Chap. XIII. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 177 



CHAP. XIIL 



Egypt the Parent Country of all Arts and Sciences. — There Geometry 

 invented, and Government and Religion ejlablijioed. — The know- 

 ledge of one Supreme Being — of the Fall of Man — and of a Future 

 State of Rewards and Punifhments, knowft there. — The Egyptians 

 had a Pbilofophic Religion as well as a Popular. — The Myflery 

 of the Trinity known to them — and learned there by Plato, as well 

 as his DoElrine of Ideas. — The Learning of the Egyptians noiv to 

 be learned only from Greek Authors who imported it into their own 

 country, fuch as Plato and Herodotus, 



TO enlarge upon the progrefs of man from the necefTary arts of 

 life to the perfedlion of the human intellect by Metaphyfics and 

 Theology, would carry me too far from the purpofe of this volume, 

 and is the lefs necefTary, that in a preceding volume* I have treat- 

 ed of the fubjed at fome length, where I have endeavoured to fhow 

 that all arts and fciences took their rife in Egypt. Here, therefore, 

 I will only add, that among many other arts and fciences, which 

 were invented in that country, there was one fcience which the 

 nature of their country made necefTary; I mean Geometry, by 

 which the bounds and marks of the feveral lands, that were con- 

 founded by the overflowing of the Nile, were preferved; and 

 from thence the fcience had its name, and was called Geometry. 

 But though Geometry, among us, be not a fcience fo necefTary as 

 it was in Egypt, it is an ufeful fcience; and confidered philofophi- 



VoT.. VI. Z cally, 



• Vol. IV. Book IF. 



