Chap. III. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 307 



in his time : Nor are we to wonder that the arts, which Oiiris 

 imported into India, were not propagated all over that great coun- 

 try, inhabited by fo many different people, but were confined to 

 thofe nations, where Ofiris, or Hercules, or their fucceffors, reigned, 

 and to fome other in their neighbourhood, which, by communica- 

 tion, may have got thofe arts from them. 



If there could be any doubt, that the Egyptians were the teachers 

 of the Indians, and not their fcholars, it is entirely removed by mo- 

 numents ftill to be feen in India ; I mean ftatues or bufts of black 

 men with woolly hair, and which are reverenced b)' the natives as 

 the images of Gods. Now, there is no fuch thing in India, as men 

 with woolly hair; nor are the Indians fo black as the Egyptians 

 were, but only of a dark fwarthy colour. And not only in India but 

 in Chinaj where the people are all fair, and likewife in Japan, are fuch 

 images to be feen. Bryant, in his Antient Mythology *, gives us, 

 in the words of a man who writes a hiftory of the Dutch embaflies 

 to Japan, a defcription of a great temple in the city of Miacro in 

 that country, where there is a great idol v/ith black vv^oolly hair. 

 He mentions another tj in another temple, whofe hair was likewife 

 black and woolly; and fpeaks alfo J of other Moorifli figures or idols 

 witli woolly hair. Among the Siamefe, he fays, their deity, Boudhuy 

 is reprefented in the fame way: And, he adds, that black, in Japan, 

 is a colour of good omen, which, he fays, is extraordinary; for the 

 Japanefe are by no means black, nor has their hair any tendency 

 to wool j|. And, in the country of Siam, there is one remarkable 

 bull of that kind, to which rehgious worlhip is paid, as Kempfer 

 in his travels has related. Now, the images of thofe black woolly 

 haired men, can be worfhipped as Gods, for no other reafon, except 

 that the perfons, whom they reprefent, taught the people of the fe- 



Q^q 2 veral 



* Vol. 3. p, 577. and 578. f Page 58c. 



X Page 581. II Ibidem. 



