By this study and application they invented or improved the science of physic. The sick were not abandoned to the arbitrary will and caprice of the physician. He was obliged to follow fixed rules, which were the observations of old and experienced practitioners, and written in the sacred books. While these rules were observed, the physician was not answerable for the success; otherwise, a miscarriage cost him his life. This law checked, indeed, the temerity of empirics; but then it might prevent new discoveries, and keep the art from attaining to its just perfection. Every physician, if Herodotus may be credited,[372] confined his practice to the cure of one disease only; one was for the eyes, another for the teeth, and so on.
What we have said of the pyramids, the labyrinth, and that infinite number of obelisks, temples, and palaces, whose precious remains still strike the beholder with admiration, and in which the magnificence of the princes who raised them, the skill of the workmen, the riches of the ornaments diffused over every part of them, and the just proportion and beautiful symmetry of the parts, in which their greatest beauty consisted, seemed to vie with each other; works, in many of which the liveliness of the colours remains to this day, in spite of the rude hand of time, which commonly deadens or destroys them: all this, I say, shows the perfection to which architecture, painting, sculpture, and all other arts, had arrived in Egypt.
The Egyptians entertained but a mean opinion of those gymnastic exercises, which did not contribute to invigorate the body, or improve health;[373] as well as of music, which they [pg 045] considered as a diversion not only useless but dangerous, and only fit to enervate the mind.[374]
Chapter V. Of Their Husbandmen, Shepherds, and Artificers.
Husbandmen, shepherds, and artificers, formed the three classes of lower life in Egypt, but were nevertheless had in very great esteem, particularly husbandmen and shepherds.[375] The body politic requires a superiority and subordination of its several members; for as in the natural body, the eye may be said to hold the first rank, yet its lustre does not dart contempt upon the feet, the hands, or even on those parts which are less honourable. In like manner, among the Egyptians, the priests, soldiers, and scholars were distinguished by particular honours; but all professions, to the meanest, had their share in the public esteem, because the despising any man, whose labours, however mean, were useful to the state, was thought a crime.
A better reason than the foregoing might have inspired them at the first with these sentiments of equity and moderation, which they so long preserved. As they all descended from Cham,[376] their common father, the memory of their still recent origin occurring to the minds of all in those first ages, established among them a kind of equality, and stamped, in their opinion, a nobility on every person derived from the common stock. Indeed the difference of conditions, and the contempt with which persons of the lowest rank are treated, are owing merely to the distance from the common root; which makes us forget that the meanest plebeian, when his descent is traced back to the source, is equally noble with those of the most elevated rank and titles.
Be that as it will, no profession in Egypt was considered as grovelling or sordid. By this means arts were raised to their highest perfection. The honour which cherished them mixed with every thought and care for their improvement. Every man had his way of life assigned him by the laws, and it was [pg 046] perpetuated from father to son. Two professions at one time, or a change of that which a man was born to, were never allowed. By this means, men became more able and expert in employments which they had always exercised from their infancy; and every man, adding his own experience to that of his ancestors, was more capable of attaining perfection in his particular art. Besides, this wholesome institution, which had been established anciently throughout Egypt, extinguished all irregular ambition, and taught every man to sit down contented with his condition, without aspiring to one more elevated, from interest, vain-glory, or levity.
From this source flowed numberless inventions for the improvement of all the arts, and for rendering life more commodious, and trade more easy. I once could not believe that Diodorus was in earnest, in what he relates concerning the Egyptian industry,[377] viz. that this people had found out a way, by an artificial fecundity, to hatch eggs without the sitting of the hen; but all modern travellers declare it to be a fact, which certainly is worthy our investigation, and is said to be practised also in Europe. Their relations inform us, that the Egyptians stow eggs in ovens, which are heated to such a temperament, and with such just proportion to the natural warmth of the hen, that the chickens produced by these means are as strong as those which are hatched the natural way. The season of the year proper for this operation is, from the end of December to the end of April; the heat in Egypt being too violent in the other months. During these four months, upwards of three hundred thousand eggs are laid in these ovens, which, though they are not all successful, nevertheless produce vast numbers of fowls at an easy rate. The art lies in giving the ovens a due degree of heat, which must not exceed a fixed proportion. About ten days are bestowed in heating these ovens, and very near as much time in hatching the eggs. It is very entertaining, say these travellers, to observe the hatching of these chickens, some of which show at first nothing but their heads, others but half their bodies, and others again come quite out of the egg: these last, the moment they are hatched, make their way over the unhatched eggs, and form a diverting [pg 047] spectacle. Corneille le Bruyn, in his Travels,[378] has collected the observations of other travellers on this subject. Pliny likewise mentions it;[379] but it appears from him, that the Egyptians, anciently, employed warm dung, not ovens, to hatch eggs.
I have said, that husbandmen particularly, and those who took care of flocks, were in great esteem in Egypt, some parts of it excepted, where the latter were not suffered.[380] It was, indeed, to these two professions that Egypt owed its riches and plenty. It is astonishing to reflect what advantages the Egyptians, by their art and labour, drew from a country of no great extent, but whose soil was made wonderfully fruitful by the inundations of the Nile, and the laborious industry of the inhabitants.