OF THE UNIVERSE. EPOCH OF THE PTOLEMIES. 171 



lously carried on at Myos Hormos and Berenice, and were 

 connected with Coptos by the formation of an excellent 

 artificial road. ( 262 ) All these different enterprises of the 

 Lagidse, commercial as well as scientific, were based on the 

 idea of connection and union, on a ceaseless tendency to 

 embrace a wider whole, remoter distances, larger masses, 

 more extensive and varied relations, and greater and more 

 numerous objects of contemplation. This direction of the 

 Hellenic mind, so fruitful in results, had been long preparing 

 in silence, and became manifested on a great scale in the 

 expeditions of Alexander, in his endeavours to blend the 

 Western and Eastern worlds. In its continued extension 

 under the Lagida3 it characterised the epoch which I here 

 desire to pourtray, and must be regarded as having effected 

 an important advance in the progressive recognition and 

 knowledge of the Universe as a whole. 



So far as an abundant supply of objects of direct con- 

 templation is required for tin's increasing and advancing 

 knowledge, the frequent intercourse of Egypt with distant 

 countries, scientific exploring journies into Ethiopia at the 

 cost of the Government, ( 263 ) distant ostrich and elephant 

 hunts, ( 264 ) and menageries of wild and rare beasts in the 

 " kings' houses of Bruchium," might act as incitements to 

 the study of natural history, ( 2G5 ) and contribute data to 

 empirical knowledge ; but the peculiar character of the 

 Ptolemaic epoch, as well as of the whole " Alexandrian 

 School," which, indeed, preserved the same direction until 

 the third and fourth centuries, manifested itself in a different 

 path ; it occupied itself less with the immediate observation 

 of particulars, than with the laborious assemblage of all that 

 was already obtained, and in the arrangement, comparison, 



VOL. II. N 



