his immortal "Elements;" and Herophilos, the father of surgery, added
valuable information to the knowledge of anatomy. The art and process
of embalming, in such vogue among the Egyptians, naturally fostered the
advance of this science. Whilst Alexandria in abstract speculation could
not rival Greece, yet it became the home of the pioneers of positive
science, who left a great and priceless legacy to modern civilisation.
The importance of this event (the foundation of the Museion), says
Draper, in his _Intellectual Development of Europe_, though hitherto
little understood, admits of no exaggeration so far as the intellectual
progress of Europe is concerned. The Museum made an impression upon the
intellectual career of Europe so powerful and enduring that we still
enjoy its results. If the purely literary productions of that age have
sometimes been looked upon with contempt, European intellectual
culture is still greatly indebted to Alexandria, and especially for the
patronage she accorded to the works of Aristotle. Whilst the speculative
mind was in later centuries allured by the supernatural, and the
discussion of the criterion of truth and the principles of morality
ended in the mystic doctrines of Neo-Platonism, the practical
tendencies of the great Alexandrine scholars were instrumental in laying
the foundations of science. To the Museion were attached the libraries:
one in the Museion itself, and another in the quarter Rhacotis in the
temple of Serapis, which contained about 700,000 volumes. New books were
continually acquired. The librarians had orders to pay any sum for the
original of the works of great masters. The Ptolemies were not only
patrons of learning but were themselves highly educated. Ptolemy Soter
was an historian of no mean talent, and his son Philadelphus, as a pupil
of the poet Philetas and the philosopher Strabo, was a man of great
learning. Ptolemy III. was a mathematician, and Ptolemy Philopator,
who had erected and dedicated a temple to Homer, was the writer of a
tragedy. The efforts of the Ptolemies to bring the two nationalities,