PHYSICAL AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES. 17

the difficulty ; and, again, it is not readily apparent howthe theorems of abstract geometry could have been ren-dered applicable to such a purpose.

The cultivation of geometry as a science unquestion-ably took its rise in the abstracted conceptions of philo-sophers, and not from any of its mechanical applications;these being not of a nature to occur to any one but as aresult of principles which must have been first understood.

The. Hebrews.

The Hebrews, from their early connection with Egypt ,probably derived whatever science they possessed fromthat country ; but this would appear never to haveamounted to much : as a nation, they do not seem tohave acquired any taste for the cultivation of physicalknowledge. There may have been individual excep-tions : Moses , we are told, was initiated into all thelearning of Egypt (b. c. 1500); and at a later periodtheir historians ascribe to king Solomon (b. c. 1020)a great proficiency in the study of natural history.[1 Kings, iv. 33.] Several of the writers in the OldTestament (as, indeed, we have before remarked) alludeto the contemplation of the heavenly bodies, as well asto other phenomena of nature; but their records presentno traces of philosophical speculation. From certainexpressions occurring in them, we may, indeed, collectthat the prevalent belief was in accordance with thetheory of the quiescence of the earth and the motion ofthe sun ; and the magnificent description of the originof the world, with which the first book of Moses opens,has been regarded by some as the delivery of a systemof cosmogony and geology; but (without going intoextraneous questions) it seems to us extremely impro-bable that the representation was designed with anysuch object; indeed, we can never infer much in re-ference to matters of philosophy from passages occurring(as those in question do) in writings devoted to subjectsc