A larger. According to Diodorus, they affert, 1. as I have before hinted, that the heavens and earth were at firft in one confused and mixed heap. 2. That, upon a feparation, the lightest and most fiery parts flew upwards1, and became the lights of heaven. 3. That the earth was in time drained of the water. 4. That m the heat the moift clay of the earth, enlivened by of the fun, brought forth living creatures and men. very little turn would accommodate thefe particulars to thofe of Mofes, as may be seen by comparing the account of Diodorus with that which is given us by the author of the Pimander in Jamblichus. The ancient philofophy had been variously commented upon, difguifed and disfigured, according as the idolatry of the world had corrupted men's notions, or the fpeculations of the learned had misled them, before the times of Diodorus Siculus; and it is fo far from being an objection, that the accounts he gives do in fome points differ from Moses, that it is rather a wonder that he, or any other writer, could, after so many revolutions of religion, of learning, of kingdoms, of ages, be able to collect from the remains of antiquity any pofitions fo agreeable to one another, as those which he has given us, and the accounts of Mofes are. But, III. Though the ancients have hinted many of the pofitions laid down by Mofes, yet we do not find that they ever made ufe of any true or folid reasoning, or were mafters of any clear and well-grounded learning, which night lead them to the knowledge of these truths. All the knowledge which the ancients had in these points lay at first in a narrow compass; they were in poffeffion of a few truths, which they had received from their forefathers; they tranfmitted these to their children, only telling them that fuch and fuch things were so, but not giving them reasons for, or demonftrations of, the truth of them. Philofophy" was not difputative until it came into Greece; the ancient profeffors had no controverfies about it; they received what was handed down to them, and out of the treasure of their traditions imparted to others; and the principles they went upon to teach or to learn by were not to fearch into the nature of things, or to confider what they could find by philofophical examinations, but, ask, and it fhall be told you; fearch the records of antiquity, and you fhall find what you enquire after: these were the maxims and directions of their ftudies. And this was the method in which the ancient Greeks were inftructed in the Egyptian phyfiology. The Egyptians taught their difciples geometry, aftronomy, phyfic, and fome other arts, and in these, it is likely, they laid a foundation, and taught the elements and principles of each science: but in phyfiology the cafe was quite otherwife; the Egyptians themselves knew but little of it, though they made the most of their small stock of knowledge, by keeping it concealed, and diverting their students from attempting to fearch and examine it to the bottom. If at any time they were obliged to admit an enquirer into their arcana, we find P they did it in the following manner: 1. They put him upon studying their common letters; in the next place he was to n Clem. Alex. Strom. viii. ad Princip. • Strabo lib. xvii. P. 806. acquaint himself with their facred character; and in the laft place to make himself mafter of their hieroglyphic: and after he had thus qualified himself, he was permitted to fearch and examine their collections, and to decipher what he found in them. And thus they did not furnish their ftudents with the reasons of things, or teach them by a course of argument to raise a theory of the powers of nature, for in truth they themselves had never turned their studies this way. The art 9 which they had cultivated was that of disguifing and concealing their traditions from the vulgar; and fo, instead of fupporting them with reafon and argument, they had expreffed them in mystical sentences, and wrote them down in intricate and uncommon characters; and all that the ftudent had to do was to unravel these intricacies, to learn to read what was written, and to be able to explain a dark and enigmatical fentence, and to give it its true meaning. If we look into the accounts we have of them, we shall find, that the moft eminent Greek mafters of this part of learning were not men of retired study and fpeculation, but induftrious travellers, who took pains to collect the ancient traditions. The firft hints of phyfiology were brought into Greece by the poets, Hefiod, Homer, Linus, and fome others: but thefe men had taken up their notions too hastily; they gathered up a few of the Egyptian fables, but they had not fearched deep enough into their ancient treasures; so that in a little time their notions, though they had taken root amongst the vulgar, and were made facred by being of ufe and fervice in religion, came to be overlooked by men of parts and enquiry, who endeavoured to fearch after a better philo Clem. Alex. Strom. v. §. 4. fophy. sophy. From Pherecydes, the fon of Badis, to the times of Aristotle, are about three hundred years; and during all that space of time, philosophy, in all its branches, was cultivated by the greatest wits of Greece with all poffible industry but they had only Thales, Pythagoras, and Plato, who were the eminent mafters; all the other philofophers must be ranged under these, as being only explainers or commentators upon the works of these, or at most the builders of an hypothefis, from fome hints given by them. Thales, Pythagoras, and Plato, were the originals of the Greek learning; and it is remarkable, that they did not invent that part of their philofophy which I am treating of, but they travelled for it, and collected it from the records of other nations. Thales, we find', travelled to Egypt; and after having spent fome years there, he brought home with him a few traditions, which, though but few, obtained him the credit of being the first who made a differtation upon natures; for, in truth, all before him was fable and allegory but Thales was fo far from having furnished himself with all that might be collected, or from pretending to build a theory of natural knowledge upon principles of fpeculation, that he advised Pythagoras', who ftudied for fome time under him, to finish his ftudies in the way and method that himself had taken ; and, according to his directions, Pythagoras, for above forty years together", travelled from nation to nation, Laert. 1. i. feg. 24. Πρῶτος δὲ καὶ περὶ φύσεως διε λéxon. Id. Jamblic. de vit. Pythag. c. 2. " Porph. de vit. Pyth. et Jamblic. Voff. de Philof. Sect. 1. ii. c. ii. §. 2. Clem. Alex. Strom. i. Id. Strom. v. Eufeb. Præp. Evang. 1. ix. c. 6. Joseph. contra Apion. Orig. adv. Celf. 1. i. p. 13. edit. Cant. 1677. from from Greece to Phoenicia, from Phoenicia to Egypt, and from Egypt to Babylon, fearching every place he came at, and gathering all the traditions he could meet with; omitting to converse with no perfon eminent for learning, and endeavouring to collect from the Egyptians and the Jews, and all others he could meet with, every ancient dogma. These were the pursuits of Pythagoras, and this his courfe of ftudy; and from his diligent fearches he acquired a great stock of ancient truths, collected in fuch a manner, that it is no wonder he afterwards taught them with an air of authority condemned by Cicero, who would have fet philofophy upon the bafis of reafon and argument; but Pythagoras took up his notions upon the authority of others, and could therefore give them to his disciples no otherwife than he had them. His aurds on was the proof of what he afferted, for he had collected, not invented, his fcience, and fo he declared or delivered what he had gathered up, but he did not pretend to argue or give reafons for it. If we look into the writings of Plato, we may see that he confeffed what I am contending for in the freeft manner. He never afferted his phyfiology to be the product of his invention, or the result of rational enquiries and fpeculations, but acknowledged it to be a collection of traditions gleaned up from the remains of thofe that lived before him. In the general he afferts y, that the Greeks received their most valuable learning from the traditions of barbarians more ancient than themfelves; and often speaks of Phoenician and Syrian, i. e. Hebrew fables", as the ground of many of their |