we cannot help lamenting the neglect of the mechanical philo173 fophy of the last century; which feems to be in great danger of being banished from phyfical enquiries. Our prefent race of reafoners, however, fhould recollect that although Bacon, as a naturalift, firft recommended experimental philofophy, its establishment was owing to a Newton, whofe reafoning was in general ftri&ly mathematical and mechanical. They fhould reflect, alfo, that if natural phenomena are not accounted for mathematically and mechanically, they are in fact not accounted for at all. The having recourfe to chemical principles, however fatisfactory among chemifts, appears to the generality of readers as little better than the having recourfe to occult qualities; whofe effects we may admit, but of whose modus operandi we are totally ignorant.-Not that, were these effects and their admitted caufes properly defined and afcertained, the affair would be very important, if it did not tend to divert the ingenious enquirer from purfuing the genuine track of phyfical inveftigation. Some gentlemen," fays Mr. Henly," have fuppofed that the electric matter is the caule of the cohesion of the particles of bodies." A fuppofition, which if the electric matter be, as he fufpects, his experiments, he fays, feem to prove.-Again, he observes, after Dr. Prieftley, that it is probable, "electric light comes from the electric matter itfelf: that this being a modification of phlogifton, it is probable that all light is a modification of phlogifton alfo: and that prior to his deductions from electrical phenomena, it was pretty evident that light and phlogiston are the fame thing in different forms or ftates."-What wretched jargon is all this, for philofophers! Is it poffible that Dr. Prieftley or Mr. Henly can be ignorant that, with respect to the phenomena of the material univerfe, different forms frequently conftitute different things? Do they doubt, when they talk of material principles, that all matter is homogeneous? Or that the most permanent of chemical principles differ otherwife than as different modifications of the fame matter?-Can any thing be more abfurd than their pertinacioufly infifting that almoft every phenomenon in nature is a body or fubftance fui generis; when every moment see them appear, disappear, and their materials become reciprocally convertible. Would any body but a dern philofopher, indeed, have patience to hear of light's exing in darkness, fire in ice, &c. being told at the fame time hat at light and fire are material fubftances?

We

This writer might well be at a lofs to answer the queftion What is electricity?" if it were neceffary to declare it a ly like air or water, Electricity he confiders as a fluid, and

properly

374 properly characterized by the terms electricity, electric fluid, or electric matter. What a strange mode of characterizing a phenomenon by giving it merely a name!-Is the electric light, the electric fire, the electric fhock, the electric wind, the electric attraction, the electric repulfion, &c. &c.-are, we fay, all the electric phenomena the fame material fluid? Would it not be abfurd to call the air, SOUND, and yet without the air there would be no fuch phenomenon as found.-Has modern chemistry totally deftroyed the ancient difference between substance and accident, matter and motion?-Mr. Henly talks of the electric fluid being the cause of the cohesion of particles of bodies. In what manner can he poffibly conceive this caufe to produce fuch an effect?—It is really a pity that gentlemen, who appear defirous of drawing philofophical conclufions from phyfical experiments, do not attend more to mechanics and mathematics than is at prefent the fashion. A little more logic, alfo, to enable them to diftinguifh more nicely and to abide more clofely by their diftinctions, would be of no differvice to them.-We are forry to fee that, for want of this, many of our practical experimentalifts, and thofe who ftand high in the rank of science, make frequently a poor figure in drawing theoretical conclufions.

(To be Continued.) ·

K.

Archaeologia: or Mifcellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity, publifhed by the Society of Antiquaries of London. 4to. Vol. IV. 11. Is. in Sheets.

(Continued from Vol. V. Page 434.)

That individuals fhould impofe on their contemporaries, and obtain an unmerited reputation for erudition or science, is not to be wondered at; but that a whole nation fhould, for ages, poffefs the fame of pre-eminence, in knowledge and wisdom, without its being juftly founded, is fomewhat extraordinary. Yet fuch feems to have been the cafe with the ancient Egyp tians; whofe fuperiority in the arts and fciences is denied, and their real pretenfions inveftigated, in the nineteenth article of It has been already obferved that a the volume before us. hint, to this purpofe, was given in a pofthumous work of the late very ingenious Robert Wood, Efq. The fubject appears, however, to have been long fince treated at large, by that cele brated naturalift Dr. John Woodward, in the difcourfe no first-published.

"Egypt, fays our author, is a country affuredly very happy, fending forth all things ufeful to human life in great plenty and perfection;

th

this too without much labour or culture, the Nile, in its yearly inundations, depofing a flime upon it that renders it fruittul beyond measure; fo that the inhabitants have fcarcely any thing more to do than only to, scatter a little grain upon the land, and, without further trouble, they have a return in great abundance. It is hardly credible what vaft numbers of people have been fupported in this country in great plenty and luxury, and it was inhabited very early. The Egyptians, indeed, were here much in the fame ftate, that mankind were before the univerfal deluge. Their country was vaftly productive, and with little or no labour or toil. In truth, the confequences and effects in both cafes were much the fame; and the Egyptians were not perhaps inferior in vice and immorality to the unhappy people of the ages before that dismal catastrophe. But this fruitfulness of their country allowed them time and leifure for thought and ftudy, for improvement of fcience and arts. While their neighbours, on every fide, were at great pains upon their much more barren foils, and their time taken up in making provifion for the fupport of life, the Egyptians had little or nothing of that fort to do. This gave them a mighty advantage over the countries all round; and it is not to be wondered that they had the start of them as to science, and had very anciently a great reputation for their fuperiority in learning. But we shall have a truer and more certain idea of the learning of those times, when we know of what fize this was, that was fo much admired by all the neighbour nations. For I cannot affent to the common opinion that there was ever really any confiderable learning among the Egyptians. It might indeed be thought fuch by the Cyrenians, Arabians, and the inhabitants of the other barren countries round about, where the people had enough to do to procure meat and cloaths, and had little leisure to attend to study or the improvement of the mind. And the great plenty, luxury, and opulency, that ftrangers, the Greeks, and others, faw in Egypt, made them imagine there was fomewhat very extraordinary in the thing, and that the Egyptians were masters of fome mighty knowledge, by means of which, they were intitled to that fuperiority and thofe advantages over all their neighbours; whereas in reality they were all owing wholly to the goodness of their country. Then they had a very high opinion of their own nation, and the vanity to think the rest of mankind befides very weak, illiterate, and meer children, in comparifon of themfelves. They were the most oftentatious, boafting people in the univerfe, and every body was forward enough to imagine there could not be all that outcry without fomething at the bottom very confiderable to warrant it.

"But what most favoured the opinion of their learning were the Hieroglyphic figures that appeared on their obelifks, their pyramids, and other monuments, on every fide. They talked of wondrous matters that were couched under those representations; in which they could not be contradicted by the Greeks, who travelled into thofe parts, or other foreigners, who knew little or nothing of the meaning of thein. They might gaze and admire, but must be much in the dark as to what they imported, the fculpture being not only rude, but done in a manner much different from that of Greece. As to the Egyptians, they only carried on a vain amusement, and aimed meerly at the aggrandizing and extolling the riches, the power, and the wifdom of their own

nation,

nation, having little regard to fact. This is evident from the very ac counts they gave of these things. The Hieroglyphicks upon the obe. fifks were the most confiderable; and fome of them interpreted these as fetting forth matters of religion; others of philofophy and nature; others of history, and the riches, power, victories, and actions of their princes. The very obelisk which these last take upon them to interpret, I mean that of Ramefes, is at this day in being; and, after all, the gravings upon it apparently fet forth only fomething of their religion, and the facred animals. Among the reff, there are, in the feveral parts of this pillar, reprefentations of above fifty owls, and almost double that number of ferpents. What thefe could ever poffibly denote of victories, riches, and power, it will, I believe, be no eafy thing to find, whatever the vain-glorious humour of the Egyptian priests might prompt them to give out; but it is known to every body in how much veneration thofe animals were had, and how great a figure they made in the religion of the Egyptians. It will be thought perhaps ftrange by thofe who are lefs converfant with these things, that there should be fo great numbers of these, and other animals, upon the fame pillar: but it is what is very common in all thefe works, in the obelisks, the canopi, and other idols, the shrouds and fwathes of the mumies, and other remains of that nation. The defign was partly to exprefs their great de votion to those creatures, and partly to make a fhew in their gravings or paintings. It was not unufual with them to exhibit great numbers of the fame animals all together, and all figured in the very fame manner; by which they could defign nothing but meer fhew and ornament, fuch as it was. The obelisks, the gravings of which are very much alike in all, commonly exhibit, towards the top, one of their chief deities, generally Ofiris; with the figure of a priest before him, kneeling, and making fome oblation. This is usually reprefented in the fame form precisely, on all the four fides of the obelisk. For the reit beneath, there is ufually expreffed a great number and variety of the facred animals, e. gr. the Lion, Apis, Mnevis, Hawk, Ibis, Crocodile, Scarabæus, and feveral others; but all fet forth in the most diforderly, wild, and unskillful manner that can well be imagined. In fine, whoever shall confider the sculpture upon the Menfa Ifiaca, upon the obelifks, and other like monuments, and the painting upon the fhrouds and bandages of the mumies, will plainly difcover that they only reprefent the Egyptian deities, Ofiris, Ifis, Horus, Apis, and the reft; the rites and folemnities of their worship; the utenfils and inftruments ufed in their facrifices; their religious pomps and proceffion; and the facred animals. Thefe, with here and there a rude fcrawl, according to the fancy of the Defigner, to fill up a vacancy, and the exorcifms and charms upon the fhrouds of the mumies, are the main things that are fet forth in that vaft variety of the Egyptian works, that have been brought to light by the diligence and curiofity of this and the laft age; and it is plain from the accounts of the ancients, those that are perished and deftroyed were of the like fort. So that any one who fhall go about to make a fymbolical conftruction of thefe, as Diod. Siculus, Plutarch, Clement Alexandrinus, the author under the name of Horus Apollo, and fome other of the Ancients have done, to pafs by the voluminous and fanciful works of J. Pierius N. Cauffinus, F. Kircher,

fome

and fome later writers, may, with full as much reafon, make the like interpretation of the 'Arayhuge and Baflo-Relievos of the ancient Greeks and Romans, or the Hilony-paintings of Raphael, M. Angelo, Rubens, M. Le Brun. A view of the things themielves will foon fhew any one that the defign of thete Egyptian fculptures and pictures was chiefly to give an historical eprefentation of the religious cuftoms of that nation. Nor can it be thought trange there fhould be fuch numbers of thefe, to any one who knows how infinitely fuperftitious the Egyptians were bove all other people. But then this way of expreffion was tedious, difficult, and much inferior to that which now obtains in China. For though this was originally the fine with the Egyptian, yet the Chinese rendered it by degrees much more practicable and expeditious. At first they made use of only a few of the out-lines of the drawing to reprefent any thing by. Afterwards they reduced these to characters defigning them to denote words. At length they hit upon a method of making a connexion of them, by fomewhat that aniwered to the particles of speech. Thus by degrees they found out a way of fetting forth a language, and this was truly fymbolical. But that was an advance far beyond what the Egyptians had any profpect of. And yet, with all that improvement, this method falls rar fhort of that of letters; it carries-on learning very flowly, as will appear hereafter when I come to speak of the state of it in China. And I think it is by this time pretty plain, that, fript of its varnish and amutement, the Egyp tian method of propagating and delivering knowledge down, was vaftly more defective than even the Chinese.

"I know well that the Egyptians, in their wonted boafting manner, and pretences to things of which they were never really matters, bragged they had letters. This we learn from Herodotus. But there is not in hiftory, nor any of all their numerous monuments yet res maining, fo much as a tingle inftance of any one letter, till the antient Greeks came among them. For want of thefe, how highly foever they might boat, they had no records of their nation, their kings, or the tranfactions among them. Nothing but a mere loofe tradition. This is the reason that their antient hillory is fo fabulous, and fo much in the dark, beyond that of almoft all other nations ; and that we know little of nothing of them, with any certainty, tilk after the Greeks came among thein.

"As little is there to be faid for the fense and virtue of the Egyptians. I believe there can be not any one fingle inftance produced of either in all their whole ftory. It they had any, they would have fhewn it when their country was the hardest prefled, when it was attacked by foreign enemies, and their lives, liberties, their families, their country, and every thing that was dear to them, was at ftake; as on occasion of the defcent of Cambyfes, of the Greeks, of the Romans. The Egyptians, on thefe great urgent occafions, far from concerting measures for the defence of themselves and their country, acted ever rather like men wild and distracted than poffeßled of any thought or reason, so that they fell an eaty prey to any invader. Cambytes took Pelufium, the very key of Egypt, by putting cats, dogs, fheep, in the front of the army. The Egyptians immediately laying down their arms, and choofing rathert give up their whole country to their utter enemy, VOL. VI.

Z