Chap. XIV. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 221 



animal and our body ; and its only proper exercifc is in matters of 

 art and fcience, and particularly philofophy. A great part of the 

 pleafure which I now enjoy, in my old age, I owe to Plato and 

 Ariftotle, who are at prefent, when I write this, my companions 

 in the country; for it is to the Greek philofophy that I apply, and 

 which is all we have of the philofophy of Egypt, the parent coun- 

 try of all arts and fciences. It was not hereditary among the Greeks 

 as it was in Egypt, where it was tranfmitted from father to fon, like 

 our eftates in this country, and where it was cultivated by men^ 

 who, both by nature and education, were fitted for the ftudy of it. 

 It was, however, very much cultivated among the Greeks, who had 

 focieties of men that applied to it : I mean fed:s of philofophers, 

 fuch as the Platonics and Peripatetics, who taught their follow- 

 ers, not only by their writings, but by their converfation, which I 

 hold to be the beft way of teaching of any; as 1 find, by experience, 

 when I have the benefit of converfation with my learned friends in 

 London. 



Among the Greeks, philofophy appears to have been the ftudy 

 not only of learned and elderly men, but of young men; and it 

 feems to have been a paffion among them, which made them ne- 

 glect their domeftic affairs. This appears from a paflage in one of 

 Terence's plays, where he makes S'nno fay, in praifing his fon, 

 " That he was not addided to horfes, dogs, nor to philofophers*.'* 



N0W3 

 * See vol. 3. of Origin of Language, p. 461. — Here the reader will obfervc, that 

 though the plays of Terence are written by a Roman, and in the Roman language 

 they are tranfiations or imitations of the comedies of Menander; fo that the fables, the 

 chara<fl:ers, and the manners of them are all Greek, and the fcene is always In feme 

 Greek city: And, accordingly, the title of this play bears, ejl tota Graca; and the fcene 

 is at Athens. And,, indeed, what is faid in the paflage, I have quoted, of the paffioa 

 of young men for philofophy, will not apply to the youth of Rome, whofe pafllon, as 

 Horace tells us, was not for philofophy but for money. 



Romani pueri longis rationibus affem 



Difcunt in partes centum diducere De Arte Poetica. v, 325. 



