What is the purpose of the second paragraph of this passage? African and European influences on general education when examining the table of contents in Bertrand russell's influential text the history of western philosophy, one may notice that the first 29 chapters are devoted to Greece, Greek thinkers, and/or Greek culture. chapter 30 then moves on the Roman empires impact on Western civilization and culture (russell, 1945). Such thinking espouses those intellectual principles were torches passed from Greece to the empires of Rome, Britain, and America later in the 20th century, however, scholarships such as basil Davidson and Martin Bernal began pointing out that the lineage of western civilization predates Greece to Africa and ancient Egypt. In the context of liberal education, writing, poetry, and mathematics were prioritized in Egyptian education well before Greek civilization existed.