The first of them is the period of unknown anliquity, when the cultivation of knowledge began to be an exclusive occupation, and a separate profession among those colleges of priests, who, whether established on the banks of llie Ganges, the Euphrates, or the Nile, appear to have been Ihe earliest instructors of the human species. These guardians of infant science combined it wilh religion, and thereby rendered it venerable in Ihe eyes of their untutored contemporaries; hut, at llie same time, enslaved it lo their own superstition, and for ever stopped ils progress at the point where it was bound lo opinions held to be sacred and immutable. The useful institution of a distinct body of teachers, thus degenerated into a rigorous exclusion of all other men from learning; and, according to the general system of Eastern society, the lirsl division of mental labour was followed by an hereditary monopoly. Impenetrable barriers on every side surrounded knowledge, w hich hindered il equally from spreading or advancing.The second memorable period, is the emancipation of knowledge in Greece. It is now vain to enquire by w hat sleps llie Egyptian and Phoenician colonists, who carried the arts of civil life to the Pelasgic savages, were gradually led lo forsake the peculiar institutions of their forefathers, while Ihey preserved the inventions and manners by which society had been improved. The great revolution, which gave lo civilisation a freer and more llexiblc form among the Hellenic nation, is anterior to llie dawn of authentic history. At Ihe moment of their lirst appearance lo us, the Eastern monopolies were overthrow n ; philosophy bad thrown off Ihe fetters of superstition; learning was accessible lo all men; there was scarcely any separate, still less any hereditary, priesthood; and knowledge occasionally descended lo some individual among that degraded body of slaves, which by the unhappy constitution of their society, contained Ihe greater part of mankind. Every faculty of human nature w as excited lo the most intense avidity; and every part of scicnce presented a boundless prospect of improvement. The progress of know ledge,  longer checked as in Asia by internal causes, was exposed to danger only from the political causes which affected the quiet and safety of the nations by which it was cultivated, and which finally overthrew the rude governments and feeble independence of these splendid, but turbulent and insecure communities.