ndrian Museum was ever called into existence in
Greece or Rome, even in their palmiest days. It is the unique and noble
memorial of the dynasty of the Ptolemies, who have thereby laid the
whole human race under obligations, and vindicated their title to be
regarded as a most illustrious line of kings. The Museum was, in truth,
an attempt at the organization of human knowledge, both for its
development and its diffusion. It was conceived and executed in a
practical manner worthy of Alexander. And though, in the night through
which Europe has been passing--a night full of dreams and delusions--men
have not entertained a right estimate of the spirit in which that great
institution was founded, and the work it accomplished, its glories being
eclipsed by darker and more unworthy things, the time is approaching
when its action on the course of human events will be better understood,
and its influences on European civilization more clearly discerned.

[Sidenote: The Museum was the issue of the Macedonian campaigns.]

Thus, then, about the beginning of the third century before Christ, in
consequence of the Macedonian campaign, which had brought the Greeks
into contact with the ancient civilization of Asia, a great degree of
intellectual activity was manifested in Egypt. On the site of the
village of Rhacotis, once held as an Egyptian post to prevent the
ingress of strangers, the Macedonians erected that city which was to be
the entrepot of the commerce of the East and West, and to transmit an
illustrious name to the latest generations. Her long career of
commercial prosperity, her commanding position as respects the material
interests of the world, justified the statesmanship of her founder, and
the intellectual glory which has gathered round her has given an
enduring lustre to his name.

There can be no doubt that the philosophical activity here alluded to
was the direct issue of the political and military event to which we
have referred it. The tastes and genius of Alexander were manifested by
his relations to Aristotle, whose studies in natural history he promoted
by the collection of a menagerie; and in astronomy, by transmitting to
him, through Callisthenes, the records of Babylonian observations
extending over 1903 years. His biography, as we have seen, shows a
personal interest in the cultivation of such studies. In this particular
other great soldiers have resembled him; and perhaps it may be inferred
that the practic