60 UTILITY OF COMBINING A KNOWLEDGE OF NATURE 



perly so called, and, together with that, a degree of the ani- 

 mation and beauty which had resulted from its application to 

 Sculpture by the artists of their own country*. The interest 

 which has been imparted to the history and antiquities of 

 Egypt, by the researches of modern travellers in that country, 

 and by the discoveries in Egyptian literature of Young and 

 Champollion, has induced me to enter at some length into the 

 foregoing illustration of my present subject, evincing, as it ap- 

 pears to do, that high mathematical attainments are not inse- 

 parably connected with, or productive of, general scientific 

 knowledge, and manifesting also, in the defective state of the 

 Fine Arts among the Egyptians, the ill consequences of the 

 non-application of mathematical science, as well as of the ab- 

 sence of definite and systematic Physical knowledge. 



Agreeably to the order proposed at the commencement of 

 this memoir, I am to terminate the consideration of the 

 utility of Natural Knowledge, by endeavouring to show the 

 general usefulness of combining information of this kind with 

 the pursuits of Classical Literature, and also the advantages 

 specifically derivable from it, in the most profound investiga- 

 tions of the history, the languages, and the arts of Civilized 

 Antiquity. 



Whether the study of the ancient languages of Greece and 

 Rome, and that of the polity and literature of those countries, 

 in conjunction with it, be pursued, in order to impart to the 

 mind that general and comprehensive acquaintance with the 

 two nations, and their deeds in arts and in arms, which has 

 been regarded as an essential part of the character of the 

 scholar and the gentleman ; or whether it be cultivated for 

 the information and sources of mental delight, to be found in 



* The reputation acquired by the Alexandrian school of philosophy, and 

 the success with which many branches of natural knowledge were cultivated 

 by its disciples, among whom were Euclid, equally skilled in the science of 

 Music as in Geometry, Hipparchus, the greatest astronomer among the an- 

 cients, Ctesebius, the inventor of the Pneumatic Pump, and others of equal 

 celebrity, are not to be considered as indicating, in any degree, the previous 

 existence of definite physical science in Egypt. They are attributable, en- 

 tirely, to the influence of the philosophy and science of the Greeks; for which 

 an opening was afforded by the sagacity of Alexander the Great, in fixing upon 

 so advantageous a site for his new metropolis, after his conquest of Egypt, 

 and which the subsequent establishment of the Musceum, or Scientific Insti- 

 tution, of Alexandria, by Ptolemy Soter, and the fostering care of his suc- 

 cessors, greatly contributed to raise to that high degree of perfection which 

 it attained in this school. But it was, at the same time, the high cultivation 

 of Geometry by the Egyptians, in conjunction, doubtless, with their minute 

 empirical acquaintance with the properties of natural substances, which af- 

 forded the foundation on which so much natural knowledge was afterwards 

 raised among them by the Greeks. 



