Water, in this Senfe; the Spirit of God, he fays, moved upon the Face of the Maim, Waters, or fluid Matter. M Caprico

The Fragments to be collected from the Greek Writers are but few and short, the Egyptian are fomething larger. A¢cording to Diodorus (a), 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 Separation, the lightest and most fiery Parts flew upwards (b), and became the Lights of Heaven. 3. That the Earth was in time. drained of the Water. 4. That the moist Clay of the Earth, enlivened by (c) the Heat of the Sun, brought forth living Creatures, and Men. A very little Turn would accommodate these Particulars to thofe of Mofes, as may be seen by comparing the Account of Diodorus that which is given us by the Author of the Pimander in Jamblichus. The ancient Philosophy had been variously comment

(a) Lib. 1. (b) This was the Opinion of Empedocles. Euπεδοκλῆς πυρινὰ τὰ ἄρα ἐν τῇ πυρώδες, ὑπὲρ ὁ αἰθὴρ ἐν ἑαυτῷ περιέχων εξέθλιψε κατά των πρώτων διάκρισιν. Plutarch. Placit. Phil. 2. 13. (c) Ta' (wα in diaú yevvndñva, was a Pofition embraced by Archelaus, and feveral other Greeks.

ed

ed upon, disguised and disfigured, according as the Idolatry of the World had corrupted Men's Notions, or the Speculations of the Learned had mifled 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 Mofes, that 'tis rather a Wonder that he, or any other Writer, could, after fo 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 thofe which he has given us, and the Accounts of Mofes are.

But III. Tho' the Ancients have hinted

many of the Positions laid down by Mofes, yet we do not find that they ever made ufe of any true or folid Reafoning, or were Masters of any clear and wellgrounded Learning, which might lead them to the Knowledge of thefe Truths. All the Knowledge which the Ancients had in thefe 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

་་

these to their Children, only telling them that fuch and fuch Things were fo, but not giving them Reasons for, or Demonftrations of the Truth of them! y Philofophy (a) 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 search into the Nature of Things, or to confider what they could find by Philofophical Examinations, but, Ask and it shall be told you; Search the Records of Antiquity, and you shall find what you enquire after; These were the Maxims and Directions of their Studies.

A

And this was the Method in which the ancient Greeks were inftructed in the Egyp tian Phyfiology. The Egyptians taught their Difciples Geometry,Aftronomy, Phyfick, and fome other Arts, and in thefe, 'tis likely, they laid a Foundation, and taught the Elements and Principles of each Science; but in Phyfiology the Cafe

(a) Clem, Alex. Strom. 8. ad Princip.

10

was

was quite otherwife; the Egyptians themfelves knew but little of it, tho' they made the most of their small Stock of (a) 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 (b) they did it in the following manner: 1. They put him upon studying their common Letters; in the next Place he was to acquaint himself with their Sacred Character; and in the last Place to make himfelf Master of their Hieroglyphic; and after he had thus qualified himself, he was permitted to fearch and examine their Collections, and to decypher what he found in them. And thus they did not furnish their Students with the Reasons of Things, or teach them by a Course or Argument, to raise a Theory of the Powers of Nature, for in truth they themselves had never turn'd their Studies this Way. The Art (c) which they had cultivated, was that of disguising and concealing their Traditions

(a) Strabo Lib. 17. p. 806. (b) Clem, Alexand. Strom. 5(c) Id. ibid.

C

from

from the Vulgar, and so instead of supporting them with Reafon and Argu ment, they had expreffed them in myftical Sentences, and wrote them down in intriq cate and uncommon Characters, and alb that the Student 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 Sentence, and to give it its true meaning. that vegods If we look into the Accounts we have of them, we shall find, that the most eminent Greek Masters of this Part of Learning, were not Men of retired Study and Speculation, but induftrious Tras vellers, who took Pains to collect the ancient Traditions. The first Hints of Phyfiology were brought into Greece by the Poets, Hefiod, Homer, Linus, and fome others; but these Men had taken up their Notions too haftily; they gathered up a few of the Egyptian Fables, but they had not fearch'd deep enough into their ancient Treasures; fo that in a little Time their Notions, tho' they had taken Root amongst the Vulgar, and were made Sacred by being of Ufe and Service in