Herodotus, Plato, and that vain sophist Apollonius, (who was but an ape of the ancient philosophers), I shall only trace those of Pythagoras, who seems, of all others, to have gone the farthest upon this design, and to have brought home the greatest treasures. He went first to Egypt, where he spent two and twenty years in study and conversation, among the several colleges of priests, in Memphis, Thebes, and Heliopolis, was initiated in all their several mysteries, in order to gain admittance and instruction in the learning and sciences that were there in their highest ascendent. Twelve years he spent in Babylon, and in the studies and learning of the priests or Magi of the Chaldeans. Besides these long abodes in those two regions celebrated for ancient learning, and where one author, according to their calculations, says, he gained the observations of innumerable ages, he travelled likewise upon the same scent into Æthiopia, Arabia, India, to Crete, to Delphos, and to all the oracles that were renowned in any of these regions.
[We can judge what sort of men they were whom he visited, from the accounts we have of the Indian Brahmins.
