofes had 

 learned it, is evident from what palfed at Mount Sinai] and accord- 

 ingly the Hebrews wrote, as the Egyptians did, from right to left, 

 not, as we do, from left to right. And as they learned to write, fo 

 they learned to fpeak, from Egypt ; nor, indeed, was there any- 

 other country where they could have learned it. In the fame man- 

 ner that the Egyptian language found its way to Chald^ea, I am per- 



N n 2 fuaded, 



* Genefis, chap. 42. v. 23. 



f Ibid. chap. 43. v. 19. 



I Ibid. chap. 47. v. 8. 



