56 MATHEMATICAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS, 



and for relying upon the practical results obtained by a Smea- 

 ton, a Rennie, and a Seppings, rather than upon the theoreti- 

 cal conclusions of a Navier or a Girard. 



The ancient history of science affords a remarkable illus- 

 tration of the comparative inefficacy of mathematical attain- 

 ments, when uncombined with natural knowledge,- 1 which, 

 as possessing also much collateral interest, may be appro- 

 priately introduced in this place, and will tend to relieve 

 what may have appeared, to some readers, a rather abstruse 

 discussion. 



It has been shown, by many writers, that the ancient inha- 

 bitants of Egypt possessed a high degree of mathematical 

 knowledge, especially in Geometry ; and some of the most 

 important propositions in the collection known to us by the 

 name of " Euclid's Elements," a work equally honourable to 

 that illustrious Geometer, as an editor and as an original 

 author and inventor in this science, have been traced to cer- 

 tain philosophers of Greece, especially Pythagoras, Thales, and 

 Plato, who received them from the Egyptian priests, while pur- 

 suing their studies in the colleges of Heliopolis and Thebes. 

 But of the Physical sciences, as branches of knowledge (existing 

 abstractedly from a mere practical acquaintance with the pro- 

 perties of natural substances employed in the arts which they 

 practised, &c.), with the exception perhaps of some degree 

 of acquaintance with Physical Astronomy there is much rea- 

 son to believe, on the other hand, that the ancient Egyptians 

 were almost entirely ignorant. Possessing, as is evident from 

 their works, gigantic conceptions and unwearied industry, and 

 induced, by their peculiar mythological tenets, to exert them in 

 perpetuating to the remotest ages (they hoped for ever, though 

 it should be but an eternity of the grave,) the actually ex- 

 isting state of things, to perpetuate themselves, and as it 

 were the very time-being in which they lived,- they laid all 

 nature under contribution to promote their singular designs. 

 They acquired and exercised a most precise and accurate know- 

 ledge of the properties of all the objects of nature afforded by 

 their country. They knew, for example, that the desiccation of 

 the bodies of animals, or the expulsion of moisture from them, 

 tended greatly to withdraw them from the operation of those 

 laws of decomposition to which dead organized matter is 

 amenable. They knew, further, that the impregnation of 

 the body with bituminous and saline materials, and the fill- 

 ing of its cavities with aromatics, would prevent its de- 

 struction by insects and animalcula. They knew also that 

 the exclusion of the air, and the preservation of a uniform 

 temperature, were necessary for the continuance, in its original 



