Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/172

 when, for want of a Heart, they must necessarily die.

To these two Instances of the Criticalness of Egyptian Anatomy I shall add one of their Curiosities in Natural Enquiries; and that is, their Knowledge of the Cause of the Annual Overflowing of the Nile. This, which was the constant Wonder of the Old World, was a Phænomenon seldom over-looked by the Greek Philosophers: Seven of whose Opinions are reckoned up by Plutarch, in the First Chapter of the Fourth Book of his Opinions of the Philosophers. If Curiosity generally attends a Desire of Knowledge, and grows along with it, then the Egyptian Priests were inexcusably negligent, that they did not know that the swelling of the Nile proceeded from the Rains that fell in Ethiopia, which raising the River at certain Seasons, made that overflowing of the Flats of Egypt. One would think that in Sesostris's Time the Egyptian Priests had Access enough into Ethiopia; and whoever had once been in that Country could have resolved that Problem, without any Philosophy. It was known indeed in Plato's Time, for then the Priests told it to Eudoxus; but Thales, Democritus, and Herodotus, who had all enquired of the Egyptians, give such un-