i8o ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



fciences have produced among men, and that is the knowledge of 

 God and of his attributes of wifdom and goodnefs, without which 

 knowledge we never can make any great progrefs towards regaining 

 the ftate from which we are fallen : For our intelligence can never 

 be brought to any degree of perfedtion but by the ftudy and know- 

 ledge of what is moft perfedl of intelligence. Now, the Egyptians, by 

 their cultivation of arts and fciences, advanced fo far in religion, as to 

 difcover that there was only one Supreme Being, that there was a fu- 

 ture ftate of rewards and punifhments, and alfo that man had exifted 

 in a prior and more perfedt ftate from which he had fallen. This 

 was the philofophical religion in Egypt ; for it was the religion of 

 their Priefts, that is, their Fhilojopbers^ and was communicated as 

 a myftery only to a few chofen men under the feal of profound 

 fecrecy; nor was communicated at once, but at two different times 

 and at the diftance of four years, being divided into what they call- 

 ed the greater and- the leffer myfteries *. But there was a popular 

 religion for the country, which was very proper ; and this was the 

 religion of the vulgar; and from Egypt it went to Greece, and from 

 Greece to Italy. But even this religion was not, as is commonly 

 believed, a religion of Polytheifm ; for there was in it one God fu- 

 perior to the reft, who therefore were to be confidered as his mi- 

 nifters. 



Thefe fo great difcoveries in religion I do not think the Egyp-. 

 tians, with all their arts and fciences, could have made, without the 

 afhftance of thofe Kings whom they called Gods^ who, though they 

 were not Gods, were, I am perfuaded, of a nature fuperior to men, 

 and therefore are, by Plutarch, as I have elfewhere obferved f , very 

 properly called Dcemons^ that is, fomething betwixt Gods and Men. 

 And I think it is very natural to fuppofe that the wifdom and good- 

 nefs 



* Of thefe myfteries I have fpoken at great length in the fourth volume of this work, 

 f. 399. and following, 



f Vol. IV. p. 158. 



