Chap. XVIII. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 263 



that, we may judge from the invention of the alphabet, which is 

 the foundation of the whole art, and which, as I have faid *, was 

 invented in Egypt as well as the reft of the art ; for, though 

 from its being the firft thing that our children are taught, when 

 they arc incapable of learning any thing elfe, we may think it 

 a very eafy and obvious art, a philofopher knows, that it was 

 a great difcovery, and a very wonderful work of analyfis, by 

 which all the articulate founds, of which language is cornpofed, 

 io many and fo various and mixed and joined together in lo many 

 fyllables and words, are analyzed into the elemental founds of which 

 they are cornpofed. This analyfis was the more valuable, that with- 

 out it another moft curious and moft ufeful art could not have been 

 dikovered j I mean the writing art, by which we make founds vifi- 

 ble, and fpeak to the eyes as well as to the ears. — But of this art and 

 of language I have faid enough in other parts of this work : I will 

 therefore proceed to other arts of life, beginning with agriculture, 

 which is fo necefiary an art for the conftitution of civil fociety, that it 

 muft have been the beginning of all fociety of that kind ; for civil fo- 

 ciety muft have been formed by a number of men living together in 

 a fettled ftate of life and in clofc intcrcourfe ; and it is only by agri- 

 culture that men can fubfift in that way. It is true however, as I have 

 elfewhere obferved, that men can fubfill: upon the natural fruits of the 

 earth, but not in any great numbers ; fo that it would be impoflible 

 that a country could be well inhabited, where the people had no other 

 means of fubfifting. In Egypt, the moft fruitful country I believe in 

 the world, wheat and barley grew naturally, as I have elfewhere ob- 

 ferved f ; and even a finer grain than either of thefe, called by the 

 Greeks ^ea^ and which was the far of the Romans, as I have alfo 

 obferved % : And yet upon thefe, and what other fruits the coun- 

 try 



* Vol. IV. p. 262. 



t IbiJ. t). 139. 



\ Ibid. p. 140. 



