Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning/Chapter 9
CHAP. IX.
Of the History and Mathematicks of the Ancient Egyptians.
FRom these Ancient Sages Sir William Temple goes to the Nations, from which they received their Knowledge, which are, Egypt, Chaldea, Arabia, India and China; only he seems to invert the Order, by pretending that China and India were the Original Fountains from which Learning still ran Westward; I shall speak of them in the Order in which I have named them, because the Claims of the Egyptians and Chaldeans having a greater Foundation in Ancient History, deserve a more particular Examination.
It must be owned, That the Learning which was in the World before the Grecian Times was almost wholly confined to the Egyptians, excepting what was amongst the Israelites: And whosoever does but consider how difficult it is to lay the first Foundations of any Science, be they never so small, will allow them great Commendation; which if the Advocates for them had been contented with, there had been an End of the Controversie. Instead of that, all that has since been added to their Foundations, has been equally challenged as originally due to them, or at least once known by them, by (e) In Hermete Ægyptio.(e) Olaus Borrichius, and several others long before Sir William Temple, wrote upon this Argument.
Before I enter upon this Question. I shall desire that one Thing may be taken Notice of; which is, That the Egyptians anciently pretended to so great Exactness, that every Failure is more justly imputable to them, than to other Nations; not only their History was so carefully look'd after, that there was a College of Priests set up on purpose, whose chief Business it was successively to preserve the remarkable Matters of Fact that occurred in their own Ages, and transmit them undisputed to Posterity, but also, there was answerable Care taken to propagate and preserve all other Parts of useful Page 105 Learning: All their Inventions in Physick, in Mathematicks, in Agriculture, in Chymistry, are said to have been inscribed on Pillars, which were preserved in their Temples; whereby not only the Memory of the things themselves was less liable to be lost; but Men were further encouraged to use their utmost Diligence in finding out things that might be of publick Advantage, when they were certain of getting Immortality by these Inventions. This generous Custom was the more to be applauded, because every Man was confined to one particular Part of Learning, as his chief Business; that so nothing might escape them. One was Physician for the Eyes, another for the Heart, a Third for the Head in general, a Fourth for Chirurgical Applications, a Fifth for Womens Diseases, and so forth. Anatomy, we are told, was so very much cultivated by the Kings of Egypt, that they particularly ordered the Bodies of dead Men to be opened, that so Physick might be equally perfect in all its parts. Where such Care has been used, proportionable Progresses may be expected, and the World has a Right to make a Judgment not only according to what is now to be found, but according to what might have been found, if these Accounts had been really true.
In the first Place therefore, we may observe, That the Civil History of Egypt is as lamely and as fabulously recorded as of any Nation in the Universe: And yet, the Egyptians took more than ordinary Care to pay all possible Honours to the Dead, especially their Kings; by preserving their Bodies with Bitumen and resinous Drugs, and by building sumptuous Monuments to lay them in: This certainly was done to perpetuate their Memories, as well as to pay them Respect: It was at least as Ancient as Joseph's Time; how much older we know not. The Jews, who for another and a more sacred Reason, took care of their Dead, took equal Care to preserve their Genealogies, and to draw an Uniform Thread of their History from Abraham down to the Destruction of the Second Temple. Herein they acted consistently, and their History is a standing Instance of this their Care; whereas the Egyptian History is so very inconsistent a Business, that it is impossible to make a coherent Story out of it: Not for Want of Materials, but because their Materials neither agree with themselves, nor with the History of any other Nation in the World.
A more certain Proof of the Deficiency of the Egyptian History cannot be produced, than that the Time of the building of the Pyramids was lost when Herodotus; was in Egypt; as also the Æra of the only great Conquerour of that Nation, Sesostris. The first of these is not slightly to be passed over. Such vast Fabricks could not be raised without Numbers of Hands, and a great Expence of Time and Money, or something equivalent. The Traditions of their Erection are indeed minutely enough set down in Herodotus; but then they are set down as Traditions; and which is more, they are solely to be found in him, though he is not the only ancient Writer that mentions the Pyramids; he only names Cheops and Mycerinus, who are differently named by other Historians; and the Time when they lived, is as little agreed upon, as the Names by which they are called. The History of a Nation can sure be worth very little, that could not preserve the Memory of the Names at least, if not the Time, of those Princes, who were at so much Pains to be remembred, in a Place where their Monuments were so very visible, that no Person could ever sail up and down the Nile, to or from their capital City Memphis, without taking Notice of them; and every Man upon his first seeing of them would naturally ask, what they were, by whom, and for what Intent erected. To which we may add, that these very Buildings are more exactly described in Mr Greaves's Pyramidographia, than in any ancient Author now extant.
The Difficulty of determining the Age when Sesostris lived, is another Instance of the Carelesness of the Egyptian Historians. Either he was the same with Sheshak, who invaded Judæa in Rehoboam's Time, as Sir John Marsham (f) In Canone Chronico.(f) asserts after Josephus, or not: If he was, his Time is known indeed, but then the Authority of Manetho, and of those Pillars from which Manetho pretended to transcribe the Tables of the several Dynasties of the Egyptian Kings, is at an End; besides, it contradicts all the Greek Writers that mention Sesostris, who place him in their fabulous Age, and generally affirm, that he lived before the Expedition of the Argonauts, which preceded the War of Troy. If he was not that Sheshak, then the Time when the only famous Conqueror of the Egyptian Nation lived is uncertain, and all that they know of him is, that once upon a time there was a mighty King in Egypt, who conquered Ethiopia, Arabia, Assyria and up to Colchis, with Asia the Less, and the Islands of the Ægean Sea, where having left Marks of his Power, he returned home again to reap the Fruits of his Labours: A Tradition which might have been preserved without setting up a College at Heliopolis for that Purpose.
The very learned Mr. Dodwell in his Discourse concerning the Phœnician History of Sanchoniathon, advances a Notion which may help to give a very probable Account of those vast Antiquities of the Egyptians pretended to by Manetho. He thinks that after the History of Moses was translated into Greek, and so made common to the learned Men of the neighbouring Nations, that they endeavoured to rival them by pretended Antiquities of their own, that so they might not seem to come behind a People, who till then had been so obscure. This, though particularly applied by Mr. Dodwell to Sanchoniathon's History, seems equally forcible in the present Controversie: For Manetho dedicated his History to Ptolemee Philadelphus, at whose Command it was written, and wrote it about the Time that the LXXII Interpreters translated the Pentateuch. The great Intercourse which the Egyptians and Israelites formerly had each with other, made up a considerable. part of that Book, and occasioned its being the more taken Notice of; so that this History being injurious to the vain pretences of that People, might very probably provoke some that were jealous for the Honour of their Nation, and Manetho amongst the rest, to set up an Anti-History to that of Moses; and to dedicate it to the same Prince who employed the Jews to translate the Pentateuch, and who ordered Manetho himself to bring him in an Account of the Egyptian Antiquities, that so any Prejudices which Ptolemee, who was of another Nation himself, might entertain against their Country, might be effectually removed.
This Notion is the more probable in our Case, because it equally holds, whether we follow Sir John Marsham's Accounts, who has made the Egyptian Antiquities intelligible; or whether they are left in the same Confusion that they were in before. That most Learned Gentleman has reduced the wild Heap of Egyptian Dynasties into as narrow a Compass as the History of Moses, according to the Hebrew Account, by the help of a Table of the Theban Kings, which he found under Eratosthenes's Name, in the Chronography of Syncellus. For, by that Table he 1. Distinguished the Fabulous and Mystical Part of the Egyptian History, from that which seems to look like Matter of Fact. 2. He reduced the Dynasties into Collateral Families, reigning at the same time, in several Parts of the Country; which, as some learned Men saw before, was the only Way to make those Antiquities consistent with themselves, which till then were confused and incoherent. But it seems evident by the Remains that we have of Manetho in Eusebius, and by the Accounts which we have of the Egyptian History in Josephus's Books against Appion, and in the Ancient Christian Writers, that the Egyptians in Ptolemee's Time did not intend to confine themselves within the Limits set by Moses, but resolved to go many Thousand Years beyond them. If therefore Eratosthenes's Table be genuine, not only Manetho's Authority sinks, but the Pillars from whence he transcribed his Tables of the Kings of their several Dynasties are Impostures, since they pretend to give successive Tables of vast Numbers of Kings reigning in several Families, for many Ages; which ought to be contracted into a Period of Time, not much exceeding Two Thousand Years. If the Table of Eratosthenes be not the true Rule by which the Egyptian Antiquities are to be squared, then the former Prejudices will return in full force; and one cannot value Tables, and Pillars, and Priests, that could not fix the Time of the Erection of the Pyramids, and the Age of Sesostris, so certainly, as that when Herodotus was in the Country, they might have been able to inform him a little better than they did.
This long Enquiry into the Egyptian History will not, I hope, be thought altogether a Digression from my Subject, because it weakens the Egyptians Credit in a very sensible Part: For, if their Civil History is proved to be egregiously fabulous, or inconsistent, there will be no great Reason to value their mighty Boasts in any thing else; at least, not to believe them upon their own Words, without other Evidence.
In Mathematicks, the Egyptians are, of all Hands, allowed to have laid the first Foundations: The Question therefore is, how far they went. Before this can be answered satisfactorily, one ought to enquire whether Pythagoras and Thales, who went so far to get Knowledge, would not have learnt all that the Egyptians could teach them: Or whether the Egyptians would willingly impart all they knew. The former, I suppose, no Body questions: For the latter, we are to distinguish between Things that are concealed out of Interest, and between other things, which, for the same Interest, are usually made publick. The Secrets of the Egyptian Theology were not proper to be discovered, because by those Mysteries they kept the People in awe: The Philosopher's Stone likewise, if they had been Masters of it, might, for Gain, have been concealed: And Medicinal Arcana are of Advantage oftentimes to the Possessors, chiefly because they are Arcana. But Abstracted Mathematical Theories, which bring Glory to the Inventors when they are communicated to those that can relish them, and which bring no Profit when they are locked up, are never concealed from such as shew a Desire to learn them; provided that by such a Discovery the first Inventors are not deprived of the Glory of their Inventions; which is increased by publishing, if they have before-hand taken Care to secure their Right. So that we may reasonably conclude, that when Pythagoras is commended for no famous Invention in Geometry, except the 47th. Proposition of the First Book of Euclid, that he brought nothing of more Moment, in that Way, with him, out of Egypt; and therefore, either the further Discoveries that were made in Geometry, were made by the Egyptians afterwards; or, which is more probable, they were Grecian Superstructures upon those Foundations. Besides, though a Man travelled into Egypt, yet it does not follow from thence that he learnt all his Knowledge there. So that though Archimedes and Euclid were in Egypt, yet they might, for all that, have been Inventors themselves of those noble Theorems which are in their Writings. In Archimedes's Time Greeks lived in Alexandria; and the Learning of Egypt could no more at that time be attributed to the old Egyptians, than the Learning of Archbishop Usher, Sir James Ware, and Mr. Dodwell, can be attributed to a Succession of those learned Irish-men who were so considerable in the Saxon Times.
This last Consideration is of very great Moment; for few of the Greeks, after Plato, went into Egypt purely for Knowledge: and though Plato brought several of his Notions out of Egypt, which he interwove into his Philosophy, yet the Philosophers of the Alexandrian School, who, for the most part, were Platonists, shew by their Way of Writing, and by their frequent Citations out of Plato's Books, that they chose to take those Things from the Grecians, which one would think might have been had nearer home, if they had been of the Original Growth of the Country. The most considerable Propositions in Euclid's Elements were attributed to the Greeks; and we have nothing confessedly Egyptian, to oppose to the Writings of Archimedes, Apollonius Pergæus, or Diophantus: Whereas, had there been any Thing considerable, it would most certainly have been produced, or, at least, hinted at, by some of those very learned Egyptians, or rather later Greeks born in Egypt; whose Writings that treat of the Extent of the Egyptian Knowledge, are still extant.
Having now examined the History and Geometry of the Egyptians, it will be much easier to go through their Pretences, or rather the Pretences of their Advocates, to Superiority in other Parts of Learning. The Egyptians seem to have verified the Proverb, That he that has but one Eye, is a Prince among those that have none. This was Glory enough; for it is always very honourable to be the First, where the Strife is concerning Things which are worth contending for.