224 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



to tlie nature of things, mud:, of neceflity, make any man mifera- 

 hle. 



Thus I tlilnk I have fl^ewn, that, by the ftudy of our own minds, 

 and of ancient arts and faiences, we may acquire knowledge fufficient 

 to prevent or correal the vices and follies to which we are liable in 

 civilized life. How much we owe to the goodnefs of God, who has 

 furniflicd us, from our own minds, with the materials of fo much 

 knowledge, and of the greateft certainty, being known to us, by the 

 mod certain of all knowledge, Confcioufnefs, I have clfewhere 

 Jliown *. And as to ancient arts and fciences, we owe them likewife 

 to the wifdom and goodnefs of God, who provided a nation, 

 which invented and cultivated thefe arts and fciences, and pro- 

 pagated the ufe of them to a great part of the nations of the earth. 

 The nation I mean was the Egyptian, which not only invented and 

 cultivated thefe arts and fciences, but carried the ufe of them to the 

 mofl diftant nations, even to India. And no nation could have 

 done this except the Egyptian, which had a form of government 

 the beft calculated for the invention and cultivation of arts and 

 fciences, by which the bed race of men in the country were fet 

 apart for that purpofe and for the fervicc of religion, and had a 

 third part of the lands of the country appropriated to them and to 

 their families : So that learning among them was hereditary, as our 

 lands in Europe are, and confequently muft have increafed from ge- 

 neration to generation. It is not, therefore, to be wondered, that in 

 r. country where learning was fo much the public care, it fhould have 

 been lb much cultivated, and increafed fo much. 



They riot only invented the nrt of language, the parent art of all 

 other arts and fciences, but they invented the neceffary arts of life, 

 fuch as agriculture and metallurgy. And as to the fine arts, they 



invented 



* Page 109, 



