98 Epitome of the Progress of JVatural Science, 



to be divine. But the Egyptians having exported, as it wercy 

 the clerk without the parson, religion and science happily be- 

 came separated, and the Greeks were left free, at the planting 

 of knowledge in their country, to adopt their own philosophical 

 opinions. The benign influence of that freedom was soon felt ; 

 it led to the establishment of a school of philosophy, and of the 

 arts, that will be honoured and admired to the latest generations. 



Of the influence of this philosophy, we are living monuments ; 

 for the revival of letters in Europe, was nothing but the revival 

 of that philosophy ; and but for this fortunate disenthralment of 

 the human mind, from the tyranny of the sacerdotal caste, in- 

 stead of the inimitable manly beauty of the Apollo, and the grace- 

 ful proportions of the Venus, together with the countless treasures 

 of sculptured excellence, that received all but life from the hands 

 of Phidias and Praxiteles, we should probably have received no- 

 thing from Greece, but metaphysical monsters — gods with quad- 

 ruple heads, and a hundred hands — goddesses with the heads of 

 the inferior animals. Of all the nations of Greece, the Hellenes 

 were the earliest civilized ; and although the religion of the 

 country partook strongly of the Indian and Egyptian origin — un- 

 der the influence of Orpheus, at once a priest and a poet — yet 

 the Hellenes at length introduced the worship of Apollo, the cul- 

 tivation of the arts, and gave their name to the whole country. 

 We shall pass by the period of the Trojan war, and the evidences 

 contained in the writings of Hesiod and Homer,* of the great 

 progress the Greeks had made in the arts, in order to come at 

 once to the brilliant period of the schools of philosophy. 



The family of the Asclepiadae had begun to cultivate science 

 with practical views, as far back as the thirteenth century be- 

 fore Christ. This was properly the ancient medical school of 

 Greece, and the temples of iEsculapius — a name bearing a strong 

 affinity to that of the family — were served with priests out of this 

 family. The Ionian schools, founded by Thales of Miletus, about 

 600 B. C.,were spread chiefly amongst the continental Greeks of 

 Asia Minor, and partook of an Egyptian origin ; for when Psam- 

 meticus called in the Greeks to his aid,f Thales, Pythagoras, and 

 other philosophers, passed over to receive instruction from the 

 priests of Egypt. 



Pythagoras flourished about 550 years B. C. : after finishing 



*B. C. 900. tB. C. 600, > 



