Chap. III. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 30J 



them a colony, fuch as Sefoftris certainly did at Colchis upon the 

 Euxine Sea, when he overran Afia. But we are not for that to be- 

 lieve that (o great a country as India was wholly peopled from 

 Egypt. The two authors whom La Croze mentions, Chatrou the Jc- 

 fuit, and Bifhop Huet, think the matter, he fays, fo clear, that the\- 

 have not taken the trouble to give any proof of it. But this defedt La 

 Croze has fupplied *, and has flhown very clearly, from the confor- 

 mity betwixt the religion and manners of the two countries, that the 

 Egyptians muil; have been in India. Upon this, I have infilled very 

 much in the preceding chapter : And, indeed, as the Indians never 

 were in Egypt, I think it is a demonftration, from the nature of the 

 thing, that the Egyptians muft have been in India. 



And thus, I think, I have proved, both from the nature of the 

 thing, and from the authority of authors, antlent and modern, that 

 the Egyptians, in antient times, were in India. Now, this of itfelf 

 is a very important fact in the hiftory of man, that, in fo very ear- 

 ly an age, a great army fhould have come all the way by land from 

 Egypt to a country fo remote as India. 



This point being fettled, the only queftion that remains to be dcr- 

 termined, upon this fubjedt of the intercourfe betwixt Egypt and 

 India, is, Whether the Egyptians, when they went to India, learn- 

 ed civility and arts there, or taught them to the Indians ? This, in 

 ray opinion, is no difficult queftion, though I know, there are who 

 maintain, that the Egyptians got their arts and fciences from the In^ 

 dians. For, in the Jir/i place, if we believe the traflition among the 

 learned in India, there can be no doubt, that the Egyptians imported 

 civility and arts into that country. 2^0, 1 think it is impoflible, by the 

 nature of things, that a country, without civility and arts, fhould have 

 undertaken, and condudted fo well, fo great an expedition to fo diftant 



Vol. IV. Q^q a- 



* Vol. 2. p. 222. 



