Alexandria and her Schools | Page 8

to become a part of nature,
and took its place among the things which are born to die, only by
breaking the law which God had appointed for it; so fulfilling, in its
own case, St. Paul's great words, that death entered into the world by
sin, and that sin is the transgression of the law?
Be that as it may, there must have been metaphysic enough to be learnt
in that, or any city of three hundred thousand inhabitants, even though
it had never contained lecture-room or philosopher's chair, and had
never heard the names of Aristotle and Plato. Metaphysic enough,
indeed, to be learnt there, could we but enter into the heart of even the
most brutish negro slave who ever was brought down the Nile out of
the desert by Nubian merchants, to build piers and docks in whose
commerce he did not share, temples whose worship he did not
comprehend, libraries and theatres whose learning and civilisation were
to him as much a sealed book as they were to his countryman, and
fellow-slave, and only friend, the ape. There was metaphysic enough in
him truly, and things eternal and immutable, though his dark-skinned
descendants were three hundred years in discovering the fact, and in
proving it satisfactorily to all mankind for ever. You must pardon me if
I seem obscure; I cannot help looking at the question with a somewhat
Alexandrian eye, and talking of the poor negro dock-worker as certain
Alexandrian philosophers would have talked, of whom I shall have to
speak hereafter.
I should have been glad, therefore, had time permitted me, instead of
confining myself strictly to what are now called "the physic and
metaphysic schools" of Alexandria, to have tried as well as I could to
make you understand how the whole vast phenomenon grew up, and
supported a peculiar life of its own, for fifteen hundred years and more,
and was felt to be the third, perhaps the second city of the known world,
and one so important to the great world-tyrant, the Caesar of Rome,
that no Roman of distinction was ever sent there as prefect, but the
Alexandrian national vanity and pride of race was allowed to the last to

pet itself by having its tyrant chosen from its own people.
But, though this cannot be, we may find human elements enough in the
schools of Alexandria, strictly so called, to interest us for a few
evenings; for these schools were schools of men; what was discovered
and taught was discovered and taught by men, and not by
thinking-machines; and whether they would have been inclined to
confess it or not, their own personal characters, likes and dislikes,
hopes and fears, strength and weakness, beliefs and disbeliefs,
determined their metaphysics and their physics for them, quite enough
to enable us to feel for them as men of like passions with ourselves; and
for that reason only, men whose thoughts and speculations are worthy
of a moment's attention from us. For what is really interesting to man,
save men, and God, the Father of men?
In the year 331 B.C. one of the greatest intellects whose influence the
world has ever felt, saw, with his eagle glance, the unrivalled advantage
of the spot which is now Alexandria; and conceived the mighty project
of making it the point of union of two, or rather of three worlds. In a
new city, named after himself, Europe, Asia, and Africa were to meet
and to hold communion. A glance at the map will show you what an
[Greek text: omphalosgees], a centre of the world, this Alexandria is,
and perhaps arouse in your minds, as it has often done in mine, the
suspicion that it has not yet fulfilled its whole destiny, but may become
at any time a prize for contending nations, or the centre of some
world-wide empire to come. Communicating with Europe and the
Levant by the Mediterranean, with India by the Red Sea, certain of
boundless supplies of food from the desert-guarded valley of the Nile,
to which it formed the only key, thus keeping all Egypt, as it were, for
its own private farm, it was weak only on one side, that of Judea. That
small strip of fertile mountain land, containing innumerable military
positions from which an enemy might annoy Egypt, being, in fact, one
natural chain of fortresses, was the key to Phoenicia and Syria. It was
an eagle's eyrie by the side of a pen of fowls. It must not be left
defenceless for a single year. Tyre and Gaza had been taken; so no
danger was to be apprehended from the seaboard: but to subdue the
Judean mountaineers, a race whose past sufferings had hardened them
in a dogged fanaticism of courage and endurance, would