Part The Second. Of the Manners and Customs of the Egyptians.
Reading edition
Egypt was ever considered, by all the ancients, as the most renowned school for wisdom and politics, and the source from whence most arts and sciences were derived. This kingdom bestowed its noblest labours and finest arts on the improvement of mankind; and Greece was so sensible of this, that its most illustrious men, as Homer, Pythagoras, Plato; even its great legislators, Lycurgus and Solon, with many more whom it is needless to mention, travelled into Egypt, to complete their studies, and draw from that fountain whatever was most rare and valuable in every kind of learning. God himself has given this kingdom a glorious testimony, when praising Moses, he says of him, that “He was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.”322
To give some idea of the manners and customs of Egypt, I shall confine myself principally to these particulars: its kings and government; priests and religion; soldiers and war; sciences, arts, and trades.
The reader must not be surprised if he sometimes finds, in the customs I take notice of, a kind of contradiction. This circumstance is owing either to the difference of countries and nations, which did not always follow the same usages; or to the different way of thinking of the historians whom I copy.
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