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A R IS TO T L E
BY
SIR ALEXANDER GRANT, BART., LL.D.
PRINCIPAL or THE UNIVERs1TY OF EDINBURGH
NEW YORK
* JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER
1883
CONTENTS.
£EIAP, PAGF:
I. THE LIFE OF ARISTOTLE....................... .... 1
II. THE WORKS OF ARISTOTLE ................... . . . . . 26
III. THE “ORGANON” of ARISTOTLE....... ...... . . . . 44
1-ry. ARISTOTLE's “RHEToRIC” AND “ART or PoETRY”. 67
-v. Aristotle's “ETHICs”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
twº Aristotle's “PolſTICs”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 102
VII. THE NATURAL PHILosophy of ARISTOTLE,......... 113
VIII. THE BIOLOGY of ARISTOTLE. . . . . . # * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 128
IX. THE METAPHYSICS OF ARISTOTLE, .......... ... ... 141
X. ARISTOTLE SINCE THE CHRISTIAN ERA............. 157
ARISTOTLE.
£
CHAPTER I.
THE LIFE OF ARISTOTLE,
THE dates of the chief events in the life of Aristotle,
2xtracted from the “Chronology” of Apollodorus (140
B.C.), have been handed down to us by Diogenes Laer-
tius in his “Tives of the Philosophers;” and from various
other sources it is possible to fill in the outline thus af-
forded, if not with certain facts, at all events with
reasonable probabilities. Aristotle's own writings are
almost entirely devoid of personal references, yet in
them we can trace, to some extent, the progress and de-
velopment of his mind. On the whole, we know quite
as much about him, personally, as about most of the
ancient Greek writers.
Aristotle was born in the year 384 B.C., at Stageira, a
Grecian colony and seaport town on the Strymonic Gulf
in Thrace, not far from Mount Athos—and, what is
more important, not far from the frontier of Macedonia,
and from Pella, the residence of the Macedonian King
Amyntas. To Stageira, his birthplace, he owed the
world-famous appellation of “the Stagirite,” given to
him by scholiasts and schoolmen in later days. It was
fancied by Wilhelm von Humboldt that Aristotle exhib-
its certain un-Greek characteristics in his neglect of form
- - -#- -->
2 THE EIZEVIR LIBRARY,
and grace in writing, and that this is attributable to his
having been born and brought up in Thrace. But, on
the other hand, Aristotle's family were purely Hellenic,
and probably the colonists of Stageira lived in strict con-
formity with Greek ideas, and not withouf contempt for
the surrounding “barbarians.” Even the court of
Macedonia, in the neighborhood, were phil-Hellenic in
their tastes, and entertained Greek artists and men of
letters. And Aristotle shows no trace in lais writings
of ever having known any language beside Greek.
Probably the mere locality of his birth produced but
little influence upon him, except so far as it led to his
subsequent connection with the court of Macedon.
His father, Nicomachus, was physician to King Amyn-
tas, and it is possible that the youthful Aristotle was
taken at times to the court, and thus made the acquain-
tance of his future patron, Philip of Macedon, who was
about his own age. But all through the time of Aristo-
tle's boyhood affairs in Macedonia were troubled and
unprosperous. Amyntas was an unsuccessful ruler, and
brought his country to the verge of extinction in a war
with the Illyrians. Aristotle, as a youth, cannot have
had any inducement to take an interest in Macedonian
politics. Up to the time when he left his native city
there had appeared no indication of that which after.
wards occurred—that Macedonia would conquer the
East, and become the mistress of the entire liberties of
Greece. -
But there is one significant tradition about Aristotle
which suggests circumstances likely to have produced
in early life a considerable influence upon his habits
and pursuits. His father is said to have been an “As-
clepiad”—that is, he belonged to that distinguished
caste who claimed to be the descendants of Esculapius.
ARISTOTL E. 3
Now we have it, on the authority of Galen,” that “it
was the custom in Asclepiad families for the boys to be
trained by their father in the practice of dissection,
just as regularly as boys in other families learn to read
and write.” If Aristotle had really been trained from
boyhood in the manner thus described, we can under-
stand how great an impulse he would have received to
those physiological researches which formed so impor-
tant a part of his subsequent achievements. But in
one place of his writings (“On the Parts of Animals,”I.
v. 7), he speaks of the “extreme repugnance” with
which one necessarily sees “veins, and flesh, and other
such-like parts,” in the human subject. This does not
show the hardilhood of a practiced dissector. But Aris-
totle's youthful dissections, if made at all, were doubt-
less made on the lower animals. At all events, we may
perhaps safely conclude about him, that he received
from his father an hereditary tendency towards physio-
logical study. But in addition to this tendency, Aris-
totle must doubtless have early manifested an interest in,
and capacity for, abstract philosophy.
We now come to the second epoch in his life. About
the year 367 B.C., when he was seventeen years old, his
father having recently died, he was sent by his guard-
ian, Proxenus of Atarneus, to complete his studies, at
Athens, “the metropolis of wisdom.” + There he con-
tinued to reside for twenty years, during the greater
part of which time he attended the school of philoso-
phy which Plato had founded in the olive-groves of
Academus, on the banks of the Cephisus. He had
probably inherited from his father means sufficient for
* Quoted by Grote, “Aristotle,” i. 4.
tºlato, “Protagoras,” p. 337. Professor Jowett's translation.
* THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
his support, so that he could live without care for the
acquirement of anything save knowledge. But in the
acquisition of this he manifested a zeal unsurpassed in
the annals of study. Among his fellow pupils in the
Academe he is said to have got the sobriquet of “the
Reader;” while Plato himself called him “the Mind of
the School,” in recognition of his quick and powerful
intelligence. In order to win time even from sleep Aris-
totle is said to have invented a plan of sleeping with a
ball in his hand, so held over a brazen dish that when-
ever his grasp relaxed the ball would descend with
a clang, and arouse him to the resumption of his
labors. .
Plato's philosophy was absolutely pre-eminent in
Greece at this time. It embodied within itself all that
was best in the doctrine and the spirit of Socrates, and
beyond it there was nothing, except the mystical
theories of the Pythagoreans (the best elements in which
Plato had assimilated), and the materialistic theories of
the Atomists, which Plato, and afterwards Aristotle,
controverted. The writings of Aristotle are quite con-
sistent with the tradition that he was for twenty years
a pupil of the Academic school. They show a long
list of thoughts and expressions borrowed from the
works of Plato, and also not unfrequently refer to the
oral teaching of Plato. They contain a logical, ethical,
political, and metaphysical philosophy, which is evi-
dently, with some modifications, the organization and
development of rich materials often rather suggested
than worked out in the Platonic dialogues. Aristotle
thus, in constructing a system of knowledge which was
destined immensely to influence the thoughts of man-
kind, became, in the first place, the disciple of Plato
and the intellectual heir of Socrates; and summed up
ARISTOTLRſ. - 5.
all the best that had been arrived at by the previous
philosophers of Greece.
The personal relationships which arose between
Aristotle and his master Plato have furnished matter for
uncertain traditions and for much discussion. There
seems, however, to be no ground for sustaining the
charge of “ingratitude” against Aristotle. The truth
Was probably somewhat as follows: Aristotle, while
engaged in imbibing deeply the philosophical thoughts
of Plato, gradually developed also his own individuality
and independence of mind. And the natural bias of
his intellect was certainly in a different direction from
that of Plato. It has been said that “every man is
born either a Platonist or an Aristotelian;” and it would
be very fortunate if that were literally true, for then
every man would be born with a noble type of intellect.
But it is no doubt correct to say that the Platonic and
the Aristotelian type of intellect are distinct and diver-
gent. They have in common the keen and unwearied
pressure after truth, but they seek the truth under dif-
ferent aspects. Plato was ever aspiring to intuitions of
a truth which in this world could, never be wholly re-
vealed,—a truth of which glimpses only could be ob-
tained, partly by the most abstract powers of thought,
partly by the imagination. While richly endowed with
humor and the dramatic faculty, and the most trench-
ant insight into the fallacies of mankind, Plato was not
content with aiming at those demonstrations which
could be stated once for all, but he rather sought analo-
gies and hints of a truth which can never be definitely
expressed. Eternity, the life of the gods, the supra-
sensible world of “pure ideas,” were of more reality
and importance to him than the affairs of this life.
While he was the greatest and most original of meta-
6 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
physical philosophers, he never ceased to be a poet, and,
to some extent, a mystic. -
The intellectual characteristics of Aristotle, as known
to us from his works, present a great contrast to all
this. He was too much in earnest, and at the same
time too matter-of-fact, to allow poetry and the imagi-
nation any share in the quest for truth. He had no
taste for half-lights; and with regard to such great
questions as the immortality of the soul, the nature of
God, the operation of Providence, and the like, it is
evident that so far from preferring these, he rather kept
aloof from them, and only gave cautious and grudging
utterances upon them. His passion was for definite
knowledge, especially knowledge so methodized that it
could be stated in the form of a general principle, or
law. He thought that to obtain a general principle in
which knowledge was summed up, on any subject, was
of the utmost importance;” that such a principle was a
possession for all future time, that future generations
would apply to it and work it out in detail, and thus.
that it would form the nucleus of a Science. And this
was the daring aim of Aristotle—no less than the
foundation of all the sciences. We shall have occasion
to point out subsequently the imperfections of Aristo.
tle's method in physical science when compared with
that of modern times. But for all that, his spirit was
essentially scientific, and for the sake of science and the
naked truth he discarded all beauty and grace of style.
Plato on the other hand was an artist, and clothed all
his thoughts in beauty; and if there be (as there surely
is) + a truth which is above the truth of scientific knowl-
*--
* see Soph. “Elench.” xxxii. 18; “Eth.” I. vii. 17-21.
+ See Ilotze’s “Microcosmus,” Einleitung. - - -
ARISTOTLE. . 7
edge, that was the truth after which Plato aspired.
Aristotle's aspirations were for methodized experience
and the definite.
It is easy to understand, or imagine, how two great
minds with such divergent tendencies would be unable
to continue forever to stand to each other in the rela-
tion of pupil to teacher. For a time, no doubt, the
divergence would not be discovered. Aristotle at first
would appear only as “the mind” of Plato's school.
And his first attempts at philosophical writing appear
to have been made in the form of dialogues in some-
what feeble imitation of the masterpieces of Plato.
We shall speak hereafter of this early and lighter class
of Aristotle's writings. He may have adhered for
several years to this mode of composition. But all the
while his powers, his knowledge, and his methods of
thought were maturing, and he was working his way
to the conception of a quite different mode of setting
forth philosophy. Gradually, as he grasped, or thought
he had grasped, all that Plato had to impart, his mind
would tend to dwell more on those aspects of Plato's
thought with which he did not sympathize. He would
especially feel a sort of impatience at the license al-
lowed to the imagination to intrude itself into the
treatment of philosophic questions, -at the substitution
of gorgeous myths and symbolical figures for plain
exact answers of the understanding. This feeling of
impatience broke oui in a polemic against that doctrine
of the eternal “Ideas” or Forms of Things, which
appears somewhat variously set forth in Plato's dia-
logues, especially in “Timaeus,” “Phaedrus,” and “Re-
public,” and which doubtless formed a prominent
topic in Plato's discourses to his school. We are told
8 THE EIZEVIR LIBRARY,
by Proclus * that Aristotle “proclaimed loudly in his
dialogues that he was unable to sympathize with the
doctrine of Ideas, even though his opposition to it
should be attributed to a factious spirit.” The import
of that doctrine was to disparage the world of sensible
objects. It represented that when we, by means of
our senses, apprehend, or think that we apprehend,
particular objects, we are like men sitting in a dimly.
lighted subterraneous cavern, and staring at shadows on
the wall; that the world of sense is a world of shadows,
but that a true world exists, a world of Ideas; that
nothing is really good or beautiful in the world of
sense, but what we call good or beautiful things are
those which have a faint semblance to the Idea of the
good or the beautiful, and thus bring back to our souls
the remembrance of those Ideas, which we once saw in
our ante-natal condition; that the Ideas or Forms are
archetypes, in accordance with which the Creator framed
this world; that they are not only the cause of qualities
and attributes in things, such as goodness, justice,
equality, and the like, but also they are heads of classes
or universals, and that they alone have complete reality,
while the individuals, constituting the classes at the head
of which they stand, only “participate” to a certain ex-
tent in real existence. Such were some of the features
of Plato's celebrated doctrine of Ideas. That he did
not himself hold very strongly or dogmatically to its
details may be judged from the fact that in two of his dia.
logues (“Parmenides” and “Sophist”) he himself points
out, and does not remove, many difficulties which attach
to them. But the main gist of the doctrine was to
assert what is called Realism; and this, under one form
* Quoted by Philoponus, ii. 2.
ARISTOTLE, - 9
or another, Plato always maintained, When Aristotle
attacked the doctrine of Ideas, there was the first begin-
ning of that controversy between the Realists and the
Nominalists, which so much excited the minds of men
in the middle ages. Realism, making reason indepen-
dent of the senses, asserts that the universal is more real
than the particular, that, for instance, the universal
idea of “man” in general is more real, and can be
grasped by the mind with greater certainty, than the
conception of any individual man. Nominalism, on the
contrary, asserts the superior reality of individual ob-
jects, and turns the universal into a mere name. Now
it was quite natural for Aristotle, with his tendency to-
wards physical science and experiment, and the amass-
ing of particular facts, to take the Nominalist view, so
far as to assert the reality of individual objects. But
there is reason for doubting that he ever became a
thorough and consistent Nominalist. For the present it
is sufficient to note that at the outset of his philosophical
career he appears to have made an onslaught, in several
dialogues which he wrote for the purpose, on Plato's
doctrine of Ideas. In three passages of his extant works
(“Eth.” I. vi.; “Met.” I. vi., XII. iv.), he gives sum-
maries of his arguments on the subject. He couches
those arguments in courteous language, and in one
place introduces them with words which have been
Latinized into the well-known phrase—Amicus Plato,
sed magis amica Veritas. Yet the arguments themselves
appear somewhat captious. And there may have been
a youthful vehemence in the mode in which he first
urged them. Here probably first appeared “the little
rift within the lute;” this was the beginning of that
divergence of mind and attitude which, growing wider,
rendered it ultimately impossible that Aristotle should
10 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
be chosen to succeed Plato as inheritor of his method
and head of the Academic school.
In another set of circumstances tradition affords us
indications of the independence and self confidence of
Aristotle having been manifested during the lifetime of
Plato. In his extant writings Plato speaks so disparag-
ingly of the art of Rhetoric, that we can hardly fancy
his giving any encouragement to the study of it among
his disciples. But none the less Aristotle appears to
have diligently labored in this, as in every other intel-
lectual province that he found open. Plato would not
separate Rhetoric from the rhetorical spirit; he regarded
the whole thing as a procedure for tickling the ears, for
flattering crowds, for subordinating truth to effect.
Aristotle, in the analytical way which became one of his
chief characteristics, separated the method of Rhetoric
from the uses to which it might be applied. He saw
that success in Rhetoric depended on general principles
and laws of the human mind, and that it would be
worth while to draw these out and frame them into a
science, especially as many of his countrymen had
already essayed to do the same, though imperfectly.
He maintained that the study of the methods of Rhetoric
was desirable and even necessary to a free citizen, for
self-defense, for the exposure of sophistry, and in the
interests of truth itself. Now, the greatest school of
Rhetoric in all Greece was at this period held in Athens
by the renowned Isocrates, who, when Aristotle arrived
at Athens, was at the zenith of his reputation. He was
now nearly seventy years old, but continued to teach
and to compose with almost unabated vigor for twenty-
eight years more. Isocrates had been the follower of
Socrates, and several leading Sophists of the latter part
of the fifth century B.C.—Protagoras, Prodicus, Gor-
ARISTOTLE 11
gias, and Theramenes—are named as having been his
teachers.” He was a dignified old man, full of the most
elevated sentiments. The style of his oratory had been
formed after the florid Sicilian school of Gorgias, but
was more severe and artistic than the earlier models of
that school. He professed to inculcate what he called
“ philosophy,” but which was really a kind of thought
standing half-way between pure speculative search for
truth, like that of Plato, and the merely worldly and
practical aims of the Sophists. It was a manly wisdom
dealing with politics and morality, analogous to the re-
flections on such subjects in which Cicero afterwards
indulged. The rhetorical school of Isocrates drew
pupils from all parts of Greece, from Sicily, and even
from Pontus. In it, says Cicero, “the eloquence of all
Greece was trained and perfected.” The pupils re-
mained in it sometimes three or four years; they paid a
fee of 1000 drachmae each (=1000 francs, or £40); and
thus in his long life the master became one of the most
opulent citizens of Athens. “Isocrates,” says Dionysus,
“had the educating of the best of the youth of Greece,”
and so many of his scholars became afterwards distin-
guished in various ways—as orators, statesmen, gen-
erals, historians, or philosophers—that a list of them
was drawn up by Hermippus. Among the number
was Speusippus, nephew to Plato, and afterwards his
successor in the headship of the Academy. And yet
it may readily be believed that there was small sym-
pathy between the Academy and the school of Isocrates,
the aims of the two being so very different. Plato and
his followers looked down with more or less contempt
* See Professor Jebb’s “Attic Orators from Antiphon to Iseos."
ii. 5, - -
12 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY
on the half-philosophizing of Isocrates. And at last
the youthful Aristotle came forward as a champion,
challenging and attacking the highly-reputed veteran.
Aristotle is said to have parodied on this occasion a line
of Euripides—
- * What I must I
In silence leave barbarians to speak f
Never! ”
and to have taken for his motto the words
“What l must I
In silence leave Isocrates to speak f"
The acrimony of the allusion suggests to us the spirit
in which he opened the controversy. He seems to have
assailed the matter of the discourses of Isocrates, as
being of a superficial and merely oratorical character,
and also his theory of the art of rhetoric, and his mode
of teaching it. The strictures of Aristotle were an-
swered by Cephisodorus, one of the pupils of Isoc-
rates, who wrote a defense of his master in four books.
Both attack and reply have completely perished. Aris-
totle appears to have followed up his theoretical denun-
ciation of Isocrates by the practical step of opening a
school of Rhetoric in rivalry to his. What the success
of this enterprise may have been is not recorded. There
is no reason for supposing that the young Stagirite at
all succeeded in impressing the Athenians at that time
with his superior insight into the laws of Rhetoric.
The real value and scientific pre-eminence of his views
came out in the immortal treatise on Rhetoric, which
many years later he composed. But it is remarkable
that that treatise, while full of references to Isocrates,
bears no traces of any ill feeling towards him. In fact,
it would seem that time must have worked a certain
change in the character of Aristotle, for almost the only
ARISTOTLE, - 13
glimpses which we have of him during his earlier resi-
dence at Athens show him somewhat petulantly at-
tacking both Plato and Isocrates; whereas his works
which we possess, and which were written later, are
calmly impersonal and devoid of all petulance of spirit,
Plato died in the year 347 B.C., and we find that in
that year Aristotle, together with his fellow-disciple
Xenocrates, left Athens, and went to reside at Atarmeus,
a town of Asia Minor. This migration was doubtless
caused by the choice of Speusippus, Plato's nephew,
to be Leader of the Academy. However natural it may
have been that Aristotle should be held disqualified by
incompatibility of opinions for becoming the representa-
tive of Plato, still it may have been unpleasant to him
to see another preferred to himself, and especially one
so inferior to himself in intellect as Speusippus. And
Xenocrates may have felt something of the same kind
on his own account. Accordingly the two left Athens
together. Aristotle had more than one reason for
selecting Atarneus as his new place of abode. It was
the home of Proxenus, his guardian, of whom mention
has already been made; and it was ruled over by Her-
meias, an enlightened prince, with whom both Aris-
totle and Xenocrates had had the opportunity of
forming a philosophic friendship. The history of Her-
meias was remarkable: he had been the slave of Eubu-
lus, the former despot of Atarneus. As happens not
uncommonly in the East, he had sprung from being
slave to be vizier, and thence to be ruler himself. He
governed beneficently; and, his mind not being devoid
of philosophical impulses, he had come to Athens and
attended the lectures of Plato. He now hospitably re-
ceived the two emigrants from Plato's school, and
entertained them at his court for three years, during

14 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
&
which time he bestowed the hand of Pythias, his niece,
upon Aristotle in marriage. This may be conceived to
have been a happy period of Aristotle's life, but it was
cut short by the death of his benefactor, who was
treacherously kidnapped by a Greek officer in the Ser-
vice of the Persians, and put to death. Aristotle after-
wards recorded his admiration for Hermeias, in a hymn
or papan which he wrote in his honor, and in which he
likened him to Hercules and the Dioscuri, and other
heroes of noble endurance. He also perhaps alludes to
him in a well-known passage * in which he says that
“a good man does not become a friend to one who is
in a superior station to himself, unless that superiority
of station be justified by superiority of merit.” If
Aristotle had Hermeias, his own former friend, in luis
mind when he wrote this passage, he must have gener-
ously attributed to him moral qualities superior to his
OWri.
On flying from Atarneus, as they were now obliged
to do, Xenocrates returned to Atliens, and Aristotle
took up his abode with his wife at Mitylene, where he
lived two or three years, until he was invited by Philip
of Macedon to become the tutor of Alexander, then a
boy of the age of thirteen. That Aristotle, the prince
of philosophers and supreme master of the sphere of
knowledge, should be called upon to train the mind of
Alexander, the conqueror of the world, seems a com-
bination so romantic, that it has come to be thought
that it must have been the mere invention of some
sophist or rhetorician. This, however, is an unneces-
sary skepticism, for antiquity is unanimous in accepting
the tradition, and there are no circumstances that we
* “Ethics,” VIII. vi. 8.
A RISTOTL.E. 15
know of which are inconsistent with it. Aristotle's
family connection with the royal family of Macedon
made it natural that now, when he had acquired a cer-
tain reputation in Greece, he should be offered this
charge. Unfortunately no information has been handed
down to us as to the way in which he performed its
duties. History is silent on the subject, and we can-
not even gather from any of Aristotle's own writings
his views as to the education of a prince; the treatise
on education, which was to have formed part of his
“Politics,” has reached us as an incomplete or mutilated
fragment. Nothing that is recorded of Alexander tends
to throw any light on his early training, except, per-
haps, his interest in Homer and in the Attic trage-
dians, and his power of addressing audiences in Greek,
which was, of course, to a Macedonian an acquired
language. It is reasonable to suppose that Aristotle
instructed him in rhetoric, and imbued him with Greek
literature, and took him through a course of mathe-
matics. Whether he attempted anything beyond this
“secondary instruction” we know not. But it would be
vain to look for traces of a personal and intellectual
influence having been produced by the teacher on the
mind of his pupil. Alexander's was a genius of that
first-rate order that grows independently of, or soon
outgrows, all education. His mind was not framed to
be greatly interested in science or philosophy; he was,
as the First Napoleon said of himself, tout d fait un
étre politique; and even during part of the period of
Aristotle's tutelage, he was associated with his father
in the business of the State. On the whole, we might
almost imagine that Aristotle's functions at the court
siderable leisure for the quiet prosecution of his own
* -

16 THE EIZEVIR LIBRARY,
great undertakings. He seems, however, to have en-
joyed the full confidence and favor of his patrons,”
and to have retained his appointment altogether about
five years, until Philip was assassinated in the year 336
B.C., and Alexander became King of Macedonia.
For a year after the death of Philip, Aristotle still
remained, residing either at Pella or at Stageira; but
of course no longer as preceptor to Alexander, whose
mind was now totally absorbed by imperial business
and plans for the subjugation of all the peoples of the
East,--while his own mind was meditating plans differ-
ent in kind, but no less vast, for the subjugation of all
the various realms of knowledge. In 335 B.C. the
preparations for Alexander's oriental campaigns were
commenced in earnest, and Aristotle then again betook
himself, after a twelve years' absence, to Athens,
whither he returned with all the prestige which could
be derived from the most marked indications of the
favor of Alexander, who ordered a statue of him to
be set up at Athens, and who is said also to have fur-
nished him with ample funds for the prosecution of
physical and zoological investigations, Athenæus com:
putes the total sum given to Aristotle in that way
at 800 talents (nearly £200,000); and, if this had
been the actual fact, it would have been, perhaps,
the greatest instance on record of the “endowment
of research.” But we can only treat the statement as
* Aristotle at this time obtained the permission of Philip to
rebuild and resettle his native city, Stageira, which had been
sacked and ruined in the Olynthian war (349–347 B.C.). He col-
lected the citizens, who had been scattered abroad, invited
new comers, and made laws for the community. In memory of
these services an annual festival was afterwards held in his
honor at Stageira.
. . .”.
ARISTOTLE. 17
at best mere hearsay. We know how amounts of this
kind are invariably exaggerated; and, indeed, the whole
story may have arisen from the imagination of later
Greek writers dwelling on the relationship between the
philosopher and the king. The same may be said of
Pliny’s assertion, that “thousands of men” in Alexan.
der's army were put at the orders of Aristotle for the
purposes of scientific inquiry and collection. Had this
been true, Aristotle, though far from being able to make
the use which now would be made of such an oppor-
tunity, would have been in a position which many a
biologist of the present day might envy. Even dis-
counting all such statements as uncertain and question-
able, we must still admit that Aristotle, in his fiftieth
year, was enabled, under the most favorable auspices,
to commence building up the great fabric of philosophy
and science for which he had been, all his life long,
making the plans and gathering the materials.
Aristotle, on his return, found Speusippus dead, and .
Xenocrates installed as leader of the Platonic school w -
of Philosophy, which was held, as we have said, in the º
groves of Academe, on the west of the city of Athens.
He immediately opened a rival school on the eastern
side, in the grounds attached to the Temple of the
Lyceian Apollo. From his using the covered walks
(peripatoi) in these grounds for lecturing to, and inter- .
course with, his pupils, the name of “Peripatetics”
came to be given to his scholars, and to the Aristotelian
sect in general. His object being research, and the
bringing into methodized form the results of investiga- JNX,
tions,—it may be asked why he should have opened a *
school? Partly, this was necessitated by a regard for
his own reputation and fame, it was a method of S\
publication suitable before the days of printing. And


18 THE ELZE VIR LIBRARY.
ălso in many ways it could be made to further his
views. Teaching a philosophical School was a very
different thing from teaching the rudiments. It was
more like the work of a German professor, who often
does not condescend to impart anything to his class
except his own latest discoveries. The very practice of
imparting to an auditory reasoned-out conclusions is a
stimulus to their production, and at the same time a
test of their correctness. Thus, Aristotle, in his writ-
ings, frequently uses the term “teaching” merely to
indicate “ demonstration;” and as there is reason to
believe that all his great works were written at this
time, we may conceive, with great likelihood, that all
the “demonstrations” they contain had at one time
the form of “teachings”—that is to say, that they
went through the process of being read to his school.
But there was another special way in which Aristotle
was able not only to benefit his scholars, but also to
make use of them as subordinate laborers in his work.
We must remember what he was aiming at: it was to
produce what we should call an encyclopedia of all the
sciences. Such a book, nowadays, is done by many
different hands, and the different articles in it do not
aim at being original, but at compiling the latest re-
sults of the best authorities in each department. But
Aristotle sought to construct an encyclopedia with his
own hand, in which each science should appear brand-
new, originally created or quite reconstructed by him-
self. He began from the very beginning, and framed
his own philosophical or scientific nomenclature; he
traced out the laws on which human reasoning pro-
ceeds, and was the first to reduce these to science, and
to produce a Logic. He wrote anew “Metaphysics,”
“Ethics,” “Politics,” “Rhetoric,” and “The Art of Po-
ARISTOTLE 19
etry,” and while these were still on the stocks, he was en-
gaged in founding, on the largest scale, the physical and
natural sciences, especially natural philosophy, physi-
ology under various aspects (such as histology and
anatomy, embryology, psyclology, the philosophy of
the senses, etc.), and, above all, natural history. Much
of this work, especially its more abstract part, was the
slowly-ripened fruit of his entire previous life. But
though he had great stores ready that only required to
be arranged and put forth, he never ceased pushing out
inquiries in all directions, and collecting fresh materials.
He had quite the Baconian zeal for eaſperientia tabulata,
for lists and memoranda of all kinds of facts, historical,
political, psychological, or naturalistic. He loved to
note problems to be solved and difficulties to be an-
swered. Thus a boundless field of subordinate labor
was opened, in which his pupils might be employed.
The absence of any effort after artistic beauty in his
writings made it easier to incorporate here and there the
contributions of his apprentices. And his works, as we
have them, exhibit some traces of co-operative work.
The Peripatetic school, after his death, followed the
direction which Aristotle had given them, and were
noted for their monographs on small particular points.
Aristotle was not a citizen of Athens, but only a
“metic,” or foreign resident, so he took no part in pub-
lic affairs. His whole time during the thirteen years of
his second residence in the city—a period coeval with
the astonishing career of Alexander in the East—must
have been devoted to labors within his school, especially
in connection with the composition of his works,
From the enthusiastic passages in which he speaks of
the joys of the philosopher, we may conceive how
highly the privileges of this period—so calm and yet so

20 - THE EIZE VIR LIBRARY,
intensely active—were appreciated by him. But few
traditions bearing upon this part of his life have been
handed down. These chiefly point to his relations
with Alexander, with whom, as well as with Antipater,
who was acting as viceroy in Macedonia, he is repre-
sented as having maintained a friendly correspondence.
CaSSander, the son of Antipater, appears to have at-
tended his school. As time went on, the character of
Alexander became corrupted * by unchecked success,
Asiatic influences, and the all but universal servility
which he encountered. His mind became alienated
from those Greek citizens around him who showed any
independence of spirit. He quarreled with Antipater,
who was faithfully acting for him at home. On a
frivolous charge he cruelly put to death Callisthenes, a
young orator whom, on the recommendation of Aristo-
tie, he had taken in his retinue. On this and other oc-
casions he is said to have broken out into bitter expres.
sions against “the sophistries” of Aristotle—that is to
say, his free and reasonable political principles. The
East, conquered physically by Alexander, had con-
quered and changed the mind of its conqueror. And
he had now fallen quite out of sympathy with his
ancient preceptor and friend. But the Athenians seem
to have been unconscious of any such change. Aristo-
tie had come to Athens as the avowed favorite and pro.
tégé of Alexander, and that, too, at a moment when
Alexander (335 B.C.), by sacking the city of Thebes, and
by compelling Athens with the threat of a similar fate
to exile some of her anti-Macedonian statesmen, had
made himself the object of sullen dread and covert dis-
like to the majority of the Athenian citizens. Some
*See Grote's “ History of Greece,” xii. 291,801, 841.
-*
ARISTOTLE - 21
portion of this feeling was doubtless reflected upon
Aristotle, but during the life of Alexander any mani,
festation of it was checked, the affairs of Athens being
administered for the time by the “Macedonian * party.
Of this party Aristotle was naturally regarded as a
pronounced adherent, and he came even to be identified
with those arbitrary and tyrannical acts of Alexander
which must in reality have been most repugnant to him.
This was especially the case in 324 B.C., when Alexander
thought fit to insult the Hellenic cities, by sending a
proclamation to be read by a herald at the Olympic
Games, ordering them to recall all citizens who were
under sentence of banishment, and threatening with in-
stant invasion any city which should hesitate to obey
this command. The offieer charged with bearing this
offensive proclamation, so galling to the self-respect of
the Grecian communities, turned out to be none other
than Nicanor of Stageira, son of Proxenus the guardian
of Aristotle, and now the ward and destined son-in-law
of Aristotle himself. This unfortunate circumstance
could not fail to draw upon the plailosopher, without
any fault of his own, the animosity of the Athenian
people. In the summer of the next year (383 B.C.), the
eyes of all Greece were still anxiously fixed upon the
movements of Alexander, when of a sudden the start-
ling news thrilled through every city that the life of the
great conqueror had been cut short by a violent fever at
Babylon. The news caused a sensation throughout the
states of Greece analogous to what would have been
felt throughout Europe had Napoleon been suddenly
cut off, say in the year 1810.
By the death of Alexander the position of Aristotle
at Athens was profoundly affected. The anti-Mace-
donian party at once, for the moment, regained power;
22 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
the statesmen who had hitherto protected him were
forced to fly from the city, and the spirit of reaction
included him also in its attacks. It now became clear
that Aristotle had a host of enemies in Athens. There
were three classes of persons from whom especially
these hostile ranks would naturally be recruited: 1st,
The numerous friends of the orator Isocrates, with
whom Aristotle in earlier life had put himself in com-
petition; 2d, The Platonists, who resented Aristotle's
divergence from their master and his polemic against
certain points of the Platonic system; 3d, The anti-
Macedonian party, who indiscriminately visited on
Aristotle the political acts of Alexander. Feelings
that had been long repressed and kept concealed, while
Aristotle was strong in political support, were now
licensed by the changed circumstances to come forth
into act. His enemies seized on the moment to do
him a mischief. An indictment, charging him with
“impiety,” was drawn up by Eurymedon, the chief
priest of the Eleusinian Ceres, aided by a son of
Ephorus, the historian, who had been one of the pupils
of Isocrates. Matter for this accusation was obtained
partly from Aristotle's poem written in honor of
Hermeias, and which equaled him to the demi-gods,
partly from the fact that Aristotle had placed a statue
of Hermeias in the temple at Delphi, partly also from
some passages in his published writings which were
pointed to as inconsistent with the national religion.
A philosopher's view must necessarily differ from the
popular view of the topics of religion. Yet in his ex-
tant works Aristotle is always tender and reverent in
dealing with popular beliefs; indeed, in modern times,
these works have been regarded as a bulwark of ecclesi-
astical feeling. The whole charge, if taken on its real
ARISTOTLE: 25
merits, must be considered utterly frivolous; yet those
who would have to try the case—a large jury taken
from the general mass of the citizens—could not be
depended on for discrimination in such a question.
They would be too subject to the currents of envy,
political, personal, and anti-philosophical, setting in
from various quarters; they would be too readily im-
bued with the odium theologicum. Nothing but a very
general popularity would have been an effectual pro-
tection at such a moment, and this it is not likely that
Aristotle ever possessed in Athens. While capable of
devoted and generous friendship, he may easily have
been cold and reserved towards general society. He
was absorbed in study, and probably lived confined
within the narrow scientific circle of his own school.
He may even have exhibited some of those proud char-
acteristics which lie attributes in his “Ethics” to the
“great-souled” man, “who claims great things for him-
self because he is worthy of them,” and “who cannot
bear to associate with any one except a friend.” How-
ever this may have been, he was probably right on the
present occasion to decline submitting his life and opin.
ions to the judgment of the populace of Athens. He
availed himself of the law which gave to any accused
person the option of quitting the city before the day of
trial, and he retired to Chalcis in Euboea, “in order,”
as he is reported to have said, “that the Athenians
might not have another opportunity of sinning against
philosophy, as they had already done once in the per-
son of Socrates.” . - .
Chalcis was the original home of the ancestry of
Aristotle, and he appears to have had some property
there; but it was especially a safe place of refuge for
him, as being occupied at this time by a Macedonian
24 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
garrison. He probably intended only to make a short
sojourn there, till circumstances should be changed.
He must have fully foreseen that in a short space of
time the Macedonian arms would prevail, and restore
at Athens the government which had hitherto protected
him. He left his school and library in charge of Theo-
phrastus, doubtless looking forward to a speedy return
to them and to the resumption of those labors which
had already consummated so much. And all this
would have happened but that, within a year's time, in
322 B.C., he was seized with illness, and died somewhat
suddenly at Chalcis, in the sixty-third year of his age.
The story that he had taken poison may be dismissed as
fabulous. A more trustworthy account speaks of his
having suffered from impaired digestion, the natural
result of his habits of application, and this may very
likely have been the cause of his death.
The will of Aristotle, or what professes to be such,
has been preserved amongst a heap of very questionable
traditions, by Diogenes Laertius. If not genuine it is
cleverly invented, and is the work of a romancer who
wished to credit the Stagirite with evidences of a gen-
erous and just disposition. The property to be disposed
of seems considerable, analogous perhaps to an estate
of £50,000 in the present day. The chief beneficiary
under the will is Nicanor (before mentioned), whom
Aristotle appoints to marry Pythias—his daughter by
the niece of Hermeias—so soon as she shall be of mar-
riageable age. Aristotle's first wife had died, and he
had subsequently married Herpyllis of Stageira, who
became the mother of his son Nicomachus. The will
places Nicomachus under the care of Nicanor, and
makes liberal provision for Herpyllis, who is mentioned
in terms of affection and gratitude. Several of the
ARTSTOTLE 35
t
slaves are thought of, and are to be presented with
money and set at liberty; all the young slaves are to be
freed, “if they deserve it,” as soon as they are grown
up. Nicanor is charged to transfer the bones of Aris-
totle's first wife Pythias to his own place of interment,
to provide and dedicate suitable busts of various mem-
bers of Aristotle's family, and to fulfill a vow formerly
made by himself of four marble figures of animals to
Zeus the Preserver and Athene the Preserver. This
last clause throws suspicion on the genuineness of the
document, for it looks like a mere imitation of the
dying injunction of Socrates: “We owe a cock to
AEsculapius; pay the debt and do not fail.” Other
points also suggest doubt: for instance, Antipater is
named as chief executor, and this detail has the appear-
ance of being the work of a forger availing himself of
a well-known name; again, there is a difficulty about
Pythias the daughter of Aristotle being too young for
marriage at the time of her father's death—he had
married her mother some twenty-three years previously,
and had been subsequently married. The terms of the
will would imply that Nicomachus was a mere child
when his father died, which is inconsistent with other
considerations. These and other points of criticism
which might be urged do not absolutely prove the will
te have been a forgery; they only leave us in doubt
about it. And, as has been said, even if regarded as a
mere fabrication, it is still a tribute of antiquity to the
virtue of Aristotle.
On the other hand, this great name did not escape
without incurring its full share of carping and detrac-
tation, And the gossip-mongers of the later Roman em-
pire, including Fathers of the Church, have handed on
some of the hearsay reports, smart sayings of epigram-
26 THE ELZ}; VIR LIBRARY,
matists, and attacks of hostile schools of philosophy,
which had been leveled against Aristotle. After all
they come to very little:-that he had small eyes, and
thin legs, and a lisping utterance; that be passed a
wild and spendthrift youth; that he was showy and
affected in his attire, and habitually luxurious in his
table; that he chose to live at the Macedonian court
for the sake of the flesh-pots to be obtained by so do-
ing; and that he was ungrateful to Plato, these make
up the sum of the charges against him. Perhaps if we
knew all the facts, we might find that a contradictory,
or at all events a different, statement would be more
correct under each of the several heads. As it is, we
may fairly deal with these imputations as we should
with similar aspersions on the personal history of any
great man, if they could neither be proved nor dis-
proved, and set them aside as beneath consideration.
We cannot expect to know more than the outline of
Aristotle's life, but all we know gives us the impression
of a life that, morally speaking, was singularly honor-
able and blameless. And it was the life of one who
by his intellectual achievements placed himself at the
very head of ancient thought, and won the admiration
and allegiance of many centuries, What those intel-
lectual achievements were we have now to endeavor
to set forth. -
CHAPTER II.
THE WORKS OF ARISTOTLE,
A CATALOGUE of the works of Aristotle has been
handed down to us, which was made by the librarian
of the great Library at Alexandria about the year 220
ARISTOTLE, 27
B.C.—that is to say, a century after the death of the
philosopher—and which gives the titles of all the books,
contained in the Library, which were attributed to the
authorship of Aristotle. These titles amount to 146
in number, but it is at first sight a most astonishing
circumstance that they do not in the least answer to
the writings which we now possess under the name of
the “works of Aristotle,” All the books mentioned in
the Alexandrian catalogue are now lost; only a few frag-
ments of them have been preserved in the shape of ex-
tracts and quotations from them made by other writers;
but everything tends to show that they were quite a
different set, and different altogether in character, from
the forty treatises which stand collectively on our book-
shelves labeled “Aristotelis Opera.” Under the circum-
stances it would be natural to conjecture that so (com-
paratively speaking) short a time after the death of
Aristotle, the learned keepers of the Alexandrian Library
must have known what he really wrote, and therefore
that in losing the books mentioned in the Alexandrian
catalogue we have lost the true works of Aristotle, as
they existed 100 years after his death, and that what
has come down to us under his name, be it what it
may, cannot be the genuine article, Other facts, how-
ever, and criticism of the whole que.tion, show that
this natural supposition is incorrect, and that some-
thing like the contradictory of it is true. It is a curi-
ous story, and needs some little explanation. -
The life of Aristºtle after his boyhood fell, as we
have seen, into three broad divisions—namely, his
first residence at Athens, from his eighteenth to his
thirty-eighth year; his residence away from Athens,
at Atarneus, Mitylene, Pella, and Stageira, from his
thirty-eighth to his fiftieth year; and his second resi-
28 THE ELZE VIR LIBRARY.
dence at Athens, from his fiftieth to his sixty-third
year. During the first period, after studying under
Plato, he commenced authorship by writing dialogues,
which appear to have been published at the time.
They differed from the Platonic dialogues in not being
dramatic, but merely expository, like the dialogues
of Bishop Berkeley, the principal rôle in each being
assigned to Aristotle himself. They were somewhat
rhetorical in style, and quite adapted for popular read-
ing. In them Aristotle attacked Plato's doctrine of
Ideas, and set forth views on philosophy, the chief
good, the arts of government, moral virtue, and other
topics. Then came the second period of his life, when
he had definitely broken with the school of Plato, and
was away from all the schools of Athens, enjoying much
leisure and positions of dignity. In this period it is
probable that he not only prosecuted his researches and
independent speculations in many branches of thought
and science, but that he learned to know his own
mission in the world, which was to stick to the matter
of knowledge, abandoning all regard for the artistic
adornment of truth. During this period we may
believe that he thoroughly doveloped the individual
character of his own mind in relation to philosophy
so that when he came back to Athens he had quite
established his own peculiar style of writing, crabbed
indeed and inelegant, but full of an exact phraseology
which he had himself constructed, and on the whole
not unsuited as a vehicle for the exposition of Science.
We are not able, however, to say for certain whethel
in his second period he actually composed any works,
though he must constantly have been compiling notes
and memoranda, to serve either as the materials or the
ground-plans for future treatises. The third period of
ARISTOTLE 29
Aristotle's life was the rich fruit-time of his genius.
We have already mentioned how he set himself to the
construction of an entire encyclopedia of science and
philosophy. What we possess as his works contain
the unfinished, but much advanced, working out of
that project. There is every reason to believe that the
great bulk of this series of writings was composed by
Aristotle during the last thirteen years of his life. He
was doubtless assisted by his school, and he must have
had many treatises on hand at one time, or rather he
had them all in his head, and when anything caused
him to drop one for a time he could go on with an-
other. Hardly any of the treatises are finished, still
less is there any trace of careful revision and “the last
band.” It is certain that many of these works were
never published during Aristotle's lifetime, and it
is even a question whether any of them were so pub-
lished. - - -
When Aristotle died, all the MSS. of his later compo-
sitions, together with the considerable library of other
men's writings which he had got together, were under
charge of his chief disciple Theophrastus at the school
in the Lyceum. After his decease, the Peripatetics ap-
pear to have worked to some extent at editing the un-
completed treatises, and at patching together those
which existed as yet only in disjointed fragments.
But there does not seem to have been any multiplica-
tion of copies, or what we should call “publication.”
On the death of Theophrastus (which took place thirty-
five years later than that of Aristotle), the whole Peri-
patetic school-library went by his bequest to a favorite
pupil named Neleus, who took all the rolls away with
him. to his home at a place called Scepsis, in the Troad. .
Included among them were the MSS., many of them

30 THE EEZE VIR LIBRARY.
unique, of Aristotle's most important works, which
were thus removed from Europe. Not only was this
the case, but a few years later the kings of Pergamus
began seizing the books of private individuals in order
to fill their own royal library, and the family of Ne-
leus, afraid of losing the treasures they possessed—
which, however, they could little appreciate—hid away
the Peripatetic rolls and the precious MSS. of Aristotle
in a subterranean vault, where they remained for 150
years forgotten by the world. At the end of that inter-
val, the dynasty of the kings of Pergamus having passed
away, the books were brought out of their hiding-place
and sold to one Apellicon, a wealthy Peripatetic and
book-collector, who resided at Athens. They were said
to have been by this time a good deal damaged by
worms and damp; yet still it was a great thing that,
after 187 years' absence, the best productions of Aristotle
should be restored, about 100 B.C., to the West.
The termination of this “strange eventful history”
was that in 86 B.C. Athens was taken by Sylla, and the
library of Apellicon was seized and brought to Rome,
where it was placed under the custody of a librarian,
and several literary Greeks, resident in Rome, had ac-
cess to it. Tyrannion, the learned friend of Cicero, got
permission to arrange the MSS., and Andronicus of
Rhodes, applying himself with earnestness to the task
of obtaining a correct text and furnishing a complete
edition of the philosophical works of Aristotle, ar-
ranged the different treatises and scattered fragments
under their proper heads, and getting numerous tran-
scripts made, gave publicity to a generally received text
of Aristotle. There seems to be good reason for believ-
ing that “Our Aristotle,” as Grote calls it, in contradis-
tinction to the Aristotle of the Alexandrian Library, is

ARISTOTLE, • *, 81
none other than this recension of Andronicus, And
this being the case, we may well reflect how great was
the risk which these works incurred of being consigned
to perpetual oblivion. A few more years in the cellar
at Scepsis, or any one of a hundred other accidents which
might have prevented these writings from getting into
the appreciative and competent hands of Tyrannion and
Andronicus, would in all probability have made them as
if they had never been. And thus that which was actual,
ly the chief intellectual food of men in the middle ages
would have been withheld. Whether for better or
worse, men's thoughts would have had a different exer-
cise and taken a different direction, Much of ecclesias-
tical history would have been changed. And many of
the modes in which we habitually think and speak at
the present day would have been different from what
they are.
But we must return to the Alexandrian catalogue. If
the MSS. of all Aristotle's most important works were
carried off in the year 287 B.C., to be buried in Asia Minor
for a century and a half, what means this list of 146
books bearing the name of Aristotle, which in 220 B.C.
were stored up in the Alexandrian Library? Were
these also all really written by Aristotle? Was he so
voluminous a composer as this would imply, as well
as a profound thinker and an original explorer of
nature in many departments? Or were the books sup-
plied to the Alexandrian collection, as the works of Ar-
istotle, mere forgeries, got up for the market, to supply
the place of the genuine writings, which for the time
had been lost to the world? The only answer that can
be given to these questions must be a conjectural one, and
probability seems to dictate an answer lying between
the two extreme hypotheses, Several of the names ap-

32 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
pearing in the catalogue remind us of the titles of Plato's
dialogues, for instance “Nerinthus,” “Gryllus; or,
On Rhetoric,” “Sophist,” “Menexenus,” “Sympo-
sium,” “The Lover,” “Alexander; or, On Colonies,”
etc. And the natural supposition is that these books,
or some of them, were none other than these early dia-
logues which Aristotle composed during his first resi-
dence in Athens. Strabo says distinctly that when, by
the bequest of Theophrastus, the Aristotelian MSS. were
taken away, the Peripatetic school had none of his
works left except a few of the more popular ones. His
dialogues had been published, and were available, and
no doubt copies of them formed the nucleus of the
books professing to be his in the Alexandrian Library.
Others of the collection may have been excerpts from
his greater works which had been made by his scholars,
and were so kept before the world when the entire
works themselves were hidden in Asia Minor. Many
others were probably monographs and papers by mem-
bers of the Peripatetic school, drawn up in Aristotle's
manner, perhaps containing his ideas, and from a sort
of reverential feeling attributed to him and inscribed
with his name. The residue must have been forgeries
pure and simple: imitations of his dialogues, and of
such parts of his treatises as were known, All the
books in the Alexandrian list, though they were numer-
ous, appear to have been short, treating generally of
isolated questions, and quite unlike the long methodical
setting forth of entire sciences, such as we find in the
writings of Aristotle that have come down to us.
The “fate of Aristotle's works” is a romantic episode
in the history of literature. But we must observe that
what in the first place rendered this train of circum-
stances possible was the rapid decay of genius in Greece.

ARISTOTLE: 88
s
When Aristotle died, none of his scholars was worthy
to succeed him and carry on his work. His school do
not seem to have appreciated what was great and valu-
able in his philosophy. They went off either into rhe-
torical sermonizing on moral questions, or else into
isolated inquiries, the solution of problems, or the draw-
ing up of “papers” like those read before the Royal
Society. It was perhaps a feeling of contempt for the
Peripatetic school which induced Theophrastus, a gen-
eration after the death of Aristotle, to give away their
whole library, including the great works of their mas-
ter, to a foreign student. But for their apathy those
great works would never have been left in unique cop,
ies, and ultimately exposed to such extreme peril.
There must, however, have been a corresponding
apathy in the external public, else curiosity would have
demanded, and the love of science would have pre-
served, the results of Aristotle's later years. But the
reading world of the third century B.C. seems to have
been quite content to be put off with that which was
really un-Aristotelian, though it bore the name of Aris-
totle—with immature, rhetorical dialogues, the work of
his youth, or spurious imitations of that work, with ex-
cerpts, epitomes, “papers,” and the sweepings of the
Peripatetic school. -
We may take Cicero, though living two centuries
later, as a good specimen of the attitude towards Aris-
totle of a cultivated man of literature, not devoid of a
certain taste for philosophy, of those times. Cicero
often mentions, praises, and quotes Aristotle, but it is
not, “our Aristotle,” but the Aristotle of Alexandria,
the writer of dialogues. Several passages of these dia-
logues have been translated and preserved by Cicero,
who extols the “golden flow of their language,” using

84. THE EIZEVIR LIBRARY
terms which are as far as possible from being applicable
to the harsh, compressed, and difficult style of Aris-
totle's scientific treatises. The latter were, indeed, too
difficult and too repulsive for Cicero, as is plain from
the story which he himself relates: Cicero had in his
Tusculan villa some of the works of Aristotle, as we at
present possess them, probably copies of the recension
of Andronicus; when asked by his friend Trebatius
what the “Topics” of Aristotle were about, he advised
him “for his own interest” to study the book for him-
self, or else to consult a certain iearned rhetorician,
Trebatius, however, was repelled by the obscurity of
the writing, and the rhetorician, when consulted, con-
fessed his total ignorance of Aristotle, Cicero thinks
this no wonder, since even the philosophers know
hardly anything about him, though they “ought to
have been attracted by the incredible flow and sweet-
mess of the diction.” He then proceeds to give Treba-
tius a summary of the first few pages of the “Topics”
of Aristotle, which he had apparently read up for the oc-
casion. From facts like this, it may be concluded that
in the two last centuries before the Christian era, it was
only the lighter and less valuable compositions of Aris-
totle that were generally known and admired. His
more serious and really valuable contributions to
thought and knowledge were left out of sight, ignored,
and forgotten. For the moment it seemed as if the
favorite dictum of Lord Bacon had come to pass—that
“Time, like a river, bringing down to us things which
are lighter and more inflated, lets what is more weighty
and solid sink.” But the result of that concatenation
of accidents which we have narrated, was completely
. . . . to reverse this sentence; so that now it may be said that
all the lighter part of Aristotle's work has been swept
+
ARISTOTLE, 85
away by the stream of Time, while only that which was
weighty and solid has been suffered to remain in exist-
ence. Owing to the wealth of the Roman empire, it
is likely that numerous copies were made of the entire
works of Aristotle, as edited by Andronicus—both for
public libraries and for individuals. This gave him a
better chance of survival in a collective form during
the wreck and destruction of the barbarian invasions;
and afterwards he was early taken into the protection
of the Church. The dialogues, in the meantime, and
other shorter productions, which had figured in the
Alexandrian catalogue, had no collerence with each
other, and thus were not reproduced by the copyists
and librarians, as a whole. Again, they did not attract,
as the greater works of Aristotle did, the attention of
successive scholiasts and commentators. In short, they
fell into the neglect which, comparatively speaking,
they deserved, and disappeared, all but a few scattered
quotations. But now we can thank the Providence of
history that we possess a large portion of the best of
all that Aristotle thought and wrote. We possess it,
indeed, incomplete as he left it, and not only so, but
also edited and re-edited, transposed occasionally, inter-
polated, and eked out, by the earlier Peripatetics, by
Andronicus, and perhaps by Subsequent hands, Yet
still the individuality of the Stagirite shines out
through the greater part of these remains, and in study-
ing them we feel that we are brought into contact with
his mind. - -
If the supposition be correct that what we now pos, -
sess is substantially the edition of Andronicus, it is . . .
clear in the first place that he did not mean this to be
what we should call a “complete edition of the collect-
ive works of Aristotle,” else he would have included

86 THE ELZE VIR LIBRARY,
in it the dialogues that Cicero quotes, the hymn in
honor of Hermeias, and we know not what beside.
His object appears to have been to give to the world
the philosophy of Aristotle, hitherto virtually unknown,
as he found it in the documents contained in the
library of Apellicon. He dealt, it must be remem-
bered, not only with that collection of rolls which had
been buried in the Troad, but also with all the books
which had been got together by a wealthy bibliophilist.
The edition of Andronicus, if it corresponds with ours,
contained a body of Aristotelian science and all Aris-
totle's greatest works; but on the one hand it excluded
his less important writings, and on the other hand it
admitted works which Aristotle certainly never wrote,
though they are full of his ideas. Andronicus may
have doubted as to the authorship of these treatises,
which modern criticism pronounces to be by later Peri-
patetic hands; * or he may have thought that they
represented or explained Aristotle, and might advan-
tageously be preseved as part of his system. However
it came about, we find included within the Aristotelian
canon a treatise.” On the Universe,” neatly epitomizing
his views, but quite later than his time; one “On the
Motion of Animals” of which the same may be said;
two treatises on morals, the “Eudemian Ethics” and the
“Great Ethics,” which are mere paraphrases of the
“Ethics” of Aristotle; a large book of “Problems,”
with their solutions, evidently of mixed authorship; a
set of “Opuscula,” or minor works, which belong to the
class of Peripatetic monographs—e.g. “On Colors,”
.. * One of the doubtful treatises—the “Rhetorie dedicated to
Alexander”—is supposed to be the work of Anaximenes, a wri-
ter contemporary with Aristotle,
ARISTOTLE, - 87
“On Invisible Lines,” “Strange Stories,” “Physiogno-
mics,” etc.; a treatise on “Rhetoric,” quite different in
principle, from that of Aristotle's, and only suggested
to be his by a fictitious dedication to Alexander, which
has been stuck on to it. One or two other suspicious
books might be mentioned, but even if everything were
deducted against which the most skeptical criticism can
make objection, less than one-fourth would be taken away
from the entire mass which is in use to be labeled “Ar-
istotle.” The whole works in Bekker's octavo edition
fill 3786 pages, and out of these the books, about whose
genuineness any question has been raised, occupy only
925 pages. A solid residue remains, which may now be
briefly characterized, merely in regard to its external
form, a few remarks being added as to the chronological
order in which it seems probable that Aristotle com-
posed the various parts.
The remains of Aristotle come before us as a torso
—an incomplete and somewhat mutilated group from
antiquity. Yet they constitute a whole, and the differ-
ent treatises have an organic connection with each other. "
On the one hand, these works constitute an encyclopæ-
dia, for they contain a résumé and reconstruction of the
sciences so far as was possible in the fourth century B.C.
But on the other hand, they are more than an encyclo-
padia, because they are a philosophy, in which the
universe is explained from the point of view and
according to the system of one individual thinker. In
them thought and knowledge are mapped out in broad
and lucid outlines, with the details sometimes very
fully worked in, sometimes barely indicated and left to
be supplied by subsequent workers. The key to their
arrangement is to be sought from Aristotle himself.
From him we learn that science is divided into Practi-

38 THE ELZE VIR LIBRARY.
cal, Constructive, and Theoretical. Practical science
deals with man and human action, and this branch is
copiously developed by Aristotle in his “Ethics” and
“Politics.” Constructive science treats of art and the
laws by which it is to be governed. Towards this
branch Aristotle has made but a brief, though valuable,
contribution, in his unfinished or mutilated treatise
“On Poetry.” Theoretical science has three great sub-
divisions, Physics, Mathematics, and Theology, other-
wise called First Philosophy or Metaphysics. For the
section of Mathematics nothing appears done in these
remains. Aristotle speaks often of Mathematics as a
great and interesting science, capable of affording high
mental delight; but he seems to have regarded it as
something tolerably finished and settled in his own
time, and therefore less requiring his attention than
other departments. Had his life been prolonged to
the age attained by Plato or Alexander von Humboldt,
he might possibly have undertaken the setting forth of
the philosophy of Mathematics. Physics, on the other
hand—that is to say, the Physical and Natural Sciences
—occupy 1447 pages, or fully one half, of the writings
which are undoubtedly Aristotle’s. In his physical
treatises one mind may be seen grappling, at first hand,
with the provinces of almost all the different “Sec-
tions” of the British Association. Natural Philosophy,
Astronomy, Physiology, and Natural History are all
marvelously founded in these treatisºs, by masterly
analysis and classification of existing knowledge on the
different subjects, and by the arrangement of facts, or
supposed facts, under leading scientific ideas. Twelve
books on Metaphysics occupy about one tenth of the
genuine remains of Aristotle. These books are obvi-
ously patched together out of the fragments of two or
ARISTOTLE 39
three unfinished treatises. How far this was done by
the earlier Peripatetics, and how far by Andronicus,
we cannot tell. But we here possess probably some of
Aristotle's latest thoughts. And the name “Meta-
physics,” or “the things which follow after “Physics,”
was given to these books when they were put together,
after Aristotle's death, to indicate both chronological se-
quence in the Order of composition, and also that the sub-
ject treated of lay beyond and above all physical inquiry.
In briefly grouping out the works of Aristotle, we
have hitherto omitted to mention a class of writings,
very important, and amounting to one seventh of the
whole mass, and yet which do not belong to either
Practical, Constructive, or Theoretic science,—which
are not part of Philosophy, but treat of the method of
thought and the laws of reasoning, and which thus
constitute the instrument or “organ” of Philosophy—
that is to say, the logical writings, which were collect-
ively named by the Peripatetic school “the Organon”
or instrument. These books stand first in modern
editions of Aristotle, and, speaking generally, they ap.
pear to have been written first of all his extant works.
The chronological sequence of composition among
Aristotle's treatises is determined by critics, conjectu-
rally and approximately, entirely on internal evidence.
There are frequent references from one treatise to
another, but these cannot always be relied on. Often
they are mere interpolations, not having been made by
the original writer, but stuck in by the meddlesomeness
of some editor or copyist; in other cases they are
genuine, and indicate truly the order of composition.
Another piece of evidence, more strictly internal and
more to be depended on, is the greater or less develop-
ment of doctrine contained in the different works

40 THE ELZE VIR LIBRARY,
respectively. Aristotle in the earlier, and still more in
the second period of his life, had doubtless made great
preparation for the writing of all his great works,
Still, as he successively took up each subject and
concentrated his attention upon it, he did not fail to
develop and push further his previous thought upon
it. Thus, for instance, the “Rhetoric” is full of ethical
remarks and ethical doctrine, but when we come to
read the “Ethics” we find the same ethical questions
repeated and treated with far greater depth and pre-
cision; and we may reasonably conclude that the
“Ethics” was the later-written treatise of the two.
Following out indications of this kind, we arrive at
the conclusion that Aristotle first took in hand the
science of method, and that, of all his extant works,
the “Topics” (or Logic of Probability), were first
written, all but the eighth book; next the “Analytics”
(or Logic of Demonstration); next the eighth book of
the “Topics;” next Books I. and II. of the “Rhetoric"
(which has to do with the setting forth of truth); and
then the “Sophistical Refutations” (or treatise on Fal-
lacies), which belongs to logic, yet still has a connection
with the art of rhetoric. After thus far treating of the
method of knowledge and expression, Aristotle appears
to have gone on to treat of the matter of knowledge,
and to have commenced with the practical sciences.
First he wrote his “Ethics,” though these were not quite
finished, and afterwards his “Politics,” and then he was
led on to take up constructive science, and to write his
small work “On Poetry,” after which he reverted to
his “Rhetoric,” which was a cognate subject, and added
a third book to that treatise. He now proceeded, though
- leaving much that was unfinished behind him, to the
composition of his great series of physical treatises. The
ARISTOTLE, 41
first of these to be written was probably the “Physi-
cal Discourse,” which unfolded the general notions of
natural philosophy, and gave an account of what Aris-
totle conceived under the terms “ Nature,” “Motion,”
“Time,” “Space,” “Causation,” and the like. After
these prolegomena to physics, he went on to treat of
the universe in orderly Sequence, beginning with the
divinest part, the circumference of the whole, or outer
heaven, which, according to his views, bounded the
world, being composed of ether, a substance distinct
from that of the four elements. This region was the
sphere of the stars; and below it, in the Aristotelian
system, was the planetary sphere, with the seven planets
(the Sun and moon being reckoned among the number)
moving in it. Both stars and planets he seems to have
regarded as conscious, happy beings, moving in fixed
orbits, and inhabiting regions free from all change and
chance; and these regions formed the subject of his
treatise “On the Heavens.” Next to this he is thought
to have composed his work “On Generation and Cor-
ruption,” in order to expound those principles of physi-
cal change (dependent on the hot, the cold, the wet,
and the dry), which in the higher parts of the universe
had no existence. This treatise formed the transition
to the sublunary sphere, immediately round the earth,
in which the meteors and comets moved, and which was
characterized by incessant change, and by the passing "
of things into and out of existence, and which became
the subject of his next treatise—the “Meteorologics.”
The last book of this work brings us down to the earth
itself, and indeed beneath its surface, for it discusses,
in a curious theory, the formation of rocks and metals.
From this point Aristotle would seem to have started
afresh with his array of physiological treatises, the first

42 THE EIZEVIR LIBRARY,
written of which may very likely have been that “On
the Parts of Animals,” as containing general principles of
anatomy and physiology. Next it seems probable that
the work “On the Soul” was produced, which was a
playsiological account of the vital principle as manifested
in plants, animals, and men. A set of Appendices, as
we should now call them, on various functions con-
nected with life in general, such as sensation, memory,
sleep, dreaming, longevity, death, etc., were added by
Aristotle to his work “On the Soul.” Afterwards, the
ten books of “Researches on Animals,” and the five
books “On the Generation of Animals,” together with
the minor treatise ‘‘ On the Progression of Animals,”
and with a collection of “Problems” which Aristotle
probably kept by him, and added to from time to time,
made up the series of his physical and physiological
writings, so far as he lived to complete them. Treatises
“On the Physiology of Plants,” and “On Health and
Disease,” had been promised by him, but were never
achieved. Simultaneously with some of the works now
mentioned, but in idea last of his writings, and intended
to be the crown of them all, the “Metaphysics” were
probably in course of composition when the death of
Aristotle occurred. - -
It has been generally fancied that Aristotle was a
very voluminous writer, and Diogenes Laertius, in
transcribing the “Alexandrian Catalogue,” remarks of
him that “he wrote exceedingly many books.” We,
however, have no reason for joining in this opinion.
His genuine works that have come down to us, fill
altogether less than 3000 pages, and this amount in
mere point of quantity is not anything unusual or sur-
prising. Even if these works were composed, as we
suppose them for the most oart to have been, during
... . . .


ARISTOTLE 48.
the last thirteen years of his life, still, so far as quantity
alone is concerned, that does not imply more than the
exercise of a persistent industry. Many another man
besides Aristotle has written as much as 200 pages a
year for thirteen years successively. Nor is it necessary
to credit Aristotle with any great bulk of writings be-
yond what we possess, The writings of his early life,
the dialogues, sketches, memoranda, and first efforts of
his plailosophic pen, which got to Alexandria, need not
be highly estimated, even as to mass. They were
probably eked out, as we have seen, by Peripatetic
imitators, and were thus made to assume larger pro-
portions. One important piece of Aristotle's labor has
perished, namely, his “Collection of the Constitutions
of Greek Cities.” This would have been of the utmost
interest as contributing to our knowledge of ancient
history; but it was merely a compilation of facts, and
probably would not have filled more than 400 or 500
pages. On the whole, it is not for voluminousness that
Aristotle is to be wondered at. The marvel begins
when we come to contemplate the solid and compressed
contents of his writings, their vast and various scope,
and the amount of original thought given through
them to the world. It would have been enough for
any one man's lasting reputation to have created the
science of Logic, as Aristotle did; but in addition to
this he wrote as a specialist, a discoverer, and an organ.
izer, on at least a dozen other of the greatest subjects,
and on each of them he was for many centuries acceptéd
as the one authority. Such a position it is of course
impossible for any modern to attain, but it was given - : ;
to the powerful mind of Aristotle to attain it, owing to
the peculiar circumstances of his epoch, and to the
course of succeeding history. -

44 THE ELZE VIR LIBRARY,
CHAPTER III.
THE “oRGANON” of ARISTOTLE,
“ORGANoN,” or “the instrument,” was, as we have
said, the name given by Aristotle's ancient editors ſo
his collective works on Logic. And from this of course
Bacon took the title of “Novum Organum,” or “tle
new instrument,” for his own work, in which the prin-
ciples and method of modern science were to be devel-
oped. We find the “Organon” of Aristotle, as it stands
in our editions, to consist of six treatises, respectively
entitled “Categories,” “On Interpretation,” First Series
of Analytics,” “Second Series of Analytics,” “Topics,”
and “Fallacies.” The two first of these are quite short,
both together filling less than 60 pages, but they have
been more read and commented on, especially in the
middle ages, than all the rest of Aristotle put together.
Thousands of scholars, who considered themselves
stanch Aristotelians, and as such fought the battle of
Nominalism against the Platonists, knew not a word of
Aristotle beyond these two treatises. And yet, unfor-
tunately, it is open to considerable doubt whether either
of the two was actually written by Aristotle himself.
During the first periods of his life, Aristotle had
gradually forged the chief doctrines of his philosophy,
and a peculiar set of terms in which they were em-
bodied. When he came to write continuously, in his
third period, he often assumed these doctrines and
terms as already known, having doubtless given them
considerable publicity in oral discourse, if not in essays
and short treatises which have now been lost. And
thus it frequently happens that we meet with terms
and doctrines the meaning of which has to be gathered

ARISTOTLE 45
by implication, as it is never explicitly stated. This is
the case with Aristotle's celebrated doctrine of “the
Categories,” to which he repeatedly refers, without ever
telling us clearly what position in his system it is meant
to hold. Perhaps the simplest account of this doctrine
is to say that it sprang from an analysis and classi-
fication, made by Aristotle, of the things which men
speak of. “Category,” in Greek, meant “speaking
of ” something. Now, when we speak of anything, we
shall find (so Aristotle implies) that we are either
speaking of “a substance”—as, for instance, of a parti-
cular man; or else that we are asserting something to
be the case about something else. And what we can
assert about anything else must be either (1) Some
“quality” it possesses; (2) its “quantity;” (3) Some
“relation” in which it stands; (4) the ‘‘place” of its
existence; (5) the “time” of its existence; (6) its
“action,” or what it does; (7) its “passion,” or what
is done to it; (8) its “attitude;” or (9) its “habit” or
dress. “Substance” and the above nine modes of
speaking of it make up the list of the Ten Categories, as
enumerated by Aristotle in his “Topics” (I. 9), and also
in the little treatise which professes to treat especially
of this subject. -
A complete classification of the things which we can
speak of must include everything that we can think of,
and therefore all the world. But the “Ten Categories”
of Aristotle cannot fail to strike us as a curious sum-
mary of all things in heaven and earth. Attitude and
Habit, or Dress, the 9th and 10th “Categories,” are
so exclusively human that we are surprised to find
them introduced among genera of far wider application.
Some critics say that the list is both redundant in one
way and deficient in another. They say that it is
#

46 THE EI2E WIR LIBRARY.
redundant because the whole thing might be cut down
to two heads—Substance and Relation; and deficient
because to none of the “Categories” could mental states
and feelings be appropriately assigned. However, Aris.
totle might perhaps have said that they came under
Quality, Action, or Passion, as the case might be. In
other parts of his works he gives enumerations of the
“Categories,” naming 8, 6, or 4, instead of 10. In one
place (“Met.” WI. iv.) he names the first five “Catego-
ries,” with “Motion” added as a sixth. This last would
certainly, according to his view, include the various
operations of the mind. On the whole, Aristotle does
not appear to have laid much stress on his table of
“Categories” as containing an exhaustive division of all
things. Probably at first this table was the result of a
study in language, made at a time when logical and
even grammatical distinctions were in their infancy.
Aristotle took the idea of a particular man—say Callias
—and called this “Substance,” and then tried how many
different kinds of assertions could be made about him;
and when he had reduced these to 9, he was perhaps
pleased, because “Substance,” and the 9 kinds of asser.
tion made about it, made up 10 “Categories,” and 10
is a perfect number. He afterwards dropped this par-
ticular number, and the “Categories” which had been
brought in at the end of the list to eke it out. He
seems always to have thought a classification of the ways
in which we speak of things to be useful for obtain-
ing clear notions. But he was far too sensible to apply ,
his original table of “Ten Categories” as a Procrustean
bed for measuring everything in the universe. At the
same time it must be confessed that it has been preva-
lently thought that he did so. Thus Bacon contempt.
uously accused him of “constructing the world out of
*
ARISTOTLE, 47
his ‘Categories.’” But this arose very much from the
fact that the first book of the “Organon” was read out
of all proportion more than Aristotle's great philosoph-
ical treatises, and so it came about that the Aristotelian
Schoolmen attached an exaggerated importance to the
table of which it treats, and their sins have been im-
puted to the Stagirite himself.
The little book before us, which has exercised so
much influence, might be described as a logical mono.
graph on the characteristics of some of the “Catego-
ries.” After naming the ten, without any account of
the manner in which they are arrived at, it discusses to a
certain extent the first four only. Then some chapters
are appended, which may or may not have been origi-
nally a separate paper, on the different ways in which
things are called “opposite,” etc. There are two or
three hypotheses possible about the book entitled
“Categories.” Either it was an early essay written by
Aristotle himself, and preserved among his MSS.; or
it consists of notes from his school, made by some
scholar during his lifetime; or else it is the work of
Some Peripatetic, drawn up after his death, when the
making of such tracts had become a fashion. Style is
not a sufficient guide in such a question, because the
Peripatetics closely imitated the manner of their master.
The chief reason for thinking that this book cannot
have been his is on account of the extreme nominalism
of its doctrine. Aristotle in the “Metaphysics” (WI.
vii. 4) asserts that the universal is the “first substance,”
while the individual has a secondary and derivative ex-
istence; but it is asserted in the “Categories” that the
individual is the first substance, and that if individuals
were swept away universals would cease to exist. Ar.
istotle may have said this in the early days of his antag.


48 THE EIZEVIR LIBRARY,
onism against Plato; if so, he seems to have reverted
in maturer life to something nearer approaching, though
distinguishable from, Plato's view. There are, how-
ever, unphilosophical and un-Aristotelian things in the
book—as, for instance, the saying (“Cat.” vii. 21) that
“if knowledge ceased to exist, the thing known might
still remain.” All this looks like the work of a clever
but somewhat materialistic follower of the Peripatetic
School.
The book which we find standing second in the
“Organon” is the little treatise “On Interpretation,”
or, as it might be called, “On Language as the Inter-
preter of Thought.” Its subject is that which in Logic
is called the “proposition”—that is to say, it treats of
sentences which affirm or deny something. Modern
Logic is divided into three parts, treating respectively
of terms, propositions, and syllogisms; and it might for
a moment be supposed that the three works, “Catego-
ries,” “On Interpretation,” and “Analytics,” corre-
spond to these three divisions. But this is only superfl-
cially the case; for the “Categories” does not treat
generally of simple terms, it only touches on some
characteristics of the names of Substances, Qualities,
Quantities, and Relations. And the book “On Inter-
pretation” is not a prelude to the “Analytics;” it is a
separate logical monograph on some of the character-
istics of propositions, containing, at the same time,
some remarks on words, as fit or unfit to become terms
—on indefinite words, “syn-categorematic” words,
etc. The great merit of this little treatise is undeniable,
especially when considered as containing matter which
though now long accepted and perfectly trite, was in a
great measure new in the time of Aristotle, and which
served towards the clearing up of many a confusion.


ARISTOTLE. *. 49
All those clear statements about the nature of the prop-
osition; on what is meant by “contrariety” and “con-
tradiction;” on “modal propositions,” or propositions
in which the amount of certainty is expressed by the
words “necessarily” or “probably;” and other points
which the reader will find in the second part of Whate-
ly’s “Logic,” are taken almost verbatim from this
treatise. There is one point of which Whately was
especially fond—namely, that “truth” is the attribute of
a proposition or assertion and of nothing else, except in
a metaphorical way. This comes from the work before
us, where it is laid down as the first characteristic of a
proposition that it must be either true or false. A dis-
tinction, however, is here drawn, for propositions ad-
mit the idea of time. Now, it is the case with regard
to propositions of past and present time—for instance,
“it is raining,” or “it rained yesterday”—that they
must either be true or false; but with regard to future
propositions this is not the case; for suppose we say
“there will be a battle to-morrow between the Turks
and Servians”—this may be probable or improbable,
but it is neither true nor false. Obviously, there is no
existing fact with which to compare such propositions,
and thus to pronounce on their truth or falsehood. But
it is argued here that if future propositions, or prophe-
cies, could be pronounced to be certainly true, it would
do away with human agency and free-will. This may
seem hardly worth enunciating, but it was new at the
time.when this book was written. - -
The writer, in considering “modal propositions,”
which assert things as necessary, probable, or possible,
introduces some discussion on “possibility,” and men-
tions three heads of the possible. Ordinarily, things in
this world are first possible, and then become realized,

50 THE FILZEVIR LIBRARY.
or actual; but there is another class of things which are
always actual, and the possibility in them is only latent
or implied—such are the “first substances” which have
existed from all eternity; and thirdly, there is a class
of things which always seem possible, and yet can
never be realized—for instance, the greatest number or
the least quantity, which, while we speak of them, no
one can ever say that he has reached. In this passage
we find ourselves rather in the region of Metaphysics
than of Logic, and it is remarkable that here the phrase
“first substances” is used, not, as in the “Categories,”
to denote ordinary individual existences on the earth,
but as a term to denote the eternal, primeval substances
which have never not been, such as, in Aristotle's view,
were the stars, and sun, and planets.
The treatise “On Interpretation” was evidently not
written at the same time with the “Categories,” or is by
a different author, and on a different plane of thought.
It is more philosophical and more Aristotelian ; it quotes
both the “Analytics” and the work “On the Soul,” and
therefore cannot be an early production of the Stagi-
fite's. There is a tradition that Andronicus of Rhodes
held that this treatise was not written by Aristotle at
all, while Ammonius, a great commentator, argued in
favor of its genuineness. Their arguments, which have
been preserved, do not seem conclusive one way or the
other. Perhaps the only reason against considering
this to have been the writing of Aristotle himself is,
that while it obviously is as late as the period of his
great treatises, it is not in the manner of those treatises.
On the whole, it seems safest to conclude that this little
book must consist of the notes of Aristotle's oral teaching
upon the elementary bases of Logic, faithfully recording
his ideas, and often the very words which he had used
Y- *3. ‘s “ . . . .

ARISTOTLE, 51
We may set aside, then, the “Categories” and the
“Interpretation” as of doubtful origin, and as at all
events not having been originally intended for the
place which they have so long held in the forefront of
the writings of Aristotle. We turn to that which was,
so far as we know, in reality the opening treatise of
the Aristotelian Encyclopædia—namely, the “Topics;”
and there is some peculiarity to be remarked in the
very fact that the subject with which it deals should
have heen the first to be taken in hand. We know that
Aristotle founded, and all but completed, the science of
Logic; but we are apt to forget that, when he began to
write, the very idea that there was, or could be, such a
science had never come into anybody’s head. What
philosophers then knew about, and practiced, and for-
mulated, was not Logic, or the science of the laws of
reasoning, but Dialectic, or the art of discussion. This
art was by no means confined to philosophers, but it.
was the fashion of the day, and was widely and con-
stantly in use in Athenian society, as an intellectual
game or fencing-match. The dialogues of Plato give us
dramatic specimens of the encounter of wits which might
be seen exhibited in numerous Athenian circles from
the middle of the fifth century B.C. down to the time
of Aristotle. That restless and intellectual people who,
three and a half centuries later, were described as
“spending their time in nothing else but either to tellor
to hear some new thing,” were at an earlier period pos.
sessed by an insatiate appetite for discussion and con-
troversy, whether with a view to truth or to mere vic.
tory over an opponent. Dialectic then, as an art, was
thoroughly recognized, and all but universally prac- .
ticed, yet still the fundamental principles on which it
must rest had never yet been properly drawn out, and

52 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
Aristotle seems to have felt it to be the first task for
one who would build up the entire fabric of knowledge,
to lay down the laws of Dialectic as the art and science
of method. “Dialectic,” he says, “is useful for three
things: for exercise of the mind, for converse with
other men, and for knowing how to question and handle
the principles of philosophy.” And the object of his
“Topics” is, as he tells us, “to discover a method by
which we shall be able to reason from probabilities on
any given question, and to defend a position without
being driven to contradict our own assertions.”
Properly speaking, Dialectic, as defined by Aristotle,
ought not to come first in the order of sciences, for it
is a kind of applied reasoning ; it is reasoning applied
to that which is not certain, but only probable. There-
fore the general principles of reasoning should be drawn
out first, and then these should be shown in application
to the certainties of Science, after which a subordinate
branch might be added on reasoning upon probabilities.
Aristotle, however, as we have said, did not set out
with the conception of Logic, or the science of reason-
ing, as existing by itself. This only gradually dawned
upon him, and it was out of his researches in Dialectic
that he was led to develop the idea of Logic. It was
in thinking out the rules of Dialectic that Aristotle dis.
covered the principles of the Syllogism, and he was
justly proud of the discovery. There are only two
passages in all his extant writings in which he speaks of
himself: one is that in which he apologizes for differing
from Plato, “because truth must be preferred to one's
friend;” the other is the passage at the end of the
“Fallacies” (which is a sort of appendix to the
“Topics”), where he refers to his services to Dialectic.
“In regard to the process of syllogizing,” he says, “I
ARISTOTLE tº , 53
found positively nothing said before me: I had to
work it out for myself by long and laborious research.”
The discovery of the structure of the syllogism—that is
to say, of the forms in which men do, and must, reason
about a great many things in life, was of course very
useful for dialectical purposes, both for exposing fal-
lacy in others and for keeping one's self straight in con-
troversy. But Aristotle, while in the course of writing
his treatise on Dialectic, seems to have been impressed
with the independent importance of the theory of the
Syllogism, and of the necessity for a simple, unapplied
Logic. So, after completing seven books of his
“Topics,” he dropped the subject, and went on to
write his first and second series of “Analytics;” and it
was only after he had finished these two great works
that he returned to compiete the “Topics,” by the ad-
dition of an eighth book.
The “Topics,” as their name implies, are the books
“treating of places,” and “places” are seats of argu-
ments, or matters in which arguments may be found.
Aristotle in a long course of observation and analysis
had apparently noted down the heads of reasonings
most likely to be available for either attack or defence
in dialectical controversy, and he here sets these forth
in seven books. His object is to educate the reader to
be a skillful dialectician in Athenian arenas. He names
the four chief instruments for this purpose: 1st, To
make a large collection of propositions—i.e., authorita-
tive sayings, whether of great men or of the many; 2d,
To study the different senses in which terms are used;
3d, To detect differences; 4th, To note resemblances.
The last three out of these four suggestions are ex-
panded at great length, and Aristotle tells us how to
- use various logical distinctions, here brought forward

54 • THE EIZE VIR LIBRARY,
for the first time, in pulling to pieces the arguments of
an opponent—for instance, how to use the heads of pred-
icables (genus, differentia, proprium, and accidens), or
the categories, or the several kinds of logical opposition,
for this purpose. The first seven books of the “Topics”
scarcely touch at all upon dialectical method, they are
quite taken up with a wearisome and seemingly endless
list of heads of argumentation, The eighth book, writ-
ten later, adds some counsel upon the arrangement and
marshalling of your arguments, whether you be the re-
spondent defending a thesis, or the interrogator who
attacks it. Some of these pieces of advice might be
characterized as “dodges;” for instance, when we are
told how to conceal from our adversary what we want
to prove, till we have got him to admit something which
would really imply the point we are aiming at. In
Dialectic, as in love and war, almost everything was
fair. And yet Aristotle concludes his treatise by say-
ing, “You must, however, take care not to carry on
this exercise with every one, especially with a vulgar-
minded man. With some persons the dispute cannot
fail to take a discreditable turn. When the respondent
tries to make a show of escaping by unworthy maneu-
vers, the questioner on his part must be unscrupulous
also in syllogizing; but this is a disgraceful scene. To
keep clear of such abusive discourse, you must be cau-
tious not to discourse with commonplace, unprepared
respondents.” - -
Athenian Dialectic has passed away, though it had a
faint and clumsy revival in the “Disputations” of the
middle ages. Even as a preparation for ordinary con-
troversy and debate, it is questionable whether a study
of Aristotle's “Topics” would nowadays be found use-
ful, except so far as the logical distinctions which it

ARISTOTLE - - 55
contains might sharpen the intellect. But this latter
result might equally well be attained by studying the
ordinary logics into which all those distinctions have
been transplanted. The “Topics,” at the time when it
was written, was a work of original penetration, and of
vast accumulative labor. Aristotle perhaps ought to
have foreseen that it would not be worth his while to
reduce Athenian Dialectic to a methodized system, but
he did not; and much of what he accumulated for one
purpose, came to have great value for another. The
chief merit of the “Topics” of Aristotle is, that while
intended to be the permanent regulator of Dialectic, it
became in reality the cradle of Logic.
Aristotle himself did not use the word “Logic,”
which was probably invented afterwards by the Stoics;
he spoke of “Analytic,” by which he meant the science
of analyzing the forms of reasoning. We come now to
his “Prior and Posterior” (or First and Second Series
of) “Analytics.” In these works he has produced moth-
ing temporary, or of merely antiquarian interest, but an
addition to human knowledge as complete in itself, as
permanent, and as irrefragable, as the Geometry of
Euclid. It is true that Aristotle did not cover and ex-
haust the entire field in reasoning, just as Euclid did
not exhaust the theory of all the properties of space.
But so far as he went Aristotle was perfect. His work
took its origin out of the examination of dialectical con-
troversies, which, at the time when he wrote, much
predominated over all that we should think worthy of
the name of physical science, and therefore his aim was
limited to the analysis of deductive reasonings. But
men still reason deductively, and will always do so;
during a great part of life we are employed, not in find-
ing out new laws of nature, but in applying what we
3 x * * 2 r
- 2.
* ‘; 3. 5 ° . . .”
:
* } * * , )
3 * -} *2 = . .
56 The EEZE VIR LIBRARY,
knew before, in appealing to general beliefs, or sup-
posed classes of facts, and in drawing our positive or
negative conclusions accordingly. To all this process,
whenever it occurs, the “Analytics” of Aristotle are as
applicable as the principles of Geometry are to every
fresh mensuration.
Aristotle invented the word “Syllogism,” for the pro-
cess of putting two assertions together and out of them
deducing a third. This word indeed existed before in
Greek literature, but in a general sense, meaning “com-
putation,” “reckoning” or “consideration.” But Aris-
totle stamped it with the technical meaning which it
has ever since borne. In introducing the word, how-
ever, it must not be supposed that he introduced, or
invented, the process of reasoning to which he applied
it, or that he ever pretended to do so. Yet he has been
ridiculed, as if this had been the case—as for instance
by Locke, who says that it would be strange if God
had made men two-legged, and left it to Aristotle to
make them rational! The grammarian who first dis-
tinguished nouns from verbs and gave them their names,
did not invent nouns and verbs, but only called atten-
tion to their existence in language; and he who first
made rules of syntax was only recording the ways in
which men naturally speak and write, not making in-
novations in language; and so Aristotle with his “Syl-
logism” only clearly pointed out a process which had
always, though unconsciously, been carried on. There
is no doubt that, ever since they have possessed reason
at all, men have made syllogisms, though, like M. Jour-
dain making prose, they have for the most part been
unaware of it. - -
The “First Series of Analytics” is entirely devoted
to the theory of the Syllogism, with a few collateral dis-
. . ; * * g.
. . . .
. . …
s r = -

ARISTOTLE - 57
cussions. It has no connection with the treatise “On
Interpretation,” from which, in phraseology and some
points of doctrine, it differs. It is a work which must
excite our wonder if we consider the serried mass of ob.
servations which it contains, and the absolutely com-
piete way in which it constructs a science and provides
for it an appropriate nomenclature. Though countless
generations of commentators and schoolmen have been
busy with the “Analytics,” and many modern plºiloso-
phers have independently treated of Logic, none of
them have been able to add a single point of any im-
portance to Aristotle's theory of deductive reasoning.
The “Analytics” are of course not light reading. The
style is severely scientific, and concisely expository; not
a single grace of ornament, not a superfluous word, is
admitted. As Aristotle introduced into these treatises
a copious use of the letters A, B, C, to denote the three
terms of the syllogism, many parts read like Euclid
with the diagrams omitted. It is not necessary to at-
tempt any further description of the contents, or to give
here an account of the figures and moods of syllogisms,
of conversion of propositions, reduction of syllogisms
to the first figure, and the rest, because all these things
have found their way into modern compendiums. Are
they not written in Aldrich, and Mansel, and Whately,
many other books? - -
Yet there is one passage of the “Prior Analytics”
which we must quote in bare justice to Aristotle.
Owing to the too exclusive study of his logical works
in the middle ages, and owing to modern writers iden-
tifying him with the absurdities of his followers, an
idea arose that he, like the least judicious of the school-
men, thought that all reasoning should be through syl-
logisms, that nature could be expounded by means of
tº t
T * } ... I - -,
* 5 × 5
- - - * : * : , ,
...: - 1 - .
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5s. THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
syllogisms, and that syllogisms were a source of knowl-
edge. Hence came protests like that of Bacon, that
“the syllogism is unequal to the subtlety of nature.”
But nothing could be further from the truth than the
whole idea. The reader may be assured that on a point
of this kind Aristotle was as sensible as Tord Bacon or
John Stuart Mill. After showing that syllogisms are
constantly used, and after analyzing their form, and
showing on what their validity depends, he proceeds to
make some remarks on the way in which the major
premise, or general statement in the syllogism, is to be
obtained. He says (“Prior Anal.” I. xxx.): “There is
the same course to be pursued in philosophy, and in
every science or branch of knowledge. You must study
facts. Experience alone can give you general princi-
ples on any subject. This is the case in astronomy,
which is based on the observation of astronomical
phenomena; and it is the case with every branch of
science or art. When the facts in each branch are
brought together, it will be the province of the logician
to set out the demonstrations in a manner clear and fit
for use. When the investigation into nature is com-
plete, you will be able in some cases to exhibit a demon-
stration; in other cases you will have to say that demon.
stration is not attainable.” Bacon knew very little
Aristotle at first hand; and he cannot have known this
passage, else its overwhelming good sense must have
stopped many of his remarks. And Aristotle in prac-
tice was quite true to the principles here announced.
In his “Ethics,” “Politics,” and “Physics,” he does
not pedantically drag in the syllogism, but masses facts
together, and makes penetrating remarks upon them,
and discusses freely, by means of analogy, comparison,




ARISTOTLE. 59
and intuition, very much as the ablest writers of the
present day would do. -
At the same time it must be admitted that, after fully
explaining the deductive process, he left the theory of
the inductive process, by which general laws are ascer-
tained, almost entirely unexplored. He briefly observes
(“Prior Anal.” II. xxiii.) that “induction, or the syl-
logism that arises from it, consists in proving the major
term of the middle by means of the minor.” In other
words, suppose that we are proving that animals with-
out a gall are long-lived, we do so through our knowl-
edge that man, the horse, and the mule have no gall.
Now, in a natural deductive syllogism, we should say—
All animals without a gall are long-lived;
Man, the horse, and the mule, have no gall;
Therefore they are long-lived.
“Long-lived ” is here the major term; but in the induc-
tive process We prove it of the middle term, “animals
without a gall,” by means of the minor term, “man,
the horse, and the mule.” So we require to state the
inductive syllogism thus:
Man, the horse, and the mule are long-lived;
Man, the borse, and the mule are animals without a gall;
Therefore (all) animals without a gall are long-lived,
Aristotle adds that, for the validity of this reasoning,
you require to have an intuition in your reason that
“man, the horse, and the mule” are, or adequately
represent, the whole class of animals without a gall.
This is, in fact, the crucial question in the inductive
process—Do the instances you have got adequately
represent the whole class of similar instances, so as to
give you the key to a law of nature? For instance, if
it is found that in two or three cases a particular treat- -

60 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
ment cures the cholera, how can you tell whether the
induction is adequate, and that you are justified in as-
Serting, as a general principle, that “such and such a
treatment cures the cholera”? Modern logic tells us
that a statement of the kind requires verification; and
modern writers, such as Bacon, Whewell, and Mill, are
at great pains to point out the best methods of verifica-
tion—which after all consist in observing and experi-
menting further; in eliminating all accidental circum-
stances; in recording, and, if possible, accounting for,
the facts which go against your principle; and, finally,
in either rejecting it as unproven, or bringing it out as
completely established after passing through the ordeal
of thorough examination. But the minute and cautious
methods of experiment and observation which have
gradually come into use among scientific men in modern
times were unknown in the days of Aristotle; so it is
not to be wondered at that, having so much else to
think of, he did not enter upon this field of inquiry.
He tells us repeatedly that we must draw our general
principles from familiarity with particular facts; but
instead of suggesting methods of verification for the
validity of those principles, he merely says that they
must have the sanction of our reason. It seems to
have been his idea that, after gathering facts up to
a certain point, a flash of intuition would supervene,
telling us, “This is a law.” Such, no doubt, has often
been the case, as in Newton's famous discovery of the
law of gravitation from seeing an apple fall. Yet still,
in the ordinary course of science, verification ought al-
ways to be at band. And Aristotle, in omitting to pro-
vide for this, left a blank in his theory of the acquire.
ment of knowledge. - , -
Aristotle, like Plato, drew a strong line of demarka-

ARISTOTLE 61.
tion between matters in which you can have, and those
in which you cannot have, certainty; in other words,
between the region of opinion and the region of science.
Syllogistic reasoning is applicable both to certainties
and probabilities, and as such it had been formally
drawn out in the “First Analytics.” Its application
by means of Dialectic to matters of opinion had been
set forth (in anticipation of the natural order of treat-
ment) in the “Topics;” and now Aristotle proceeded in
his “Second Series of Analytics” to write the logic of
science, and to exhibit the syllogism as the organ of
demonstration. - -
The attitude of Science is of course different from
that of Dialectic. In Dialectic two disputamits are re-
quired, one of whom is to maintain a thesis, while the
other by questioning is to endeavor to draw from him
some admission which shall be repugnant to that thesis.
In Science, on the other hand, we are not to suppose
two disputants, but a teacher and a learner. Thus the
“Second Analytics” begin with the words—“All
teacling and all intellectual learning arises out of previ-
ously existing knowledge.” This points at once to a
cliaracteristic of Aristotle’s view of Science. In modern
times we associate Science most commonly with the
idea of the inductive accumulation of knowledge; and
thus we talk of “scientific inquiry;” but Aristotle
thinks of Science as deductive and expository, and iden-
tifies it with “teaching.” If we look at the specimens
of scientific reasoning which he gives us in this book,
we shall find that a large proportion of them are taken
from Geometry. Next to this, the science most fre
quently appealed to is Astronomy. But he also men.
tions Arithmetic, Optics, Mechanics, Stereometry, Har.
monics, and Medicine. Sometimes he refers to ques

62. THE ELZE VIR LIBRARY.
tions of Natural History, and at other times to questions
of Botany. He even applies his scientific method to
Ethics, and shows how we are to obtain a definition of
the virtue of magnanimity, by observing the leading
characteristics of those who are called magnanimous,
The Sciences are not classified here, but a comparative
Scale of perfection among them is indicated; and those
are generally laid down to be the most perfect Sciences
which are the most elementary and abstract. But
with all this leaning towards an ideal of pure and ab-
stract Science, it is remarkable how much the Sciences
of Observation are considered in this book, and what
an enlightened and modorn atmosphere breathes through
many parts of it. - -
In developing his idea of Science, Aristotle takes oc-
casion to controvert several opinions which had found
vogue in his day. One of these was that everything in
Science could be proved. Some men had a notion that
you could go back ad infinitum in proving the princi-
ciples from which your science was deduced: “This
principle was true because of that, and that because of
something else, and so on forever.” Others fancied
that by a kind of circular reasoning the propositions of
Science might all be made to prove each other. “No,”
says Aristotle, “Science must commence from some-
thing that is not proved at all.” Science must start
from im-mediate principles—i.e., principles that cannot
be established by any middle term, or, in other words,
by any syllogistic reasoning. The axioms of Euclid
may give us a specimen of such principles, but, accord-
ing to Aristotle, each science had its own “primary
universal, and immediate principles;” these principles,
we are distinctly told, are not innate, but the source of
them is the Nous or Reason, which (as we have seen)

ARISTOTLE, 63
attains them intuitively, when sufficiently advised, so to
speak, by a course of inductive observation. Again,
Aristotle brings out here his opposition to Plato's theory
of Ideas: he says, that it is not necessary for Science
that the Ideas of things should have a separate exist-
ence, but only that universal ideas, or genera, should be
capable of being predicated of many individuals. This
view seems to correspond with what, in modern times,
has been called Conceptualism, and which is a compro-
mise between Nominalism and Realism.
These, however, are metaphysical distinctions. An-
other point more closely belonging to the Logic of Sci-
ence is brought out against Plato—namely, the separate-
mess of the Sciences, which follows from each Science
having its own appropriate principles, Plato con-
ceived, or appeared to do so, that from the principles
of Philosophy (i.e., Metaphysics) right doctrines of
Ethics and Politics could be deduced. Hence he said,
“It will never be well with the State till the kings are
philosophers, or the philosophers kings.” Aristotle, on
the other hand, considered the speculative conception
of the good, as entertained by a metaphysician, to be
quite distinct from the practical conception of the good
which occupies the statesman or the moralist. In many
ways this demarkation by Aristotle of the separate
spheres of different Sciences gave rise to great clearness
of view. - . - -
The Logic of Science deals, as might be expected,
with the method of defining things—that is, of saying
what they are. But we do not here find the scholastic
idea of definition, per genus et differentiam, by stating
the class to which a thing belongs, and the character.
istic which separates it from the rest of that class.
Aristotle takes the more real and thorough position
64 THE EIZEVIR LIBRARY
- - - - --.
that, to define a thing adequately, you must state its
cause. “Science itself,” he says, “is knowledge of a
cause.” But what is cause? There are four kinds:
the “formal,” which is the whole nature of a thing,
being the sum of the other three causes; the “ma-
terial,” or the antecedents out of which the thing arises;
the “efficient,” or motive power; and the “final,” or
object aimed at. Speaking generally, the causes most
in use for scientific definitions are the efficient and the
final. We define an eclipse of the moon by its efficient
cause—the interposition of the earth. We define a
house by its final cause—a structure for the sake of
shelter.
One quotation, as a specimen, may conclude these
glimpses of the “Later Analytics,” or Aristotle's
Logic of Science: “Nature,” he says, “presents a
perpetual cycle of occurrences. When the earth is wet
with rain, an exhalation rises; when an exhalation
rises, a cloud forms; when a cloud forms, rain follows,
and the earth is Saturated: so that the same term
recurs after a cycle of transformations. Every occur-
rence has another for its consequent, and this conse-
quent another, and so on, till we are brought round to
the primary occurrence.”
After finishing his “Later Analytics,” Aristotle seems
to have taken up Rhetoric, and to have written the
main part of his treatise on that subject. He then re-
verted to Dialectic, and completed his exposition of it
by writing his book on “Sophistical Confutations,”
which now stands as the conclusion of the “Organon.”
The matter treated of in this book has a close connec-
tion with that treated of in the “Topics.” The practice
of Dialectic at Athens had given scope to a class, which
gradually arose, of professional and paid disputants,


ARISTUTLE .65.
or professors and teachers of the art of controversy.
This professional class, who were called the “Sophists,”
got a bad name in antiquity; and Aristotle treats them
disparagingly as mere charlatans. Thus while Conten-
tiousness is arguing for victory, he describes Sophistry
as arguing for gain, ' The Sophist, according to Aristo-
tle, tried to confute people and make them look foolish,
employing for this purpose, not fair arguments, but
quibbles and fallacies; and all this was done iu order to
be thought clever and to get pupils. An amusing
picture of this sort of process is given in Plato's dia
logue called “Euthydemus,” where two professionals
are represented as bamboozling with verbal tricks an
ingenuous youth, until Socrates by his dialectical acu-
men and superior wit rescues the victim from his lor-
mentors, and turns the tables upon them. The follow-
ing is a specimen of the “sophistical confutations” in
“Euthydemus:” Who learn, “the wise or the unwise?”
“The wise,” is the reply, given with blushing and
hesitation. “And yet when you learned you did not
know and were not wise.” Who are they who learn
the dictation of the grammar-master, the wise boys or
the foolish boys?” “The wise.” “Then after all the
wise learn.” “And do they learn what they know or .
what they do not know?” “The latter.” “And dicta-
tion is a dictation of letters?” “Yes.” “And you know
letters?” “Yes,” “Then you learn what you know.”
“But is not learning acquiring knowledge?” “Yes.”
“And you acquire that which you have not got
already?” “Yes.” “Then you learn that which you
did not know.”” -- - -
Plato's picture is, doubtless, a caricature, exaggerat-
*See Professor Jowett's Introduction to “Euthydemus" in his
'' Dialogues of Plato,” i. p. 184, 2d ed.
66 THE ELZETVIR LIBRARY,
ing the fallacious practice of the lower sort of profes.
sional disputants to be met with in those days at Athens.
But the dialogue “Euthydemus” seems to have sug.
gested to the Scientific mind of Aristotle the idea of
classifying all the fallacies that had been or could be
employed in argument, and the “Sophistical Confuta-
tions” is the result. To the value of this book it makes
no difference how far the quibbles and deceptive reason-
ings adduced had been actually used by certain definite
individuals for mercenary purposes, or whether, histori-
cally speaking, the professional “Sophists” of Greece
were as bad as Plato liad represented them. Putting
the “Sophists” of Greece quite out of consideration,
fallacy, whether voluntery or involuntary, will still
remain, and is still always incident to human reasoning.
And this it is which Aristotle undertakes to classify. It
might be thought that errors in reasoning were infinite
in number, and incapable of being reduced to definite
species; but this is not the case, because every unsound
reasoning is the counterfeit of some sound reasoning, and
only gains credence as such. But the forms of sound
reasoning are strictly limited in number, and therefore
the forms of fallacy must be limited also. Ambiguity
in language is, of conrse, one main source of fallacy:
and fallacy arises whenever either the major, the minor,
or the middle term of a syllogism is used with a double
meaning. It will be seen above that the quibblers in
“Euthydemus” employ the terms “wise,” “learn,” and
“know” in double senses so as to cause confusion.
Aristotle's account of the fallacies attaching to syl-
logistic or deductive reasoning is complete and exhaust-
ive, and has been the source of all that has subsequently
been writen on the subject. The fallacies of amphibo.
lia, accidens, a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter,
ARISTOTLE. 67
ignoratio elemchi, petitio principiº, consequens, non causa
pro causa, and plures interrogationes have become the
property of modern times, with names Latinized from
those by which Aristotle first distinguished them; and
in Whately’s and other compendiums, they may be
found duly explained. It is true that Aristotle does not
investigate the sources of error attaching to the induc-
tive process; the “idols of the tribe” and “ of the den”
he left for Bacon to denounce; and the fallacies of “in-
spection,” colligation and the rest to be supplied by
Whewell and Mill. But with regard to this, it must
be observed that he treats of the doctrine of Fallacies
as supplementary, not to the Logic of Science, but to
Dialectic. All through the “Sophistical Confutations”
we have a background of Hellenic disputation,-the
questioner and the answerer are hotly engaged, and the
bystanders keenly interested,—Aristotle in analyzing
fallacy is primarily contributing artistic rules for the con-
duct of the game. The local and temporary object has
passed away, and much of the original importance of
the book has accordingly been lost; but the distinctions
which were here for the first time drawn out have passed
over into Logic, and have doubtless contributed some-
what to clear up the thought and language of Europe.
$.
CHAPTER IV.
ARISTOTLE's “RHEToRIC” AND “ART of PoETRY.”
WE have seen how Aristotle, when a young man,
during his first residence at Athens, opened a school of
Rhetoric, in rivalry to the veteran Isocrates. During
his second residence, he presided over a school, not of
Rhetoric alone, but of Philosophy and of all knowl,

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edge. Yet it is said that in the Peripatetic school
“Rhetoric was both scientifically and assiduously
taught.”” Rhetoric had now, however, become for
Aristotle merely one in that wide range of sciences, each
of which he had set himself, as far as possible, to bring
to-perfection. He turned to it, in due course, from his
achievements in Logic, and produced his great treatise
on this subject. Goethe said of his “Faust” that “he
had carried it for twenty years in his head, till it had
become pure gold.” The first part of the “Rhetoric”
of Aristotle bears marks of having gone through a
similar process. The outlines of its arrangement are
characterized by luminous simplicity, the result of long
analytic reflection; the scientific exposition is made in
a style which is, for Aristotle, remarkably easy and
flowing; and each part of the subject is adorned with a
wealth of illustration which indicates the accumulation,
of a lifetime. º -
Several treatises on Rhetoric had appeared in Greece
before Aristotle sat down to write about it. Only one
of these, but perhaps the best of them, has come down
to us. Curiously enough it has been preserved among
the works of Aristotle, as if it had been written by him,
and it goes by the name of the “Rhetoric addressed to
Alexander,” having a spurious dedication to Alexander
the Great tacked on to it. It is believed by scholars to
be the work of Anaximenes of Lampsacus, an eminent
historian and rhetorician contemporary with Aristotle,
It is entirely practical in its aim, but it bears traces
of the sophistical leaven, and deals overmuch in those
tricks of argument and disputation which got the
* Professor Jebb's “Attic Orators," ii. 431. See Diog Laert,
ARISTOTL}}. 69
Sophists their bad name. The other lost systems of
Rhetoric by Corax, Tisias, Antiphon, Gorgias, Thrasy-
machus, and others, appear to have been all strictly
practical. Aristotle complains” that they confined
themselves too much to treating of forensic oratory,
and to expounding the methods best adapted for work.
ing on the feelings of a jury. His own aim is broader
and more philosophical: while he defines Rhetoric as
“the art of seeing what elements of persuasion attach
to any subject,” he traces out these “elements of per-
suasion” to their root in the principles of human nature.
The “sources of persuasion.” Aristotle reduces to
three heads: first, the personal character which the
orator is able to exhibit or assume; Second, the mood
into which he is able to bring his hearers; third, the
arguments or apparent arguments which he can adduce.
That this is a correct division, we can see in a moment
by applying it to any great piece of oratory in ancient
or modern times. For instance, take the speech of
Antony over the body of Julius Caesar, as imagined by
Shakespeare, here the orator's first object evidently is
to inspire belief in himself as “a plain, blunt man,”
with no ulterior purposes, merely devoted to his friend,
bewildered by the death of that friend, unable to un-
derstand how confessedly “honorable ” men should
have brought it about. Accordingly, in the first paus
of the speech the citizens say to each other: :
“2d Cit. Poor soul! his eyes are red as fire with weeping.
3d Cit. There's not a nobler man in Rome than Antony.”
* There was another system of Rhetoric, which, perhaps,
should not be included in this number—namely, the “Rhetoric
of Theodectes,” which Aristotle refers to in his third book (III,
ix. 10), as containing a classification of prose periods. There was
a tradition that Aristotle contributed an introduction to the
“Rhetoric of Theodectes,”
70 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
The second object is to produce in the hearers a frame of
mind favorable to the designs of the orator, who accord-
ingly awakens in them the passions of gratitude and love
towards the memory of Caesar by the recital of his good
deeds, then leads them on to pity and indignation at the
thought of the injustice done to him, and finally rouses
them to horror and rage by the actual sight of his
wounded corpse. Besides this assumption of a par-
ticular character, and these appeals to the passions,
there are intellectual arguments running through the
speech, to the effect that Cæsar was unjustly accused of
ambition, and unjustly put to death. And the practical
conclusion is urged on the hearers by all these various
means—that they should rise in revolt and avenge the
death of Caesar upon his murderers.
This imaginary speech belongs, of course, to the class
of deliberative oratory, the object of which is to recom-
mend some course of action. This kind, says Aristotle,
deals with the furure; while judicial oratory, in crim-
inal or civil cases, endeavors to give a certain com-
plexion to the transactions of the past. And there is
a third kind, the oratory of display, which, in proposing
toasts and the like, deals chiefly in descriptions of the
present. In each of the three kinds of oratory, the three
“sources of persuasion” above noted; must be employed.
But in order to exhibit the features of a particular char.
acter the orator must know the moral nature of man
in its various phases; and, in order to work upon the
feelings, he must know, so to speak, the inner anatomy
of the feelings. A knowledge of human nature is, of
course, essential for producing persuasion in the minds
of men, and Aristotle thus says that Rhetoric is a com.
pound of Logic and Moral Philosophy. In this trea. -
tise he surnlies a rich fund of psychological remarks on
ARISTOTLE 71.
the various passions and characteristics of men. In the
condensed knowledge of the world which it displays the
“Rhetoric” might be compared with Bacon’s “Essays.”
It might be compared also with them in this respect—
that a bad and Machiavellian use might certainly be
made of some of the suggestions which it contains,
though Aristotle professes to give them solely to be
used in the cause of truth and justice.
With regard to the third “source of persuasion”—
the arguments used by an orator must not be scientific
demonstrations, nor even dialectical syllogisms, but
rhetorical arguments, such as the conditions and cir-
cumstances of oratory will admit. For the orator is not
like the scientific demonstrator before his pupils, nor
is he like the dialectician with his respondent, who will
grant him the premises of his argument. The orator
has to address a crowd of listeners, with whom as yet he
is not in relation; he has to catch, without fatiguing,
their attention, and to suggest conclusions without
going through every step of the inference. All reason-
ing, however, must be either inductive or deductive,
and the arguments of Rhetoric must each belong to one
of these two forms, Aristotle, adapting special names
for the purpose, says that the enthymeme of Rhetoric
answers to the syllogism of Logic, and that the example
of Rhetoric answers to the induction of Logic.
The word “enthymeme” seems to mean etymologi-
cally “a putting into one's mind,” or “a suggestion.”
. It is a rhetorical syllogism with premises constructed
out of “likelihoods,” or “signs.” Some critics consider
that it was essential to the “enthy meme” to have one of
its premises suppressed; but Aristotle only says (“Rhet.”
I. ii. 13) that this was frequently the case. The real
characteristic of the “enthymeme” was its suggestive,
72 THE ELZEV/R LIBRARY.
but non-conclusive, character; for the premises, even
if expressed in full, would not be sufficient to enforce
the conclusion which is pointed at. The “enthymeme.”
argues either from a “likelihood,” that is—a cause
which might produce a given effect, though it is not
certain to do so; or else from a “sign,” that is—an
effect which might have been produced by a given
cause, though it might also have been produced by
something else. To prove that A. murdered B, you
may argue from the “likelihood" that he would do so,
because he was known to have been at feud with him;
or from the “sign” that A had blood upon him. Let
us observe some of the “enthymemes” in the speech of
Antony: -
(1.) “He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? -
(2.) When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
(3.) You all did see, that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse, Was this ambition?”
These three arguments are based on “signs;” acts of
Caesar are adduced as showing in him a disinterested-
ness, a tenderness of heart, and a modesty which would
be incompatible with selfish ambition. But the reason-
ing is not conclusive, since the acts mentioned might
have flowed from other sources than good qualities of
the heart—they might have been done “with a motive.”
However, there is fully as much cogency here as can
ordinarily be expected to be found in the deductions of
an orator. The only inductive reasoning of which ora-
tory is capable is the “example,” or historical instance.
Instead of gathering sufficient instances to establish a
law, which would be the scientific method, the orator

ARISTOTLE. 73
quotes one instance pointing in the direction of a law.
Thus “Dionysius, in asking to be allowed a body-guard,
aims at establishing a tyranny;-did not Pisistratus
do just the same?” The “example” is, of course, an
arguing by analogy, and the question must always be
whether the cases compared with each other are really
analogous, or whether there is any essential difference
in the circumstances. Aristotle says that some orators
deal more in examples, others more in enthy memes.
He is inclined to think that in obtaining applause the
enthymemes are the more successful. -
After thus setting forth the general framework of
oratory, Aristotle proceeds to make suggestions with
regard to the matter of speeches. This will naturally
be different in kind for the three different kinds of
oratory. Him who is to practice deliberative oratory,
Aristotle advises to study and make himself well ac-
quainted with five points relative to the State to which
he belongs: its finance; its foreign relations; the state
of its defenses; its imports and exports; and its system
of law.” In reference to the last of these, Aristotle
recommends the comparative study of political consti-
tutions, and for that end that the accounts of travelers
should be read. He adds that for political debate in
general a knowledge of the works of historians is a
valuable preparation.
These, however, are mere hints, directing the student
to funds of information which lie outside of the art of
Rhetoric. Aristotle proceeds to furnish the orator with
definitions and theories which he considered (at all
events when he was writing this treatise) to belong to
& • The same points are specified in the advice given by Socrates
to a young politician–Xenophon “Memorab,” iii. 6, - -

74 THE EI.ZEVIR LIBRARY.
Rhetoric itself, though it would have perhaps been a
better classification of science if he had merely indi-
cated that a knowledge of these matters was necessary,
and had referred the student to Moral Philosophy for full
particulars with regard to them. The result is that he
gives a brilliant summary by anticipation of a consid-
erable portion of his “Ethics.” As in the “Topics” he
thought it necessary to make long lists of commonplaces
for the use of the dialectician, so here he gives lists of
heads to be borne in mind by the deliberative orator.
It is not necessary for us to follow Aristotle in anticipat-
ing his theory of morals. It need only be mentioned
that, after premising that the idea of obtaining personal
good, or happiness, is what actuates men in deliberation,
he proceeds to give what may be called a provisional
theory of happiness and its component parts; he then
specifies thirty different grounds on which a thing
might be recommended as good, and forty other grounds
upon which a thing might be shown to be compara-
tively good, or better than something else. He winds
up his instructions for the deliberate orator with brief
remarks on the scope and character of different forms of
government, which are afterwards fully expanded in the
“Politics.” - -
The oratory of display deals especially with praise
and eulogy, as we know from the specimens of it most
familiar to us—the funeral oration, and the post-
prandial speech. The orator in this kind must have
before him a clear idea of what constitutes virtue, and
of what is, or is considered, most honorable among
men. And for his benefit Aristotle inserts a chapter on
these subjects, though they more properly belong to
moral science. He adds, however, some hints on the
rhetorical device of amplification in laudatory, or other,
t
ARISTOTLE 75
statements. He appends the remark that a knowledge
of the theory of virtue is necessary for the deliberative
orator also, for the purposes of exhortation and ad-
vice. He thus would evidently class hortative addresses,
like the modern sermon, under the head of deliberative
oratory,
For the use of the forensic orator, who has to argue
in accusation or defense, the following equipment of
knowledge is provided by Aristotle: 1st, A brief sum-
mary of the motives of human action; 2d, An analytical
account of pleasure and things pleasurable—for these
figure most prominently among human motives; 3d, An
analysis of the moods of mind in which men commit
injustice; 4th, A distinction between different kinds
of law and right; 5th, Remarks on degrees of guilt;
and, 6th, Hints for dealing with statutes, documents,
and the evidence of witnesses whether these be for or
against the orator. Under the 4th head, Aristotle has
some fine remarks on the universal law of nature, and
on equity.” As a specimen the latter may be quoted:
“It is equity to pardon human feelings, and to look
to the lawgiver, and not to the law; to the spirit, and
not to the letter; to the intention, and not to the
action; to the whole, and not to the part; to the char-
acter of the actor in the long-run, and not in the pres:
ent moment;--to remember good rather than evil, and
good that one has received rather than good that one
has done; to bear being injured; to wish to settle a
matter by words rather than by deeds; lastly, to pre-
fer arbitration to judgment, for the arbitrator sees what
is equitable, but the judge only the law, and for this
* Epieikeia—that quality which Mr Matthew Arnold defines
as “a sweet reasonableness." - .
76 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
an arbitrator was first appointed, in order that equity
might flourish.”
So much for the materials of oratory. In making
use of them it will be further necessary for the orator
to be acquainted with the leading passions and dis-
positions of men, in order that he may successfully
appeal to the feelings of his hearers. Accordingly,
the second book of the “Rhetoric” supplies him with
a treatise on the characteristics of Anger, Placability,
Friendliness, Hatred, Fear, Shame, Gratitude, Pity, In-
dignation, Envy, and Emulation; of the three stages of
human life—Youth, Maturity, and Old Age; and of the
three social conditions—Rank, Wealth, and Power. In
these disquisitions there is, probably, embodied much
of the collective wisdom of Greece; but there is, doubt-
less, also a great deal of original analysis, worked out
by Aristotle himself once for all, and which has re-
mained valid ever since. Such, for instance, are
his six points of contrast between Anger and Hatred
(“Rhet.” II. iv. 30):
1st, Anger rises out of something personal to our-
selves; Hatred is independent of this. We may hate a
man merely because we conceive him to be of a cer.
tain description. 2d, Anger is invariably against in-
dividuals; Hatred may embrace whole classes, 3d,
Anger is to be remedied by time; Hatred is incurable.
4th, Anger wishes to inflict pain, so that its operation
may be felt and acknowledged, and thus satisfaction
obtained; Hatred wishes nothing of the kind—it
merely wishes that a mischief may be done, without
caring that the source of it be known. 5th, Anger is
a painful feeling, but Hatred not, 6th, Anger, when
a certain amount of pain has been inflicted upon its
ARISTOTLE 77
object, may easily turn into pity; Hatred, under all
circumstances, is incapable of this—it desires nothing
less than the absolute destruction and non-existence of
its object.”
With all his subtlety and knowledge of the world
Aristotle does not exhibit any of the cynicism of
Hobbes or Rochefoucauld. He is far from denying the
existence of disinterested and noble feelings. Thus,
for instance, he defines friendly feeling to consist in
“the wishing a person what we think good, for his
sake and not for our own, and as far as is in our power,
the exerting ourselves to procure it.” Pity he defines
to be “a sort of pain occasioned by the appearance of a
hurtful or destructive ill (such as one’s self or one's con-
nections might possibly have to endure) happening
to one who does not deserve it.” Here fellow-feeling
is mentioned as necessary for realizing the ills which
excite our pity, but that by no means reduces pity to
a mere selfish apprehension on our own account.
“The essence of pity,” says Aristotle elsewhere (“Poet.”
xxv.), “is that it is caused by the sight of undeserved
calamity.” Thus it proceeds from a sense of moral
justice arising in the heart, Aristotle does not regard
men as the natural enemies of each other; on the
contrary, he thinks benevolent feelings to be natural,
and to play a considerable part in the organization of -
society. He defines “kindness” ” to be “that quality
* Charis, a word which can hardly be translated, as it means
not only kindness, grace, or favor, but also the reciprocal feel- -
ing of gratitude for kindness. The Charites or Graces were
the Greek personifications of reciprocal feelings of kindness.
Hence the temple of the Graces symbolized the mutual services
of men to each other, on which society depends (see “Eth.” W.
v. 7). -

78 THE ELZE VIR LIBRARY,
by which one does a service to him who needs it, not
in return for anything, nor in order that one may get
anything one's self, but simply to benefit the recipient.”
He considers human nature to be capable of great
moral elevation in the persons of the wise and good;
at the same time he regarded the majority of mankind
as poor creatures, though rather weak than wicked.
Thus (“Rhet.” II. v. 7), he says, “the majority of men
are timid and corruptible,” and in “Eth.” VII. vii. 1,
it is said that “most men are in a state between conti-
nence and incontinence, but rather verging towards the
worst side.”
We may conclude our extracts from the second book
of the “Rhetoric” with Aristotle's remark on the prime
of life, which Dr. Arnold of Rugby used to be fond of
quoting; “The body,” says Aristotle, “is in its prime
from the age of thirty to thirty-five, and the mind
about the age of forty-nine.” It has been observed
that university undergraduates are apt to consider
these ages as set too high, while Senior tutors have
been known to complain of them as only applicabl
to precocious southern nations. -
Erom what we have indicated it will be seen that the
first two books of the “Rhetoric” consist mainly of ob-
servations on human nature. Towards the close of
them Aristotle fell upon the subject of fallacious “en-
thymemes,” and this led him to suspend the work he
had in land, and to write that treatise on “Sophistical
Confutations,” or “Fallacies,” of which we have al-
ready given an account. After which he wrote his
“Ethics,” until the subject of “Justice” turned up, and
he then went on to discuss the bases of this quality in
his “Politics.” The subject of “Education” seems to
have led Aristotle from the compilation of the last-

ARISTOTLE. 79
named treatise to write his “Art of Poetry,” which
naturally involved the discussion of rules of style; and,
this, by an equally natural transition, suggested the
completion of the “Rhetoric,” by the addition of a third
book on Style and Arrangement. -
This book has of course not quite so universal an
interest as the former ones. The interest attaching to
it is necessarily to some extent antiquarian—as, for
instance, when Aristotle details the five points on which
an idiomatic style in Greek depends—viz., a proper
use of connective particles; and of Specially appropri-
ate instead of general words; constructing the sentence
so as to avoid ambiguity; using right genders; and
right numbers. The specification of the latter points
(as well as similar injunctions in the “Art of Poetry”)
show in how infantile a condition the science of Gram-
mar was in Aristotle's time. He lays down here Some
of the things which “every schoolboy knows.” -
The book is not only a good deal limited to the in-
struction of Greek readers belonging to the fourth cen-
tury B.C., but it also deals a good deal in allusions
which such readers would perfectly understand, but
which are obscure for us. Instead of quoting at some
length the beauties of oratory, it frequently indicates
passages by merely mentioning a single word out of
them. There is generally speaking an air of scientific
dryness in its treatment even of the most poetical meta-
phors. For instance, we are told that it is far better to
call Aurora the “rosy-fingered” than the “purple-fin-
gered,” and still more so than to call her the “red-fin-
gered.” But charms of style from the Greek writers
appear in this book like moths and butterflies pinned on
to corks in the collection of an entomologist. Aris-
totle's fondness for classification seems carried too far

80 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
here; he incessantly analyzes and enumerates, as for in-
stance when he tells us that there are four ways by
which “flatness” in a speech is produced. The princi-
‘ples laid down are of course sound and sensible—as, for
example, that “the chief merit of style is clearness,”
that the orator must not use poetical language, and
that his sentences must be rhythmical, without falling
into meter. Aristotle objects to having a Sentence
ended with a short syllable, because the voice cannot
rest on it so as to mark a stop; he thinks that the end
of each sentence should be marked out by the rhythm,
so as not to need punctuation. He recommends the use
of the pason, a foot consisting of three short syllables
and one long syllable (as ānāchrönnsm), for the rhythmi-
cal finish of sentences. The point, however, is not
gone into with any exactness; and we are left in doubt
as to the proportion which accent bore to “quantity” in
ancient Greek oratory. On the one hand we know that
accent has had such a firm hold on the Greek language
as in the course of time utterly to overpower and elimi-
nate quantity. Thus modern Greek is spoken entirely
according to accent without regard to quantity. On
the other hand ancient Greek poetry must have been
read almost entirely in reference to the quantity of the
syllables, without regard to accent. How it stood with
ancient Greek rhythmical prose, is a question which
Aristotle does not help us to solve. In fact there is a
certain matter-of-fact bluntness, and a want of the
delicacy and humor of genius, pervading his criticisms.
And it is remarkable that his illustrations are more
drawn from poetry than from prose—apparently more
from books than from living sources—and that he never
mentions with appreciation the oratory of Demosthe-
nes. Some of the greatest speeches of Demosthenes,


ARIST'OTL.E. 81
especially his Olynthiac orations, had been spoken at
Athens when Aristotle was little more than thirty years
of age, just about the time when he was attempting to
rival Isocrates in the teaching of Rhetoric. It Would
be extraordinary if these splendid harangues made no
impression upon him. But it must be observed that he
does not pass any general criticism upon Pericles, or
any other orator. And it is possible also that a fear of
offending the Macedonian royal family may have pre-
vented Aristotle from praising the anti-Macedonian
statesman, though he was the greatest orator among the
ancients.
After treating of style, Aristotle briefly discusses ar-
rangement. He divides a speech into exordium, state-
ment, proof, and peroration, and says something on the
points to be aimed at in each. He adds some shrewd
advice on the use that may be made of putting adroit
questions to an opponent; and he mentions with ap-
proval the maxim of Gorgias that “when your adver-
sary is earnest you should silence him with ridicule,
and when he tries ridicule you should silence him with
earnestness.” He neatly winds up his “Rhetoric”
with the specimen of a peroration: “I have spoken—
you have heard. You have the matter before you—
judge of it.”
Aristotle's little treatise called “Poetic,” or the “Art
of Poetry,” is very interesting, but it does not take the
modern or romantic view of Poetry. Aristotle does
not seek to find here— -
“The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet's dream,”
He simply defines poetry as one of the imitative
arts, “such 88. dancing, flute-playing, painting, etc.:

82 THE BLZEVIR LIBRARY,
these different arts, he says, have each their own in-
strument of imitation, and poetry uses words and
meter. However, not all metrical composition is
poetry; the verses of Empedocles are philosophy rather
than poetry—they lack the quality of being imitative
—that is to say, it is not their chief object to depict.
Aristotle attributes the génésis of poetry, not to any
divine impulse, but to those imitative instincts of
man, which are exhibited from earliest childhood, and
to the intellectual pleasure which we feel in seeing a
good imitation even of a painful subject, and in recog-
nizing that “this is that.” Poetry then is imitation,
and accordiag to this theory the merit of a good poem
would be the same as the merit of a good photograph—
exact and mechanical resemblance. Aristotle, however,
is not consistent to this view; he evidently admits the
idea of some creativeness in the poet—for instance, he
says that some poets represent men as better than they
really are; and he applauds the practice of Zeuxis, who,
in painting his Helen, combined the beauties out of
several fair faces. He seems to approach the modern
point of view when he says (xvii. 2) that “Poetry is the
province of a genius or a madman;” for the one can feign
and the other feels stormy passions. But it must be
observed that the word for “a genius” here, is merely
“well-natured”—a word elsewhere used for one who
has a good moral disposition, and generally for one who
has natural gifts. In fact, the philosophy of the imagi-
nation was a part of psychology not at all worked out
in the time of Aristotle; there was as yet no word to
express what we mean by “imagination.” When Aris-
totle uses the word phantasia, he means by it, not the
creative faculty, but an image before the mind's eye.
While the Greeks were the most imaginative of peoples.

ARISTOTLE 83
they had not as yet analyzed the processes of imagi-
nation. And the want of a terminology connected with
this subject is felt throughout the “Poetic” of Aristo-
tle.
Poetry consists in imitation, mainly of the actions of
men; and there are three great species of it—Epic
poetry, Tragedy and Comedy. Of these three kinds
Aristotle undertakes to treat; but the promise is only
fulfilled with regard to the two first; the treatise breaks
off at the point where a disquisition on Comedy might
have been expected. Comedy, according to modern
views, would hardly be reckoned to be poetry at all.
Aristotle, in Stating what Comedy is, gives his famous
definition of the “ludicrous.” Tragedy, he says, aims
at representing men who are above the average; comedy,
men who are below it. But the characters in comedy
are not so much morally bad, as ugly. There is a cer-
tain pleasure derivable from ugliness, and that is the
sense of the ludicrous, “The ludicrous is some fault
or blemish not suggesting the idea of pain or death; as,
for instance, an ugly twisted face is ludicrous, if there
is no idea that the owner of it is in pain.” This saying
has been the foundation of all subsequent philosophy
of laughter. Elsewhere Aristotle defines the ludicrous
as “harmless incongruity.” We laugh from a pleas-
urable sense of contrast and surprise when a thing is
out of place but no serious evil seems likely to result.
Aristotle's account of Tragedy is a profound piece of - -
aesthetic philosophy. By implication he defends Trag-
edy against Plato, who had wished to banish the
drama from his ideal republic, as tending to make men
unmanly. Aristotle defines Tragedy as the “imitation
of some noble action, great and complete in itself ; in .
melodious diction; with different measures to suit the ...

84 THE ELZE VIR LIBRARY
different parts; by men acting, and not by narration;
effecting through pity and fear the purging of such
feelings.” The latter words contain the office and the
justification of Tragedy. Men's minds are prone to be
haunted by the feelings of pity and fear, and these are
apt to degenerate into sentimentality. Tragedy offers
noble objects whereon these feelings may be exercised;
and by ſnat exercise the feelings not only receive a
right direction, but also are relieved, being removed, so
to speak, for the time from the system. After much
discussion * on the subject in Germany, there is now no
doubt that in using the term “purging” in the above
passage Aristotle was employing a medical metaphor.
This is borne out by two passages of the “Politics”
(II. vii. 11; VIII. vii. 5), which both refer in similar
terms to the relief of the passions procured by indulg-
ing them. He promised a fuller explanation of his
theory on this subject, but unfortunately has never
given it. However, we are perhaps safe in under-
standing that, while Plato objected to Tragedy as tend-
ing to make men soft by the excitement of their sym-
pathetic feelings, Aristotle said “No-those feelings
will be purged and carried off from the system by the
operation of Tragedy.” * .
As to the means by which Tragedy is to excite pity
and terror, Aristotle says that it will not do to exhibit a
purely good man falling into adversity—that would
be rather horrible than tragic; nor, in the other hand,
would the representation of a villain receiving the ret-
ribution due to his crimes be a tragical story, however
moral it might be. We require the element of un-
* See * Aristotle tºber Kunst, besonders aber Tragödie,” von
Dr. Reinkens) Vienna, 1870), p. 70–167. - -


ARISTOTLE 85
deserved calamity; and yet there must be some justice,
too, in the course of events, so that while we feel sor-
row for what occurs, we shall feel also that things could
not have been otherwise. The tale of CEdipus is often
mentioned by Aristotle as a perfect subject for Trag- -
edy. We may add that Mr. Tennyson’s “Harold’”
exhibits in this respect the same qualities; we see in it a
noble character borne along to an undeserved and ca-
lamitous doom; and yet there is a sense that this is,
partly at all events, the result of his own doing. Aris-
totle is not in favor of a tragedy ending happily. He
says that poets sometimes make happy endings out of
concession to the weakness of the spectators, but that
this is quite a mistake, and that such endings are more
suitable to comedy. He praises Euripides as the “most
tragic of the poets,” on account of the doleful termina-
tions of his plays, “though in other respects he did not
manage well.”
Much stress has been laid, especially by the French,
on “the unities” of the drama, as supposed to be
prescribed by Aristotle's “Poetic.” But in reality he
attaches no importance to the external unities of time
and place. In enumerating the differences between
tragedy and epic poetry, he says (v. 8) that “the one,
generally tries to limit its action to a period of twenty-
four hours, or not much to exceed that, while the other
is unlimited in point of time.” But he does not lay
this down as a law for Tragedy. The peculiarity of the
Greek drama, in which a chorus remained constantly
present and the curtain never fell, almost necessitated
“the unities;” but Aristotle only concerns himself with
internal unity, which he says (viii. 4) that Tragedy must
have, in common with every other work of art, and
which consists in making every part bear an organic re-

86 THE FILZE VIR LIBRARY.
lation to the whole, so that no part could be altered or
omitted without the whole suffering. This principle,
far more valuable than that of “the unities,” would
seem to need re-assertion, for we might almost say that
it is habitually violated by writers of fiction in the pres-
ent day—at all events by all but the very few who may
be placed in the first class.
The “Poetic” gives many notices of the rise and prog.
ress of the Greek drama, and the modifications which
tragedy and comedy went through, and much informa-
tion as to the technical divisions of a play, and other
such matters; but all these points have become the
property of manuals of “Greek Antiquities.” Aristotle
notes a decadence of the drama in his own day: he com-
plains of authors spoiling their plays by introducing
episodes merely to suit particular actors: he considers
that spectacle is carried too far, and that it is a mistake
to aim at producing tragical effect by elaborate and ex-
pensive scenery and apparatus: he also thinks that act.
ing is overdone. Aristotle shows an extensive acquaint-
ance with dramatic literature; and, by mentioning it,
he makes us regret the loss of “The Flower,” a play by
Agathon, which seems to have been entirely original,
and not based on any traditional story.
The remarks here made on Epic poetry are compara-
tively brief. Aristotle considers it of less importance
than Tragedy. He says that every merſt which the Epic
possesses is to be found in Tragedy. Like Tragedy, the
Epic must possess unity of plot, but it may indulge to
a greater extent in episodes, Aristotle never loses an
opportunity of praising Homer, whom he considers to
be the author, not only of the “Iliad” and “Odyssey,”.
but also of a comic poem called “Margites.” He espe-
cially commends the art of Homer in making the action
ARISTOTLE, . 87
of the “Iliad” and “Odyssey” respectively circle round
definite central events. Although it is a narrative, Epic
poetry will always be distinct from history: the one has
an artistic unity which is wanting to the other; the one
describes what might have been, the other what has
been; the one deals in universal, the other in particular,
truth. The result of this whole comparison is, that
“Poetry is more philosophical and more earnest than
History.”
The “Poetic” branches off, towards its close, into an
immature disquisition on style, which led Aristotle to
go back to his “Rhetoric,” and write the third book
thereof. Here he even lays down some of the elements
of grammar, and enumerates the parts of speech. He
adds a curious chapter (xxv.) on Criticisms, and how to
answer them, in which the spirit of the dialectician is
very apparent. All this shows that Aristotle was only
gradually feeling his way to the division of sciences.
He wrote, as it were, under pressure, on one great sub-
ject after another, and the light only dawned on him as
he went along. Could he have rewritten his works,
probably all would have been brought into lucid order.
But it is clear that the little trealise called “Poetic” not
only was never rewritten, but was never finished as its
author intended it to be.
CHAPTER W.
ARISTOTLE’s “ETHICs.”
ARISTOTLE's treatise on Morals has come down to us
entitled “Nicomachean Ethics.” This label was proba-
bly affixed to the work on account of Nicomachus, the
son of Aristotle, having had some subordinate connec-
88 THE EIZEVIR LIBRARY,
tion with it, either as scribe or editor; and in order to
distinguish it in the Peripatetic library from the “Eu-
demian Ethics,” whiêh is a sort of paraphrase of Aristo-
tle's treatise by his disciple Eudemus—and from the
“Great Ethics,” which is a restatement of the same mat-
ter by some later Peripatetic hand. Among the Works
of Aristotle there is also included a little tract “On Vir.
tues and Vices.” This is a mere paper, such as the
Peripatetic school used to produce, noting characteris-
tics of some of the Aristotelian good qualities and their
opposites, and with no pretensions to be considered
genuine. -
After going through, under the guidance of Aristotle,
the theory of the reasonings by which knowledge is
obtained, and the theory of the statement by which
knowledge may be best set forth, we now enter, in
the “Nicomachean Ethics,” upon some of the matter of
knowledge—namely, Aristotle's theory of human life.
But what strikes us on reading the early chapters of
this treatise is that, when he began to write it, Aristotle
had no clear conception of the existence of Moral Phi-
losophy as a separate science. The question which he
proposes is, What is the end, or supreme good, aimed
at by human action? He adds that the science which
will have to settle this will be a branch of Politics—that
is, of State-philosophy—for the chief good of the State
and of the individual are identical, only the one is on a
grander scale than the other. In this exordium we
may notice two especially Greek features: first, the
cardinal question proposed for the philosophy of human
life is not, what is the duty of man? but, What is the
chief good for man? Secondly, the individual is so far
subordinated to and identified with the State. that the
summum bonum for the latter includes that of the

ARISTOTLE 89
former. In Aristotle's “Politics” (VII. iii. 8), the chief
good for a State is portrayed as consisting in the de-
velopment and play of speculative thought, all fit con-
ditions thereto having been provided. The idea is—a
Greek city, with a slave population doing the hard
work, wherein the citizens for the most part can live as
gentlemen, and a large proportion of them may devote
their lives to intellectual pursuits. Aristotle thought
that the highest aim for a State was to turn out philos-
ophers, and that the lighest aim for an individual was
to be a philosopher. Thus there is a seeming identity
of aims; yet still in writing his “Ethics” Aristotle con-
fines himself to inquiring after “the good” for the indi-
vidual. As he goes on, it dawns upon him more and
more (see “Eth.” v. 5–11), that “the man” has an in-
dependent status distinct from that of ‘‘the citizen,”
and that in his capacity of human being each citizen
has needs, aims, and virtues of his own, irrespective
of the State. Thus by composing this work he estab-
lished the separation of Ethics from Politics—these
two sciences having been previously mixed up together
by Socrates and Plato, who were the great founders of
l,0th.
What constitutes the chief good for an individual, or
in other words, happincss? Aristotle is somewhat ab-
stract and metaphysical in arguing upon this question.
He says, happiness must be an end in itself, and not a
means to anything else; it must lie within the proper
sphere or function of man—that function being a rational
and moral life; it must be, not a merely dormant state,
but a state of conscious vitality; and lastly, it must be
in accordance with the law of excellence proper to the
function of man. Thus we arrive at the general idea
that the highest happiness consists in the harmonious

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exercise of man's highest powers; and the treatise ends
by declaring particularly that the speculative reason is
man's highest endowment, and that the truest happiness
consists in philosophic thought.
“This,” he exclaims (“Eth.” X. vii. 7), “would be
perfect human happiness, if prolonged through a life
of full duration. Such a life, however, would be super-
human; for it is not as being man that one will live thus,
but by virtue of a certain divine element subsisting
within us. Just as this element far excels our com-
posite nature, so does its operation excel action accord-
ing to the moral virtues. Reason in comparison with man
is something divine, and so is the life of Reason divine
in comparison with the routine of man's life. One
must not, however, obey those who bid us “think hums
bly as being mortal men,” may rather we should indulge
immortal longings, and strive to live up to that divine
particle within us, which, though it be small in propor-
tionate bulk, yet in power and dignity far surpasses all
the other parts of our nature, and which is indeed each
man's proper self. By living in accordance with it our
true individuality will be developed. And such a life
cannot fail to be happy above all other kinds of life.”
This, then, is the “mark” which Aristotle sets before
men to “shoot at” (“Eth.” I. ii. 2)—namely, the at-
tainment of a state in which one should live above the
world, occupied with philosophic thought. It is an
ideal picture, to which, however, approximations may
doubtless be made. To attain it completely would be,
according to Aristotle, to attain the life of the blessed
existences, such as the sun and the fixed stars, and of
God Himself, whose essence is Reason, and His life “a
thinking upon thought” (“Met.” XI. ix. 4). This, he
A Hºº & TOTLE, 91
admits, is impossible for us; but yet, he says, we should
aim at it. “Secondary to this,” he says, “in point of
happiness, is the life of moral virtue.” And here we
must notice the peculiar way in which the idea of
“virtue” is introduced into the “Ethics.” . Instead of
at once recognizing the law of moral obligation as the
deepest thing in 1man, Aristotle, as we have seen above,
introduces the idea of virtue and morality in a dry logi-
cal Way, saying that the chief good for man must consist
in the realization of his powers “according to their
own proper law of excellence.” Having in this color-
less and neutral way brought in the term “excellence”
or virtue, Aristotle divides it, in relation to man, into
moral and intellectual. Of the former he proceeded
immediately to treat at length; of the latter he promised
to give an account, but only an imperfect realization of
that promise, furnished by the “Eudemian” paraphrase,
has come down to us, a .
Both by the way in which it is introduced, and the
terms in which it is finally dismissed (“Eth.” X. viii. 1),
the moral nature of man is made to hold a subsidiary
place in Aristotle’s “Ethics.” Yet still we find that
almost all the treatise is taken up with discussions
directly or indirectly concerning the practical and
moral nature. And thus Aristotle, groping his way
in a Science which had as yet no distinct landmarks,
contributed much towards the subsequent deeper con-
ception of ethical questions. One service which he
performed was to distinguish will from reason. Soc-
rates and Plato had been content to describe virtue as
knowledge, or an enlightened state of the reason; but
Aristotle, like Kant in modern times, defined it as a
state of the will. Secondly, he analyzed the forma-
tion of this state, and explained it by his dºctrine of
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“habits.” By observing the various arts—as, for in-
stance, harp-playing, and the like—he saw that “prac-
tice makes perfect;” and concluded that as by playing
the harp a man became a harp-player, so by doing just
things a man would become just, by doing brave things
he would become brave; and, in short, that actions
have a tendency to reproduce themselves, and thus to
produce habits or states of the will. All this is trite
enough now, but it was formulated for the first time by
Aristotle.
In laying down his famous doctrine that it is the
characteristic of virtue to preserve “the mean,” Aris-
totle was not entirely original. In this, as in many
other cases, he only fixed into scientific form a concep-
tion which had been previously floating in the mind of
Greece. Hesiod, the Seven Sages, the unknown au-
thors of “Maxims,” the Gnomic poets, Pindar, and the
Tragedians, had all preached the doctrine of modera-
tion—a doctrine most congenial to the natural good
taste of the Hellenic people, who instinctively despised
excess in any form as unintellectual and barbarous.
What had hitherto been a universal popular dictum,
Plato raised into philosophy, by pointing out (“Phile-
bus,” p. 23–27) that in all things the law of “limit” is
the cause of good, while the unlimited, the unregu-
lated, the chaotic, is evil. Thus, in the human body,
the unlimited is the tendency to extremes, to disorder,
to disease; but the introduction of the limit produces a
balance of the constitution and good health. In sounds
you have the infinite degrees of deep and high, quick
and slow; but the limit gives rise to modulation and
harmony, and all that is delightful in music. In cli.
mate and temperature, where the limit has been intro-
duced, excessive heats and violent storms subside, and
ARISTOTLE. 93
the mild and genial seasons in their order follow. In
the human mind “the goddess of the limit” checks into
submission the wild and wanton passions, and gives
rise to all that is good. Thus, in contemplating all
things, whether physical or moral, there was present to
the mind of Plato the same train of associations—the
same ideas of measure, proportion, balance, harmony,
moderation, and the like. Elsewhere (“Republic,” p.
400) he dwells especially on the common characteris.
tics of art and morality, pointing out that measure and
symmetry are the causes of excellence in both alike.
Aristotle took over these thoroughly Greek ideas from
Plato, and adapted them to his own purpose. He
slightly changed the mode of expression: instead of
“moderation” he introduced a mathematical term,
“the mean” (for instance, 2 is the mean between 4 and
6); he used this term as the chief feature in a regular
formal definition of moral virtue; and he drew out a
table of the virtues showing that each of them was a
mean between two extremes. Thus the virtue Cour.
age lies between the vice Cowardice, v.4:ich is fearing
too much, and the vice Rashness, whicle is fearing too
little. And virtue generally is a balal.ce between too
much and too little. It is produced jºy the introduc-
tion of the law of the mean into the passions, which in
themselves are unlimited. But what is this “mean”—
this juste miliew—and how is it ascertained? Aristotle
tells us that it is not merely the mid-point between two
external quantities, but it is the mid-point relatively to
the moral agent. What is too much for one man—say,
of danger, expense, indulgence, or self-valuation—may
be by no means too much for another man. The moral
mean is thus a fluctuating quantity, dependent on con-
siderations of the person and the moment. To hit

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upon it exactly requires a fine tact, for “virtue is more
nice and delicate than the finest of the fine arts”
(“Eth.” II. vi. 9). This tact, or sense of moral beauty,
we have by nature (“Politics,” I. ii. 12); but it only
exists in perfection, after cultivation by experience, in
the mind of the wise man, and to him in all cases must
be the ultimate appeal.
Objection has been raised in modern times to the
theory of Aristotle, on the ground that it makes only a
quantitative difference between virtue and vice. A
little more or a little less does not seem to us to consti-
tute the whole difference which subsists between
“right” and “wrong.” But we must remember that
the Greeks did not speak of actions as “right” or
“wrong,” but as “beautiful” and “ugly.” From this
point of view each action was looked upon as a work
of art; and as in art and literature, so in morals, the
great aim was to avoid the “too much” and the “too
little,” and thus to attain perfection. This idea of
beauty and grace in action pervaded the Hellenic life,
and good taste seemed to stand in the place of con-
science. To attain “the beautiful” is considered by
Aristotle, if inferior to the joys of philosophy, still as a
source of very high gratification; and he describes the
brave man (“Eth.” III. ix. 4) as consciously meeting
death in a good cause, and consciously sacrificing a
happy life, full of objects which he holds dear, because
by so doing he attains “the beautiful.” If we ask,
however, what constituted the beauty of this act,
Aristotle's doctrine can only tell us that the brave man
dared and feared neither too much nor too little, but in
the proper degree and manner, considering the circum-
stances of the moment. These formulæ, however, do
not appear to explain what we should consider the

ARISTOTLE 95
moral beauty of the act in question. We shºuld rather
point to the self-sacrifice of the act—the spectacle of an
individual preferring to his own life the good of others,
the defense of his country, the maintenance of some
noble cause—as what was beautiful and touching.
“The mean” may serve as a general expression for the
law of artistic beauty, but it seems not deep cuough to
express what we prize most in human action.
Aristotle's table of the virtues does not, of course,
comprise the Christian qualities of humility, charity,
chastity, self-devotion, and the like. It even falls short
of the summary of human excellence given by Plato in
his enumeration of the five cardinal virtues (“I’rotag.,”
p. 349)—courage, temperance, justice, wisdom, and
holiness. Aristotle separates ethics from religion, and
thus leaves out all consideration of “holiness,” or man's
conduct in relation to God. “Wisdom” and “Jus-
tice” he reserves to be made the subject of separate
discussions: the one as being an excellence of the intel-
lect, and not a “mean state" of the passions; the other as
being dependent on, and mixed up with, all the institu-
tions of the State. The table, then, thus restricted,
contains the names of nine or ten good qualities, such
as would adorn the character of a perfect Grecian gen-
tleman. They are Courage, Temperance, Liberality,
Magnificence (liberality on a larger scale); Magnanimity,
or Great-souledness; Self-respect (the same on a smaller
scale), Mildness, Wit, Truthfulness of manner, and
Friendliness. And the pairs of extremes which respec-
tively environ each of these “mean states” are specified,
in some cases names being invented for illem. The
most moral of the virtues here named, from a modern
point of view, is Courage, on account of the self-sacri.
fice, the endurance of danger, pain, and death, which -
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it implies. Temperance is far from being represented
by Aristotle as an utter self-abnegation; he says (III.
xi. 8) that the temperate man, with due regard to his
health, and to the means at his disposal, and acting
under the law of the beautiful, will preserve a balance
in regard to the pleasures of sense. Aristotle loves the
virtues of Liberality and Magnificence (the latter mean-
ing tasteful outlay on great objects) on account of their
brilliancy. He undervalues the virtue of Saving, and
erroneously considers that parsimony does more harm
than spendthrift waste. He describes Magnanimity by
drawing a fancy portrait of the “Great-souled man.”
Such a man has all the Aristotelian virtues; he is great
and superior to other men, and has a corresponding lofti-
mess of soul. He will not compete for the common
objects of ambition; he will only attempt great and
important matters, and otherwise will seem inactive;
he will be open in friendship and hatred, really straight-
forward and deeply truthful, but reserved and ironical
in manner to common people. He will live for his
friend alone, will wonder at nothing, will bear no malice, "
wil be no gossip, will not be anxious about trifles, will
care more to possess that which is beautiful than that
wirich is profitable. His movements are slow, his voice
is deep, and his diction is stately,
The four last virtues in the table are qualities to adorn
the external man in Society, and as such seem more
worthy of a place in Lord Chesterfield's Letters than in
a treatise of Moral Philosophy. To be mild without
being spiritless; to be friendly without servility; to have
a simple manner without either assumption or mock-
humility; and to be witty without buffoonery—these
achievements constitute the minor excellences with
which Aristotle concludes his list. He was proceeding


ARISTOTLE. - 97
to show that the law of the mean is exemplified in the
instinctive feelings of modesty and virtuous indigma-
tion—when, through some unknown cause, his MS.
broke off (“Eth.” IV. ix.8) in the middle of a sentence.
What should have followed here was, first, a dis-
sertation on the nature of Justice; and, Secondly, an
account of the Intellectual excellences. And it was
very important that this part of the work should be
adequately executed. Under the head of Justice fell
to be considered (“Eth.” [V. vii. 7) the relation of the
individual to truth of word and deed. And an ade-
quate account of Justice and of Wisdom might have
redeemed Aristotle's previous account of moral virtue
from that superficial appearance which it must be said
to present. But unfortunately we do not appear to
possess at first hand Aristotle's execution of this part
of his task. What happened may perhaps have been
this: when Aristotle arrived at this point, he put
aside the subject of Justice, to be treated after he had
written his “Politics” and had cleared his views on the
foundations of Justice in the State. At the same time
he put aside the subject of the Intellectual excellences,
perhaps till he should have written his “Metaphysics.”
It must be remembered that he kept many parts of his
Encyclopædia in course of construction at once, and
he would drop one pas. and take up another, as suited
his train of thought, in the present case he did not
entirely abandon mis “Ethics,” but went on to write the
three last books, merely leaving the center part to be
filled in subsequently. Doubtless the matter for that
center part was expounded to and discussed in the
Peripatetic school, but Aristotle probably never him-
self expressed it in literary form. When, however,
Eude s came to write his paraphrase of the “Ethics,”
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he was enabled to fill in the gap which still existed in
them by supplying a portion, the matter of which partly
came from school notes and partly from Aristotle’s
other writings, while the language was that of Eudemus
himself, continuous with the rest of the paraphrase.
Afterwards Nicomachus, or some other editor, took
this supplementary piece from the “Eudemian Ethics”
and stuck it in as Books W., WI., WII. of the “Ethics”
of Aristotle. *
The theory of Justice which has thus come down to
us as Aristotle's, is indistinctly stated in Book W. It
seems to be borrowed a good deal from the “Politics;”
it expounds the principles of Justice which exist in the
State, and merely defines Justice in the individual as
the will to conform to these principles. Thus really no
contribution to ethical science is made. It is shown
how Justice is manifested (i) in distributions by the
State (2) in correcting wrongs done between man and
man, (3) in the ordinary course of commerce. Some
first steps in political economy, being rémarks on the
nature of money, on value, and on price, given in
chap. v., are perhaps the most interesting points in
this book. -
Book VI. appears to be a good deal worrowed from
Aristotle's “Organon” and treatise “On the Soul.” It
is confusedly written, and two questions appear to be
mixed up in it: (1) What is the Moral Standard 2
(2) What are the Intellectual excellences? The former
question receives no definite answer; with regard to the
latter we are informed that there are two distinct and
supremely good modes of the intellect—“Wisdom,”
which is the culmination of the philosophic reason, and
“Thought,” which is the perfection of the practical
reason. This latter quality forms the main subject of
ARISTOTLE. - 99
the book. It is described as being developed in com-
bination with the development of the moral will. It
is an ideal attribute, and we are told that “he who has
‘thought' possesses all the virtues” (“Eth.” WI. xiii. 6).
The distinction here indicated between the practical
and philosophic reason was undoubtedly a contribution
to psychology first made by Aristotle. " It was an im-
provement upon the views of Plato, and a step towards
those of Kant.
Book VII, supplies, in the words of Eudemus, a
valuable complement to Aristotle's moral system. It
discusses the intermediate states between virtue and
vice, and especially analyzes the state called “incon-
tinence,” or “weakness,” as exhibited in the process of
yielding to temptation. By aid of the forms of the
Syllogism it is shown how, while having good princi-
ples in our mind, we may fail under temptation to act
upon them. On the other hand, the idea is introduced
of an ideally vicious man, who has no conscience or re-
morse, but all his mind is in harmony with the dictates
of vice; a conception with which we may compare the
character drawn by Shelley in his portrait of Count
Cenci. The whole of this book is marked by a phrase-
ology different from and later than that of the genu.
ine parts of the “Ethics.” It deals much in physiolo-.
gical considerations, and it winds up with a modified
paraphrase of Aristotle's treatise on Pleasure, given in
Book X, -
Books VIII. and IX. treat of Friendship, which “is
either a virtue, or is closely connected with virtue;” and
no part of the whole treatise is more pleasing or ad-
mirable. The idea of friendship has probably always
found a place among civilized nations, but it obtained , , :
peculiar prominence among the Greeks, partly owing tº '''
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the subordinate position assigned to women, and the
consequent rarity of sympathetic marriages. Among
the Dorians, from early times, there had subsisted a
custom by which each warrior had attached to him, as
his squire a boy whom he was expected to inspire with
becoming thoughts. The one member in this pair was
called “the inbreather,” the other “the listener.” Out
of this custom Sentimental relationships arose, which
Plato approving wrote his famous descriptions of those
pure and passionate attachments between persons of
the same sex, known as “Platonic love.” With this
sentimentality Aristotle did not sympathize, but yet
there is no coldness in his picture of friendship. He
asserts enthusiastically the glow of the heart which is
caused by contemplating the actions of a virtuous friend
(IX. ix. 5), and declares that without this element in
life no one can be called truly happy. Lord Bacon’s
splendid essay “Of Friendship” may be compared with
these pages; but Bacon’s account of the advantages of a
friend is on a lower level and less philosophical than
that given by Aristotle, who goes to the root of the
matter in saying that what a friend really does for you
is, by the joint operation of sympathy and contrast, of
quasi identity and yet diversity—to intensify the sense
of your personal existence, and to give you that vivid-
ness of vitality on which happiness depends (IX. ix. 7).
In this proposition the two books culminate, but they
are full of lucid distinctions, and also of high morality.
Friendship (as has been seen above, p. 77) is represented
by Aristotle as an utterly disinterested feeling, often
calling for great self-sacrifice. Sometimes, he says,
the good man may be called upon to die for his friends
; : (IX. viii. 9); and as a delicate form of disinterestedness
he inquires whether in some cases one ought not to give
sº-º-º-º:
ARISTOTLE: - 101
up to one's friend, instead of seizing for one's self, the
opportunity of doing noble actions.
Almost the only matter of any importance in the
“Ethics” of Aristotle which we have not already sum-
marized is his disquisition on Pleasure Hn Book X.
There was a good deal of abstract questioning in the
time of Aristotle as to whether Pleasure could be “the
chief good,” or whether it could be considered a good
at all. The Platonists were disposed to be hard upon
Pleasure. But all this turned a good deal upon the
prior question, “What Pleasure is?” Aristotle showed
that an erroneous definition had been taken up by the
Platonic School, who considered pleasure to be a sense
of restoration—a sense of our powers, after exhaustion,
being brought up to their normal state. Kant has
given a very similar definition, saying that “pleasure
is the sense of that which promotes life, pain of that
which hinders it.” Aristotle says that this is wrong;
that it applies only to eating and drinking, and such
things, and that Pleasure is not “the sense of what
promotes life,” but the sense of life itself; the sense of
the vital powers, the sense that any faculty whatsoever
has met its proper object. Pleasure, then, according
to the Platonists, was the accompaniment of an imper-
fect condition, like recovery after illness. According
to Aristotle it was, except in the case of certain spurious
pleasures, the play and action of that which is healthy
in us. From this point of view it is obvious that
Pleasure must in itself be a good, and that when it con-
sists in the exercise of the highest faculties (see above,
p. 89) it becomes identical with the highest happiness.
Lest it be thought that this exultation of Pleasure might
have dangerous results from a moral point of view, we
will mention one safeguard which accompanies the
102 THE EIZEVIR LIBRARY,
Aristotelian doctrine. He tells us that for anything to
be “good” in life, it must be an end-in-itself: that is—
something desirable for its own sake, and not as a mere
means to something else; something thoroughly worthy,
in which the mind can rest satisfied. Thus all mere
amusements are excluded from being good, because they
are not ends-in-themselves. And this maxim may be
deduced from Aristotle: “Act as far as possible so that
at any moment you may be able to say to yourself,
‘What I am now doing is an end-in-itself.’”
CHAPTER WI.
ARISTOTLE's “POLITICS,”
THE “Ethics” of Aristotle end with the words, “Let
us then commence our “Politics.’” He had described
virtue and happiness, but neither of these, he says,” is
attainable by any human being apart from society.
Moral development and the full enjoyment of the ex-
ercise of our powers equally demand certain external
conditions; they cannot exist save by the aid of a
settled community, social habits, the restraint and pro-
tection of laws, and even a wisely regulated system of
public education. Man is by nature a social creature;
he cannot isolate himself without becoming either more
or less than man—“either a god or a beast.” The State
is, therefore, a prime necessity for the “well-doing and
well-being” of the individual. In fact, says Aristotle,”
you cannot form any conception of man in his normal
condition—that is to say, in a civilized condition—ex-
cept as a member of a State. On these grounds Aristotle
“Eth.” x, x, 8–28. “Pol.” I. ii. 18, 14,

ARISTOTLE. 103
proposed to go on to the writing of his “Politics” as the
complement and conclusion of his ethical treatise. But
some time probably elapsed before the design was
carried out; * and in the interval it is not unreasonable
to suppose that Aristotle, Seeking, as usual, to base
theory upon experience, was engaged in making that
remarkable collection called the “Constitutions” (see
above, p. 43), which contained a history and description
of no less than 158 States, and of which numerous
fragments remain.
However this may be, the “Politics” forms a rich
repertory of facts relating to the history of Greece.
And it abounds, too, in the knowledge of human
nature, and in wise and penetrating observations on the
conduct and motives of mankind, many of which are
applicable to all times and countries. The treatise is
not entire; it breaks off in the middle of one of the
most interesting parts of all, namely, Aristotle's theory
of education. Perhaps this was one of the cases in
which Aristotle, finding that his mind was not fully
made up on a particular subject, dropped that subject
for the time, meaning to revert to it, but never actu-
ally doing so. Besides its unfinished condition, the
“Politics” also shows indications of a certain amount
of disarrangement in the order of its books. ' If re-
arranged according to their natural order, the books in
Bekker's edition would stand thus : -
Book I. On the Family as a constituent element in
the State. ' - - -
Book II. Containing a criticism of some previous
theories about the State, and of some remarkable actual
constitutions.
* Spengel, one of the most judicious of German critics, says
that “the ‘Politics’ was written long after the “Ethics,’”

104 THE ELZE VIR LIBRARY,
. . . .
Books III., VII., VIII. Giving Aristotle's own con-
ception of an Ideal State,<-unfortunately not con-
cluded.
Rooks IV., WI., W. Forming a return from the ideal
point of view to practical statesmanship, and suggesting
remedies for different evils apparent in the contempo-
rary Governments of Greece.
It has been well pointed out * that in Aristotle's treat-
ment of the above-mentioned subjects three incongruous
elements may be detected: “really scientific inquiry,
aristocratic prejudice, and the dreams of a metaphysical
philosophy which soars to heaven and listens for the
eternal harmonies of nature.” The scientific spirit
shows itself in the vast apparatus of history which
Aristotle employs, his researches into the customs
of barbarous tribes, and his careful recognition of the
immense variety to be found in constitutions coming
under the same general name (such as Democracy,
Aristocracy, etc.) when studied according to the peculiar
circumstances of each case. All this would constitute
his work a contribution to the science of “Comparative
Politics.” - -
But another spirit, alien from that of free and in-
ductive inquiry, occasionally manifests itself, especially
when Aristotle appeals to “nature” either in defending
or attacking any institution. “Nature” is, of course, a
rather slippery word: it may mean either of two things
—either “primitive condition,” in which sense a savage
is in a state of nature; or “normal condition,” in which
sense the most perfectly civilized man has attained his
natural state. The latter sense is the one which Aris.
* Mr. A. Lang's Essays on Aristotle's “Politics,” p. 15 (Long-
mans, Isro,

ARISTOTLE. - 105
totle generally has in his mind; he generally means by
“nature” the normal and perfect state of things, or a
power in the world working towards that normal state.
But the question arises, How do we know what is the
perfect and normal state of things? Philosophers are
too apt to dignify by the name of “nature” any ar-
rangement for which they may have a predilection.
And Aristotle cannot be entirely exonerated from
having done so. He sometimes attributes a sort of
divine right to things as they are, calling them
“natural.” Thus he treats of the family as “nat-
urally” constituted of man, wife, child, and slave.
Certain reformers of the 4th century B.C. had already
lifted up their voices against the institution of slavery.
They had argued that the slave was of the same flesh
and blood as his master, and might be as good as he:
and that, in short, slavery was merely an unjust and
oppressive custom which mankind could and shoul,"
alter. But to the mind of Aristotle slavery was a
necessary institution in order to provide citizens with
that amount of leisure which would enable them to
live ideal lives in the pursuit of the true and the
beautiful (see above, p. 88). Therefore with uncon-
scious bias he proceeded to argue that slavery was
“natural,” on the ground that some races of men were
by “nature” born to serve, being deficieut in that -
“large discourse” of reason which other mes, possessed,
and which gave them a “natural” right to command.
He seeks for external indications of this gºat difference
between man and man, and says that slaves are “bar-
barians” (i.e., ignorant of the Greek "anguage and
Greek manners), and again, that they have not the up.
right bearing of freemen trained in the gymnasia. But
he admits that “nature" has failed in outwardly mark-

106 THE ELZE VIR LIBRARY. -
ing with sufficient distinctness the inward difference
between the slave and his master. Yet still he is not
shaken in his doctrine, but even asserts that it is lawful
to make war on races which were intended by “nature”
to be slaves, and to reduce them to slavery. These
views may seem shocking; but yet they admit of
some palliation. Christian theologians and divines, till
within a very recent time, have defended slavery, ap.
pealing in its behalf to the sanction of the Bible; and
even the virtuous Bishop Berkeley, while sojourning at
Rhode Island, became the owner of slaves. The lot of
a slave in Attica seems, generally speaking, not to have
been a bal one. And Aristotle, in wishing the “natu-
rally” der, ſent races of mankind to be brought into
bondage, see as to have had some idea of the benefit
they would derive from being, as it were, sent to
school. - - -
In another matte; Aristotle appealed to “nature” not
in defending, but is attacking, one of the institutions
of society—namely, the putting out money at interest.
Aristotle had many of the prejudices of a “gentleman;”
we have seen before (p. 96) how he admired a brilliant
liberality, and thought iittle of the virtue of saving.
He acknowledged that means must be forthcoming for
the maintenance of the family, but, if possible, he
would have these means come from the produce of the
soil,” crops, animals, or minerals, for these sources of
support are “natural.” With trade and traffic he had
no sympathy, but he admitted that practically they
must go on; and he said hat people who valued suc-
cess in such things might try and imitate the philoso-
ºr-
pher Thales, who foresaw, by his astrology, on one oc-
* “Pol.” I.x. 8,
ARISTOTLE - 107
casion, that there would be a great olive harvest, and
while it was still winter hired all the olive presses in
the country, and when the demand for these set in, was
able to get his own terms and realize a large sum,
“thus showing that it is easy for philosophers to be
rich, if they only cared about it.” These contemptuous
expressions in regard to commerce clearly indicate that
Aristotle did not take a calm intellectual view of the
subject; he did not see that it was a subject worthy of
being reduced to a science, else he would not have left
the doing of this to Adam Smith. Yet still in a book
full of the shrewdest remarks on social arrangements
we cannot fail to be struck by the antiquated look of
the announcement that “ lending money on interest
is justly abominated, and is the most unnatural of all
forms of gain, for it diverts money from its proper pur-
pose (which was to be a mere instrument of exchange)
and forces it unnaturally to breed.”* This saying of
Aristotle's doubtless did something to foster the prej-
udice against “usury” and Jews, in the latter part
of the Middle Ages. The notion is apparently based
upon the first-mentioned conception of “nature”—as
the primitive state of things. “Interest is not a primi-
tive institution, and therefore it is unnatural.” The
very opposite of this conclusion would be thought true
nowadays. We feel now that money unspent “natu-
rally” acquires interest and compound interest, and that
in a civilized community nothing is more unnatural
than the “talent laid up in a napkin.” - -
* Compare Shakespeare, “Merchant of Venice,” Act i. scene
3:-- - -
Antonio. Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams?
Shylock. I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast.
108 THE EIZE VIR LIBRARY.
An enthusiastic and almost mystical spirit exhibits
itself in Aristotle when he discourses on the Ideal State.
Having laid it down that Happiness for the State and
for the individual is one and the same (“Pol.” VII.
ii. 1), he seems for a moment to waver and hesitate as
to whether he should not retract the doctrine expressed
in the “Ethics” (see above, p. 89), that the happiness
to be found in a life of thought is incomparably
superior to that to be found in a life of action. Could
this be said of a State—that is, of a whole community?
If a whole community is engaged in the fruition of
philosophical thought, must they not be isolated from
international relations and cut off from the world? But
Aristotle does not flinch ultimately from the results of
his doctrine. He says (“Pol.” VII. ii. 16) that “it
is quite possible that a State may be situated in some
isolated position,” enjoying good laws and knowing
nothing of war or foreign relations, and that in such a
state (VII. iii. 8) the community may be engaged in con-
templations and thoughts which have their own end in
themselves, and do not aim at any external results. As
is the life of God or of the conscious universe (each
brooding over their own perfections), such will be the
life of the Ideal Stateſ -
This announcement of the highest end to be aimed
at by Politics is as if some modern writer, in treating
of the State, should seek to identify it with the Invis-
ible Church of God. Or, again, it may remind us of
the saying that the supreme and ultimate product of
civilization is “two or three gentlemen talking together
in a room.” This paradox is true and quite Aristotelian:
mental activities are the highest things of all; enact-
ments, and police, and wars, and treaties exist for the
sake of order, of which the best fruit is the mutual play
º
ARISTOTLE. 109
of intelligence and the glow of friendship, But one
peculiarity of Aristotle's ideal politics is the compara-
tive smallness of their scale. Like a true Greek, he
does not think of nations and empires, but of city-
states. It has been said that the city-state was some-
thing like the University of modern times. Aristotle
regarded it as an organism of Himited size, in which
every citizen should have his function, and in which
every one should be personally known to the rulers.
He said (“Eth.” IX, x. iii.) that 100,000 citizens
would be far too many to constitute a State. Some
of the peculiarities of his Ideal State may be speci-
fied as follows:—Every full citizen was to be a land-
owner, with slaves to cultivate his soil, but no great
accumulation of property in any one man’s hands
was to be allowed. The citizens were to constitute a
warrior caste, and were each to be admitted in turn,
when of mature age, to a share in the government.
No artisan or tradesman was to be a citizen; the city
was to have a harbor, but not too near, so as not to be
flooded with strangers; the navy was to be manned by
slaves; the city itself was, for salubrity, to slope
towards the east and to catch the winds of morning.
Lastly, the State itself was to be a perfect Sparta in
point of discipline, though aiming at something higher
than mere gymnastic and military drill. There was to
be a common primary instruction for all the citizens
from the age of seven to fourteen, and a common sec-
ondary instruction from fourteen to twenty-one. The
“branches” were to be gymnastic, letters, drawing, and
music. Everything was to be taught with a view to
culture, rather than to utility. Thus the object of
learning drawing was “to make one observant of
beauty.” In regard to gymnastic, Aristotle wisely
110 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
warns against a premature strain of the powers, and
says that it is very rare for the same person to have won
a prize, as a boy, and as a man, at the Olympic games.
He lays great stress on the moral and educational influ-
ence of music, and its efficacy in “purging” the emo-
lions (see above, p. 84). He disparages pipe-playing,
which, he says, was adopted by the Athenians in the
glorious period of license succeeding their victories over
the Persians; and adds that “pipe-playing not only dis-
figures the face, but has nothing intellectual in it.” It
is difficult for us to enter into many of the feeiings of
the ancients about music. Aristotle lauds the ‘‘Dorian
mood;” and liere his treatise breaks off, without his
having given us his theory as to instruction in litera-
ture, or as to the secondary instruction in general of his
ideal citizens. -
In constructing a Utopia, Aristotle was, of course,
following the example of the celebrated “Republic” of
Plato; but his object was to improve upon the concep-
tions of his master, whom he criticised with courtesy,
but in a prosaic spirit. Plato’s “city” avowedly ex-
isted in dreamland, but Aristotle applied to it the
tests of historical experience and everyday possibility.
While accepting the idea of a city of contemplation,
Aristotle determined that its institutions should be
such as to approve themselves to practical common-
sense. The contrast between the two philosophers in
this matter is very striking—the one daring, creative,
and full of the play of fancy; the other laborious, mat-
ter-of-fact, and scientific. It is not certain that Plato's
wild suggestions for a community of wives and prop-
erty were meant to be taken seriously; but Aristotle
takes them so, and gives us the first arguments on record
against Communism. He defends the institution of
ARISTOTLE, 111
property as “natural,” and says that “it makes an un-
speakable difference in the enjoyment of a thing to feel
that it is your own.” All his remarks on this point are
sagacious; but there is a singular spirit of conservatism
shown in his saying (“Pol.” II. v. 16) that “if Plato's
notions had been good they would have been adopted
long ago.” Instead of looking forward to a future of
discovery and progress, Aristotle rather looked back,
thinking that all perfection had been attained in the
past.
In Books IV., WI., W. of his “Politics” (see above,
p. 104), Aristotle turns from the ideal to the actual, and
lays down a theory of the different forms of government
which are possible, the causes which give rise to these
different forms, their respective merits and disadvan-
tages, and the practical means for obviating the evils to
which they are respectively exposed. Greek society was
very unstable; Athens and many other cities were, like
Paris during the last half-century, in chronic expecta-
tion of a revolution. Therefore a theory of seditions
and revolutions became an essential part of Greek polit-
ical Science, and Aristotle furnishes one accordingly,
containing the wise remark that “Small things are never
the cause, though they are often the occasion, of popu-
lar revolt.” He shows that there are three normal forms
of government—the Monarchy, or government by one
wise ruler; the Aristocracy, or government by a select
number of the wisest and best; and the “Constitution,”
or mixed government, in which democratic, monarchic,
and aristocratical elements are balanced against each
other. Each of these normal and perfect forms, wher-
ever they have existed, has followed a tendency to di-
verge into a corruption of itself—the monarchy de-
generates into Tyranny, the aristocracy into Oligarchy,
112 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
and the “Constitution” into Democracy. These lowel
forms are the kinds of government which Aristotle prac.
tically finds in the world. He shows how each of them
is constantly menaced by revolution, and from what
special causes, namely, the peculiar jealousies which
cach is apt to engender. He says that it is not the de-
sire of gain, so much as tenacity of rights or fancied
ights, that causes revolution. He gives various pieces
of advice to those who administer the different forms
of government—one of which is that each government
should avoid emphatically asserting its own special
character. The democracy should be as little demos.
cratic, the tyrant as little tyrannous, the oligarchy as
little exclusive and overbearing as possible—so that in
each case some approach might be made to the golden
“mean,” which is the true cause of political stability.
In his high appreciation of the “Constitution,” or
well-mixed government, Aristotle may be thought to
have had an unconscious anticipation of the guarded
liberties, and of the combination of order with progress,
which are the blessing and the pride of England. But in
one respect he totally fails to come up to the grandeur of
the modern conception; for, as said before, he thinks
of arrangements for a city and not for a nation, and
he has no idea of those representative institutions by
which political freedom of action on a large scale may
be provided. As his views for each State were limited,
so also he did not take sufficient thought of inter-
national relations. For one moment he seemed to have
caught a glimpse of possibilities which he might have
followed out into important conclusions; for he says
(“Pol.” WII. vii. 3) that “owing to the happy moder-
ation of the climate of Greece, the Hellenic race pos.
sess a combination of the best qualities which fall to
ARISTOTL.E. 113
the lot of the human species, being both high-spirited
and intellectual; and if they could all together form one
political State, the Greeks might govern the world.”
He drops out this isolated thought, but does not pursue
it. At the moment when he was writing, the Hellenic
race was in the utmost danger; it was, in fact, doomed
to fall from its high position into political extinc-
gion, and all for the want of “solidarity,” all from these
jealousies which kept each Greek city apart from the
rest, Aristotle's peculiar relations to the court of Mace-
don may have hindered him from freely entering upon
this subject, or may have biased his views; but the real
fact seems rather to have been that, while he was a great
philosopher, he was no statesman, and that, absorbed
in the researches of science and in the dreams of an
ideal State, he did not see the actual dangers of his coun-
try so clearly as his patriotic contemporary Demosthenes
saw them. His contribution to politics was abstract
and scientific, and as such remains valid for all time;
his analysis of the pathology (so to speak) of oligarchies
and democracies was found to be often strikingly veri-
fied in the history of the Italian republics. And how-
ever much the views of Aristotle fall short of the re-
quirements of modern times, the “Politics” will always
form a valuable study for one who is likely to take part
in the public affairs of his country.
CHAPTER WII.
THE NATURAL PHILosophy of ARISTOTLE.
ARISTOTLE has now done with Practical and Con-
structive Science.” He turns from Man with his dis.
* See above, p. 38,

114 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
putations, reasonings, oratory, poetry, moral and social
life, to the subjects of Speculative Science—to Nature,
the Universe, and God. In glancing at the series of
great treatises in which the results of his thoughts and
researches upon these subjects are embodied, it will be
convenient to divide them under the three heads of Nat.
ural Philosophy, Biology, and Metaphysics, First, then,
the “Physical Discourse,” the treatise “On the Heav.
ens,” that “On Generation and Destruction,” and the
“Meteorologics,” form together a distinct whole,” and
contain the Natural Philosophy of Aristotle, of which
let us now notice some of the salient points, leaving his
Biology and Metaphysics to form the subject of future
chapters.
Natural Philosophy, as conceived by Aristotle, was
far more metaphysical than the science which is called
by that name in the present day—a science based on
mathematics, and starting, we might perhaps say, with
the doctrines of Newton’s “Principia,” anything which
lies beyond these doctrines being taken for granted.
But in Aristotle's Natural Philosophy nothing is taken
for granted. He commences by inquiring into the na-
ture of “Existence;” and sets himself to answer some
of the puzzles with which his predecessors, the philoso-
phers of Greece, had racked their own and other peo-
ple's brains. They had said, “How is it possible for
anything to come into existence? Out of what can it
come? It must come either out of the existent or the
non-existent. But it cannot come out of the existent,
else it would have existed already; nor can it come out
of the non-existent, for out of nothing nothing can
“On the connection of these works see some general remarks
above, p. 41. - - - -

AIRISTOTLE, 115
come.” Aristotle solves this dilemma (“Phys.” I. viii.)
by introducing what now seems a simple enough dis-
tinction—that between the “possible” and the “actual;”
things come into existence, that is, into actuality, out
of the state of the possible. Now the possible, or po-
tential, is in one sense non-existent, as it is nothing
actual; but, on the other hand, it is not mere nonentity,
as it is by hypothesis a possibility of existence. All this
may appear to be a mere matter of words; and it may
be asked what we gain by having the words “possibil-
ity” and “actuality” added to our vocabulary. But,
in fact, men think by means of words; and if a mew
formula can clear up the notions connected with such
often-occurring terms as ‘is’’ or “became,” it is a gain,
the reality of which is shown by the perplexities to
which thinkers had been reduced to for the want of it.
Aristotle, pursuing his general reflections about Ex-
istence, says that in everything that exists you can trace
three principles: the Matter out of which the thing
arose, and which contained the possibility of its exist-
ence; the Form or actual nature which the thing pos-
sesses; and the Negation or Privation of all other na-
tures. That is to say—a thing is what it is by not being
what it is not. And thus all existence has a negative,
as well as a positive, side (“Phys.” I. ix.). These re-
marks form a metaphysical basis to Natural Philosophy.
In the second book of his “Physical Discourse,”
Aristotle quits the region of pure abstractions, and
states, in interesting terms, his views of “Nature.” He
speaks of “Nature” as “a principle of motion and rest
*
essentially inherent in things, whether that motion be
locomotion, increase, decay, or alteration.” “It is ab-
surd to try to prove the existence of Nature; its exist-
ence is self-evident,” Nature may be said in one way
116 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
*3.
to be the simplest substratum of matter in things pos-
sessing their own principle of motion and change; in
another way it may be called the form or law of such
things.” In other words, Nature is both matter or po-
tentiality, and form or actuality; both the simple ele-
ments of a thing and its existence in perfection. It is
also the transition from the one to the other. “Nature,”
says Aristotle, “spoken of as the creation of anything,
is the path to nature.”
Paley's “Natural Theology” opens with the cele-
brated argument which compares the world to a watch.
“If one were to find a watch,” says Paley, “he would
surely conclude that there must have been a watch-
maker; and so from the marks of design in creation,
which are like the adaptations to special purposes of
each part in the watch, we must conclude that an in-
telligent Creator made the world.” Aristotle, quite as
strongly as Paley, admits the marks of design in nature,
He says (“Phys.” II. viii. 14):“The adaptation of means
to ends which we see in the procedure of the animals
makes some men doubt whether the spider, for instance,
and the ant, do not work by the light of reason or an
analogous faculty. In plants, moreover, manifest traces
of a fit and wisely-planned organization appear. The
swallow makes its nest and the spider its web by na-
ture, and yet with a design and an end; and the roots
of the plant grow downward for the sake of providing
it with nourishment in the best way. It is plain, then,
that the origin of natural things must be attributed to
design.” He repudiates the notion that “the heavens
and the divinesſ of visible things”& Phys.” II.iv.6) can
have been the result of the workings of blind chance.
* . . . . Nor will he accept the theory of Empedocles (which
was like the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection in

ARISTOTLE 117
its extremest form) that blind chance hit upon the pro-
duction of life, and that whole races of monsters and
imperfect beings perished before the moment came when
—by mere accident and coincidence—a creature was at-
tained sufficiently perfect to survive (“Phys.” II. viii. 4).
So far from chance having been the chief force in pro-
ducing the framework of the Universe, Aristotle con-
siders chance to be a mere exception, a mere irregular-
ity, thwarting the reason and the wisdom which guides,
and has ever guided, the operations of nature.
But, while utterly denying what Mr. Darwin would
seem to point to—that Reason is a result of the func-
tions of matter, and is a comparatively recent develop-
ment in the history of this globe—Aristotle would
equally deny the thesis of Paley, that Reason, in the
form of an intelligent Creator, existed separately before
this world, and constructed the world as a watch-maker
constructs a watch. While he considered Reason to
have existed from all eternity, he thought that the Uni-
verse, pervaded in all its parts by Reason, had also ex-
isted from all eternity. Thus all idea of the world hav-
ing been created was quite eliminated from the thoughts
of Aristotle. He said the world must have been eter-
nal, for everything which is created, or comes into ex-
istence, comes into the “actual" out of the “possible.”
The egg and the seed are instances of the “possible,”
the fowl and the flower of the “actual.” But there
must always have been a fowl before there was an egg,
and a flower before there was a seed. Therefore the
actual must always have been first; and if this be the
case with particular classes of things, we cannot con-
ceive that the whole world was ever non-existent, and
a mere possibility waiting to be called into existence
(“Metaphys.” VIII. viii.). . . . .
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~!
Philosophers always acknowledge the difficulty which
there is in conceiving a beginning. Aristotle escapes
this difficulty by asserting that the Universe has existed
eternally the same as it appears to us now. He says
that there is only one Cosmos or Universe, and that out-
side of this there is “neither space, nor vacuum, nor
time.” One would expect these words to mean that
the Universe extends to infinity in all directions; but,
on the other hand, Aristotle attributes a definite circular
shape to the “outside” of the Universe, which would be
incompatible with the idea of infinite extension, In
fact, his arguments to prove the above untenable posi-
tion are curious abstract quibbles, which may be quoted
to show how oddly a philosopher of the 4th century
B.C. could reason on the physical construction of the
Universe. He says (“On the Heavens,” I. ix.) that
there can be neither space nor vacuum outside the cir-
cumference of the Cosmos, for, if there were, then body
might be placed therein; but this is impossible, because
every physical body is naturally endowed with one of
three motions: it is either naturally centripetal, or nat-
urally Centrifugal, or naturally revolving round the
earth. Now each of these three kinds of body has its
natural place within the Universe; the stone being cen-
tripetal has its natural place on or in the earth; fire be-
ing centrifugal has its natural place above the air; the
stars which revolve have their natural place in the re-
volving Heaven. Thus there is no kind of body which
can naturally exist outside the Universe, and therefore
there can be no space, for space is that in which bodies
exist! That there is no Time beyond the limits of the
Universe, Aristotle proves by the more legitimate argu-
ment that “if there is no motion there can be no Time,
since Time is the measure of motion.” But his concep

ARISTOTLE 119
tion of the “matural ” motions inherent in different
classes of bodies, and his appeal to his own precon-
ceived ideas of “nature” to prove what exists, or does
not exist, outside the circumference of Heaven, are very
characteristic.
Time and Space, then, according to Aristotle, end
with the circumference of Heaven, though it is difficult
to understand how space can be conceived to come to
an end at any particular point. But the Stagirite here
becomes mystical, for he says that “the things out-
side,” existing in neither space nor time, enjoy for all
eternity a perfect life of absolute joy and peace (“Heav-
ens,” I. ix.). This is the region of the divine, in which
there is life and consciousness, though perhaps no per
Sonality; it is increate, immutable, and indestructi—
ble.
Descending from this region—if that can be called
7'egion which is out of space altogether—we come in
the Aristotelian system to the “First Heaven,” the
place of the fixed stars, which ever revolves with great
velocity from the left to the right. In a lower sphere,
revolving in the contrary direction, are the sun, moon,
and planets; and we are told that we must not suppose
that either stars or planets are composed of fire. Their
substance is ether, that fifth element, or quinta essentia,
which enters also into the composition of the human
soul. They only seem bright, like fire, because the
friction caused by the rapidity with which they are
carried round makes them red-hot. The reason why
the stars twinkle, but the planets do not, is merely that
the former are so far off that our sight reaches them in
a weak and trembling condition; hence their light
seems to us to quiver, while really it is our eyesight
which is quivering, Sun, moon, and stars alike are
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living beings, unwearied, and in the enjoyment of per.
fect happiness.
It has often been said that if an ancient Greek
temple be compared with a Gothic cathedral, the one
suggests the idea of the finite, the other of the infinite.
The same thing might be said of Aristotle's Cosmology
when compared with the views of modern science.
Aristotle figured to himself a perfectly limited universe,
with the earth in the center, and the fixed stars all
round the circumference. In a circle, or globe, it may
be questioned which is the place of honor—the center
or the circumference. The Pythagoreans, accordingly,
after the abstract method of those times, declared that
the center must be the most honorable position, and
that, as the element fire is more honorable than the
element earth, the center of the Universe must be
occupied by some Central Fire, and that the cartli must
revolve round this like the other stars. Aristotle, uncon-
scious how much nearer to the truth this guess was than
his own, laughs at it as, the production of men “who
try to square facts to their own fancies, and who wish
to have a share in the arrangement of the Universe.”
He also repudiates (“Heavens,” II. xiv. 1) the theory of
Plato that the earth is packed round the axis of the
entire Universe and revolves with it, thus causing day
and night.” He maintains that the earth is the motion-
less center, but the least honorable member, of the Uni-
verse, the all-embracing circumference being the most
noble, and the heavenly bodies having a dignity in
inverse ratio to their approach towards the center. The
guesses, or intuitions, of the ancient Greeks in Aristotle's
* There is some doubt as to what Plato's theory actually
was. See “Minor Works of George Grote,” vol. i. pp. 239–275,
and Professor Jowett's Introduction to the “Timaeus” of Plato,

ARISTOTLE 121
time, or soon afterwards, hit upon something very like
an anticipation of the Copernican system. And this
was especially the case with Aristarchus of Samos, who
announced the double movement of the earth, round its
own axis and round the sun. But Aristotle certain-
ly contributed nothing towards the adoption of such
ideas. He unfortunately committed himself, on fancied
grounds of symmetry, to an opposite view.
Aristotle argued that if the earth were to move it
could only do so “unmaturally,” by the application of
external force in contradiction to its own natural ten-
dency to rest round the center, and that no such forced
movement could be kept up forever, whereas the ar-
rangement of the Cosmos must be for all eternity.
Therefore the earth must be at rest! As to its shape,
Aristotle was more correct: he proved it to be spherical
—(1) by the consideration that all heavy bodies are by
nature alway tending to the center, and that this pro-
cess must result in the production of a spherical mass;
(2) by the fact that the earth's shadow cast on the moon
in an eclipse is circular. He considered the bulk of the
earth to be small when compared with that of “the
other stars;” he accepts the calculations of the geome-
ters of his time that its circumference was 400,000
stades; and he says that “we must not treat with in-
credulity the opinion of those who say that the regions
near the Pillars of Hercules (or Straits of Gibraltar)
join on to India, and that the ocean to the east of
India and that to the west of Europe are one and the
same.” In support of this proposition he adduces the
fact that elephants are to be found on each side, 3.6., in
India and in Africa (“Heavens,” II. xiv. 15). The
passage of Aristotle here quoted had a large share in
inflaming the imagination of Christopher Columbus,
122 THE EIznym LIBRARY,
and in sending him forth from the coasts of Spain in
search of the coasts of India; and it was the cause of
the islands of Central America being named the “West
Indies,” and the aborigines of North America being
called “Red Indians.” As an approximative guess at
the size and figure of the earth, the passage in question
was not a bad one, considering the time when it was
written; but curiously enough it contains two errors,
the first of which would imply the earth to be a great
deal larger, and the second a great deal smaller, than
it really is. The mean geographical stade of the Greeks
is computed at 168 yards 1 foot and 6 inches, and thus
if 400,000 stades be assigned to the circumference of
the earth, we get a measurement of above 38,000 miles,
whereas the latest calculations would only give about
24,857 miles for a mean circumference of the earth.
Thus evidently the geometers of the time of Aristotle
were too liberal in their ideas of the earth's size. But,
on the other hand, those who identified the Atlantic
with the Pacific Ocean, and brought India opposite to
Spain, had evidently too contracted a notion of the con-
tents of our globe.
Owing to the absence of astronomical instruments,
and the generally infantile condition of physical sci-
ence in the 4th century B.C., it was only natural that
the a priori method, or guessing, should greatly pre-
dominate in the cosmical theories of that time. But
Aristotle's strength did not lie in his imagination. In
this faculty he was inferior to other philosophers whom
in analytical power he far surpassed. Thus Alexander
von Humboldt says of him (“Cosmos,” vol. i. note 48),
“the great influence which the writings of Aristotle
exercised on the whole of the Middle Ages, renders it a
cause of extreme regret that he should have been so op-

ARISTOTLE, 123
posed to the grander and juster views of the fabric of
the universe entertained by the more ancient Pythago.
rean school.” There was, in fact, a want of sublimity
in the fancy of Aristotle, and it so happened that
he sometimes contemptuously rejected hypotheses
which were not only more beautiful, but more true,
than his own. We have seen that this was the case
with regard to the earth's position in the cosmical
system. And the same thing occurred as to the nature
of comets. The Pythagoreans had declared comets to be
“ planets of long revolution;” but Aristotle, rejecting
this supposition, affirmed them to be transient meteors
of our atmosphere, formed out of luminous or incan-
descent matter which had been thrown off by the stars.
And to explain the reason why comets are so rare, he
said that the matter out of which they are composed
is constantly used up in forming the Milky Way.
(“Meteorol.” I. viii.) “The nebulous belt, then, which
traverses the vault of the heavens, is regarded by the
Stagirite as an immense comet incessantly reproducing
itself.” - -
Clearly, Aristotle's contribution to Natural Philosophy
did not consist in suggesting or leading the way to true
views as to the nature and arrangement of the heavenly
bodies. He not only was in advance of his age in
this respect, but was even behind it, in so far as he
refused to adopt theories, which have sinée turned out
to have been anticipations of the results of modern
science. But, on the other hand, it must be remembered
that those theories were incapable of verification at the
time, and had no force in themselves to command the
attention of the world. They were like the “false
dawn” in tropical countries, which appears for a few
minutes and then fades away, allowing the darkness
124 THE ELZE VIR LIBRARY.
again to reign supreme, till the true sunrise takes place.
Unconvinced by the speculations of the Pythagorean
school and of Aristarchus of Samos, the great Alex-
andrian astronomer, Ptolemy, in the second century
of our era, reaffirmed the Aristotelian views as to the
spherical form and motion of the heavens, as to the
earth's position in the centre of the heavens, and as to
its being devoid of any motion of translation. And
the Ptolemaic system satisfied men's minds until, with
Copernicus and Galileo, modern astronomy began.
We must allow that Aristotle's cosmical ideas were
erroneous and misleading. Still we must take them as
constituting a mere fraction of his encyclopædia of phi-
losophy, and we must recollect that they are put forth
in works which laid out and constituted new sciences.
This was the Stagirite's achievement, the clear analytic
separation of the different Sciences, and the statement,
in outline at all events, of the questions which each
science had to answer. Aristotle generally attempted
to furnish his own answer to these questions, and often
gave wrong answers; yet to have posited the questions
at all was a great matter, and cleared the way for the
thoughts of subsequent generations. There is no one
to whose work the saying is more appropriate than to
that of the Stagirite—prudens quastio dimidium scien-
tia, est—“It is half-way to knowledge when you know
what you have to inquire.”
The leading questions started in the Natural Phi-
losophy of Aristotle are as to the nature of causation,
time, space, and motion. On the subject of motion he
went astray by taking up the idea that celestial and
terrestrial motions were different in kind—that the
heavenly bodies “naturally” revolved, while bodies on
earth had each a natural motion in them, either down-
ARISTOTLE 125
ward or upward. This belief in the absolute levity of
certain bodies—as, for instance, fire—was, of course,
a mistake. “Truth is the daughter of Time;” and
a few of the great discoveries of modern ages, which
appear so simple, though they were so hardly and so
late achieved, -such as the Copernican system, and the
law of gravitation, - have shattered the Cosmos of
Aristotle. Still it required at least fifteen centuries
before anything like a demonstration was brought
against the reality of that Cosmos and its arrange-
ments. Thus, if Aristotle be censured for the incorrect-
ness of his theories, succeeding generations of thinkers
for so long a period must also be held responsible for
their undoubting acceptance of them. -
Aristotle's method in Physics, as in most other Sub-
jects, consisted in this: he first endeavored to state
clearly to himself what was the problem which he had
before him, then he collected all the solutions of that
problem which had been proposed by his predecessors,
and all popular “ sayings” and “motions” in regard to
it, and then he examined existing opinions by the light
of such facts as occurred to him, or which had been
previously collected by him, or else he applied logical
reasonings and general philosophical considerations in
pronouncing upon the validity of the theories of others.
A main part of the process consisted in starting ingeni-
ous difficulties to the theories in question, so that they
seldom came through the ordeal without being wholly
exploded or considerably modified. The residuum left,
or the new result arrived at, constituted the theory of
Aristotle. Such is not the procedure by which dis-
coveries are made, knowledge increased, and the bound-
aries of science extended, in modern times. But after
all, it was not a bad procedure for a man who was

126 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
writing an encyclopædia. Aristotle had undertaken to
set forth every department of knowledge revised and
perfected, so far as possible, by the aid of stores of in-
formation and thought which he had laid up. In some
departments he was much stronger than others: in
Politics, Sociology, Psychology, and Natural History,
he had a far better array of facts than in Astronomy
and Mechanics. No one could be keener than he was
to make facts the basis of every theory; but he was
obliged to do the best he could in each case with his
materials. He set out all that was known or believed
on each subject, and added to the knowledge or criti.
cised the beliefs as well as he could. The real aids for
the advance and verification of science which exist in
modern times—instruments, such as the telescope, the
microscope, the barometer, the thermometer, the spec-
troscope, and countless others; the knowledge of many
great laws of nature; and the practice of accurately ob.
serving and carefully recording—were all wanting in
the days of Aristotle. Therefore it is absurd to treat
him as if he had been a modern man of science, with a
vicious method. It may be called a mistake that he
attempted so much; still what he accomplished was
wonderful if we merely regard it as a map of the
Sciences belonging to the 4th century B.C., full of his
own additions and improvements.
There is one great science of modern days which
Aristotle failed to separate off, or sketch out, or in any
way to foreshadow—and that is the science of Chem-
istry. Some erroneously spell this word “chymistry” as
though it were derived from the Greek chymos,” a juice,
* Aristotle, in treating of the sense of Taste, gives an enume-
ration of different flavors, and then says, “The other properties
of juices form a proper subject for inquiry in connection with

ARISTOTLI. 127
and as though it had been known to the Greeks. But
of course “chemistry” comes from the Semitic word
chem (which is the same as “Ham,” the son of Noah),
meaning “black,” and then “Egyptian.” And thus
Chemistry is the black or Egyptian art, having taken
its rise out of the searches made by the Alchemists to
discover the philosopher's stone. Aristotle had no no-
tion whatever of the rich field of knowledge and power
which lay in the analysis of substances. He had no
idea of the composition of water or air. The crucible
and the retort had never been worked in Athens; the
most superficial guesswork, as to what we should call
the chemical properties of bodies, contented the philos-
ophers of the day. Aristotle's work “On Generation
and Corruption” would have been the appropriate place
for enunciating some of the laws of Chemistry; but he
does not go beyond a resolution of the “Four Elements”
into the ultimate principles of the Hot, the Cold, the
Wet, and the Dry—the first pair being “active” and the
second “passive” principles. Hot and Wet, we are
told, form Air; Hot and Dry, Fire; Cold and Wet,
Water; Cold and Dry, Earth. From these principles
Aristotle deduces the generation and destruction of phy-
sical bodies; but on the details of a theory which now
Seems puerile we need not dwell. -
the physiology of plants.” Thus by “juices” he means vegeta-
ble fluids, to be treated of from the point of view of Botany or
of Materia Medica, -


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#
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BIOLOGY OF ARISTOTLE.
THE word “Biology” is perhaps only about fifty
years old, having first come into prominent use in the
“Positive Philosophy” of Auguste Comte. It is now
quite naturalized in the vocabulary of science; and there
is an article on “Biology,” by Professor Huxley, in the
recently published edition of the “Encyclopædia Bri-
tannica,” which begins, “The Biological sciences are
those which deal with the phenomena manifested by
living matter.” Yet still, in the eyes of a scholar this
modern compound is an unfortunate one. The Greeks
had two words for life, Zöé and Bios: the former
expressed life viewed from the inside, as it were—the
vital principle, the functions of life, the sense of living;
the latter expressed the external form and manner of
living, such as a man's profession or career. Zöé was
applicable to the whole animated kingdom; Bios was
restricted to man, except so far as, half-metaphorically,
it was applied to the habits of beasts or birds. Thus
Aristotle divided Zöé into the species “vegetable,”
“animal,” and “human;" but Bios into the species
“life of pleasure,” “life of ambition,” and “life of
thought.” From all this, it will be seen that “ Biology”
could not be used to denote a science of the phenomena
of living matter in general, without a sacrifice of ancient
Greek associations. “Biology,” in short, is more appro-
priate to express what we generally call Sociology; and,
. . on the other hand, “Zoëlogy” should have been used
to express what is now called “Biology.” But the fact .
was, that the word “Zoology” (derived from Zoon, an
* .
ARISTOTLE 129
animal, not from Zöé, life) had been already appro-
priated as a name for natural history. Hence, without
regard to classical propriety, the word “Biology” was
forced into service to meet a want, and to express, what
had never been expressed before, the science of life in
all its manifestations from the lowest ascidian up to
the highest development of humanity, so far as that
development can be considered to be a natural evolu-
tion out of the playsiological laws of life. -
Aristotle had no word to express this comprehensive
idea, but assuredly he had the idea itself. He regards
the whole of mature as-a continuous chain, even begin-
ning with inorganic substances and passing by imper-
ceptible gradations on to organisms, to the vegetable,
and to the Zoophyte, and then to the animal and the
various ranks in the animal kingdom, and lastly to man
(“Researches about Animals,” VIII. i. 4), “whose soul
in childhood, you might say, differs not from the
soul of the lower animals.” This broad comprehensive
sweep of the philosophic eye through the realms of
nature, this finding of unity in such endless diversity,
this tracing of a continuous thread throughout the
ascending scale of life, may seem quite a matter of
course to educated persons of the present day. But
it was creditable to Aristotle to have so fully arrived
at and entertained this conception, and to have set it
forth in such firmly-drawn scientific outlines. Above
all, it was creditable to one who, though born of the
race of Esculapius (see above, p. 2), had been trained
as a dialectician and an orator, and had devoted so :
much time and labor to the sciences connected with
words and thoughts, that he should have had the force
and versatility to act also as pioneer into a totally
different range of inquiries, and to collect such a mass


180 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY, -
of Animals,
of facts wherewith to fill in his general sketch of
animated nature. It is probable that at all periods
of his life his studies, observations, and notes upon
matters of physical and natural science, ran on side
by side with his development of mental and moral
philosophy. Some have thought that the period of his
residence at the Court of Macedonia, when acting as
tutor to Alexander, afforded him peculiar facilities, in
the shape of royal menageries and hunters and fowlers
under his command, for the collection of materials for
his great work on animals. However this may be,
there seems no sufficient reason for taking that work
itself out of the list of those which were on the stocks
and more or less completed during the last thirteen
years of his life. -
Aristotle's biological treatises, as briefly specified
above (p. 42), consist (1) of the work “On the Parts
” which contains a distinction still valid
in physiology between “tissues” and “organs,” or as
Aristotle calls them, “homogeneous” and “unhomo-
geneous” substances. He traces here, according to his
own ideas, the ascent from the inorganic to the organic
world: out of heat, cold, wetness, and dryness the four
elements are compounded; out of the four elements are
formed the homogeneous substances or tissues; out of
these are formed the organs, and out of the organs
the organized being. All this served as a provisional
theory, until superseded by the discoveries of chemistry.
Aristotle laid it down as a principle of method (“Parts
of An.,” I. i. 4), that all which was common to the vari-
ous species of living beings should be discussed before
entering upon their specific differences. Therefore (2)
the treatise “On the Soul” followed next in order, and
traced out the vital principle through its successive

ARISTOTLE 131
ascending manifestations. To this was appended (3)
the “Parva Naturalia” or “Physiological Tracts,”
which dealt with some of the functions of living crea-
tures, whether common or special, such as sensation,
memory, dreaming, and also with the following pairs
of opposites: waking and sleeping, youth and old age,
inspiration and expiration, life and death. It was
added that there is another pair still to be treated of
—namely, health and sickness. The Stagirite, as was
natural from his family traditions, always appears to
have looked forward to composing a philosophical work
on Medicine. But there is no trace of this ever having
been achieved.
The 4th book on the list kept still to generalities,
This was the short treatise “On the Locomotion of
Animals,” which showed how various organs in the
various creatures are adapted by nature for this pur-
pose, Next (5) the elaborate treatise “On the Genera-
tion of Animals” worked out this subject, illustrating
it with a wonderfully copious collection of facts, or
supposed facts, and of the opinions of the day; and,
lastly (6), the great treatise entitled “Researches about
Animals,” formed, as it were, the conclusion of the
whole, by giving detailed observations upon many of
the various living creatures which are the products of
the working of nature's general laws. -
Aristotle justly drew a distinction between the way
in which any phenomenon of nature would be con-
sidered and defined by a dialectician and by a physicist.
Thus he says (“On the Soul,” I. i. 16): “Anger would
be defined by a dialectician to be ‘a desire for retalia-
tion,’ or something of the kind,-by a physical philos.
opher it would be defined as “a boiling up of the hot
blood about the heart.’” It is needless to say that the
182 THE EIZEVIR LIBRARY,
Stagirite himself was great and unrivalled in his dialec-
tical definitions,—those definitions which depended on
grasping the essence of facts which are patent to all
ages alike; while in his physical definitions, being
destitute of facts which only later ages have brought to
light, he was very imperfect and occasionally almost
absurd. As a specimen of this we may mention his
account of the vital principle or life, from the two
points of view. He defines the vital principle (“Soul,”
II. i. 6) to be “the essential actuality of an organism;”
and this definition has met with high praise from
modern physiologists, some of whom, indeed, appear
simply to have repeated it in slightly different words.
Thus Duges defines life as “the special activity of
organized bodies;” and Beclard calls it “organization
in action.” “ The merit of Aristotle's definition, as
coming from an ancient Greek philosopher, consists in
its avoiding the view which would have been natural
in those times—namely, that life, the vital principle or
the physical soul, was a sep...rate entity, dwelling in the
body, hospés comesque corports, “the body's guest and
friend,” as the Emperor Hadrian called it in his dying
verses. Aristotle said that life, or the soul, is not a
chance guest, but a function; it is to the body as sight
is to the eye; it is the perfect action of all the conditions
of the bodily organization. Thus the Pythagoreans
spoke vainly when they talked of the “transmigration
of souls,” as if the Soul of a man could migrate into the
body of a beast. “You might as well,” said Aristotle,
“speak of the carpenter's art (which is the result of the
*These definitions are quoted in Bennett's “Text-book of IPhy
siology,” p. 184. See also Mr. G. H. Lewes's “Aristotle, a Page
from the History of Science,” p. 230. -

ARISTOTLE 138
carpenter's tools) migrating into flutes, which are the
tools of the musician.”
So much for his dialectical, or speculative, views of
life. The following are some of his opinions in detail
on the same subject, from a physical point of view,
taken from the “Physiological Tracts:”—The primary
condition of life is the “natural fire” which resides in
the heart of each living creature. This fire may be
extinguished by contrary forces, or smothered by ex-
cess of heat. Respiration is the process of cooling,
which prevents the smothering of the vital fire.
Animals require two things for existence—food and
cooling. The mouth serves for both purposes, except
in the case of fishes,” who get their cooling not by air
through the lungs, but by water through the gills.
The heart is placed in the middle region of the body,
and is not only the seat of life, but also of intelligence;
it is the first formed of all the parts. The brain is the
coldest and wettest part of the body, and Serves con-
jointly with the respiration in cooling down the fire of
life. Three of the senses—sight, sound, and Smell—are
located in the brain; touch and taste reside in the
heart, which also contains the “common sensorium,”
or faculty of complex perceptions, such as figure, size,
motion, and number. The heart makes the blood and
sends it out by the “veins” to all parts of the body (of
course Aristotle was unaware of the return of the blood
to the heart, and therefore made no distinction between
veins and arteries). Adequate warmth being the con- . . .
dition of life, the inhabitants of hot countries are longer- -
sºr
* Aristotle rejects the (true) opinion of Anaxagoras and Di. •
ogenes that fishes get air out of the water which they draw • ' ... -- . . . . .
through their gills, and that they are suffocated when out of the
water because the air comes to them in too large quantities,

184 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
lived than those of cold countries; and men are longer-
lived than women. But as cooling also is required,
people with large heads, as a rule, live long.
It is hardly necessary to say that every opinion
above mentioned is mistaken, and almost every state-
ment of fact erroneous. Aristotle, however, is not
solely responsible for the doctrines, for he doubtless
inherited his ideas of anatomy and physiology from
Hippocrates and his father Nicomachus, and, in short,
from his Greek predecessors. He neither did, nor
could, create the whole of physiology afresh, as he cre-
ated the whole science of logic. This shows the differ-
ence between a science that is simple and abstract, be-
ing dependent on a few laws of the human mind, and a
science which is infinitely complex, being dependent on
facts which have only gradually been discovered up to
a certain point during the long lapse of centuries, with
*
the aid of instruments which were unknown to the an-
cients. But Aristotle had distinctly the idea of the ad-
vance of physiology and medicine by means of the
study of nature. He said, “Physical philosophy leads
to medical deductions, the best doctors seek grounds
for their art in nature.” Perhaps from this sentence, at
all events from the notion contained in it, the word
“physician” has come to be appropriated in modern
times by the practitioners of medicine.
Unfortunately, Aristotle not unfrequently applied di-
alectical reasonings to questions of physiology when they
were quite inappropriate. For instance, arguing
against Plato's theory of respiration—namely, that
breathing results from the impact upon us of the ex-
ternal atmosphere following upon the disturbance
which is caused by the expiration of warm air—he says
that this would imply expiration to be the first of the

ARISTOTLE, 185
two operations; but they alternate, and expiration is the
last, therefore inspiration must be the first! Again, he
mentions the opinion of those who said that the senses
correspond with the four elements, and that sight is
fire, trying to prove it by the fact that if the eye be
struck sparks are seen. Aristotle, however, says that
this faet is to be explained in another way: the iris of
the eye shines like a phosphorescent substance; when
the eye is struck, the sudden shock of the blow causes
the eye as an object of vision to become separate from
the eye as the organ of vision, and thus the eye for an
instant sees itself! Again, he says that the “white” of
the eye is unctuous, which prevents the watery vehicle
that conveys the sight from getting frozen; the eye is
less liable to freeze than any part of the body!
Turning from these curiosities of an old-world physi-
ology, let us glance at the natural history of Aristotle.
There is something peculiar and Aristotelian about the
very terms “ Natural History.” They arise out of a
mistranslation of the title of Aristotle's work, “Histo-
ries about Animals,” where “Histories” is used in its
primitive sense of “investigations” or “researches.”
But the title has been translated Historia Animalêum,
or “History of Animals,” and from this the modern
phrase “Natural History” has doubtless got crystallized
into its present signification, Looking to the contents
of the treatise in question, we perceive that to a great
part of it the shorter form of the word “Histories”
would have been applicable, as consisting rather of
“Stories about Animals” than of any very profound in-
vestigations with regard to them. It is probable that a
large proportion of what is here recorded came to Aris-
totle orally; and that, too, not from Savants, but from
uneducated classes of people whose occupations had

186 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
put them in the way of observing the habits of certain
species—such people as fishermen, sailors, sponge-div-
ers, fowlers, hunters, herdsmen, bee-keepers, and the
like. We know how difficult it is to get pure fact, un-
alloyed by fancy, from informants of this kind; and
therefore it is no wonder that Aristotle, in compiling the
first treatise on Natural History that was ever written,
and in collecting his materials by inquiry made at first
or second hand from the working classes, should have
admitted many a “yarn” and many a “traveller's tale”
into his pages. The subject was too new to admit of
his being able by instinctive Sagacity to reject the im-
probable; a judgment of that kind is only attained by
one who possesses a vast stock of well-ascertained facts,
and by unconscious analogy can argue from the known
to the unknown. In many cases Aristotle shows him-
self almost as simple as old Herodotus, with his tales of
the phoenix and other marvels. -
The following may be quoted as one instance out of
many of the naïveté of the Stagirite (“Animals,” IX.
xlviii.): “Among marine animals there are many in-
stances recorded of the mild, gentle disposition of the
dolphin, and of its love of its children, and its affection,
in the neighborhood of Tarentum, Caria, and other
places. It is said that when a dolphin was captured
and wounded on the coast of Caria, a great multitude of
dolphins came into the harbor, until the fishermen let
him go, when they all went away together. And one
large dolphin always follows the little ones to take care
of them. And sometimes a shoal of large and small
dolphins has been seen together, and two of these hav-
ing been left behind have appeared soon after support.
ing and carrying on their back a small dead dolphin
that was on the point of sinking, as if in pity for it, that

ARISTOTLE '137
it might not be devoured by any other creature. In-
credible things are told of the swiftness of the dolphin,
which appears to be the Swiftest of all animals whether
marine or terrestrial. They even leap over the masts of
large ships. This is especially the case when they pur.
sue a fish for the sake of food; for if it flies from them
they will pursue it, from hunger, into the depths of the
sea. And when they have to return from a great depth
they hold in their breath, as if calculating the distance,
and gathering themselves up they shoot forward like an
arrow, wishing with all speed to accomplish the dis. .
tance to their breathing-place. And if a ship happen to
be in the way, they will leap over its masts. The males
and females live in pairs with each other. There is
some doubt why they cast themselves on shore, for it is
said that they do this at times without any apparent
reason.”
The freshness of spirit which breathes through
this passage characterizes the whole of Aristotle's
treatise, which, in spite of its sometimes reminding
us of the “showman” of modern times, has excited the
enthusiastic admiration of several great authorities.
Cuvier says, “I cannot read this work without being
ravished with astonishment. Indeed it is impossible to
conceive how a single man was able to collect and
compare the multitude of particular facts implied in
the numerous rules and aphorisms which are contained
in this book.” Buffon, De Blainville, St. Hilaire, and
others,” have used similar terms of eulogy. One mod- - - -
ern zoologist, Professor Sundevall of Stockholm, has
reckoned up the number of species with which Aristotle t
showed himself to be more or less acquainted, and he
“quoted by Mr. G. H. Lewes in his “Aristotle," p. 20.

138 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
finds them to amount to nearly 500,—the total number
of mammals described or indicated being about 70; of
birds 150; of reptiles 20; and of fishes 116—making
altogether 356 species of vertebrate animals. Of the in-
vertebrate classes about 60 species of insects and aracl)-
nids seem to have been known to Aristotle; some 24
crustaceans and annelids; and about 40 molluscs and
radiates.* At the same time, it must be remembered
that Aristotle had no idea of the scientific system of
classification which appears in Professor Sundewall’s list.
He does not seem to bave labored much at the arrange-
ment of living creatures into natural orders; indeed he
could not have succeeded in such an attempt, for want
of a sufficient knowledge of anatomy. He was content
with the superficial, universally-received, grouping of
animals, as walking, creeping, flying, or swimming; as
oviparous or viviparous; aquatic or terrestrial; and the
like. His book contains a mass of materials, but with-
out much methodic arrangement or trace of system. It
pointed the way, however, for his successors to a seience
of Zoology. .
The facts given by him of course vary extremely in
correctness and in value. In his account of sponges,
for instance, Aristotle is thought to have shown sound
information, probably derived from the reports of the
professional divers. But his statements about bees,
though obtained, as he tells us, from bee-keepers, and
though “made beautiful forever” in the charming verses
of Virgil’s fourth Georgic, have been quite overturned
by the microscopic discoveries of Reaumur, Hunter,
Huber, Keys, Wicat, and Dunbar. On one cardinal
point the ancients were all wrong: they did not under,
* See “The Natural History Review” for 1864, p. 494.

ARISTOTLE, 189
stand the Sex and the functions of either the queen-bee,
the worker, or the drone.
The following account of the lion is considered to be
fairly correct (“An...” IX. xliv.): “When feeding, the
lion is extremely savage; but when he is not hungry
and is full fed, he is quite gentle. He is not either
jealous or suspicious. He is playful and affectionate
towards those animals which have been brought up with
him, and to which he is accustomed. When hunted, so
long as he is in view he never flies or cowers; and if
compelled to give way by the number of his hunters, he
retreats leisurely, at a walk, turning himself round at
short intervals. But if he reaches a covert he flies
rapidly, until he is in the open again, and then he again
retreats at a walk. If compelled to fly when on the
open plains, he runs at full stretch, but does not leap
His manner of running is continuous, like that of a dog
at full stretch; when pursuing his prey, however, he
throws himself upon it when he comes within reach. It
is true what they say about the lion being very much
afraid of fire (as Homer wrote, “the blazing fagots, that
his courage daunt”), and about his watching and singling
out for attack the person who has struck him. But
when any one misses hitting him and only annoys him,
if in his rush he succeeds in catching that person, he
does not harm him nor wound him with his claws, but
shakes and frightens him and then leaves him. Lions
are more disposed to enter towns and attack mankind
when they have grown old, because old age renders
them unabhe to hunt, and because of the decay of their
teeth. They live many years; and in the case of a lame
lion who was captured, he had many of his teeth worn
down, which some considered a sign that lions live long,
140 THE EIZEVIR LIBRARY.
Church,” iii. 261.
for this could not have happened to an animal who was
not aged.”
The “Researches about Animals,” like many other of
Aristotle's great treatises, appears to have been left in
an unfinished state. The tenth book seems merely to
be a sort of fragmentary continuation of the seventh
book—both treating of the reproduction of the human
species. In the ten books as they have corne down to
us, no one can pretend to find a finished whole. It is
a question, therefore, whether the work was ever pub-
lished in Aristotle's lifetime, or whether it ever got, in
its present form, to the Alexandrian Library. In the
Alexandrian Catalogue, indeed, there is mention of
a work entitled “Animals” in nine books. But this
may have been a set of excerpts by some Peripatetic
scholar; we cannot tell what its exact relation to “Our
Aristotle” may have been. There is some little interest
in the question, on account of the influence that Aris-
totle is supposed to have exercised on the Septuagint
version of the Old Testament, which was begun at
Alexandria 285 B.C.--that is to say, just after Aristotle's
MSS. had been carried off to Asia Minor. It has been
conjectured that the Septuagint translators, in render-
ing the Hebrew word armebeth, or “hare,” by the Greek
word dasypus (hairy-foot), instead of by the word lagos,
- which had been usual in earlier classical Greek, were
following a new fashion set by Aristotle in his “Re-
searches about Animals,” in which work “the modern
word dasypus had almost entirely superseded the
older.”* And it is added that “there was in even yet
more striking example of Aristotle's influence on the
* Dean Stanley’s “Lectures on the History of the Jewish -

ARISTOTLE. 141 -
passage” (Leviticus, xi. 6): for whereas in the original
Hebrew text the hare was said to chew the cud, the
translators, having been enlightened by the natural his-
tory of Aristotle, “boldly interpolated the word NoT
into the sacred text.” The facts of the case are—that
Aristotle uses lagos for “hare” indifferently with, and
nearly as often as, dasypus, and that in one passage
(“An.,” III. xxi. 1) he cursorily contrasts the hare with
the class of ruminants. On the whole, then, it seems
most natural to believe that the Septuagint translators
used the word dasypus because it had become the fashion
in speaking Greek to use it, and that Aristotle himself
had obeyed and not created this fashion. With regard
to the other point, it is quite possible that the translators
may have seen that passage of Aristotle's above referred
to; at all events, as educated men, they were doubtless,
influenced by the spread of the study of natural history,
to which Aristotle, who had died only thirty-seven years
before, had given great impetus.
CHAPTER IX.
THE METAPHYSICS OF ARISTOTLE.
SoME of Aristotle's earliest attempts at writing were
on a strictly metaphysical subject, when he attacked
the Platonic doctrine of “Ideas.” He doubtless went
on from this beginning, and thought of metaphysical
questions all his life, till he had framed for himself a
more or less complete metaphysical system, traces of
which show themselves in many forms of expression
and leading thoughts in all his various scientific works.
But it seems as if he had put off to the last the under-
142 THE ELZE VIR LIBRARY.
taking of a direct and complete exposition of that
system; and hence arose the name “Metaphysics,”
which is a mere title signifying “ the things which
follow after physics”—a title given by Aristotle's school
to a mass of papers which they edited after his death,
and with regard to which they wished to indicate that
chronologically these papers were composed after the
physical treatises, and also, perhaps, that the subject of
which they treated was above * and beyond the mere
physical conditions of things. The word “Meta-
physics,” starting from this fortuitous origin, has come
to be generally understood in modern times as denoting
the most abstract of the sciences—the science of the
forms of thought and the forms of things, the science
of knowing and being, the science that answers the
questions, How can we know anything? how can any-
thing exist? Aristotle, who, of course, was himself un-
conscious of the word “Metaphysics,” had three names
which he used indifferently for this science. Some-
times he called it simply “Wisdom;” sometimes “First
Philosophy,” as treating of primary substances and the
origin of things; sometimes “Theology,” because all
things have their root in the divine nature.
We have already had some specimens of Aristotle's
metaphysical doctrines, put forward as a foundation
for natural philosophy (see above, p. 115). In his bio-
logical treatises, also, especially in that “On the Soul,”
Aristotle does not confine himself to the physical prin-
ciple of life and the functions of the animal soul, but
enters upon the mode of our acquiring knowledge, on
perception, memory, reason, and the relation of the mind
* Thus Shakespeare speaks of “Fate and metaphysical aid,” -
meaning “supernatural.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ARISTOTLE, 143
to external objects—all being questions which encroach
upon the province of metaphysical inquiry. The sub-
stantive treatise, bearing the name “Metaphysics,” has
come down to us in the shape of a posthumous frag-
ment, which has been edited and eked out by the addi-
tion of other papers. The whole work, as it stands,
consists of thirteen books. Of these, seven books were
written by Aristotle as the setting forth of his ontology,
or science of existence; Books IX., XII., and XIII.
(on the Pythagorean and Platonic systems of numbers
and ideas) seem to have been intended to come in as
part of the same treatise, but to have been left by Aris-
totle in the condition of mere notes or materials; Book
XI. is thought to be a separate, though very valuable
and interesting essay on the nature of the Deity; while
Books IV. and X., and the appendix to Book I., are
un-Aristotelian,” and should never have had a place
assigned to them in the “Metaphysics.”
To turn to this work from the “Researches about
Animals” is like turning from White's “Selborne” to
Kant's “Critic of the Pure Reason.” Metaphysical
questions are necessarily abstruse, dry, and difficult;
but the attempt has sometimes been made—as, for
instance, by Plato, Berkeley, Hume, and Ferrier—to
discuss them in clear, pointed language, as little as
possible removed from the ordinary language of litera.
ture. Aristotle, on the other hand, at all events in
later life, aimed only at scientific precision; and his
“Metaphysics” is the forerunner of those German
* Book IV, consists of a list of philosophical terms and their
definitions, perhaps jotted down by some scholar. Book X, is a
paraphrase of part of the “Physical Discourse.” The appendix
to Book I. is a little essay on First Principles, of which tradition
attributes the authorship to one Pasides. . . . . . . . . . .
144 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
philosophies which from beginning to end exhibit a
jargon of technical phraseology. In another respect,
also, Aristotle here sets an example which has been
much followed by the Germans during the present
century; for in Book I. he gives a “history of philos-
ophy” from Thales down to himself. This is a very
interesting little sketch, disclosing for the first time
the fact that human thought has a history, and that
there was a time when the word “cause,” for instance,
had never been heard, and pointing to the conclusion
that every abstract word which we use is the result of
the theories, and perhaps the controversies, of former
ages. Aristotle traces the thoughts of successive Gre.
cian thinkers, advancing under a law, while each stage
at which they arrived forced them on to the next (see
“Met.,” I. iii. 11), from about 600 B.C. to about 330
B.o. And this task had never been again so well
accomplished until Hegel gave his first set of lectures
on the History of Philosophy, at Jena, in 1805.
Hegel was followed in the same field by Brandis,
Schwegler, Ueberweg, Cousin, Renouvier, Ferrier,
Zeller, and many others, to whose works we must
refer for information, as to the Greek philosophers.
Suffice it to say, that Aristotle's method of procedure is
to take his own doctrine of the Four Causes (see above,
p. 64), and to show how at first philosophers only got
hold of the idea of a Material Cause, and that after-
wards they gradually arrived at the idea of Motive
Power, Form, and End, or Final Cause. On the
whole, his brief and masterly sketch, while full of
points of light, is open to the charge of not doing
sufficient justice to the views of his predecessors.
Among them all, he seems most highly to appreciate
Anaxagoras, of whom he says that, by introducing the
ARISTOTL.H. 145
idea of Reason among the causes of the existence of
the world, he was “like a sober man beginning to
speak amidst a party of drunkards.” Aristotle repeats
here his old polemic against what he calls the System
of Plato, though it is doubtful whether Plato would
himself have acknowledged it. One would almost
say that Aristotle misstated Plato in order to refute
him. - -
The same fate, as if by way of reprisal, has often in
modern times befallen the Stagirite, who has repeatedly
been misstated, anºthen censured for what he never
had maintained. At the risk, however, of committing
fresh injustices of this sort, we will endeavor briefly to
sum up his views upon some of the greatest questions
which have occupied modern philosophers. First, then,
we may ask how would Aristotle have dealt with those
problems concerning the existence of Matter, and the
reality of the External World, which have been a “shib-
boleth” in the philosophic world from Bishop Berkeley,
through the days of Hume and the Scotch psychologists,
down to Kant and Hegel and the extreme idealists of
Germany? His utterances on this subject are perhaps
chiefly to be found in the third book of his treatise “On
the Soul,” beginning with the fourth chapter. On turn-
ing to them we see that he never separates existence
from knowledge. “A thing in actual existence,” he
says, “is identical with the knowledge of that thing.”
Again—“The possible existence of a thing is identical
with the possibility in us of perceiving or knowing it.”
Thus, until a thing is perceived or known, it can only
be said to have a potential or possible existence. And
from this a doctrine very similar to that of Ferrier might.
be deduced, that “nothing exists except plus me”—that
is to say, in relation to some mind perceiving it. Aris-
146 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY
totle indicates, without fully explaining, his doctrine of
the relation of the mind to external things in a cele-
brated passage (“Soul,” iii. v.), where he says that there
are two kinds of Reason in the soul—the one passive,
the other constructive. “The passive Reason becomes
all things by receiving their impress; the constructive
Reason creates all things, just as light brings colors into
actual existence, while without light they would have
remained mere possibilities.” Aristotle, then, appears
to be removed from the “common sense” doctrine of
“natural realism,” which believes that the world would
be just what we perceive to be, even if there were no
one to perceive it; for, by his analogy, the mind con-
tributes as much to the existence of things as light does
to color; and he is equally removed from that extreme
idealism which would represent things to be merely the
thoughts of a mind, for he evidently considers that
there is a “not-me”—a factor in all existence and
knowledge—which is outside of the mind, and which
may be taken to be symbolized by all the constituents
of color, except light: the mind, according to him, con-
tributes only what light does to color; all else is external
to the mind, though without the mind nothing could at-
tain to actuality. The external world, then, according
to Aristotle, is a perfectly real existence, but it is the
product of two sets of factors—the one being the rich
and varied constituents of the universe, the other being
Reason manifested in perceiving minds; and, without
the presence and co-operation of this perceptive Rea-
son, all things would be at once condemned to virtual
annihilation. • . .
As to Matter, Aristotle called it “timber,” or “the
underlying,” to indicate that it is to existence as wood
is to a table, and that it is something which is implied
ARISTOTLE. 147
in all existence. Nothing can exist without Matter,
which is one of the four causes of the existence of eve-
rything; but, on the other hand, it may be said that
Matter itself has no existence. Things can only be re-
alized by the mind, and so come into actual existence,
if they be endowed with Form; pure Matter denuded
of form cannot be perceived or known, and therefore
cannot be actual. Suppose we take marble as the mat-
ter or material of which a statue is composed,—if we
think of the marble we attribute to it qualities—color,
brilliancy, hardness, and so on, and these qualities con-
stitute Form, and the marble is no longer pure Matter.
We have to ask, then, what is the matter “underlying”
the marble? and again, if we figure to ourselves any.
thing possessing definite qualities—as, for instance, any
of the simple substances of chemistry—we at once have
not only matter, but form. Matter, thus, in the theory
of Aristotle, is something which must always be presup.
posed, and which yet always eludes us, and flies back
from the region of the actual into that of the possible.
Ultimate matter, or “first timber,” necessarily exists as
the condition of all thing, but it remains as one of those
possibilities which can never be realized (see above, p.
49), and thus forms the antitlesis to God, the ever-act-
ual. From all this it may be inferred that Aristotle
would have considered it very unphilosophical to repre-
sent Matter, as some philosophers of the present day ap-
pear to do, as having had an independent existence, and
as having contained the germs, not only of all other
things, but even of Reason itself, so that out of Matter
Reason was developed. According to Aristotle, it is
impossible to conceive Matter at all as actually existing,
far less as the one independent antecedent cause of all
things; and it is equally impossible to think of Reason
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%
II. x.
as non-existent, or as having had a late and derivative
origin.
Subsidiary to his theory of knowledge, Aristotle dis-
courses at some length, both in his treatise ‘‘ On the
Soul” and in his “Physiological Tracts,” on the Five
Senses. He affirms that the sentient soul of man is
able to discriminate between the properties of things,
“ because it is itself a mean or middle term between the
two sensible extremes of which it takes cognizance—hot .
and cold, hard and soft, wet and dry, white and black,
acute and grave, bitter and sweet, light and darkness,
etc. We feel no sensation at all when the object touched
is exactly of the same temperature with ourselves,
neither hotter nor colder.”” This doctrine, which is
obviously true, points to the relativity of the qualities
of things; it shows that all qualities—e.g., “great"
and “small,” and all the rest—are named from the
human stand-point, and that, in short, “Man is the
measure of all things.” Protagoras, indeed, had used
this dictum in order to throw doubt on all know-
ledge and truth, for he said that everything was rela-
tive to the individual percipient, and that whât ap-
peared sweet to one man might seem bitter to another
man; thus, that there could be no truth beyond “what
any one troweth;” any assertion might be true for the
individual who made it, and not for any one besides.
Aristotle argues against this skeptical theory, (“Meta-
phys.” III, iv.); in spite of minor fluctuations in the
subjective perceptions of individuals he finds ground
for truth and certainty in the consensus of the human
race, and in science which deals with universal prop-
* Grote's “Aristotle,”. vol. ii. p. 197. See “On the Soul,”
- -* .

ARISTOTLE: 149
ositions obtained by reason out of particular percep-
tions.
As usual, there is a great contrast between the cor-
rectness of his general philosophy of the senses and
that of his particular scientific theory of the cperation
of each sense. While the world has made no advance
upon the one—which was arrived at by mere force of
thought—the other, lacking the aid of instruments and
accumulated experience, has been wholly left behind,
and appears infantile when compared with the discov-
eries of a Helmholtz. The following is a specimen of
Aristotle's physiology of the senses: “Do sensations
travel to us?” he asks, “Certainly,’
nearest person will catch an odor first. Sound is per-
ceived after the blow which caused it. The letters of
which words are composed get disarranged by being
carried in the air (!), and hence people fail to hear what
has been said at a distance. Each sense has its own
proper vehicle. Water is the vehicle of sight, air of
st und, fire of smell, earth of touch and taste. Sensa-
tions are not bodies, but motions or affections of the
vehicle or medium along which they travel to us.
Light,” however, is an exception to this rule; it is an
existence, not a motion; it produces alteration, and
alteration of a whole mass may be instantaneous and
simultaneous, as in a mass of water freezing. Thus
Empedocles was mistaken (!) when he said that light
travels from the sun to the earth, and that there is a
moment when each ray is not yet seen, but is being
borne midway.”—(“Phys. Tracts.” “On Sensation.”
vi.)
* The theory of light here given seems to be not only erro-
neous in itself, but also inconsistent with Aristotle's explanation
of the twinkling of the stars—(See above, p. 119.) -
’ is the reply; “the

150 THE ELZE VIR LIBRARY
Among the permanent contributions to mental science
which were made by Aristotle, none is more famous
than his doctrine of the “Law of Association,” which
he throws out while discussing Memory and Recollec-
tion in his “Physiological Tracts.” He says, “Recol-
lection is the recalling of knowledge. It implies the
existence in the mind of certain starting-points, or clues,
so that when you get hold of one you will be led to the
rest. It depends on the law of association: we recollect
when such and such a motion naturally follows such
and such; we feel the latter motion, and that produces
the former. In trying to recollect, we search after
something that is in sequence, or similarity, or contrast,
or provimity, to the thing which we want to recollect.
Milk will suggest whiteness, whiteness the air, the air
moisture, and this the rainy season, which was what we
were trying to think of. No animal but man has the
power of recollection, though many animals have mem-
ory. Recollection implies consideration and a train of
reasoning, and yet it is a bodily affection—a physical
movement and presentation.” Aristotle adds that “per-
sons with large heads are bad at recollecting, on account
of the weight upon their perceptive organ (!), and that
the very young and very old are so, on account of the
state of movement they are in—the one in the move-
ment of growth, the other in that of decay.”
These considerations, however, whether correct or
erroneous, all belong rather to psychology than to met-
aphysics. Let us conclude by endeavoring to gather
Aristotle's opinions on three great metaphysical prob-
lems: The destiny of the human soul, free will, and the
nature of God. His opinions on these subjects have to
be “gathered,” because, as said above (p. 5), he had no
great taste for such speculations, and was in this respect

A RISTOTL}}. 151
very unlike Plato. Over the mind of Plato the idea of
a future life had exercised an absorbing influence.
Tising to an almost Christian hope and faith, he had
held out, as a consolation in the hour of death, the
promise of an immortality to be spent in the fruition of
truth; and, as a motive for human actions and a basis
for morals, he had enunciated a system of future re-
wards and punishments, closely corresponding with
Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. What had been so
prominent with Plato was by Aristotle put away into
the extreme background. In early life, indeed, he had
written a dialogue, called “Eudemus,” which turned
on the story that an exile had been told by the oracle
that within a certain time he should be “restored to his
home,” and that within that time he had died, and thus
in another sense had “gone home.” It is conjectured
that this youthful production may have treated of the
'Survival of the individual Reason into another state of
existence. But in Aristotle’s maturer works, so far
from such a doctrine being laid down, and deductions
made from it, passages occur which would seem to ren-
der it untenable. “The Soul,” says Aristotle, “is the
function of the body, as sight is of the eye. Some of
its parts, however, may be separable from the body, as
not arising out of the material organization. This is
the case with the Reason, which cannot be regarded as
the result of bodily conditions, but which is divine, and
enters into each of us from without. Reason, as mani-
fested in the individual mind, is twofold, constructive
and passive (see above, p. 146). The passive Reason,
which receives the impressions of external things, is the
seat of memory, but it perishes with the body; while
the constructive Reason transcends the body, being ca-
pable of separation from it and from all things. It is
152 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
an everlasting existence, incapable of being mingled
with matter, or affected by it; it is prior and subse-
quent to the individual mind; but though immortal, it
carries no memory with it.”
This last sentence would seem logically to exclude
the possibility of a future life for the individual, for
memory is requisite to individuality; and if all that
is immortal in us is incapable of memory, it would
seem that the only immortality possible would be that
of a Buddhist nºrvána, all the actions of this life and
all individual distinctions having been erased. Thus,
it would appear that the same dictum might be applied
to the human race that is applied (“Soul,” II, iv. 4)
to the works of Nature: “Perpetuity, for which all
things long, is attained not by the individual, for that
is impossible, but by the species.” These logical de-
ductions are, however, never drawn by Aristotle
himself, who in his “Ethics” (I. xi. 1) protests against
any rude contradiction of the popular opinion that the
dead retain their consciousness, and even their interest
in what passes in this world. Thus, whether he did
or did not believe in a future life has been a matter
for controversy in modern times. On the whole, while
we have hardly sufficient data for pronouncing one
way or the other, it seems certain that no part of his
philosophy, so far as we possess it, shows any trace of
the influence of this doctrine. -
As to Free Will: That is a question which has
arisen out of theology, out of the ideas of the infinite
power and knowledge of a personal God, which caused
the question to be asked, Can man do anything except
what he has been predestined to do? But such a diffi-
* Collected from “Soul,” II. i. 7-12; III. v. 2. “Generation,
II.iii. 10. T.

ARISTOTLE. 153
culty implies two conditions, both of which were absent
from the mind of Aristotle—namely, a strong appre-
hension of the personality and will of God, and a strong
apprehension of the importance of human acts and of
the eternal consequences attached to them. Aristotle,
as we shall see, can hardly be said to have attributed
personality to the Deity; he thought human actions to
be of comparatively small importance; and he thought
freedom to be, in a certain sense, valueless. Hence, we
only mention the problem of Free Will in connection
with him in order to show how his ideas contrast with
those of the modern world. By a curious metaphor
(“Metaphys.” XI. x.), he figured the universe as a
household, in which the sun and stars and all the
heavens are the masters, whose high aims and important
positions prevent any of their time being left to a
merely arbitrary disposal, for all is taken up with a
round of the noblest duties and occupations. Other
parts of the universe are like the inferior members of
the family—the slaves and domestic animals—who can
to a great extent pursue their own devices. Under the
last category man would be ranked. Aristotle does
not regard the unchanging and perpetual motion of
the heavenly bodies as a bondage, nor what is arbi-
trary in the human will as a privilege. His cosmical
views tended to disparage the dignity of man. He
would say with the Psalmist, “What is man in com-
parison with the heavens º' But he failed to reach the .
counterbalancing thought of Kant, that “ There are
two things which strike the mind with awe-the starry
heavens and the moral nature of man.”
Within an eternal and immutable circumference of
the heavens, Aristotle placed a comparatively narrow
sphere of the changeable, and in this, Nature, Chance,

154 THE FILZE VIR LIBRARY.
and Human Will were the causes at work. He admitted
a certain amount of determinism as controlling the
human will, but he did not care to trace out the exact
proportions of this ; he merely maintained that the
individual was a “joint cause,” if not the sole cause,
of his own character and actions (“Eth.” III. vii. 20).
He thought that mankind had existed from all eternity,
and that there had been over and over again a constant
process of development going on, till the sciences. and
arts, and society had been brought to perfection; and
then that by some great deluge, or other natural aon-
vulsion, the race had invariably been destroyed—all
but a few individuals who had escaped, and who had
had to commence anew the first steps towards civiliza-
tion.
To us, in the present day, it seems absolutely clear
that when we speak of a person we do not mean a
thing, and that when we speak of a thing we do not
mean a person. In Grecian philosophy, however, this
was not the case, for by both Plato * and Aristotle,
God was spoken of both as personal and as impersonal,
without any reconciliation between the two points of
view, or any remark on the subject. In the same way
they both pass from the plural to the singular, and
speak of “the gods” or “God” as if it hardly mat-
tered which term was used. This seems at first sur-
prising, but when we look into the matter (confining
our inquiry to the views of Aristotle), certain explana-
tions offer themselves. When he speaks of “the
gods,” he is partly accommodating himself to the
ordinary language of Greece, and partly he is indi-
cating the heavenly bodies, as conscious, happy ex-
vol. iv. p. ii.
* See Professor Jowett’s “Dialogues of Plato Translated " .
ARISTOTLE, - 155
istences, worthy to be reckoned with that Supreme
God, Who inhabits the outside of the universe, and
imparts their everlasting motion to the heavens
When he speaks of “God,” he has in his mind that
Supreme Being, Who, unmoved Himself, is the cause
of motion to all things, being the object of reason and
of desire—being, in short, the Good. Here the transi.
tion from a person to an abstract idea is obvious; but
if God is the object of desire to the universe and to
Nature, who or what is it that desires Him? Clearly,
reason or divine instinct is placed by this theory
within Nature itself. In other words, this is Pan-
theism; it represents Nature as instinct with God,
and God in Nature desiring God as the Idea of Good.
But Aristotle passes on from this view to describe
God as “Thought”—that is, as rather more personal
than impersonal—and he asks, on what does that
thought think? Thought must have an object, and it
will be determined in its character by that object; it
will be elevated or deteriorated according as the object
on which it thinks is high or low. But this cannot be
the case with God, who cannot be subject to these alter-
ations. “God, therefore, must think upon Himself;
the thought of God is the thinking upon thought.”
Only for a moment (“Metaphys.” XI. x. 1) does
Aristotle seem to take up something like our point of
view, when he says that God may be to the world as
the general is to an army. This seems like the modern
view, because it would imply something like will in
the nature of God. But it is a mere passing metaphor,
and none of the other utterances of the Stagirite would
attribute anything like will, providence, or ordering of
affairs to the Deity. We are told (“Eth.” X. viii. 7)
that it would be absurd to attribute to Him moved
156 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
qualities or virtues, or any human function except philo-
Sophic thought. He enjoys, however, happiness of the
most exalted kind, such as we can frame but an indis.
tinct notion of by the analogy of our own highest and
most blessed moods. This happiness is everlasting,
and God “has, or rather is,” continuous and eternal
life and duration.*
We have been unavoidably launched upon a solemn
subject, because any account of Aristotle which did
not sketch his theories of the Deity would have been
incomplete. It will be seen that, on the whole, his
tendency is to what we should call Pantheism. “Rea-
son is divine, and Reason is everywhere, desiring the
Good and moving the world:” that is a summary of
Aristotle's philosophy. Of all modern speculators, the
one who most nearly approaches him is Jolin Stuart
Mill, who represents God as benevolent, but not om-
nipotent. Aristotle also would say that the desire for
the Good which runs through Nature is baffled by the
imperfections of matter and the irregularities of chance.
The great defect in Aristotle's conception of God is,
that he denies that God can be a moral Being. This
in fact, entirely separates God from man; it leaves only
Theology possible, but not Religion; it takes away from
morality all divine sanctions. Plato's view was differ-
ent; but even he fell short of that deep idea of God, as
the Righteous One, which was revealed to the Hebrew
nation through their lawgivers and prophets, and after-
wards through our Saviour. - -
*The above statement of Aristotle's views of the Deity is col-
lected from “Metaphysics,” XI. vi.-x.
ARISTOTLI. ' 187
CHAPTER X.
ARISTOTLE SINCE THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
WE have seen above (p. 36) that in the time of Cicero
—that is to say, shortly before the Christian era—the
works of Aristotle were very little known even to
philosophers. The edition of those works by Andro-
nicus was made and published in the last half century
before the birth of Christ. And then—three hundred
years after the death of Aristotle—there began silently
and imperceptibly the first dawn of that wider reputa-
tion of him, which was destined to Shine through the
whole of Europe for a thousand years with evergrow-
ing and increasing splendor. -
During the period of the Roman Empire, the day
for original philosophies was gone by. The works of
Aristotle, in the form in which they were now pre-
sented to the world—being a culmination of ancient
thought, and containing a dogmatic exposition of the
outlines of every science; being rich in ideas and
facts, precise in terms, and yet condensed, and often
obscure—offered to the minds of intellectual men, and
especially the subtle Greeks of those times, exactly
the kind of food and employment which suited them.
To study one of these treatises, and comment upon it,
became now regarded as sufficient achievement for the
life of one man. Aristotle thus shared the honors
awarded to the sacred books of different nations; he
became placed so high as an authority, that merely to
expound or explain his meaning was a path to fame.
The race of Greek commentators, or “Scholiasts,” was
spread over three or four centuries, the most distin-
guished names among them being those of Boethus,

158 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
Nicolas of Damascus, Alexander of AEge, Aspasius,
Adrastus, Galenus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Por-
phyry, Iamblichus, Dexippus, Themistius, Proclus, Am-
monius, David the Armenian, Asclepius, Olympiodorus,
Simplicius, and Johannes Philoponus. The writings
of many of these worthies have been lost, and their
memory only survives through their having been
quoted in the more enduring commentaries of others.
What remains of the whole body of these Scholia is
various in worth, ranging from emptiest platitudes up
to remarks of subtlety and ability. Occasionally, but
too rarely, the Greek scholiasts preserve for us some
precious sentence or tradition of antiquity. The late
Professor Brandis has condensed into one closely-
printed quarto volume all that he considered worth
notice of the “Scholia upon Aristotle,” and even with
some of these we might have dispensed. -
Gradually Christianity took possession of the Roman
Empire, and then came the inundation of barbarians,
whose uncultivated natures had no sympathy with
literature, science, or philosophy. Libraries were de.
stroyed, or, unused, underwent the course of natural
decay. The arts fell into abeyance, and Western
Europe, as if in order to be born again, seemed to pass
, through the waters of Lethe. From the sixth to the
thirteenth century all knowledge of the Greek writers
was lost. But long before the close of this period
intellectual life had begun to stir again among the friars
and ecclesiastics of the Continent; and the chief nourish-
ment for that life consisted of a fragment from antiquity,
being none other than Latin translations* of the so-
* These translations were attributed to Boethius, the “last of
the philosophers,” at the end of the fifth and beginning of the
sixth century. - - -
ARISTOTLE, 159
called “Categories” and “Interpretation” of Aristotle
(see above, pp. 49–50), and of the “Introduction” of
Porphyry to the first-named of the two treatises. In
earlier and better-informed ages Aristotle had been re-
pudiated by Some of the Fathers of the Church as being,
at all events, in comparison with Plato, “atheistical.”
But no harm to theology could arise from a study of
the dry formulae of logic and metaphysics. Nay, these
formulae, while totally devoid of all dangerous color-
ing or character—being merely some of the funda-
mental and ordinary principles of reasoning—were likely
to do good service to the Church, by training her adher-
ents to argue skillfully in her behalf. Thus, the “Cate-
gories” and “Interpretation” won their place as text-
books for youth; and thus the “Scholastic Philosophy,”
which consisted in lectures and disputations chiefly on
\matters mooted “by Aristotle, took its rise out of the
Latin translations of these Peripatetic treatises.
Afterwards a richer knowledge of Aristotle came to
the schools of the West from what might have been
considered an unlikely source—namely, the Arabs in
Spain. Departing from the example of him who burned
the Alexandrian library, and from the traditionary ten-
dencies of Mahometans in all ages, the Arabs of Bag-
dad, Cairo, and Cordova indulged in a period of en-
lightenment and of intellectual activity. This period
was chiefly inaugurated by Almamum, the son of Harun-
al-Raschid, and seventh of the Abbasside Caliphs at
Bagdad (A.D. 810), who “invited the Muses from their
ancient seats. His ambassadors at Constantinople,
his agents in Armenia, Syria, and Egypt, collected the
volumes of Grecian science; at his command they were
translated by the most skillful interpreters into the Arabic
language; his subjects were exhorted assiduously to
160 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
peruse these instructive writings; and the successor of
Mahomet assisted with pleasure and modesty at the
assemblies and disputations of the learned.” “The age
of Arabian learning continued about five hundred years,
till the great irruption of the Moguls, and was coeval
with the darkest and most slothful period of European
annals.”” It was during the twelfth century that the
Arabs of Cordova became the schoolmasters of the
“schoolmen,” and poured a flood of learning into
Europe. The chief of them was the great Ibn-Raschid
(A.D. 1120–1198), whose name was Latinized Averroes.
Besides other philosophical works, he wrote “Commen-
taries” on all the principal works of Aristotle, and these
were translated into Latin and published abroad. Aver-
roes knew no Greek, and his commentaries were made
upon the existing Arabic versions of Aristotle; but he
quoted the translations of the text of each passage en-
tire before elucidating the meaning, and thus he brought
a great deal of the thought of Aristotle, though passed
through a double translation, to the notice of Europe.
In commenting upon Aristotle, his attention seems to
have been drawn to that passage, above referred to (p.
172), on the difference between the Constructive and the
Passive Reason. Following out this idea, he made it
the basis of a doctrine of “Monopsychism,” to the effect
that the Constructive Reason is one individual substance,
being one and the same in Socrates and Plato, and all
other individuals; whence it follows that individuality
consists only in bodily sensations, which are perishable,
so that nothing which is individual can be immortal,
and nothing which is immortal can be individual.
These doctrines spread from the Arabs to the Jews of
* Gibbon's “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” chap.
ARISTOTLE, - 161
Spain, and from them to the Christian schools, and
Averroism became a leaven in the scholastic philoso-
phies, causing, as might be expected, the most virulent
strife between the opponents and supporters of the
theory of “Monopsychism.” -
In the latter part of the thirteenth century Aristotle
reached the height of his glory. At this time, partly
from Arabian copies in Spain and partly from Greek
MSS. which the Crusaders brought with them from
Constantinople, Western Christendom had obtained the
whole of his works. He was now commented on by
eminent ecclesiastics; indeed he occupied and almost
monopolized the most powerful minds of Europe.
Chief among these may be mentioned Albert “the
Great,” the most fertile and learned of the schoolmen,
who has left commentaries on Aristotle which fill six
folio volumes; and his pupil, St. Thomas Aquinas, who
prepared (1260–70), through the instrumentality of the
monk Wilhelm of Moerbecke, a new translation of the
entire works after Greek originals; and who himself
wrote laborious commentaries on the “Metaphysics,”
the “Ethics,” and other books. It may be observed
that by these great churchmen Aristotle is treated with
the most implicit confidence; they seem blind to all that
is Greek and pagan in his point of view; they defend
him from charges of Averroism; and treat him, in short,
as one of themselves. All this, of course, argues a great
want of the critical and historical faculty, and much
mixing up of things—“syncretism,” as it is called by
the learned; but historical criticism was hardly to be
looked for in the Middle Ages. -
The Stagirite was now almost incorporated with
Christianity. The Summa Theologiæ of St. Thomas
Aquinas was a compound of the logic, physics, and

162 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
ethics of Aristotle with Christian divinity. But the
highest honor of all came to him in the year 1300
A.D., when he was hailed in the “Divina Commedia”
of Dante as “the master of those that know,” sitting
as head of “the philosophic family,” to whom Socrates
and Plato and all the rest must look up.” Him Dante
figured thus sitting in the “limbo,” or fringe, of hell,
with all the great spirits of antiquity, who had lived
before Christianity and without baptism; they were
free from torment, but were sad, because they felt the
desire, but had no hope, of seeing God.
l)ante had been a diligent and reverential student of
Aristotle, especially in the commentaries of St. Thomas
Aquinas. In his “Convito,” he says that “Aristotle is
most worthy of trust and obedience, as being the master-
artist who considers of and teaches us the endſ of hu-
man life to which, as men, we are ordained.” In the
11th canto of the “Inferno,” he follows up Aristotle's
views of the “unnatural” character of usury (see above,
p. 107), and places usurers in hell among those who do
violence to God and Nature, the reasons for which he
sets forth in a learned discourse. But the most striking
thing of all is to find that Dante, in the 24th canto of
the “Paradiso,” commences the statement of his own
theological creed in words taken directly from Aristotle's
definition of the Deity—
* Dante, “Inferno,” canto iv. 131–
* Vidi il Maestro di color che Sanno
Seder tra filosofica famiglia;
Tutti lo miran, tutti onor gli fanno.
Quivi vid'io Socrate e Platone, -
Che Innanzi agli altri piu presso gli stamno.” . .
+ This, of course, refers to the “Ethics.”—See above, p. 88,
ARIST'OTLE, 168
- “I in one God believe;
One sole eternal Godhead, of whose love
All heaven is moved, himself unmoved the while.” +
And in the 27th canto, Beatrice, standing on the ninth
heaven, points to the circumference, or pºmum mobile,
of Aristotle (see above, p. 119), and discourses to Dante
in the following thoroughly Aristotelian terms:–
“Here is the goal, whence motion on his race
Starts: motionless the centre, and the rest
All moved around. Except the soul divine,
Place in this heaven is none; the Soul divine,
Wherein the love, which ruleth o'er its orb,
Is kindled, and the virtue, that it sheds:
One circle, light and love, enclasping it,
As this doth clasp the others; and to Him,
Who draws the bound, its limit only known.
Measured itself by none, it doth divide
Motion to all, counted unto them forth,
As by the fifth or half ye count forth ten.
The vase, wherein time's roots are plunged, thou seest:
Look elsehere for the leaves.” *
It was not till 240 years after these verses had been
written that Copernicus propounded his system of the
motion of the earth and the other planets round the
sun; and that system only gradually won its way to ac-
ceptance, even in scientific minds, and with the aid of
the demonstrations of Galileo. Till the end of the Sev-
enteenth century the Aristotelian system—further elab-
orated by the Alexandrian Ptolemy and by King Al-
phonso X. of Castile (1252–1284 A.D.)—maintained its
influence, and filled the literature of all Europe with a .
particular train of associations.# Shakespeare lived
* Cary's Translation.—See above, p. 155.
+ When Shakespeare wrote—
“And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,”
he was referring to the Ptolemaic or Alphonsine spheres. The

164 THE ELZE VIR LIBRARY.
and died in the faith of the older system. Milton had
been bred in it as a boy, and the plan of his universe in
the “Paradise Lost” was drawn according to it. Yet
still, as a learned man, he was well acquainted with all
that could be said in favor of the Copernican system.
And he puts these arguments into the mouth of Adam
in the 8th book of “Paradise Lost.” An angel, in re.
ply, reminds Adam—what is, in fact, the case—that
neither the motion of the sum nor of the earth can be
absolutely proved; and adds that these are matters too
high and abstruse for human inquiry. Milton's mind
was “apparently uncertain to the last which of the two
systems, the Ptolemaic or the Copernican, was the true
one.” Surely, however, if but slowly, the Copernican
theory established itself in the mind of Europe, and
when once it had been established, then a great gulf
was set between Aristotle and the modern world.
We have seen Aristotle an object of reverence to the
great scholastic philosophers and the great poet of the
Middle Ages. But we must not forget that the univer-
sities were, so to speak, founded in Aristotle—that for
a long time the chief end of their being was to teach
Aristotle. Chaucer describes the zeal of the poor Ox-
ford student for this kind of learning in the following
terms:— -
“A clerk there was of Oxenford also
That unto logik hadde long y go:
Asiene was his hors as is a rake,
And he was not right fast, I undertake;
But looked holwe and thereto soberlye.
Ful threadbare was his overest courtepye.
common metaphor of a person’s “sphere” is a survival of the
same notion. -
* See Professor Masson's edition of “Milton's Poetical Works”
(Macmillan, 1874), vol. i. p. 92.
ARISTOTLE. - 165
For he had gotten him no benefice,
He was not worldly to have an office.
For, him was lever have at his beddes hed
Twenty bookes clothed in blake or red
Of Aristotle and his philosophie,
Than robes rich or fidel or Sautrie.”
This almost living picture from the fourteenth century
doubtless represented correctly the loyal and undoubt.
ing faith in the Stagirite, to be found among many gen-
erations of students, not only at Oxford, but at Paris
and Padua, and the other seats of universities.
But a spirit of revolt against authority in general,
and especially against the authority of Aristotle, was
destined to slow itself, being fostered by the progress
of time, the revival of learning, and the Reformation.
In the year 1536 we find Peter Ramus, then a youth
of twenty years of age, choosing as the subject of his
thesis for the M.A. degree, in the University of Paris,
the proposition, that “Whatever has been said by
Aristotle is false!” It may be imagined with what
consternation the announcement of this thesis, which
seemed scarcely less than blasphemous, was received
by the academical authorities. However, the young
Ramus acquitted himself with such ability, as well as
boldness, that he obtained his degree and the license to
teach. This license he employed in lecturing and
writing against the Peripatetic logic. He propounded
a method of his own in which more attention was to
be paid to the discovery of truth. He formed a sect
of Ramists, and rallied round himself the malcontent
spirits of France, Germany, and Switzerland. In some
of the universities Ramism obtained a firm hold. But
he had to fight a hard battle with the Aristotelians,
who were armed with official power, and not slow to
use it in the way of persecution; his books were often
166 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
condemned to be suppressed, and finally he was a
martyr to the cause which he had chosen. Being a
Huguenot, he was assassinated by his Aristotelian
enemies during the massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572
A.D.) The arguments of Ramus seem nowadays to
have no weight against the “Organon” of Aristotle,
but they are valid against that perverted use of the
“Organon” which constituted the Scholastic method.
It was quite necessary that the spell which Aristotle
had so long exercised over the world should be broken
and Ramus did good Service in somewhat rudely as-
sailing it. -
If the first great attack upon Aristotle proceeded
from a spirit of revolt within the logic schools, the
second was a direct manifestation of the results of the
Renaissance, and consisted in bringing learning and
criticism to bear upon the works of Aristotle. This
was done by Patrizzi, or Patricius, who brought out
his “Discussiones Peripatetica?” at Băle in 1571. Pa-
tricius possessed a combination of character which is
fortunately not often seen,--being extremely learned
and very able, but, at the same time, ill-conditioned,
egotistical, and wrong-headed. Preferring in his own
mind a sort of Neo-Platonic philosophy to the Peripa-
tetic system, he set himself to work in the book just
mentioned to pull Aristotle to pieces. The first section
of the “Discussiones” treated of the life and morals of
the Stagirite, and raked together against him all the per-
sonal charges to be found scattered through the remains
of antiquity (see above, p. 26); the second section criti-
cally assailed with great learning the genuineness of
the works of Aristotle, and proved them all to be
spurious (?). The remaining sections undertook to
refute the system of philosophy which they contained.
ARISTOTLE, 167
The attack of Patricius was overdone in malignity, yet
still it had a powerful effect in inducing men to think
for themselves when they saw the claims of their oracle
thus stringently called in question.
Another impulse to reaction against authority was
given by science itself, in the shape of discoveries
which were irreconcilable with the dicta of authority.
In the year 1592, Galileo, wishing to test the truth of
Aristotle's principle that “the velocity of falling bodies
is proportionate to their weight,” ascended the leaning
tower of Pisa, and launching bodies of different weight,
demonstrated that they reached the ground simulta-
neously, and thus that the principle which had been so
long held with undoubting faith was erroneous. The
Aristotelians of Pisa, however, were so much annoyed
by this demonstraton, that they compelled Galileo to
leave the city.
Aristotle's philosophy had, since the days of St.
Thomas Aquinas, been bound up with the Catholic
Church. Therefore it is not to be wondered at that
Luther, in the commencement of the Reformation,
should have “inveighed against the Aristotelian logic
and metaphysics, or rather against the sciences them-
selves; nor was Melanchthon at that time much behind
him. But time ripened in this, as it did in theology,
the disciple's excellent understanding; and he even ob-
tained influence enough over the master to make him
retract some of that invective against philosophy which
at first threatened to bear down all human reason. Me-
lanchthon became a strenuous advocate of Aristotle, in
opposition to all other ancient philosophy. He intro-
duced into the University of Wittenberg, to which all
Protestant Germany looked up, a scheme of dialectics
and physics, founded upon the Peripatetic school, but
168 THE EIZE VIR LIBRARY,
improved by his own acuteness and knowledge. Thus
in his books the physical science of antiquity is enlarged
by all that had been added in astronomy and physi-
ology. It need hardly be said that the authority of
Scripture was always resorted to as controlling a phi-
losophy which had been considered unfavorable to
natural religion.” This system of Melanchthon's got
the nickname of the “Philippic Method,” and it was
received with so much favor in the Protestant Univer-
sities of Germany, as to cause these Universities to op-
pose the spread of Ramism. .
Scholasticism and the love of authority died hard,
and not without many a struggle. It is recorded that
so late as the year 1629 an Act of the French Parlia-
ment was passed forbidding attacks upon Aristotle:
The Jesuits employed the Peripatetic tenets in arguing
against free-thinkers like Descartes. Even to the pres-
ent day the manuals of philosophy in Roman Catholic
eccelesiastical establishments are a résumé of Aris-
totle. - -
|Until the seventeenth century, when the authority of
Aristotle was questioned, “his disciples could always
point with scorn at the endeavors which had as yet
been made to supplant it, they could ask whether the
wisdom so long reverenced was to be set aside for the
ºfanatical reveries of Paracelsus, the unintelligible ideas
of Bruno, or the arbitrary hypotheses of Telesio.” But
in the seventeenth century modern philosophy took a
new and splendid start in Bacon and Descartes, while
modern science commenced its glorious career with
Galileo, Kepler, and Newton. Bacon, with his rich
* Hallam's “Introduction to the Literature of Europe.” Part
I., chap. iii. - - .
t Hallam's Introduction, Part III., chap. iii.
ARISTOTLE, 169
scientific imagination and his stately language, was a
fitting herald of the new era. He sometimes reflects
the spirit of Ramus or Patricius, and applies to Aris-
totle harsh terms which were rather merited by the
scholastic pedants who had been Aristotelians only in
the letter. Could the Stagirite himself have returned
to the earth at this moment, he would doubtless have
declared for Galileo and Bacon against the Peripatetics,
Aristotelianism was not refuted in Europe, but its long
day was now past; it was superseded and quietly put
aside when other and fresher subjects of interest came
to fill men's minds. Bacon contributed to this result,
not by railing at the “categories” and the “syllogism,”
but by exciting people's fancy with suggestions of the
extension of human power to be gained by researches
into nature—suggestions which subsequent results have
verified a hundred-fold.
From henceforth it became impossible for an educat-
ed man to be an Aristotelian, because however much he
might in his youth have learned from Aristotle, there
was so much more to be learned which was not to be
found in Aristotle, that Aristotelianism could only con-
stilute a portion of his culture. In the Middle Ages it
had constituted the whole of culture; but that time had
gone by, and in the modern world it became possible to
gain elsewhere even most of that which the study of
Aristotle had to offer. The best of Aristotle's thought
Ilad now come to be the common property of the world,
and men could become good logicians without reading
the “Organon,” and without being conscious of the
obligations which, after all, they owed to its author.
Perhaps the period of the greatest neglect which the
memory of Aristotle underwent since the Christian era
was the eighteenth century. This was a period of an-
*
170 THE EIZEVIR LIBRARY,
tithesis to mediaevalism, and, at the same time, a period
of mechanical philosophy and shallow learning. At
the English universities all studies, except perhaps
mathematics and verbal scholarship, were at a low
ebb. Only small portions of Aristotle were taught, and
these were ill taught, without reference to their context
and real significance. But with the nineteenth century
there came a restitution of the honors of the Stagirite,
who was now regarded in his proper light—that is to
say, historically, and not as if he were an authority for
modern times. This came about with the rise of the
great German philosophies. There have been two great
periods of philosophy in the world: the period of Greek
philosophy in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C., and that
of German phlosophy during the first part of the pres-
ent century. And there is a certain affinity between
the two. Kant and Hegel have more in common with
Plato and Aristotle than they have either with the Scho-
lastic philosophy or with the psychological systems of
the last century. An age which produced Kant and
Hegel was likely to appreciate their ancient forerun-
ners; and Hegel advocated the study of the works of
Aristotle as “the noblest problem of classical plilology.”
The Germans have applied themselves to this problem
with splendid success, especially Immanuel Bekker,
Brandis, Zeller, Bonitz, Spengel, Stahr, Bernays, Rose,
and many others who might be mentioned. The great
Berlin edition of the works of Aristotle, brought out
under the auspices of the Prussian Royal Academy, is
a monument of their labors. We have seen the vicissi-
tudes of reputation through which Aristotle has passed
—how at different times he was partially known, mis-
conceived, over-rated, under-rated, and both praised and
blamed on wrong grounds. Perhaps at no previous time
ARISTOTLE. 171
has he been more correctly known and estimated than
he is at prerent, -
The various services of Aristotle to mankind have
been to some extent indicated in the foregoing pages.
To attempt to summarize them all would be vain; but
perhaps it may be said, in a word, that Aristotle has
contributed more than any one man to the scientific
education of the world. The amount of the influence
which he has exercised may partly be inferred from the
traces which his system has left in all the languages of
modern Europe. Our everyday conversation is full of
Aristotelian “fossils,” that is, remnants of his peculiar
phraseology. These mostly come through Latin ren-
derings of his terms, though sometimes the original
Greek form is preserved. The following are a few
specimens of these fossils: “Maxim” is the major pre-
miss of the Aristotelian syllogism. “Principle” has the
same meaning—it comes from principium, the Latin for
“beginning” or “starting-point,” which was one of Ar-
istotle's terms for a major premiss. “Matter” comes
from materies, the Latin for “timber” (see above, p.
147); when we say “it does not matter,” or it makes a
“material” difference, we are indebted to Aristotle for
our words, “Form,” “end,” “final cause,” “motive,”
“energy,” “actually,” “category,” “predicament” (the
latter of these two being Latin for the former), the
“mean” and the “extremes,” “habit” (both in the
sense of “moral habit” and of “dress”), “faculty,”
and “quintessence,” are all purely Peripatetic; while
the terms “Metaphysics” and “Natural History,” are
derived from two of the titles of Aristotle's works.
Aristotle, the strongest of the ancients and the Oracle
of the Middle Ages, must always hold a place of honor
in the history of European thought. Writings which
172 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
have interested and influenced mankind so deeply and
through so many centuries can never fall into con-
tempt, even though they may be devoid of the graces
of style and though the matter in them may be either
superseded or else absorbed into the treatises of other
authors. Nor is it from mere curiosity—from a merely
antiquarian or historical point of view—that the works
of the Stagirite continue to be studied. As long as the
process of higher education in modern Europe consists
so largely in imbibing the mind with the literature of
classical antiquity, so long will a study of certain works
of Aristotle remain as one of the last stages of that
process. Those works—especially the “Rhetoric,” “Art
of Poetry,” “Ethics,” and “Politics”—have a remarka-
ble educational value. They form an introduction to
philosophy; they invite comparison of ancient and mod-
ern ways of thinking; they offer rich stores of information
as to human nature—so much the same in all ages; and
they train the mind to follow the Aristotelian method
of analytic insight. This method consists in concentra-
tion of the mind upon the subject in hand, marshalling
together all the facts and opinions attainable upon it,
and dwelling on these and scrutinizing and comparing
them till a light flashes on the whole subject. Such is
the procedure to be learnt, by imitation, from Aristotle.

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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