284 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



fuaded, it travelled over a great part of Afia : For, though language 

 be an art of more difficult invention than any other, it is of eafier 

 communication, as we may know by our own children, who, at the 

 age of two or three, learn to fpeak by mere imitation without any 

 teaching: Though we need not fuppofe, that thofe nations of Afia 

 learned the Egyptian language fo perfectly as our children learn our 

 language ; but, that hearing the Egyptian language fpoken, they 

 got fome words of it, and having thus learned to articulate, they 

 formed a language of their own, as I have faid the Lybians did. 



As to Europe, there was nothing to hinder the Egyptian arts from 

 travelling by land from Colchis to Europe ; and, befides, Sefoftris, as 

 I have obferved*, carried his arms as far into Europe as Thrace. But 

 the eafier and fhorter communication with Europe was by fea ; and 

 as the Egyptians had, in the earlieft times, the ufe of navigation, we 

 cannot doubt that they went to Europe in that way, and firft to the 

 Ifland of Crete, which is the part of Europe lying the neareft to E- 

 gypt. From this country it is certain, that the Greeks got their re- 

 ligion, civility, and arts. Thefe were introduced into Crete by two 

 races of men, the Idsei Dadtyli, and the Curetes. But where did 

 they learn them? I think it could have been no where elfe than in 

 Egypt ; for what other country was there then of civility and arts. 

 And what, I think, is proof pofitive, that thofe two races of men 

 got religion as well as arts from Egypt, is what Diodorus Siculus 

 tells us, that the Samothracian and Eleufinian myfteries were per- 

 fectly well known in Crete, and communicated, to thofe who defir- 

 ed them, freely, and not under any obligation of fecrecy. Now, that 

 thofe myfteries came to Greece from Egypt is not doubted ; and, 

 indeed, from what other country in the world, at that time, could 

 religious myfteries have come ? Saturn was the firft who appears 

 to have eftablifhed a kingdom in Crete, of which he himfelf was the 



fovereign; 



* Page 239. of this vol. 



