Aristotle

Ancient Classics

For English Readers

ARISTOTLE

Edited by

W.Lucas Collins

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LIBRARIES of the

UNIVERSITY o/TORONTO

Uicient Classics for English Readers

EDITED BY THE

REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A.

(5 UPPLEMEN TARY SERIES. )

AEISTOTLE

CONTENTS OF THE SERIES.

HOMER : THE ILIAD, .... By the Editor.
HOMER : THE ODYSSEY. ... By the Same.

HERODOTUS, ... By George C. Swayne, M.A.

C^SAR, By Anthony Trollope.

VIRGIL, By the Editor.

HORACE, . . . By Sir Theodore Marttn. K.C.B.
iESCHYLUS, . By the Right Rev. Bishop Copleston.

XENOPHON, . . By Sir Alex. Grant, Bart., LL.D.

CICERO, By the Editor.

SOPHOCLES, ... By Clifton W. Collins, M.A.
PLINY, By a. Church, M.A., and W. J. Brodribb, M.A.

EURIPIDES By William Bodham Donne.

JUVENAL, .... By Edward Walford, M.A.

ARISTOPHANES By the Editor.

HESIOD AND THEOGNIS, By the Rev. James Davies, M.A.
PLAUTUS AND TERENCE, ... By the Editor.
TACITUS, .... By William Bodham Donne.

LUCIAN, By the Editor.

PLATO By Clifton W. Collins, M.A.

THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY, ... By Lord Neaves.

LIVY, By the Editor.

OVID By the Rev. A. Church, M.A.

CATULLUS, TIBULLUS, & PROPERTIUS, By J. Davies, M.A.
DEMOSTHENES, . . By the Rev. W. J. Brodribb, M.A.
ARISTOTLE, . . .By Sir Alex. Grant, Bart., LL.D.

THUCYDIDES, By the Editor.

LUCRETIUS By W. H. Mallock, M.A.

PINDAR, ... By the Rev. F. D. Morice, M.A.

AEISTOTLE

BY

SIR ALEXANDER GRANT, BART., LL.D.

PRINCIPAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

WILLIAM BLACKWOOP AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON

1898

CONTENTS,

I. THE LIFE OF ARISTOTLE,
IL THE WORKS OF ARISTOTLE,

III. THE 'ORGANON' of ARISTOTLE, .

IV. Aristotle's * rhetoric ' and * art of

POETRY,'

V. Aristotle's * ethics,'
VI. Aristotle's 'politics,'

VII. THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE,

VIII. THE BIOLOGY OF ARISTOTLE,

IX. THE METAPHYSICS OF ARISTOTLE,
X. ARISTOTLE SINCE THE CHRISTIAN ERA,

PAGE
1

30
50

77
100
117
130
146
161
179

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2008 with funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/aristotleOOgranuoft

AEISTOTLE.

CHAPTEE I.

THE LIFE OF ARISTOTLE.

The dates of the chief events in the life of Aristotle,
extracted from the * Chronology ' of Apollodorus
(140 B.C.), have been handed down to us by Diogenes
Laertius in his ' Lives of the Philosophers ; ' and from
various other sources it is possible to fill in the out-
line thus afforded, if not with certain facts, at all
events with reasonable probabilities. Aristotle's own
writings are almost entirely devoid of personal refer-
ences, yet in them we can trace, to some extent, the
progress and development 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 Mace-
donia, and from Pella, the residence of the Macedonian

A.C.S.S. vol. V, A

2 THE BIRTHPLACE OF ARISTOTLE.

King Amyntas. To Stageira, his birth-place, 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
exhibits certain un-Greek characteristics in his neglect
of form and grace in writing, and that this is attribu-
table 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 conformity with Greek ideas, and not without
contempt for the surrounding "barbarians." Even the
court of Macedonia, in the neighbourhood, were phil-
Hellenic in their tastes, and entertained Greek artists
and men of letters. And Aristotle shows no trace in
his writings of ever having known any language be-
side 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, Mcomachus, was physician to
King Amyntas, and it is possible that the youthful
Aristotle was taken at times to the court, and thus
made the acquaintance of his future patron, Philip
of Macedon, who was about his own age. But all
through the time of Aristotle'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 Hlyrians.
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 afterwards occurred, — that

HIS DESCENT FROM ESCULAPIUS. a

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
" Asclepiad," — that is, he belonged to that distinguished
caste who claimed to be the descendants of Esculapius.
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 import-
ant 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
suchlike parts," in the human subject. This does not
show the hardihood of a practised dissector. But
Aristotle's youthful dissections, if made at all, were
doubtless 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
physiological study. But in addition to this tendency,
Aristotle must doubtless have early manifested an in-
terest in, and capacity for, abstract philosophy.

We now come to the second epoch in his life. About
* Quoted by Grote, * Aristotle, ' i. 4.

4 HE GOES TO ATHENS,

the year 367 B.C., when he was seventeen years old, his
father having recently died, he was sent by his guardian,
Proxenus of Atarneus, to complete his studies at Athens,
" the metropolis of wisdom." * There he continued to
reside for twenty years, during the greater part of which
time he attended the school of philosophy 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 his support, so that
he could live without care for the acquirement of any-
thing 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 Eeader ; " while Plato
himself called him " the Mind of the School," in recog-
nition of his quick and powerful intelligence. In order
to win time, even from sleep, Aristotle is said to have
invented the plan of sleeping with a ball in his hand,
so held over a brazen dish, that whenever his grasp re-
laxed the ball would descend with a clang, and arouse
him to the resumption of his labours.

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 ^vritings of Aristotle are quite con-
sistent with the tradition that he was for twenty years
* Plato, ' Protagoras,' p. 337. Professor Jowett's translation.

STUDIES UNDER PLATO. 5

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 organisation 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
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 bom 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

r

6 CONTRAST BETWEEN HIM AND PLATO.

pressure after truth, but they seek the truth under
different aspects. Plato was ever aspiring to intui-
tions of a truth which in this world could never be
wholly revealed, — a truth of which glimpses only
could be obtained, partly by the most abstract powers
of thought, partly by the imagination. While richly
endowed with humour and the dramatic faculty, and
the most trenchant insight into the fallacies of man-
kind, Plato was not content with aiming at those de-
monstrations which could be stated once for all, but he
rather sought analogies 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 afiairs of
this life. While he was the greatest and most original
of metaphysical 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 imagination
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 utter-
ances upon them. His passion wa^ for definite know-
ledge, especially knowledge so methodised that it could
be stated in the form of a general principle, or law.
He thought that to obtain a general principle in which

HE DIVERGES FROM PLATO. 7

knowledge was summed up, on any subject, was of the
utmost importance ; * that such a principle was a pos-
session for all future time, that future generations would
apply to it and work it out ia detail, and thus that it
would form the nucleus of a science. And this was
the daring aim of Aristotle — no less than the founda-
tion of all the sciences. We shall have occasion to
point out subsequently the imperfections of Aristotle's
method in physical science when compared with that
of modern times. But for all that, his spirit was essen-
tially 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) t a truth which is above the truth of scientific
knowledge, that was the truth after which Plato
aspired. Aristotle's aspirations were for methodised j
experience and the definite. -^

It is easy to understand, or imagine, how two great
minds with such divergent tendencies would be unable
to continue for ever to stand to each other in the rela-
tion of pupil to teacher. Por 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

* See ♦ Soph. Elench.' xxxii. 13 ; *Eth.' I. vii. 17-21.
t See Lotze's ' Microcosmus,' Einleitung.

8 HE ATTACKS THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS.

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 sympathise. He
would especially feel a sort of impatience at the licence
allowed 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 out 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 'Timseus,' 'Phsedrus,' and 'Ee-
public,' and which doubtless formed a prominent
topic in Plato's discourses to his school. We are told
by Proclus * that Aristotle " proclaimed loudly in his
dialogues that he was unable to sympathise 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
* Quoted by Philoponus, ii. 2.

APPEARS AS A NOMINALIST. 9

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 good-
ness, justice, equality, and the lil^e, but also they
are heads of classes or universals, and that they alone
have complete reality, while the individuals, constitut-
ing the classes at the head of which they stand, only
" participate " to a certain extent 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 dialogues (' Par-
menides ' 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 or
another, Plato always maintained. AYhen 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 concep-

10 ''TRUTH IS DEARER THAN PLATO."

tion of any individual man. Nominalism, on the con-
trary, asserts the superior reality of individual objects,
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 be-
came 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 on-
slaught, in several dialogues which he wrote for the
purpose, on Plato's doctrine of Ideas. In three pas-
sages of his extant works (' Eth.' I. vi. ; ' Met.' I.
vi., XII. iv.), he gives summaries of his arguments on
the subject. He couches those arguments in courteous
language, and in one place introduces them with words
which have been Latinised into the weU-known phrase
— Amicus Plato, sed magis arnica 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 impossi-
ble that Aristotle should 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 seK-confidence of
Aristotle having been manifested during the lifetime of

THE SCHOOL OF I SOCRATES. 11

Plato. In his extant writings, Plato speaks so disparag-
ingly of the art of Ehetoric, 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 laboured in this, as in every other
intellectual 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 be-
came 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
coimtrymen 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-defence, 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 re-
nowned 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 vigour 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,
Gorgias, and Theramenes — are named as having been

12 THE SCHOOL OF I SOCRATES.

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 in-
culcate 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 reflections 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 remained 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,

* See Professor Jebb's 'Attic Orators from Antiphon to
Isoeos,' ii. 5.

ARISTOTLE'S RIVAL SCHOOL. 13

the aims of the two being so very different. Plato
and his followers looked down with more or less con-
tempt on the half-philosophising 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 ! must I
In silence leave barbarians to speak ?
Never ! "

and to have taken for his motto the words —

"What? must I
In silence leave Isocrates to speak ? "

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 Iso-
crates, 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 Aris-
totle were answered by Cephisodorus, one of the
pupils of Isocrates, who wrote a defence of his master
in four books. Both attack and reply have completely
perished. Aristotle appears to have followed up his
theoretical denunciation of Isocrates by the practical
step of opening a school of Ehetoric 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

14 THE DEATH OF PLATO.

pre-eminence of his views came out in the immortal
treatise on Rhetoric, which many years later he com-
posed. 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 glunpses which we have
of him during his earlier residence at Athens show
him somewhat petulantly attacking 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 Atarneus,
a town of Asia Minor. This migration was doubt-
less 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 disquali-
fied by incompatibility of opinions for becoming the
representative of Plato, still it may have been unpleas-
ant to him to see another preferred to himself, and
especially one so inferior to himself in intellect as Speu-
sippus. 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 Hermeias, an enlightened prince, with whom both
Aristotle and Xenocrates had had the opportunity of

ARISTOTLE AT THE COURT OF HERMEIAS. 15

forming a philosophic friendship. The history of Her-
meias was remarkable : he had been the slave of Eu-
bulus, 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
received the two emigrants from Plato's school, and
entertained them at his court for three years, during
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
afterwards recorded his admiration for Hermeias, in a
hymn or paean which he wrote in his honour, 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 su-
periority of station be justified by superiority of merit."
If Aristotle had Hermeias, his own former friend, in
his mind when he wrote this passage, he must have
generously attributed to him moral qualities superior
to his own.

On flying from Atarneus, as they were now obliged
to do, Xenocrates returned to Athens, and Aristotle,
* 'Ethics,' VIII. vi. 6.

IG BECOMES THE TUTOR OF ALEXANDER.

took up his abode with his wife at Mitylene, where he
lived two or three years, until he was invited hy 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 scepticism, for antiquity is unanimous in accepting
the tradition, and there are no circumstances that we
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
liis 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
literat^ire, and took him through a course of mathe-

RESIDES AT THE COURT OF MACEDON. 17

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, aU education. His mind was not framed to
be greatly interested in science or philosophy; he was,
as the Eirst Napoleon said of himself, tout a fait un
etre 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
of Macedonia were light, and that he was allowed con-
siderable leisure for the quiet prosecution of his own
great imdertakings. He seems, however, to have en-
joyed the fuU confidence and favour 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 aU the peoples of the

* 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 ot
these services an annual festival was afterwards held in his
honour at Stageira.

^.C.S.S. vol. V. B

18 HETURNS TO ATHENS.

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
favour 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. Athenseus 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
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 50th

SETS UP A SCHOOL AV THE LYCEUM. 1^

year, was enabled, under the most favourable 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
of Philosophy, which was held, as we have said, in the
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 methodised form the results of investiga-
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
publication suitable before the days of printing. And
also 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

20 COMPOSES HIS ENCYCLOPJEDIA.

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 labourers in his work.
We must remember what he was aiming at : it was to
produce what we should call an encyclopaedia of aU 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 encyclopaedia 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,' ' Ehetoric,' and ' The Art of Poetry;'
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, psychology, the philosophy of
the senses, &c.), 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

IS ASSISTED BY HIS SCHOLARS. 21

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 ma-
terials. He had quite the Baconian zeal for expei'ientia
tahulata, 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 answered. Thus a boundless field of subordinate
labour was opened, in which his pupUs might be em-
ployed. 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 particu-
lar points.

Aristotle was not a citizen of Athens, but only a
*'metic," or foreign resident, so he took no part in
public affairs. His whole time during the thirteen
years of his second residence in the city — a period co-
eval with tlie astonishing career of Alexander in the
East — must have been devoted to labours 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 con-
ceive how highly the privileges of this period — so calm
and yet so 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

^2 IS IDENTIFIED WITH ALEXANDER.

Antipater, who was acting as viceroy in Macedonia, he
is represented as having maintained a friendly corre-
spondence. Cassander, the son of Antipater, appears to
have attended his school. As time went on, the char-
acter 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 quarrelled
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 recommen-
dation of Aristotle, he had taken in his retinue. On
this and other occasions he is said to have broken out
into bitter expressions against " the sophistries " of
Aristotle, — that is to say, his free and reasonable political
principles. The East, conquered physically by Alex-
ander, had conquered and changed the mind of its con-
queror. And he had now fallen quite out of sympathy
with his ancient preceptor and friend. But the Athen-
ians seem to have been unconscious of any such change.
Aristotle had come to Athens as the avowed favourite
and protege 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 suUen dread
and covert dislike to the majority of the Athenian citi-
zens. Some portion of this feeling was doubtless re-
flected upon Aristotle, but during the life of Alexander
*See Grote's 'History of Greece,' xii. 291, 301, 341,

DEATH OF ALEXANDER. 23

any manifestation of it was checked, the affairs of
Athens being administered for the time by the " Mace-
donian " 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 teality 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 banish-
ment, and threatening with instant invasion any city
which should hesitate to obey this command. The
ofiicer charged with bearing this offensive proclamation,
so galling to the self-respect of the Grecian communi-
ties, turned out to be none other than Mcanor 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 philosopher, without any fault of his
own, the animosity of the Athenian people. In the
summer of the next year (323 B.C.), the eyes of all
Greece were still anxiously fixed upon the movements
of Alexander, when of a sudden the startling 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 JS'apoleon been suddenly
cut off, say in the year 1810.
; By the death of Alexander the position of Aristotle

24 ARISTOTLE IS I INDICT ED.

at Athens was profoundly affected. The anti-Mace-
donian party at once, for the moment, regained power ;
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 honour of
Hermeias, and which equalled 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

HE RETIRES TO CH ALOIS. S5

popular view of the topics of religion. Yet in his
extant 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 ecclesiastical feeling. The whole charge, if taken
on its real 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 iheologicum. iN'othing but a
very general popularity would have been an effectual
protection 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
characteristics which he attributes in his * Ethics ' to
the " great -souled " man, " who claims great things for
himself because he is worthy of them," and "who
cannot bear to associate with any one except a friend."
However this may have been, he was probably right
on the present occasion to decline submitting his life
and opinions 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,

25 DEATH OF ARISTOTLE.

"in order," as he is reported to have said, "that the
Athenians might not have another opportunity of sin-
ning against philosophy, as they had aheady done once
in the person of Socrates."

Chalcis was the original home of the ancestry of
Aristotle, and he appears to have had some property
there ; bnt it was especially a safe place of refuge for
him, as being occupied at this time by a Macedonian
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 labours which
had already consummated so much. And aU this
would have happened but that, within a year's time, in
322 B.C., he was seized with illness, and died some-
what 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 unpaired 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 question-
able 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
generous and just disposition. The property to be dis-

7//^ WILL. 27

posed of seems considerable, analogous perhaps to an
estate of £50,000 in the present day. The chief bene-
ficiary "imder 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 marriageable age. Aristotle's first wife had
died, and he had subsequently married Herpyllis of
Stageira, who became the mother of his son Nicoma-
chus. The will places Nicomachus under the care of
Nicanor, and makes liberal provision for HerpyUis,
who is mentioned in terms of affection and gratitude.
Several of the slaves are thought of, and are to be pre-
sented 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 Aristotle's first wife Pythias to his own place
of interment, to provide and dedicate suitable busts of
various members of Aristotle's family, and to fulfil a
Vow formerly made by himself of four marble figures
of animals to Zeus the Preserver and Athene the Pre-
server. This last clause throws suspicion on the gen-
uineness of the document, for it looks like a mere
imitation of the dying injunction of Socrates : "We
owe a cock to ^Esculapius ; 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 appearance of being the work of a forger avail-
ing 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

28 PERSONAL CHARGES AGAINST HIM.

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 to have been a forgery, they only leave us in
doubt about it. And, as has been said, even if re-
garded 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 Eoman
empire, including Fathers of the Church, have handed on
some of the hearsay reports, smart sayings of epigram-
matists, and attacks of hostile schools of philosophy,
which had been levelled against Aristotle. After all
they come to very little : — that he had small eyes, and
thin legs, and a lisping utterance; that he 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.

GENERAL IMPRESSION OF HIS LIFE. 29

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 honour-
able and blameless. And it was the life of one who
by his intellectual achievements placed liimself 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 endeavour
to set forth.

CHAPTEE IL

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 B.C. —
that is to say, a century after the death of the philo-
sopher— 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 imder 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 labelled ' 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

THREE PERIODS OF HIS LIFE. SI

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 question, show that
this natural supposition is incorrect, and that some-
thing like the contradictory of it is true. It is a
curious 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 Atarneiis, Mitylene, Pella, and Stageira, from his
thirty-eighth to his fiftieth year ; and his second resi-
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 role 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

82 THE FRUIT -TIME OF HIS GENIUS.

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 aU regard for the artistic
adornment of truth. During this period we may
believe that he thoroughly developed 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 wi'iting, 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 whether
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's life was the rich fruit-time of his genius.
We have already mentioned how he set himself to the
construction of an entire encyclopaedia 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. H6
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 anr

THE FATE OF HIS MSS. 33

other. Hardly any of the treatises are finished, still
less is there any trace of careful revision and "tho
last hand." 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
published.

When Aristotle died, all the MSS of his later
compositions, 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 appear to have worked to some extent at
editing the uncompleted treatises, and at patching to-
gether those which existed as yet only in disjointed
fragments. But there does not seem to have been any
multiplication of copies, or what we should call " pub-
lication." On the death of Theophrastus (which took
place thirty-five years later than that of Aristotle), the
whole Peripatetic school-library went by his bequest
to a favourite 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 unique, of Aristotle's most
important works, which were thus removed from Eu-
rope. JSTot 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 Neleus, afraid of losing the
treasiu'es they possessed, — ^which, however, they could
little appreciate, — hid away the Peripatetic rolls and
the precious MSS of Aristotle in a subterranean vault,

A.c.s.s. vol. V. 0

34 OUR ARISTOTLE.

where they remained for 150 years forgotten by
the world. At the end of that interval, the dynasty
of the kings of Pergamus having passed away, the
books were brought out of their hiding-place and sold
to one ApeUicon, a wealthy Peripatetic and book-col-
lector, 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 SyUa, and the
library of Apellicon was seized and brought to Eome,
where it was placed under the custody of a librarian,
and several literary Greeks, resident in Eome, had
access 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,
arranged 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
believing that " Our Aristotle," as Grote calls it, in
contradistinction to the Aristotle of the Alexandrian
Library, — is none other than this recension of An-
dronicus. 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

THE ALEXANDRIAN CATALOGUE. 35

other accidents which might have prevented these
-writings from getting into the appreciative and com-
petent hands of Tyrannion and Andronicus, would in
all probability have made them as if they had never
been. And thus that which was actually the chief
intellectual food of men in the middle ages would
liave been withheld. Whether for better or worse,
men's thoughts would have had a different exercise
and taken a different direction. Much of ecclesiastical
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 retiu-n 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
supplied to the Alexandrian collection, as the works
of Aristotle, 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 con-
jectural one, and probability seems to dictate an answer
lying between the two extreme hypotheses. Several of
the names appearing in the catalogue remind us of the

36 THE DIALOGUES OF ARISTOTLE.

titles of Plato's dialogues, — for instance 'Nerinthus/
'Gryllus; or, On Rhetoric,' 'Sophist,' 'Menexenus,'
'Symposium,' 'The Lover,' 'Alexander; or, On Co-
lonies,' &c. And the natural supposition is that these
books, or some of them, were none other than these
early dialogues which Aristotle composed during his
first residence in Athens. Strabo says distinctly that
when, by the bequest of Theophrastus, the Aristotel-
ian MSS were taken away, the Peripatetic school had
none of his works left except a few of the more pop-
ular 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 mono-
graphs and papers by members of the Peripatetic
school, drawn up in Aristotle's manner, perhaps con-
taining 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 Alex-
andrian list, though they were numerous, 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 came down to us.

The "fate of Aristotle's works" is a romantic episode

DECLINE OF THE PERIPATETICS. 37

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.
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 valuable
in his philosophy. They went off either into rhetorical
sermonising on moral questions, or else into isolated in-
quiries, the solution of problems, or the drawing up of
"papers" like those read before the Eoyal Society. It was
perhaps a feeling of contempt for the Peripatetic school
which induced Theophrastus, a generation after the
death of Aristotle, to give away their whole library, in-
cluding the great works of their master, to a foreign
student. But for their apathy those great works would
never have been left in unique copies, and ultimately
exposed to such extreme peril. There must, however,
have been a corresponding apathy in the external pub-
lic, else curiosity would have demanded, and the love
of science would have preserved, the results of Aris-
totle'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 Aristotle — with immature, rhetor-
ical dialogues, the work of his youth, or spurious imi-
tations of that work, with excerpts, 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
Aristotle of a cultivated man of literature, not devoid
of a certain taste for philosophy, of those times. Cicero

38 CICERO Ai\D ARISTOTLE.

often mentions; praises, and quotes Aristotle, but it is
not, " ow Aristotle," but the Aristotle of Alexandria,
the writer of dialogues. Several passages of these
dialogues have been translated and preserved by Cicero,
who extols the " golden flow of their language," using
terms which are as far as possible from being appli-
cable to the harsh, compressed, and difficult style of
Aristotle'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 learned rhetorician.
Trebatius, however, was repelled by the obscurity
of the writing, and the rhetorician, when consulted,
confessed 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
sweetness of the diction." He then proceeds to give
Trebatius a summary of the first few pages of the
' Topics ' of Aristotle, which he had apparently read up
for the occasion. From facts like this, it may be con-
cluded that in the two last centuries before the Chris-
tian era, it was only the lighter and less valuable com-
positions of Aristotle that were generally known and
admired. His more serious and really valuable contri-
butions to thought and knowledge Avere left out of

PRESERVATION OF HIS BEST WORKS. 39

sight, ignored, and forgotten. For the moment it
seemed as if the favourite 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 nar-
rated, was completely to reverse this sentence ; so that
now it may be said that all the lighter part of Aris-
totle's work has been swept away by the stream of
Time, while only that which was weighty and solid
has been suffered to remain in existence. Owing to
the wealth of the Eoman 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 Alex-
andrian catalogue, had no coherence 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 suc-
cessive scholiasts and commentators. In short, they
fell into the neglect which, comparatively speaking, they
deserved, and disappeared, all but a few scattered quo-
tations. 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

iO THE EDITION OF ANDRONICUS.

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 studying 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 collec-
tive works of Aristotle," else he would have included
in it the dialogues that Cicero quotes, the hymn in
honour 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 \vrote,
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

* One of the doubtful treatises — the 'Rhetoric dedicated
to Alexander' — is supposed to be the work of Anaxiraenes,
a writer contemporary with Aristotle.

PSEUDO-ARISTOTELIAN BOOKS.. 41

represented or explained Aristotle, and might advan-
tageously be preserved as part of his system. How-
ever it came about, we find included within the
Aristotelian canon a treatise 'On the Universe,'
neatly epitomising 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 ' Eude-
mian 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 mono-
graphs,— e.g. *0n Colom-s,' *0n Indivisible Lines,' 'On
Strange Stories,' ' Physiognomies,' &c. ; a treatise on
' Ehetoric,' quite different in principles 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 men-
tioned, but even if everything were deducted against
which the most sceptical criticism can make objection,
less than one-fourth would be taken away from the
entire mass which is in use to be labelled " Aristotle."
The whole works in Bekker's octavo edition fill 3786
pages, and out of these the books, about whose genu-
ineness any question has been raised, occupy only 925
pages. A solid residue remains, which may now be
briefly characterised, merely in regard to its external
form, a few remarks being added as to the chrono-
logical order in which it seems probable that Aris-
totle composed the various parts.

The remains of Aristotle come before us as a torso,
— an incomplete and somewhat mutilated gi'oup from

4-2 ARISTOTLE'S DIVISIONS OF SCIENCE.

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 encyclopae-
dia, for they contain a resume 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-
paedia, 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-
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. Por 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

CLASSIFICATION OF HIS WORKS. 43

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 I^at-
ural 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 dif-
ferent " Sections " of the British Association. Natural
Philosophy, Astronomy, Physiology, and Natural His-
tory, are all marvellously founded in these treatises, by
masterly analysis and classification of existing know-
ledge on the different subjects, and by the arrange-
ment of facts, or supposed facts, under leading sci-
entific ideas. Twelve books on Metaphysics occupy
about one-tenth of the genuine remains of Aristotle.
These books are obviously patched together out of the
fragments of two or 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 " Metaphysics," or " the things which
follow after Physics," was given to these books when
they were put together, after Aristotle's death, to indi-
cate both chronological sequence in the order of com-
position, and also that the subject 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

44 THEIR CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER.

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 collec-
tively named by the Peripatetic school " the Organon "
or instrument. These books stand first in modern
editions of Aristotle, and, speaking generally, they
appear 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 devel-
opment of doctrine contained in the different works
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

SEQUENCE TRACED OUT. 45

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-Avritten 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 L and IL
of the ' Rhetoric ' (which has to do with the setting
forth of truth); and then the ' Sophistical Refutations '
(or treatise on Fallacies), which belongs to logic, yet
still has a connection with the art of rhetoric. After
thus far treating of the method of knowledge and ex-
pression, Aristotle appears to have gone on to treat of
the matter of knowledge, and to have commenced with
the practical sciences. Fu'st 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 first of these
to be written was probably the 'Physical Discom-se,'
which unfolded the general notions of natural philos-
ophy, and gave an account of what Aristotle conceived
under the terms " Nature," "Motion," "Time," "Space,"

M SEQUENCE OF HIS WRITINGS.

" 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 com-
posed 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 plan-
etary 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 Hea-
vens.' iN'ext to this he is thought to have composed
his work * On Generation and Corruption,' in order to
expound those principles of physical change (depen-
dent 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 character-
ised by incessant change, and by the passing of things
into and out of existence, and which became the subject
of his next treatise — ^the * Meteorologies.' 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
"written of which may very likely have been that ' On

AMOUNT OF HIS WRITINGS. 47

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 physiological account of the vital principle as mani-
fested in plants, animals, and men. A set of Appen-
dices, as we should now call them, on various functions
connected with life in general, such as sensation, mem-
ory, sleep, dreaming, longevity, death, &c., were added
by Aristotle to his work ' On the Soul.' Afterwards,
the ten books of ' Eesearches on Animals,' and the live
books ' On the Generation of Animals,' together with
a minor treatise ' On the Progression of Animals,' and
with a collection of ' Problems,' which Aristotle pro-
bably 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. Trea-
tises ' 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 'Meta-
physics ' were probably in course of composition Avhen
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." TFe,
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-

48 NOT VERY VOLUMINOUS.

prising. Even if these works were composed, as we
suppose them for the most part to have been, during
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 philosophic 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 labour 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-
iser, on at least a dozen other of the greatest subjects,

BUT THEIR CONTENTS A MARVEL. 49

and on each of them he was for many centuries accepted
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.

A.O.S.S. vol. V.

CHAPTEE III.

THE 'ORGANON' op ARISTOTLE.

"Organon," or "the instrument," was, as we have
said, the name given by Aristotle's ancient editors to
his collective works on Logic. And from this of course
Bacon took the title of 'ITovum Organum,' or "the
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
staunch 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

DOCTRINE OF THE ''CATEGORIES." 51

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 contmuously, 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
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. !Row, 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

52 THE TEN CATEGORIES,

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
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," namiug 8, 6, or 4, instead of 10. In one
place (*Met.' YL 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

MISAPPREHENDED IN MODERN TIMES. 53

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 obtaining
clear notions. But he was far too sensible to apply his
original table of " Ten Categories" as a Procrustean bed
for measuring everytliing in the universe. At the same
time it must be confessed that it has been prevalently
thought that he did so. Thus Bacon contemptuously
accused him of " constructing the world out of 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 philosophi-
cal 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 "Categories."
After naming the ten, without any account of the man-
ner in which they are arrived at, it discusses to a cer-
tain extent the first four only. Then some chapters
are appended, which may or may not have been orig-'
inally a separate paper, on the different ways in which
things are called "opposite," &c. There are two or

54 DO UBTFUL A UTHORSHIP OF ' CA TEGORIES:

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' (VI. 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. Aris-
totle may have said this in the early days of his antag-
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 interpreter of
Thought.' Its subject is that which in Logic is called

THE BOOK 'ON INTERPRETATION: 55

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, 'Categories,' 'On
Interpretation,' and ' Analytics,' correspond to these
three divisions. But this is only superficially 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 Eela-
tions. And the book, ' On Interpretation ' is not a
prelude to the ' Analytics ; ' it is a separate logical
monograph on some of the characteristics of proposi-
tions, containing, at the same time, some remarks on
words, as fit or unfit to become terms — on indefinite
words, "syn-categorematic" words, &c. The great merit
of this little treatise is undeniable, especially when con-
sidered 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. All those clear
statements about the nature of the proposition ; on
what is meant by " contrariety" and " contradiction;"
on " modal propositions," or propositions in which the
amount of certainty is expressed by the words " neces-
sarily" or "probably;" and other points which the
reader will find in the second part of Whately's 'Logic,'
are taken almost verhatim 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 metaphori-

56 TRUTH OR FALSEHOOD OF PROPOSITIONS.

cal way. This comes from the work before us, where
it is laid down as the first characteristic of a proposi-
tion that it must be either true or false. A distinction,
however, is here drawn, for propositions admit 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 prophecies,
could be pronounced to be certainly true, it would do
away with human agency and freewill. 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 realised,
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 realised — for instance, the greatest number or
the least quantity, which, while we speak of them, no

A UTHORSHIP OF BOOK ' ON INTERPRET A TION: 5 7

one can ever say that he has reached. In this passage
we find ourselves rather in the region of Metaphysics
than of liOgic, 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 *0n Interpretation' was evidently not
written at the same time with the 'Categories,' or is by
a diff'erent 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-
rite's. There is a tradition that Andronicus of Ehodes
held that this treatise was not written by Aristotle at
all, while Ammonius, a great commentator, argued in
favour 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.

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

58 ATHENIAN DIALECTIC.

place which they hare so long held in the forefront of
the writings of Aristotle. "VYe turn to that which was,
so far as we know, in reality the opening treatise of
the Aristotelian Encyclopaedia — namely, the 'Topics;'
and there is some peculiarity to be remarked in the
very fact that the subject with which it deals should
have been 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 prac-
tised, and formulated, was not Logic, or the science of
the laws of reasoning, but Dialectic, or the art of dis-
cussion. This art was by no means confined to philo-
sophers, but it was the fashion of the day, and was
widely and constantly 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 tell or to hear some new thing," were
at an earlier period possessed by an insatiate appetite
for discussion and controversy, whether with a view to
truth or to mere victory over an opponent. Dialectic
then, as an art, was thoroughly recognised, and all but
universally practised, yet still the fundamental prin-
ciples on which it must rest had never yet been pro-

ATHENIAN DIALECTIC. 59

perly drawn out, and Aristotle seems to have felt it to
be the first task for one who would huild 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 applica-
tion to the certainties of science, after which a sub-
ordinate 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 reasoning, 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 discovered 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 apologises
for differing from Plato, " because truth must be pre-

60 ARISTOTLE'S DISCOVERY OF THE SYLLOGISM.

f erred 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 Dialec-
tic. " In regard to the process of syllogising," he says,
" I 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 complete the ' Topics,' by the addition 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 skilful dialectician in Athenian arenas. He names
the four chief instruments for this purpose : 1st, To

ARISTOTLE'S 'TOPICS: 61

make a large collection of propositions — i.e., authori-
tative 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 resem-
blances. The last three out of these four suggestions
are expanded at great length, and Aristotle tells us
how to use various logical distinctions, here brought
forward for the first time, in pulling to pieces the
arguments of an opponent — for instance, how to use the
heads of predicables (gemts, differentia, propriuin, 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 dialec-
tical method, they are quite taken up with a wearisome
and seemingly endless list of heads of argumentation.
The eighth book, written later, adds some counsel upon
the arrangement and marshalling of yom' arguments,
whether you be the respondent defending a thesis, or
the interrogator who attacks it. Some of these pieces
of advice might be characterised as "dodges;" for in-
stance, 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 saying, " 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 imworthy manoeuvres, the questioner on

62 ARISTOTLE'S 'TOPICS.'

his part must be unscrupulous also in syllogising;
but this is a disgraceful scene. To keep clear of such
abusive discourse, you must be cautious not to dis-
course 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
controversy and debate, it is questionable whether
a study of Aristotle's ' Topics ' would nowadays be
found useful, except so far as the logical distinctions
which it contains might sharpen the intellect. But
this latter result might equally well be attained by
studying the ordinary logics into which all those dis-
tinctions have been transplanted. The * Topics,' at
the time when it was written, was a work of original
penetration, and of vast accumulative labour. Aris-
totle perhaps ought to have foreseen that it would not
be worth his while to reduce Athenian Dialectic to a
methodised system, but he did not; and much of what
he accimiulated 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 perma-
nent 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 analysing the forms of reasoning. We come now
to his * Prior and Posterior' (or First and Second
Series of) 'Analytics.' Li these works he has pro-
duced nothing temporary, or of merely antiquarian

THE 'FIRST ANALYTICS.' 63

interest, but an addition to human knowledge as com-
plete in itself, as permanent, and as irrefragable, as
the Geometry of EucHd. It is true that Aristotle did
not cover and exhaust 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 controversies, which, at the
time when he wrote, much predominated over all that
we should think worthy of the name of physical sci-
ence, and therefore his aim was limited to the anal-
ysis of deductive reasonings. But men still reason
deductively, and will always do so; during a gTeat
part of life we are employed, not in finding out new
laws of nature, but in applying what we knew before,
in appealing to general beliefs, or supposed classes of
facts, and in drawing our positive or negative con-
clusions accordingly. To all this process, whenever
it occurs, the * Analytics' of Aristotle are as appli-
cable as the principles of Geometry are to every fresh
mensuration.

Aristotle invented the word "Syllogism," for the
process of putting two assertions together and out of
them deducing a third. This word indeed existed
before in Greek hterature, but in a general sense, mean-
ing "computation," "reckoning" or "consideration."
But Aristotle stamped it with the technical meaning
which it has ever since borne. In introducing the
word, however, it must not be supposed that he in-
troduced, or invented, the process of reasoning to
which he applied it, or that he ever pretended to do

64 THE 'FIRST analytics:

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 distinguished nouns from verbs
and gave them their names, did not invent nouns and
verbs, but only called attention 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 innovations in language; and
so Aristotle with his " Syllogism " 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. Jourdain 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
discussions. 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 observations which it contains, and the absolutely
complete way in which it constructs a science and
provides for it an appropriate nomenclative. Though
countless generations of commentators and school-
men have been busy with the ' Analytics,' and many
modem philosophers have independently treated of
Logic, none of them have been able to add a single
point of any importance to Aristotle's theory of deduc-
tive reasoning. The ' Analytics ' are of course not light

THE 'FIRST analytics: 65

reading. The style is severely scientific, and concisely
expository; not a single grace of ornament, not a
superfluous word, is admitted. As Aristotle intro-
duced 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 attempt any further description
of the contents, or to give here an account of the
figui'es and moods of syllogisms, of conversion of pro-
positions, 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, and many other
books 1

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
schoolmen, thought that all reasoning should be
through syllogisms, that nature could be expounded
by means of syllogisms, and that syllogisms were a
source of knowledge. 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 Lord Bacon or John Stuart Mill.
After showing that syllogisms are constantly used, and
after analysing their form, and showing on what their

A.c.s.s. vol. V. E

66 THE SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE.

validity depends, he proceeds to make some remarks
on the way in which the major premiss, 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. Ex-
perience alone can give you general principles 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 complete, you
will be able in some cases to exhibit a demonstration ;
in other cases you will have to say that demonstration
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 practice was
quite true to the principles here announced. In his
' Ethics,' ' Politics,' and ' Physics,' he does not pedan-
tically drag in the syllogism, but masses facts together,
and makes penetrating remarks upon them, and dis-
cusses freely, by means of analogy, comparison, 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
ascertained, almost entirely unexplored. He briefly

THE THEORY OF INDUCTION. 67

observes ('Prior Anal. ' II. xxiii.) that "induction, or
the syUogism 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 without a gall are long-lived, we do so through
our knowledge 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
inductive 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 horse, and the mule are animals without a gall ;

Therefore (all) animals without a gall are long-hved.

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
treatment cures the cholera, how can you teU whether
the induction is adequate, and that you are justified

68 INTUITION INSTEAD OF VERIFICATION.

in asserting, 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
verification, — which after all consist in observing and
experimenting further; in eliminating all accidental
circumstances ; in recording, and, if possible, account-
ing 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 obser-
vation which have gradually come into use among
scientific men in modern times were imknown 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 in-
tuition would supervene, telling us, " This is a law."
Such, no doubt, has often been the case, as in New-
ton's famous discovery of the law of gravitation from
seeing an apple fall. Yet still, in the ordinary course
of science, verification ought always to be at hand.
And Aristotle, in omitting to provide for this, left a
blank in his theory of the acquirement of knowledge.

THE 'SECOND ANALYTICS: G9

Aristotle, like Plato, drew a strong line of demar-
cation 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 ap-
plication by means of Dialectic to matters of opinion
had been set forth (in anticipation of the natural order
of treatment) in the ' Topics ; ' and now Aristotle pro-
ceeded 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 disputants are
required, one of whom is to maintain a thesis, while
the other by questioning is to endeavour 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 teaching and aU intellectual learning arises out
of previously existing knowledge." This points at
once to a characteristic of Aristotle's view of Science.
In modem times we associate Science most commonly
with the idea of the inductive accumulation of know-
ledge ; and thus we talk of " scientific inquiry ; " but
Aristotle thinks of Science as deductive and expository,
and identifies 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

70 ARISTOTLE'S IDEA OF SCIENCE.

them are taken from Geometry. [N'ext to this, the
science most frequently appealed to is Astronomy. But
he also mentions Arithmetic, Optics, Mechanics, Stereo-
metry, Harmonics, and Medicine. Sometimes he refers
to questions of I^Tatural 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 observ-
ing 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 abstract science, it is remarkable how
much the Sciences of Observation are considered in
this book, and what an enlightened and modern atmo-
sphere breathes through many parts of it.

In developing his idea of Science, Aristotle takes
occasion to controvert several opinions which had
found vogue in his day. One of these was that every-
thing in Science could be proved. Some men had a
notion that you could go back ad infinitum in proving
the principles from which your science was deduced :
"This principle was true because of that, and that
because of something else, and so on for ever." Others
fancied that by a kind of circular reasoning the pro-
positions of Science might all be made to prove each
other. " ]N'o," says Aristotle, " Science must commence
from something that is not proved at all." Science
must start from im-mediate principles — i.e., principles

THE SEPARATENESS OF THE SCIENCES. 71

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, according 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 !N'ous or Reason, which (as
we have seen) attains them intuitively, when sufficiently
advised, so to speak, by a course of inductive observa-
tion. 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 existence, 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 compromise between Nominalism and
Realism.

These, however, are metaphysical distinctions. An-
other point more closely belonging to the Logic of
Science is brought out against Plato — namely, the
separateness of the Sciences, which foUows from each
Science having its own appropriate principles. Plato
conceived, or appeared to do so, that from the prin-
ciples 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 meta-
physician, to be quite distinct from the practical concep-

72 THE THEORY OF DEFINITION.

tion of the good which occupies the statesman or the
moralist. In many ways this demarcation 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
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 " mate-
rial," 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 f oi-ms ; when a cloud forms, ram follows,
and the earth is saturated : so that the same term

A RISTOTLE'S ' FA LLA CIES. ' 7 3

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 Ehetoric, and to have written the
main part of his treatise on that subject. He then
reverted 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,
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
Contentiousness is arguing for victory, he describes
Sophistry as arguing for gain. The Sophist, according
to Aristotle, tried to confute people and make them
look foolish, employing for this purpose, not fair argu-
ments, but quibbles and fallacies; and all this was
done in order to be thought clever and to get pupils.
An amusing picture of this sort of process is given in
Plato's dialogue called 'Euthydemus,' where two profes-
sionals are represented as bamboozling with verbal tricks
an ingenuous youth, until Socrates by his dialectical
acumen and superior wit rescues the victim from his
tormentors, and turns the tables upon them. The fol-
lowing is a specimen of the " sophistical confutations "

74 PLATO'S *EUTHYDEMUS:

in * Euthydemus : ' " Wlio learn, the wise or the un-
wise ? " " 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 1 " " The
latter." "And dictation 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 abeady?" "Yes."
" Then you learn that which you did not know." *

Plato's picture is, doubtless, a caricature, exaggerating
the fallacious practice of the lower sort of professional
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 Confu-
tations' is the result. To the value of this book it
makes no difi'erence how far the quibbles and deceptive
reasonings adduced had been actually used by certain
definite individuals for mercenary purposes, or whether,
historically speaking, the professional "Sophists" of
Greece were as bad as Plato had represented them.
Putting the " Sophists " of Greece quite out of con-
sideration, fallacy, whether voluntary or involuntary,

* See Professor Jowett's Introduction to * Euthydemus ' in
his 'Dialogues of Plato,' i. p. 184, 2d ed.

CLASSIFICATION OF FALLACY. 75

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 reason-
ing 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 course, 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' em-
ploy the terms "wise," "learn," and "know" in double
senses so as to cause confusion.

Aristotle's account of the fallacies attaching to
syllogistic or deductive reasoning is complete and ex-
haustive, and has been the source of all that has subse-
quently been written on the subject. The fallacies of
mitvpliibdlia^ accidens^ a dicto secundum quid ad dictum
simpliciterf ignoratio elenchi, petitio principii, conse-
quens, non causa pro causa, and plures interrogationes
have become the property of modern times, with names
Latinised from those by which Aristotle first dis-
tinguished them; and in Whately's, and other com-
pendiums, they may be found duly explained. It is
true that Aristotle does not investigate the sources of
error attaching to the inductive process; the "idols
of the tribe" and "of the den" he left for Bacon to
denounce ; and the fallacies of " inspection," " coUiga-

76 ARISTOTLE'S 'FALLACIES:

tion," 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 supple-
mentary, 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 analysing fallacy is
primarily contributing artistic rules for the conduct 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 somewhat
to clear up the thought and language of Europe.

CHAPTEE lY.

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 Ehetoric, in rivahy to the veteran Isocrates. During
his second residence, he presided over a school, not of
Ehetoric alone, but of Philosophy and of all knowledge.
Yet it is said that in the Peripatetic school " Eheto-
ric was both scientifically and assiduously taught." *
Ehetoric 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 ' Ehetoric '
of Aristotle bears marks of having gone through a
similar process. The outlines of its arrangement are
characterised by luminous simplicity, the result of long
analytic reflection; the scientific exposition is made

* Professor Jebb's 'Attic Orators,' ii. 431. See Diog. Laert.,
V. i. 3.

78 PREVIOUS TREATISES ON RHETORIC.

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 accumula-
tion of a lifetime.

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 'Ehetoric ad-
dressed 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 over-
much in those tricks of argument and disputation which
got the Sophists their bad name. The other lost sys-
tems of Rhetoric by Corax, Tisias, Antiphon, Gorgias,
Thrasymachus, and others, appear to have been aU
strictly practical. Aristotle complains* that they con-
fined themselves too much to treating of forensic
oratory, and to expounding the methods best adapted
for working on the feelings of a jury. His o-wn aim
is broader and more philosophical : while he defines
Rhetoric as " the art of seeing what elements of per-

* 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 hook (III.
ix. 10), as containing a classification of prose periods. There
was a tradition that Aristotle contributed an introduction to the
* Rhetoric of Theodectes.'

THE SOURCES OF PERSUASION. 79

suasion attach to any subject," he traces out these
"elements of persuasion " to their root in the prin-
ciples^ 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 Csesar, 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 "honourable" men should
have brought it about. Accordingly, in the first pause
of the speech the citizens say to each other : —

" 2cZ Cit. Poor soul ! his eyes are red as fire with weeping.
3^ Cit. There's not a nobler man in Kome than Antony."

The second object is to produce in the hearers a frame
of mind favourable to the designs of the orator, who
accordingly awakens in them the passions of gratitude
and love towards the memory of Csesar by the recital
of his good deeds, then leads them on to pity and in-
dignation 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 particular character, and these appeals to the pas-

80 THE THREE KINDS OF ORATORY.

sions, there are intellectual arguments running thi^ough
the speech, to the effect that Csesar was unjustly ac-
cused 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 Csesar 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 future ; while judicial oratory, in crim-
inal or civil cases, endeavours to give a certam 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.
I 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 ArisJ^otle thus says that Rhetoric is a com-
pound of Logic and Moral Phdosopliy. In this trea-
tise he supplies a rich fund of psychological remarks
on the various passions and characteristics of men. In
the condensed knowledge of the world which it displays
the 'Ehetoric' might be compared with Bacon's 'Essays.'
It might be compared also with them in this respect —
that a_bad and IMachiavellian use might certainl^be
made of some of the suggestions which it contains.

RHETORICAL ARGUMENTS. 81

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 premisses 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 Ehetoric must each belong to one
of these two forms. Aristotle, adapting special names
for the purpose, says that the enthymeme oi Ehetoric
answers to the syllogism of Logic, and that the exairvple
of Ehetoric answers to the induction of Logic.

The word "enthymeme" seems to mean etymologi-
cally " amitting into one's mind," or " a suggestion."
It is a rhetorical syllogism with premisses constructed
out of " likelihoods," or " signs." Some critics consider
that it was essential to the " enthymeme " to have one of
its premisses suppressed; but Aristotle only says ('Ehet.'
I. ii. 13) that this was frequently the case. The real
characteristic ofJ;heJ^ enthyme^^^ was its suggestive,
but non-conclusive, character; for the premisses, even
if expressed in full, would not be sufficient to enforce
the conclusion which is pointed at. The " enthymeme "

A.c.s.s. vol. V. F

82 RHETORICAL ARGUMENTS.

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 Kome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill :
Did this in Csesar seem ambitious 'i

(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 Avhich 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

THE MATTER OF SPEECHES. 83

law, which would be the scientific method, the orator
quotes one instance pointing in the direction of aja^.
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 enthymemes.
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. Hitn who is to practise 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 defences ; its imports and exports ; and its
system of law."*^ In reference to the last of these,
Aristotle recommends the comparative study of polit-
ical constitutions, and for that end that the accounts
of travellers 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

* The same points are specified in the advice given "by Socrates
to a young politician — Xenophon * Memorab. ' iii. 6.

84 THE MATTER OF SPEECHES.

Ehetoric. Aristotle proceeds to f uniish. the orator with
definitions and theories which he considered (at all
events when he was writing this treatise) to belong to
Ehetoric 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
thqory 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 deliberative 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

LAW AND EQUITY. 85

before him a clear idea of what constitutes virtue, and
of what is, or is considered, most honourable 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,
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 modem sermon, under the head of deliberative
oratory.

For the use of the forensic orator, who has to argue
in accusation or defence, the following equipment of
knowledge is provided by Aristotle : 1st, A brief sum-
mary of the motives of human action; 2d, An analytical
accoimt 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, Eemarks 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

* Epieikem, — that quality which Mr Matthew Arnold de-
fines as "a sweet reasonableness."

86 ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS.

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
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 * Ehetoric ' 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 — Eank, 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 oj^ 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
('Ehet.'IT. iv. 30):—

ANGER AND HATRED. 87

"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 certain
description. 2d, Anger is invariably against indi-
viduals; 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 this 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
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 aU his subtlety and knowledge of the world,
Aristotle does not exhibit any of the cynicism of
Hobbcs or Itochef oucauld. He is lar 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 realising the ills which

88 ARISTOTLE'S ESTIMATE OF MANKIND.

excite our pity, but that by no means reduces pity to
a mere selfish apprehension on our own account.
" The essence of jpity," 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 organisation of
society. He defines " kindness " * to be " that quality
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 (' Ehet.' 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
worse side."

We may conclude our extracts from the second book
of the * Ehetoric ' with Aristotle's remark on the prime
of life, which Dr Arnold of Eugby used to be fond of

* Charis, a word which can hardly be translated, as it means
not only kindness, grace, or favour, but also the reciprocal
feeling of gratitude for kindness. The Charites or Graces were
the Greek personifications of reciprocal feelings of kindness.
Hence the temple of the Graces symboHsed the mutual services
of men to each other, on which society depends (see 'Eth.*
V. V. 7).

STYLE AND ARRANGEMENT. 89

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 applicable
to precocious southern nations.

From what we have indicated it will be seen that
the first two books of the * Ehetoric ' consist mainly
of observations on human nature. Towards the close
of them Aristotle fell upon the subject of fallacious
" enthymemes," and this led him to suspend the work
he had in hand, and to write that treatise on " Sophis-
tical Confutations," or " Fallacies," of which we have
already 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 ofi" from the completion of the last-
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 'Ehetoric,' 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
appropriate instead of general words ; constructing the

90 QUOTATIONS AND CRITICISMS.

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 Grammar 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
instruction of Greek readers belonging to the fourth
century 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
metaphors. For instance, we are told that it is far
better to call Aurora the " rosy -fingered " than the
" purple -fingered," and still more so than to call her
the " red -fingered." But charms of style from the
Greek ivriters appear in this book like moths and
j butterflies pinned on to corks in the collection of an
I entomologist. Aristotle's fondness for classification
seems carried too far here; he incessantly analyses
and enumerates, as for instance when he tells us that
there are four ways by which " flatness " in a speech
is produced. The principles 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 metre. Aristotle

DEMOSTHENES NOT PRAISED. 91

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
pceon, a foot consisting of three short syllables and
one long syllable (as anachronism), for the rhythmical
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 eliminate 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 humour of genius, pervading his
criticisms. And it is remarkable that his illustrations
are more drawn from poetry than from prose — appa-
rently more from books than from living sources, — and
that he never mentions with appreciation the oratory
of Demosthenes. Some of the greatest speeches of
Demosthenes, 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 at-
tempting to rival Isocrates in the teaching of Ehetoric.

v^

92 THE 'ART OF POETRY:

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 prevented Aristotle from praising
the anti-Macedonian statesman, though he was the
greatest orator among the ancients.

After treating of style, Aristotle briefly discusses
arrangement. He divides a speech into exordium,
statement, 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
approval 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 as dancing, flute-playing, painting," &c. :
these different arts, he says, have each their own in-

WHAT IS POETRY i 93

striunent of imitation, and poetry uses words and
metre. 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 genesis 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-
nising that " this is that." Poetry then is imitation,
and according 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, how-
ever, 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 prac-
tice 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-

94 THE LUDICROUS.

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,
they had not as yet analysed the processes of imagi-
nation. And the want of a terminology connected
with this subject is felt throughout the * Poetic' of
Aristotle.

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 certain pleasure derivable from ugli-
ness, 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 pleasurable sense of contrast and surprise
when a thing is out of place but no serious evil seems
likely to result.

DEFINITION OF TRAGEDY. 95

Aristotle's account of Tragedy is a profound piece
of aesthetic philosophy. By implication he defends
Tragedy 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
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 that 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. 1 1 ; VIII. vii. 5), which both refer
in similar terms to the relief of the passions procured
by indulging them. He promised a fuller explanation
of his theory on this subject, but unfortunately has
never given it. However, we are perhaps safe in
understanding that, while Plato objected to Tragedy
as tending to make men soft by the excitement of their
sympathetic feelings, Aristotle said " !N'o — those feelings

* See 'Aristotle iiber Kunst, besonders iiber Tragodie,' von
Dr Reinkens (Vienna, 1870), p. 70-167.

96 PROPER SUBJECTS FOR TRAGEDY.

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, on the other hand,
would the representation of a villain receiving the re-
tribution due to his crimes be a tragical story, however
moral it might be. We require the element of un-
deserved calamity; and yet there must be some justice,
too, in the course of events, so that, while we feel sorrow
for what occurs, we shall feel also that things could not
have been otherwise. The tale of (Edipus is often
mentioned by Aristotle as a perfect subject for Tragedy.
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 calamitous
doom ; and yet there is a sense that this is, partly at
all events, the result of his own doing. Aristotle is
not in favour of a tragedy ending happily. He says
that poets sometimes make happy endings out of con-
cession 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
terminations 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

''THE UNITIES." 97

and place. In enumerating the diiFerences between
tragedy and epic poetry, he says (v. 8) that "the one
generally tries to limit its action to a period of twenty^
fom^ 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 peculi-
arity 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- relation 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 imities," would seem to need re-
assertion, for we might almost say that it is habitually
violated by ■v\T?iters of fiction in the present 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
progress of the Greek drama, and the modifications
which tragedy and comedy went through, and much
information 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." Aris-
totle notes a decadence of the drama in his own day :
he complains of authors spoiling their plays by intro-
ducing -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

A.c.s.s. vol. V. G

98 POETRY AND HISTORY COMPARED.

elaborate and expensive scenery and apparatus : he
also things that acting is overdone. Aristotle shows
an extensive acquaintance 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 merit which the Epic
possesses is to be found in Tragedy. Like Tragedy,
the Epic must possess unity of plot, but it may in-,
dulge 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 especially commends the art of Homer in making the
action of the ' Iliad ' and * Odyssey ' respectively circle
round definite central events. Although it is a narra-
tive. 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 * Ehetoric,' and write the third book
thereof. Here he even lays down some of the elements
of grammar, and enumerates the parts of speech. He

HIE 'ART OF POETRY' UNFINISHED. C9

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
subject 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 treatise called
* Poetic ' not only was never rewritten, but was never
finished as its author intended it to be.

CHAPTEE Y.

Aristotle's 'ethics.'

Aristotle's treatise on Morals has come down to us
entitled ' Nicomachean Ethics.' This label was pro-
bably affixed to the work on account of Mcomachus,
the son of Aristotle, having had some subordinate con-
;nection with it, either as scribe or editor ; and in order
to distinguish it in the Peripatetic library from the
' Eudemian Ethics,' which is a sort of paraphrase
of Aristotle's treatise by his disciple Eudemus, — and
from the ' Great Ethics ' which is a restatement of the
same matter by some later Peripatetic hand. Among
the Works of Aristotle there is also included a little
tract ' On Virtues and Vices.' This is a mere paper,
such as the Peripatetic school used to produce, noting
characteristics of some of the Aristotelian good quali-
ties 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

ETHICS A BRANCH OF POLITICS. 101

the * Kicomacheah 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, Aris-
totle had no clear conception of the existence of Moral
Philosophy 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
former. In Aristotle's ' Politics ' (YII. iii. 8), the chief
good for a State is portrayed as consisting in the de-
velopment and play of speculative thought, aU fit
conditions thereto having been provided. The idea is
— a Greek city, with a slave population doing the
liard 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 philosophers, and that the highest aim for an indi-
vidual was to be a philosopher. Thus there is a seem-
ing identity of aims ; yet still in writing his ' Ethics '

102 WHAT IS HAPPINESS?

Aristotle confines himself to inquiring after "the
good " for the individual. As he goes on, it dawns
upon him more and more (see 'Eth.' v. 5-11), that
" the man " has an independent 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 com-
posing this work he established 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 both.

What constitutes the chief good for an individual,
or in other words, happiness 1 Aristotle is somewhat
abstract and metaphysical in arguing upon this ques-
fl ) tion. He says, happiness must be an end in itself,
A \ 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
r? ) merely dormant state, but a state of conscious vitality ;
and lastly, it must be in accordance withlihe law of
excellence proper to the function of man. Thus we
arrive at the general idea that the highest happiness
consists in the harmonious 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

C

//).

THE JOYS OF PHILOSOPHIC THOUGHT. 103

superhuman ; 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 composite nature, so does its operation excel action
according to the moral virtues. Reason in comparison
with man is something divine, and so is the life of
Eeason divine in comparison with the routine of man's
life. One must not, however, obey those who bid us
' think humbly as being mortal men,' nay rather we
should indulge immortal longings, and strive to live up
to that divine particle within us, which, though it be
small in proportionate 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 wiU be
developed. And such a life cannot fail to be happy
above aU other kinds of life."

This, then, is the "mark" which Aristotle sets
before men to "shoot at" ('Eth.' I. ii. 2) — namely, the
attainment of a state in which one shoidd 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.' XL ix. 4).
This, he 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."

104 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 recognising the law of moral obli-
gation as the deepest thing in man, Aristotle, as we
have seen above, introduces the idea of virtue and
morality in a dry logical way, saying that the chief
good for man must consist in the realisation of his
powers " according to their own proper law of excel-
lence." Having in this colourless and neutral way
brought in the term " excellence " or virtue, Aristotle
divides it, in relation to man, into moral and intellec-
tual. Of the former he proceeded immediately to
treat at length ; of the latter he promised to give an
account, but only an imperfect realisation of that
promise, furnished by the "Eudemian" paraphrase,
has come down to us.

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,
eontributed much towards the subsequent deeper con-
ception of ethical questions. One service which he
I ) performed was to distinguish will from reason. So-

crates and Plato had been content to describe virtue as
knowledge, or an enlightened state of the reason ; but
Aristotle, like Kant in modem times, defined it as a
state of the will. Secondly, he analysed the forma-

THE DOCTFdNE OF ''THE MEAN." GlOS

^

tion of this state, and explained it by his doctrine
of "habits." By observing the various arts — as, for
instance, harp - playing, and the like — he saw that
"practice 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 wiU. AU
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
authors of 'Maxims,' the Gnomic poets, Pindar, and
the Tragedians, had all preached the doctrine of
moderation — 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 point-
ing out (' Philebus, ' p. 23-27) that in all things the
law of " limit " is the cause of good, while the un-
limited, the unregulated, 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

106 THE DOCTRINE OF ''THE MEAN."

of deep and high, quick and slow ; but the limit gives
rise to modulation and harmony, and all that is de-
lightful in music. In climate and temperature, where
the limit has been introduced, excessive heats and
violent storms subside, and 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 aU that
is good. Thus, in contemplating aU 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 ('Eepublic,' p. 400) he dwells
especially on the common characteristics 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 " modera-
tion " he introduced a mathematical term, " the mean "
(for instance, 4 is the mean between 2 and 6) ; he used
this term as the chief feature in a regular formal defi-
nition 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 Courage lies between
the vice Cowardice, which is fearing too much, and the
vice Rashness, which is fearing too little. And virtue
generally is a balance between too much and too little.
It is produced by the introduction of the law of the
mean into the passions, which in themselves are un-
limited. But what is this " mean " — this jtcste milieu

''THE BEAUTIFUL" IN ACTION. 107

— and how is it ascertained] Aristotle teUs ns that
it is not merely the mid-point between two external
quantities, but it is the mid-point relatively to the
moral ^gent. What is too much for one man — say, of
danger, expense, indulgence, or seK-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
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 modem 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 constitute
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 conscience. To attain " the
beautiful " is considered by Aristotle, if inferior to
the joys of philosophy, still as a source of very high

108 ARISTOTLE'S TABLE OF THE VIRTUES.

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 de-
gree and manner, considering the circumstances of the
moment. These formulce^ however, do not appear to
explain what we should consider the 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 de-
fence 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 enough 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 {' Protag.,'
p. 349) — courage, temperance, justice, wisdom, and
holiness. Aristotle separates ethics from religion, and
thus leaves out aU 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

THE "GREAT-SOU LED MAN." 109

being dependent on, and mixed up with, all the institu-
tutions 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
gentleman. 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 them. The
most moral of the virtues here named, from a modem
point of view, is Courage, on account of the self-sacri-
fice, the endurance of danger, pain, and death, which
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-
ness of soul. He wiU not compete for the common
objects of ambition; he will only attempt great and
important matters, and otherwise will seem inactive ;

110 THE MINOR VIRTUES.

he will be open in friendship and hatred, reaUy straight-
forward and deeply truthful, but reserved and ironical
in manner to common people. He will live for his
friend alone, wiU wonder at nothing, will bear no malice,
will be no gossip, will not be anxious about trifles, will
care more to possess that which is beautifid than that
which 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
to show that the law of the mean is exemplified in the
instinctive feelings of modesty and virtuous indigna-
tion— when, through some unknown cause, his MS
broke off ('Eth.' lY. ix. 8) in the middle of a sentence.

What should have followed here was, firsts 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.' lY. 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

A GAP IN THE 'ETHICS.' HI

to present. But unfortunately we do not appear to
possess at first hand Aristotle's execution of tliis 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
Encyclopaedia in course of construction at once, and
he would drop one part and take up another, as suited
his train of thought. In the present case he did not
entirely abandon his ' Ethics,' but went on to write the
three last books, merely leaving the centre part to be
filled in subsequently. Doubtless the matter for that
centre part was expounded to and discussed in the
Peripatetic school, but Aristotle probably never him-
seK expressed it in literary form. When, however,
Eudemus came to write his paraphrase of the ' Ethics,'
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
himseK, 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 V., VI., VII. of the ' Ethics '
of Aristotle.

The theory of Justice which has thus come down to
us as Aristotle's, is indistinctly stated in Book V. It

112 LOOKS V. ANL VI.

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 (1) 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 remarks on the
nature of money, on value, and on price, given in chap,
v., are perhaps the most interesting points in this book.
Book YI. appears to be to some extent borrowed
from Aristotle's ' Organon ' and treatise ' On the Soul.'
It is confusedly written, and two questions seem to
be mixed up in it : (1) What is the Moral Standard?
(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
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.' VI. 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 towatrds
those of Kant.

BOOKS VII., VIII. , AND IX. 113

Book YII. 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 analyses 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 principles
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 remorse,
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 genuine
parts of the ' Ethics.' It deals much in physiological
considerations, and it winds up with a modified para-
phrase of Aristotle's treatise on Pleasure, given in
Book X.

Books VIII. and IX. treat of Eriendship, which "is
either a virtue, or is closely connected with virtue;" and
no part of the whole treatise is more pleasing or admir-
able. The idea of friendship has probably always found
a place among civilised nations, but it obtained peculiar
prominence among the Greeks, partly owing to the sub-
ordinate 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

A.C.S.S. vol. V H

114 ARISTOTLE ON FRIENDSHIP.

"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 sentimen-
tality Aristotle did not sympathise, 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 *0f 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 quad iden-
tity and yet diversity — ^to intensify the sense of your per-
sonal existence, and to give you that vividness of vital-
ity 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. Friend-
ship (as has been seen above, p. 87) is represented by
Aristotle as an utterly disinterested feeling, often call-
ing 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 disinterest-
edness he inquires whether in some cases one ought
not to give up to one's friend, instead of seizmg for
one's self, the opportunity of doing noble actions.
Almost the only matter of any importance in the

WHAT IS PLEASURE? J 15

* Ethics ' of Aristotle which we have not already sum-
marised is his disquisition on Pleasure in 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 1 " 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 pro-
motes 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 imperfect con-
dition, like recovery after illness. According to Aris-
totle it was, except in the case of certain spiu-ious pleas-
ures, the play and action of that which is healthy in
us. From this point of view it is obvious that Pleas-
ure must in itself be a good, and that when it consists
in the exercise of the highest faculties (see above, p.
102) it becomes identical with the highest happiness.
Lest it be thought that this exaltation of Pleasure
might have dangerous results from a moral point of
view, we will mention one safeguard which accom-

116 TEE ''END-IN-ITSELF:'

panies the 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 ex-
cluded 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 mo-
ment you may be able to say to yourself, 'What I am
now doing is an end-in-itself.' "

CHAPTEE YI.

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
exercise 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 civilised condition — ex-
cept as a member of a state. On these grounds Aristotle
proposed to go on to the writing of his ' Politics ' as the
complement and conclusion of his ethical treatise. Eut
some time probably elapsed before the design was
* VEth.' X. X. 8-23. + *Pol.' I. ii. 13, 14.

118 CONTEXTS OF THE 'POLITICS:

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. 48), 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.'"

CONTENTS OF THE 'POLITICS.' 119

Books III., yiL, VIII. Giving Aristotle's own con-
ception of an Ideal State, — unfortunately not con-
cluded.

Books lY., YI., Y. 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, &c.) when studied according to the peculiar
circumstances of each case. AU this would constitute
his work a contribution to the science of " Comparative
Politics."

But anotner 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. " !N"ature " 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-

* Mr A. Lang's Essays on Aristotle's * PoHtics,' p. 15
(Longmans, 1877).

120 ARISTOTLE ON SLAVERY.

sense the most perfectly civilised man has attained his
natural state. The latter sense is the one which Aris-
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 1 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 should
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. 101). 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 deficient in that
" large discourse " of reason which other men possessed,
and which gave them a "natural" right to command.
He seeks for external indications of this great difference

ARISTOTLE ON SLAVERY, 121

between man and man, and says that slaves are " bar-
barians " (^. e., ignorant of the Greek language 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-
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 "natui'e"
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 bad one. And Aristotle, in wishing the "natu-
rally " deficient races of mankind to be brought into
bondage, seems to have had some idea of the benefit
they would derive from being, as it were, sent to
school.

In another matter Aristotle appealed to "nature"
not in defending, but in attacking, one of the institu-
tions of society — namely, the putting out money at
interest. Aristotle had many of the prejudices of a
"gentleman;" we have seen before (p. 109) how he
admired a brilliant liberality, and thought little 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

122 ARISTOTLE ON MONEY-LENDING.

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 that people who
valued success in such things might try and imitate the
philosopher Thales, who foresaw, by his astrology, on
one occasion, 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 realise 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." f This saying of
Aristotle's doubtless did something to foster the pre-
judice against "usury" and Jews, in the latter part
of the Middle Ages. The notion is apparently based

* 'Pol.' I. X. 3.

t Compare Shakespeare, 'Merchant of Venice,' Act i. scene
3:—

Antonio. Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams?
Shylock. I cannot tell ; I m&ke it breed as fast.

HIS MYSTICAL IDEAS. 123

upon the first-mentioned conception of "nature" — as
the primitive state of things. "Interest is not a
primitive institution, and therefore it is unnatural."
The very opposite of this conclusion would be
thought true nowadays. We feel now that money
unspent "naturally" acquires interest and compound
interest, and that in a civilised community nothing
is more unnatural than the "talent laid up in a
napkin."

An enthusiastic and almost m.ystical 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.' YII.
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. 102), 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 1
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 1 But
Aristotle does not flinch ultimately from the results of
his doctrine. He says ('Pol.' YII. 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 (YII. 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

124 THE IDEAL STATE.

brooding over their own perfections), such will be the
life of the Ideal State !

This announcement of the highest end to be aimed
at by Politics is as if some modern ^vriter, 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
civilisation 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
of intelligence and the glow of friendship. But one
peculiarity of Aristotle's ideal politics is the compara-
tive smaUness 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 limited 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 foUows : — 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 tiu-n,
when of mature age, to a share in the government.
No artisan or tradesman was to be a citizen ; the city

THE IDEAL STATE. 125

was to have a harbour, 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 dis-
cipline, 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 secondary 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, Aris-
totle wisely 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 influence of music, and its efiicacy in
*' purging " the emotions (see above, p. 95). He dis-
parages pipe-playing, which, he says, was adopted by
the Athenians in the glorious period of licence succeed-
ing their victories over the Persians; and adds that
" pipe-playing not only disfigures the face, but has no-
thing intellectual in it." It is difficult for us to enter
into many of the feelings of the ancients about music.
Aristotle lauds the "Dorian mood;" and here his
treatise breaks off, without his having given us his
theory as to instruction in literature, or as to the
secondary instruction in general of his ideal citizens.
In constructing a Utopia, Aristotle was, of course,

126 CONSERVATISM OF ARISTOTLE.

following the example of the celehrated ' Eepublic ' 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,
matter-of-fact, and scientific. It is not certain that
Plato's wild suggestions for a community of wives and
property were meant to be taken seriously \ but Aristotle
takes them so, and gives us the first arguments on re-
cord against Communism. He defends the institution
of property as " natural," and says that " it makes an
unspeakable 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 rV., VL, V. of his * Politics ' (see above,
p. 119), Aristotle turns from the ideal to the actual, and
lays down a theory of the different forms of govern-
ment which are possible, the causes which give rise to

ARISTOTLE ON ACTUAL GOVERNMENTS. 127

these different forms, their respective merits and dis-
advantages, 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
clironic expectation of a revolution. Therefore a theory
of seditions and revolutions became an essential part
of Greek political science, and Aristotle furnishes one
accordingly, containing the wise remark that "small
things are never the cause, though they are often the
occasion, of popular 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 ele-
ments are balanced against each other. Each of these
normal and perfect forms, wherever they have existed,
has followed a tendency to diverge into a corruption of
itself; — the monarchy degenerates into Tyranny, the
aristocracy into Oligarchy, and the "Constitution"
into Democracy. These lower forms are the kinds of
government which Aristotle practically 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 each is apt to
engender. He says that it is not the desire of gain,
so much as tenacity of rights or fancied rights, 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

128 THE LIMITATION OF HIS VIEWS.

emphatically asserting its own special character. The
democracy should be as little democratic, the tyrant as
little tyrannous, the oligarchy as little exclusive and
overhearing as possible, — so that in each case some ap-
proach 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. ' YII. 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
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-

BLINDNESS TO THE DANGERS OF GREECE. 129

tion, 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
IMacedon may have hindered him from freely entering
upon this subject, or may have biassed 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
liis country 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 verified in the history of the Italian re-
publics. And however much the views of Aristotle
fall short of the requirements 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.

A.C.S.S. vol. V.

CHAPTER VII.

THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OP ARISTOTLE.

Aristotle has now done with Practical and Construc-
tive Science.* He turns from Man with his disputa-
tions, reasonings, oratory, poetry, moral and social life,
to the subjects of Speculative Science, — to JS'ature, the
Universe, and God. In glancing at the series of great
treatises in which the results of his thoughts and re-
searches upon these subjects are embodied, it will be
convenient to divide them under the three heads of
N'atural Philosophy, Biology, and Metaphysics. First,
then, the ' Physical Discourse,' the treatise ' On the
Heavens,' that * On Generation and Destruction,' and
the ' Meteorologies,' 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 sub-
ject 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

* See above, p. 42.

+ On the connection of these works see some general remarks
above, pp. 45, 46.

ARISTOTLE ON ''EXISTENCE." 131

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 philo-
sophers of Greece, had racked their own and other
people's brains. They had said, " How is it possible
for anything to come into existence ? Out of what can
it come 1 It must come either out of the existent or
the non-existent. But it cannot come out of the exist-
ent, else it would have existed already; nor can it
come out of the non-existent, for out of nothing noth-
ing can come." Aristotle solves this dilemma (' Phys.'
I. viii.) by introducing what now seems a simple
enough distinction — that between the " possible " and
the " actual ; " things come into existence, that is, into
actuality, out of the state of the possible. ISTow the
possible, or potential, 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 " possibility " and " actuality " added to our,
vocabulary? But, in fact, men think by means of
words ; and if a new 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. '

132 ARISTOTLE ON ''NATURES

Aristotle, pursuing liis 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
existence ] the Form or actual nature which the thing
possesses ; and the Negation or Privation of all other
natures. 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 remarks form a metaphysical basis to ]N"atural
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
absurd to try to prove the existence of Nature; its
existence is self-evident." "Nature may be said in
one way to be the simplest substratum of matter in
things possessing their own principle of motion and
change ; in another way it may be called the form or
ilaw of such things." In other words. Nature is both
"matter or potentiality, and form or actuality ; both the
simple elements of a thing and its existence in perfec-
tion. 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 watish," says Paley, " he would

MARKS OF DESIGN AV NATURE. 133

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 na-
ture. 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 organisation
appear. The swallow makes its nest and the spider its
web by nature, and yet with a design and an end ; and
the roots of the plant gi'ow 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 divinest 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 Selec-
tion in its extremest form) that blind chance hit upon
the production 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 attained sufficiently perfect to survive (' Phys.' II.
viii. 4). So far from chance having been the chief
force in producing the framework of the Universe,
Aristotle considers chance to be a mere exception, a
mere irregularity, thwarting the reason and the wis-

134 THE ETERNITY OF THE UNIVERSE.

dom which guides, and has ever guided, the operations
of nature.

But, while utterly denying what Mr Darwin would
seem to point to — that Eeason 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 Eeason, in the
form of an intelligent Creator, existed separately be-
fore this world, and constructed the world as a watch-
maker constructs a watch. While he considered Eea-
son to have existed from all eternity, he thought that the
Universe, pervaded in all its parts by Eeason, had also
existed from all eternity. Thus all idea of the world
having been created was quite eliminated from the
thoughts of Aristotle. He said the world must have
been eternal, for everything which is created, or comes
into existence, comes into the "actual" out of the
" possible." The Oigg and the seed are instances of the
" possible," the fowl and the flower of the " actual."
Eut 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 conceive that the whole world was ever non-
existent, and a mere possibility waiting to be called
into existence ('Metaphys.' VIII. viii.)

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,

THE ''OUTSIDE" OF THE UNIVERSE. 135

and that outside 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 direc-
tions; but, on the other hand, Aristotle attributes a
definite circular shape to the " outside " of the Uni-
verse, which would be incompatible with the idea of
infinite extension. In fact, his arguments to prove
the above untenable position 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
(*0n the Heavens,' I. ix.) that there can be neither
space nor vacuum outside the circumference of the Cos-
mos, 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 naturally centri-
fugal, or naturally revolving round the earth. IsTow
each of these three kinds of body has its natural place
within the Universe; the stone being centripetal has
its natural place on or in the earth ; fire being centri-
fugal has its natural place above the air; the stars
which revolve have their natural place in the revolv-
ing 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 legiti-
mate argument that " if there is no motion there can
be no time, since Time is the measure of motion.'*
But his conception of the " natural " motions inherent

136 THE HEAVENLY BODIES,

in different classes of bodies, and his appeal to his
own preconceived 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 he 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
(* Heavens,' I. ix.) This is the region of the divine, in
which there is life and consciousness, though perhaps
no personality; it is increate, immutable, and inde-
structible.

Descending from this region — if that can be called
region 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

THE EARTH THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE. 137

seems to us to quiver, while really it is our eyesight
which is quivering. Sun, moon, and stars alike are
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 centre, and the fixed stars all
round the circumference. In a circle, or globe, it may
be questioned which is the place of honour — the centre
or the circumference. The Pythagoreans, accordingly,
after the abstract method of those times, declared that
the centre must be the most honourable position, and
that, as the element fire is more honourable than the
element earth, the centre of the Universe must be
occupied by some Central Fire, and that the earth 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 motionless

* 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.

138 THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE EARTH.

centre, but the least honourable 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 centre. The
guesses, or intuitions, of the ancient Greeks in Aristotle's
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 certainly
contributed nothing towards the adoption of such
ideas. He unfortunately committed himself, on fan-
cied grounds of symmetry, to an opposite view.

Aristotle argued that if the earth were to move it
could only do so " unnaturally," by the application of
external force in contradiction to its own natural ten-
dency to rest round the centre, and that no such forced
movement could be kept up for ever, whereas the ar-
rangements of the Cosmos must be for aU 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 aU heavy bodies are by
nature always tending to the centre, 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 geometers of his time that its circumference was
400,000 stades ; and he says that " we must not treat
with incredulity the opinion of those who say that

THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE EARTH. 139

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 ad-
duces the fact that elephants are to be found on each
side, i.e. J 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,
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 " Eed 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 contents of our globe.

Owing to the absence of astronomical instiuraents,

140 COMETS AND THE MILKY WAY.

and the generally infantile condition of physical sci-
ence in the 4th century B.C., it was only natural that
the a prioi'i 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 Avas inferior to other philosophers
whom in analytical power he far surpassed. Thiis
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 opposed to the grander and juster views of the
fabric of the universe entertained by the more ai^cient
Pythagorean 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 thro^vn 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

THE PTOLEMAIC SYSTEM.

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 not in advance of his age in
this respect, but was even behind it, in so far as he
refused to adopt theories, which have since 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 way, allowing the darkness
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 encyclopaedia of phil-
osophy, and we must recollect that they are put fortli
in works which laid out and constituted new sciences.

142 ARISTOTLE'S IDEAS Of MOTION.

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 ^tdLgixiiQ—jorudens qucestio dimidium scien-
tice est — " It is half-way to knowledge when you know
what you have to inquire."

The leading questions started in the Natural Phil-
osophy 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-
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 modem 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. StiU 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

HIS METHOD IN PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 143

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 endeavoured 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 " notions " 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
writing an encyclopaedia. 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

144 HIS IGNORANCE OF CHEMISTRY.

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,
and as though it had been known to the Greeks. But
of course " chemistry " comes from the Semitic word
cliem (which is the same as " Ham," the son of Noah),
meaning "black," and then "Egyptian." And thus

* Aristotle, in treating of the sense of Taste, gives an enume-
ration of different flavours, and then says, ** The other pro-
perties of juices form a proper subject for inquiry in connection
with the physiology of plants." Thus by "juices" he means
vegetable fluids, to be treated of from the point of view of
Botany or of Materia Medica.

HIS THE OR r OF THE ELEMENTS.

145

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 guess-work, as to what we should call
the chemical properties of bodies, contented the philo-
sophers 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 physical bodies ; but on the details
of a theory which now seems puerile we need not
dwell.

A.C.S.S. vol. V.

CHAPTEE YIII.

THE BIOLOGY OF AEISTOTLE.

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 naturalised in the vocabulary of science ; and
there is an article on " Biology," by Professor Huxley,
in the recently published edition of the * Encyclopsedia
Britannica,' 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, Zoe 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. Zoe 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 Zoe into the species "vegetable,"
" animal," and " human ; " but Bios into the species
" life of pleasure," " life of ambition," and " life of

*' BIOLOGY" A RECENT WORD. U7

thought." From all this, it will be seen that " Biology"
could not be used to denote a science of the phenomena
of living matter m general, without a sacrifice of ancient
Greek associations. " Biology," iu short, is more appro-
priate to express what we generally call Sociology; and,
on the other hand, " Zoology" should have been used
to express what is now called " Biology." But the fact
was, that the word " Zoology" (derived from Zoon, an
animal, not from Zoe, 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 physiological laws of life.

Aristotle had no word to express this comprehensive
idea, but assuredly he had the idea itself. He regards
the whole of nature as a continuous chain, even begin-
ning with inorganic substances and passing by imper-
qeptible 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
('Eesearches about Animals,' YIII. 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

148 ARISTOTLE'S CONCEPTION OF BIOLOGY.

course to educated persons of the present day. Eut
it was creditable to Aristotle to have so f uUy 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. 3), had been trained
as a dialectician and an orator, and had devoted so
much time and labour to the sciences connected with
AYords 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
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 Avith 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 sufiicient 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. 47), consist (1) of the work *0n the Parts
of Animals,' which contains a distinction still valid
in physiology between " tissues " and " organs," or as
Aristotle calls them, "homogeneous" and "unhomo-

HIS BIOLOGICAL TREATISES. 149

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 organised 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
ascending manifestations. To this was appended (3)
the 'Parva Naturalia' or * Physiological Tracts,' which
dealt with some of the functions of living creatures,
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 hi^ 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-

150 HIS DEFINITION OF "LIFE:'

pose. !N"ext (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 ' Eesearches 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 philo-
sopher it would be defined as ' a boiling up of the hot
blood about the heart.' " It is needless to say that the
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
modem physiologists, some of whom, indeed, appear
simply to have repeated it in slightly different words.
Thus Duges defines life as "the special activity of

HIS PHYSIOLOGICAL OPINIONS. 151

organised bodies ; " and Beclard calls it " organisation
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 separate entity, dwelling in the
body, hospes comesque corporis, " 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 condi-
tions of the bodily organisation. Thus the Pythago-
reans spoke vainly when they talked of the " transmi-
gration 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 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. Eespiration is the process of cooling,
which prevents the smothering of the vital fire.
Animals require two things for existence — food and

* These definitions are quoted in Bennett's * Text-book of
Physiology,' p. 184. See also Mr G. H. Lewes's 'Aristotle, a
Page from the History of Science,' p. 230.

152 PHYSIOLOGY OF ARISTOTLE.

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 " veius " to all parts of the body (of
course Aristotle was unaware of the retiu'n 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-lived than those of cold countries ; and men are
longer-lived than women. But as cooling also is re-
quired, 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,

* Aristotle rejects the (true) opinion of Anaxagoras and
Diogenes 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.

PHYSIOLOGICAL ABSURDITIES. 153

from his Greek predecessors. He neither did, nor
could, create the whole of physiology afresh, as he
created the whole science of logic. This shows the
difference between a science that is simple and abstract,
being dependent on a few laws of the human mind,
and a science which is infinitely complex, being de-
pendent on facts which have only gradually been dis-
covered up to a certain point during the long lapse of
centuries, with the aid of instruments which were un-
known to the ancients. But Aristotle had distinctly
the idea of the advance of physiology and medicine
by means of the study of nature. He said, " Physi-
cal philosophy leads to medical deductions, the best
doctors seek grounds for their art in nature." Per-
haps 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
dialectical reasonings to questions of physiology when
they were quite inappropriate. Por 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 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

154 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARISTOTLE.

eye be struck sparks are seen. Aristotle, however,
says that this fact 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 " !N"atural 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 Animalium,
or ' History of Animals,' and from this the modem
phrase " Natural History " has doubtless got crystal-
lised 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 " His-
tories " would have been applicable, as consisting rather
of " Stories about Animals " than of any very profound
investigations with regard to them. It is probable that
a large proportion of what is here recorded came to
Aristotle orally ; and that, too, not from savants, but
from uneducated classes of people whose occupations
had put them in the way of observing the habits of

ms ACCOUNT OF THE DOLPHIN. 155"'

certain species — sucli people as fisliernien, sailors,
sponge-divers, fowlers, hunters, herdsmen, bee-keepers,
and the like. We know how difficult it is to get pure
fact, unalloyed by fancy, from informants of this kind ;
and therefore it is no wonder that Aristotle, in com-
piling the first treatise on l!Tatural 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 improbable ; 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 himself 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 naivete 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 affec-
tion, in the neighbourhood 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 harbour, until
the fisherman 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 to-

156 MODERN EULOGIES OF ARISTOTLE,

gether, and two of these having been left behind have
appeared soon after supporting and carrying on their
back a small dead dolphin that was on the point of
sinking, as if in pity for it, that it might not be de-
voured by any other creature. Incredible things are
told of the swiftness of the dolphin, which appears to
be the swiftest of all animals whether marine or terres-
trial. They even leap over the masts of large ships.
This is especially the case when they pursue 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 wiU 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 characterises 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

HIS ENUMERATION OF CREATURES. 157

in this book." Buifon, De Blainville, St Hilaire,
and others,* have used similar terms of eulogy. One
modern zoologist, Professor Sundevall of Stockholm,
has reckoned up the number of species with which
Aristotle showed himself to be more or less acquainted,
and he 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 invertebrate classes about 60 species
of insects and arachnids seem to have been known
to Aristotle; some 24 crustaceans and annelids; and
about 40 moUuscs and radiates, f At the same time,
it must be remembered that Aristotle had no idea of
the scientific system of classification which appears in
Professor Sundevall's hst. He does not seem to have
laboured much at the arrangement of living creatures
into natural orders; indeed he could not have suc-
ceeded 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 ovi-
parous or viviparous; aquatic or terrestrial; and the
like. His book contains a mass of materials, but
without much methodic arrangement or trace of system.
It pointed the way, however, for his successors to a
science of zoology.

The facts given by him of course vary extremely in
correctness and in value. In his account of sponges,

* Quoted by Mr G. H. Lewes in his 'Aristotle,' p. 270.
+ See 'The Natural History Review' for 1864, p. 494.

158 HIS ACCOUNT OF THE LION.

for instance, Aristotle is thought to have shown soui;d
information, probably derived from the reports of the
professional divers. But his statements about bees,
though obtained, as he, tells us, from bee-keej)ers, and
though "made beautiful for ever" in the charming
verses of Yirgil's fourth Georgic, have been quite
overturned by the microscopic discoveries of Eeaumur,
Hunter, Huber, Keys, Vicat, and Dunbar. On one
cardinal point the ancients were all wrong : they did
not understand 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

HIS NATURAL HISTORY UNFINISHED. 159

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 unable to himt, 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, for this could not have happened to an
animal who was not aged."

The ' Eesearches 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 come 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 Aris-
totle" 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.o. — that is to say, just after Aristotle's

160 DID IT INFLUENCE THE SEPTUAGINTt

MSS had been carried off to Asia Minor. It has been
conjectured that the Septuagint translators, in render-
ing the Hebrew word arnebeth, 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 ' Ee-
searches about Animals,' in which work " the modern
word dasypus had almost entirely superseded the
older." * And it is added that " there was an even
yet more striking example of Aristotle's influence
on the 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 history of Aristotle, "boldly interpolated
the word not into the sacred text." The facts of the
case are — that Aristotle uses lagos for " hare " indiffer-
ently 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 Septua-
gint 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 pas-
sage of Aristotle's above referred to ; at aU events, as
educated men, they were doubtless influenced by the
spread of the study of natural history, to which Aris-
totle, who had died only thirty-seven years before, had
given great impetus.

* Dean Stanley's ' Lectures on the History of the Jewish
Church,' iii. 261.

CHAPTEE IX.

THE METAPHYSICS OF AKISTOTLE.

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 aU his life, tiU 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.
Put it seems as if he had put off to the last the under-
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
foUow 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-

* Thus Shakespeare speaks of " Fate and metaphysical aid,"
meaning "supernatural."

A.C.S.S. vol. V. L

162 ORIGIN OF THE NAME ''METAPHYSICS."

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
anything exist % Aristotle, who, of course, was himself
unconscious of the word " Metaphysics," had three
names which he used indifferently for this science.
Sometimes he called it simply " Wisdom ; " sometimes
"First Philosophy," as treating of primary substances
and the origin of things ; sometimes " Theology," be-
cause aU 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. 132). 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 to external objects — aU being questions which
encroach upon the province of metaphysical inquiry.
The substantive treatise, bearing the name * Meta-
physics,' has come down to us in the shape of a post-
humous fragment, which has been edited and eked out
by the addition 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

I

CONTENTS OF ARISTOTLE'S TREATISE. 163

of numbers and ideas) seem to have been intended to
come in as part of the same treatise, but to have been
left by Aristotle 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 TV. and X., and the
appendix to Book I., are un- Aristotelian,* and should
never have had a place assigned to them in the

* ^letaphysics.'

To turn to this work from the *Eesearches 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 Perrier— 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
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 dimng the present
century ; for in Book I. he gives a " history of philo-
sophy " from Thales down to himself. This is a very

* 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 tradi-
tion attributes the authorship to one Pasides.

164 ins HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.

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.,' L, iii. 11), from about 600 B.C. to about 330
B.C. 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, Eenouvier, Ferrier,
ZeUer, 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. 72), 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 fuU 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
idea of Keason 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

HIS THEORY OF KNOWING AND BEING. 165

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 re-
peatedly been misstated, and then censured for what
he never had maintained. At the risk, however, of com-
mitting fresh injustices of this sort, we will endeavour
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 "shibboleth" 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 1 His utterances
on this subject are perhaps chiefly to be found in the
third book of his treatise *0n the Soul,* beginning
with the fourth chapter. On turning 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 pos-
sibility 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 Terrier might be
deduced, that " nothing exists except plits me " — that
is to say, in relation to some mind perceiving it. Aris-

166 HIS THEORY OF KNOWING AND BEING.

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 Eeason in the soul — ^the one
passive, the other constructive. " The passive Eeason
becomes all things by receiving their impress ; the con-
structive Eeason creates all things, just as light brings
colours 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 contributes as much to the existence of things
as light does to colour; and he is equally removed
from that extreme idealism which would represent
things to be merely the thoughts of a mind, for he evi-
dently 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 symbolised by all
the constituents of colour, except light : the mind, ac-
cording to him, contributes only what light does to
colour ; all else is external to the mind, though without
the mind nothing could attain to actuality. The ex-
ternal 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 Eeason manifested in
perceiving minds ; and, without the presence and co-
operation of this perceptive Eeason, all things would
be at once condemned to virtual annihilation.

HIS THEORY OF MATTER. 167

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 in all existence. I^othing can exist without
Matter, which is one of the four causes of the existence
of everything ; but, on the other hand, it may be said
that Matter itself has no existence. Things can only
be realised by the mind, and so come into actual exist-
ence, if they be endowed with Form ; pure Matter de-
nuded of form cannot be perceived or known, and
therefore cannot be actual. Suppose we take marble as
the matter or material of which a statue is composed, —
if we think of the marble we attribute to it qualities
—colour, brilliancy, hardness, and so on, and these
qualities constitute Form, and the marble is no longer
pure Matter. We have to ask, then, what is the mat-
ter " underlying " the marble 1 and again, if we figure to
ourselves anything 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 presupposed, 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 things, but it
remains as one of those possibilities which can never be
realised (see above, p. 56), and thus forms the antithesis
to God, the ever-actual. From all this it may be in-
ferred that Aristotle would have considered it very un-
philosophical to represent Matter, as some philosophers
of the present day appear to do, as having had an in-

168 HIS PHILOSOPHY OF THE SENSES.

dependent existence, and as having contained the
germs, not only of all other things, but even of Keason
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 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 cognisance, — hot
and cold, hard and soft, wet and dry, white and black,
acute and grave, bitter and sweet, light and darkness,
&c. 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 what ap-

* Grote's 'Aristotle,' vol. ii. p. 197. See 'On the Soul,*
II. X.

HIS PHYSIOLOGY OF THE SENSES. 169

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 sceptical theory,
(' Metaphys.' 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
propositions obtained by reason out of particular per-
ceptions.

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 operation
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 be-
hind, and appears infantile when compared with the
discoveries of a Helmholtz. The following is a speci-
men of Aristotle's physiology of the senses : " Do
sensations travel to us 1 " he asks. " Certainly," is
the reply ; " the nearest person will catch an odour
first. Sound is perceived after the blow which caused
it. The letters of which words are composed get dis-
arranged 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 sound, fire of smell, earth of
touch and taste. Sensations are not bodies, but mo-
tions oi: affections of the vehicle or medium along.;

170 HIS ''LAW OF ASSOCIATION."

which they travel to us. Light,* however, is an ex-
ception 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)

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
EecoUection in his 'Physiological Tracts.' He says,
" EecoUection is the recalling of knowledge. It im-
plies 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 recoUect, we search after something that is in
sequence, or similarity, or contrast, or proximity, to
the thing which we want to recollect. Milk wiU sug-
gest 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 memory. Ee-

* The theory of light here given seems to be not only erro-
neous in itself, but also inconsistent with Aristotle's explana-
tion of the twinkling of the stars. — (See above, p. 136.)

DID HE BELIEVE IN A FUTURE LIFE I 171

collection implies consideration and a train of reasoning,
and yet it is a bodily affection — a physical movement
and presentation," Aristotle adds that " persons 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 movement of
growth, the other in that of decay."

These considerations, however, whether correct or
erroneous, all belong rather to psychology than to
metaphysics. Let us conclude by endeavouring to
gather Aristotle's opinions on three great metaphysical
problems : The destiny of the human soul, free will,
and the nature of God. His opinions on these sub-
jects have to be "gathered," because, as said above
(p. 6), he had no great taste for such speculations, and
was in this respect very unlike Plato. Over the mind
of Plato the idea of a future life had exercised an
absorbing influence. Eising 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 enun-
ciated a system of future rewards and punishments,
closely corresponding with Heaven, HeU, and Purga-
tory. 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

172 DID HE BELIEVE IN A FUTURE LIFEI

that time lie 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 doc-
trine being laid down, and deductions made from it,
passages occur which would seem to render it unten-
able. " 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 organisation. This is the
case with the Eeason, 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. 166). 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 capable of separation from it and from all
things. It is an everlasting existence, incapable of
being mingled with matter, or affected by it ; it is
prior and subsequent 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

* Collected from *Soul,' II. i. 7-12; III. v. 2. 'Genera-
tion,' II. iii. 10.

JUS opnviONS ox free will. 173

of a Buddhist nirvana, all tlie 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 aU
things long, is attained not by the individual, for that
is impossible, but by the species." These logical
deductions 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 1 But such a
difficulty implies two conditions, both of which were
absent from the mind of Aristotle — namely, a strong
apprehension 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 j he thought human
actions to be of comparatively small importance ; and

174 HIS DISPARAGEMENT OF MAN'S DIGNITY.

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.' XL 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 then* 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 cate-
gory man would be ranked. Aristotle does not regard
the unchanging and perpetual motion of the heavenly
bodies as a bondage, nor what is arbitrary in the human
will as a privilege. His cosmical views tended to dis-
parage the dignity of man. He would say with the
Psalmist, " What is man in comparison with the
heavens V But he failed to reach the counter-
balancing 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, IS'ature, Chance,
and Himian Will were the causes at work. He admitted
a certain amount of determinism as controlling the
human wiU, but he did not care to trace out the exact
proportions of this; he merely maintained that the

HIS CONCEPTION OF THE DEITY. 175

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 con-
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 civili-
sation !

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
mattered which term was used. This seems at first
surprising, but when we look into the matter (con-
fining our inquiry to the views of Aristotle), certain
explanations offer themselves. When he speaks of
"the gods," he is partly accommodating himself to
the ordinary language of Greece, and partly he is
indicating the heavenly bodies, as conscious, happy

* See Professor Jowett's 'Dialogues of Plato Translated,*
vol. iv. p. n.

176 HIS CONCEPTION OF THE DEITY.

existences, worthy to be reckoned with that Supreme
God, Who inhabits the outside of the miiverse, and
imparts theu' everlasting motion to the heavens.
AVhen 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 instmct 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 1 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 l^e
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 wiU in
the nature of God. But it is a mere passing metaphor,

HIS CONCEPTION OF THE DEITY. 177

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 moral
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.*

AYe 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.
" Eeason is divine, and Eeason is everywhere, desir-
ing 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 John Stuart MiU, who represents God as benevolent,
l^ut not omnipotent. Aristotle also would say that
the desire for the Good which runs through Nature is
baffled by the imperfections of matter and the irregu-
larities 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

* The above statement of Aristotle's views of the Deity is col-
lected from 'Metaphysics,' XI. vi.-x.

A.C.S.S. vol. V. M

178 HIS CONCEPTION OF THE DEITY.

Religion ; it takes away from morality all divine
sanctions. Plato's view was different; 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 afterwards through
our Saviour.

CHAPTER X.

ARISTOTLE SINCE THE CHRISTIAN ERA.

We have seen above (p. 38) 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 ever-
growing and increasing splendour.

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,

ISO THE GREEK COMMENTATORS.

became now regarded as sufficient achievement for the
life of one man. Aristotle thus shared the honours
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,
Nicolas of Damascus, Alexander of -^gse, Aspasius,
Adrastus, Galenus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Por-
phyry, lamblichus, 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 Eoman
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

ARISTOTLE ACCEPTED BY THE CHURCH. 181

through the waters of Lethe. From the sixth to the
thirteenth century all knowledge of the Greek writers
was lost. Eut long before the close of this period
intellectual life had begun to stir again among th&
friars and ecclesiastics of the Continent ; and the chief
nourishment for that life consisted of a fragment from
antiquity, being none other than Latin translations*
of the so-called ' Categories ' and ' Interpretation ' of
Aristotle (see above, pp. 50-57), and of the 'Intro-
duction' of Porphyry to the first-named of the two
treatises. In earlier and better-informed ages Aristotle
had been repudiated 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. I^^ay, these formulae, while totally devoid
of all dangerous colouring or character — being merely
some of the fundamental and ordinary principles of
reasoning — were likely to do good service to the
Church, by training her adherents to argue skilfully in
her behalf. Thus, the 'Categories' and 'Literpreta-
tion' 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

* These translations were attributed to Boethius, the "last
of the philosophers, " at the end of the fifth and beginning of
the sixth century. h^

182 TEE ARABS m SPAIN,

Spain. Departing from the example of him who
burned the Alexandrian library, and from the tradi-
tionary tendencies of Mahometans in all ages, the
Arabs of Bagdad, Cairo, and Cordova indulged in a
period of enlightenment and of intellectual activity.
This period was chiefly inaugurated by Almamun, the
son of Harun-al-Easchid, and seventh of the Abbasside
Caliphs at Bagdad (a.d. 810), who "invited the Muses
from their ancient seats. His ambassadors at Con-
stantinople, his agents in Armenia, Syria, and Egypt,
collected the volumes of Grecian science ; at his com-
mand they were translated by the most skilful inter-
preters into the Arabic language ; his subjects were
exhorted assiduously to peruse these instructive writ-
ings ; and the successor of Mahomet assisted with
pleasure and modesty at the assemblies and disputa-
tions of the learned." " The age of Arabian learning
continued about five hundred years till the great irrup-
tion 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-Kaschid (a.d. 1120-1198),
whose name was Latinised into Averroes. Besides
other philosophical works, he wrote ' Commentaries' on
all the principal works of Aristotle, and these were
translated into Latin and published abroad. Averroes
knew no Greek, and his commentaries were made
upon the existing Arabic versions of Aristotle ; but he

* Gibbon's * Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' chap.

AVERROES. 183

quoted the translation of the text of each passage
entire 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 re-
ferred to (p. 172), on the difference between the Con-
structive and the Passive Eeason. Following out this
idea, he made it the basis of a doctrine of "Mono-
psychism," to the effect that the Constructive Eeason
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 Spain, and from them
to the Christian schools, and Averroism became a
leaven in the scholastic philosophies, causing, as might
be expected, the most virulent strife between the
opponents and supporters of the theory of " Mono-
psychism."

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 al-
most monopolised the most powerful minds of Europe.
Chief among these may be mentioned Albert "the
Great," the most fertile and learned of the schoolmen,

184 ST THOMAS AQUINAS.

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 'Meta-
physics,' 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 his-
torical criticism was hardly to be looked for in the
Middle Ages.

The Stagirite was now almost incorporated with
Christianity. The Summa Theologice of St Thomas
Aquinas was a compound of the logic, physics, and
ethics of Aristotle with Christian divinity. But the
highest honour 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

* Dante, 'Inferno,' canto i v. 131 —

" Vidi il Maestro di color che sanno
Seder tra filosofica famiglia ;
Tutti lo miran, tutti oner gli fanno.
Quivi vid' io Socrate e Platone,
Che innanzi agli altri piu presso gli stanno."

ARISTOTLE REVERENCED BY DANTE. 185

figured thus sitting in tlie " 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
desKe, but had no hope, of seeing God.

Dante 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 end * of human life, to which, as men, we are
ordained." In the 11th canto of the 'Inferno,' he
follows up Aristotle's views of the " imnatural " charac-
ter of usury (see above, p. 122), and places usurers in
hell among those who do violence to God and ^Nature,
the reasons for which he sets forth in a learned dis-
course. 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 —

" I in one God believe ;
One sole eternal Godhead, of whose love
All heaven is moved j himself unmoved the while." t

And in the 27th canto, Beatrice, standing on the
ninth heaven, points to the circumference, or primum
mobile, of Aristotle (see above, p. 136), and discourses
to Dante in the following thoroughly Aristotelian
terms : —

* This, of course, refers to the 'Ethics.' — See above, p. 101.
t Gary's Translation. — See above, p. 176.

186 THE COPERNICAN SYSTEM.

" Here is the goal, whence motion on liis 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 elsewhere 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
Gun; and that system only gradually won its way to
acceptance, even in scientific minds, and with the aid
of the demonstrations of Galileo. Till the end of the
seventeenth century the Aristotelian system — further
elaborated by the Alexandrian Ptolemy and by King
Alphonso 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 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 accord-

* When Shakespeare wrote —

" And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,"
he was referring to the Ptolemaic or Alphonsine spheres. The
common metaphor of a person's "sphere" is a survival of the
same notion.

ARISTOTLE IN THE UNIVERSITIES. 187

ing to it. Yet still, as a learned man, he was well
acquainted with aU that could be said in favour of the
Copernican system. And he puts these arguments into
the mouth of Adam in the 8th book of 'Paradise
Lost.' An angel, in replyj reminds Adam — what is, in
fact, the case — that neither the motion of the sun 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
universities 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 Oxford student for this kind of learning
in the following terms : —

'' A clerk there was of Oxenford also
That unto logik hadde long y go :
As lene 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.

* See Professor Masson's edition of * Milton's Poetical
Works' (Macmillan, 1874), vol. i. p. 92.

188 PETER RAMUS.

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 philosophic,
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
generations 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 show itself, being fostered by the progress
of time, the revival of learning, and the Eeformation.
In the year 1536 we find Peter Eamus, then a youth
of twenty years of age, choosing as the subject of liis
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
Eamus acquitted himself with such ability, as well as
boldness, that he obtained his degree and the licence to
teach. This licence 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 Eamists, and rallied round himself the malcontent
spirits of France, Germany, and Switzerland. In some
of the universities Eamism obtained a firm hold. Eut

PA TRIG I us. 189

lie 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
condemned to be suppressed, and finally he was a
martyr to the cause which he had chosen. Eeing a
Huguenot, he was assassinated by his Aristotelian
enemies during the massacre of St Bartholomew (1572
A.D.) The arguments of Eamus 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 bro-
ken and Eamus did good service in somewhat rudely
assailing 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
Eenaissance, 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 Peripateticse ' at Bale in 1571.
Patricius 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-

190 GALILEO'S EXPERIMENT.

sonal charges to be found scattered through the remains
of antiquity (see above, p. 28) ; 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.
The attack of Patricius was overdone in malignity, yet
stiU 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 simul-
taneously, 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 demonstration, 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,

LUTHER AND MELANCHTHON. 191

the disciple's exceUent understanding; and he even
obtained 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. Melanchthon became a strenuous advocate of
Aristotle, in opposition to aU other ancient philosophy.
He introduced into the University of Wittenberg, to
which aU Protestant Germany looked up, a scheme of
dialectics and physics, founded upon the Peripatetic
school, but improved by his own acuteness and know-
ledge. Thus in his books the physical science of an-
tiquity is enlarged by aU that had been added in
astronomy and physiology. It need hardly be said
that the authority of Scripture was always resorted to
as controlling a philosophy which had been consid-
ered unfavourable to natural religion." * This system
of Melanchthon's got the nickname of the " Philippic
Method," and it was received with so much favour in
the Protestant Universities of Germany as to cause
these Universities to oppose the spread of Eamism.

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
present day the manuals of philosophy in Eoman
Catholic ecclesiastical establishments are a rmime
of Aristotle.

* Hallam's * Introduction to the Literature of Europe.' Part
I , chap. iii.

192 THE DAWN OF MODERN SCIENCE.

Until the seventeenth century, when the authority
of Aristotle was questioned, " his disciples could always
point with scorn at the endeavours 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
fanatical 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
scientific imagination and his stately language, was a
fitting herald of the new era. He sometimes reflects
the spirit of Eamus 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.

Prom henceforth it became impossible for an educated
man to be an Aristotelian, because however much he
* Hallam's Introduction. Part III., chap. iii.

ARISTOTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 193

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
constitute 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 had now come to be the common property of
the world, and men could become good logicians with-
out 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
antithesis 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. Eut with the nineteenth
century there came a restitution of the honours 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 philosophy during

A.C.S.S. vol. V. N

194 REVIVAL OF ARISTOTLE IN THIS CENTURY.

the first part of the present 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 scholastic philosophy or with the
psychological systems of the last century. An age
which produced Kant and Hegel was likely to appre-
ciate their ancient forerunners ; and Hegel advocated
the study of the works of Aristotle as " the noblest
problem of classical philology." The Germans have
applied themselves to this problem with splendid suc-
cess, 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 Eoyal Academy, is a
monument of their labours. 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 has he been more correctly known and estimated
than he is at present.

The various services of Aristotle to mankind have
been to some extent indicated in the foregoing pages.
To attempt to summarise 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 aU the langua-
ges of modern Europe. Our everyday conversation is

■hp

ARISTOTELIAN "FOSSILS." 195

full of Aristotelian " fossils," that is, remnants of his
peculiar phraseology. These mostly come through Latin
renderings of his terms, though sometimes the original
Greek form is preserved. The following are a few speci-
mens of these fossils : " Maxim " is the major premiss
of the Aristotelian syllogism. " Principle " has the
same meaning — it comes ivomprindpium, the Latin for
" beginning " or " starting-point," which was one of
Aristotle's terms for a major premiss. " Matter " comes
from matertes, the Latin for " timber " (see above, p.
167) ; 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," " predi-
cament " (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 Peripa-
tetic ; while the terms " Metaphysics " and " Natural
History," are derived from two of the titles of Aris-
totle's works.

Aristotle, the strongest of the ancients and the
oracle of the Middle Ages, must always hold a place
of honour in the history of European thought.
Writings which have interested and influenced man-
kind so deeply and through so many centuries can
never fall into contempt, 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

196 EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF ARISTOTLE.

historical point of view — that the works of the Stagi-
rite continue to be studied. As long as the process
of higher education in modern Europe consists so
largely in imbuing 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 ' Ehetoric/
' Art of Poetry,' ' Ethics,' and ' Politics ' — have a re-
markable educational value. They form an introduc-
tion to philosophy ; they invite comparison of ancient
and modern 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 concentration of the mind upon the subject
in hand, marshalling together aU the facts and opinions
attainable upon it, and dwelling on these and scrutin-
ising and comparing them till a light flashes on the
whole subject. Such is the procedure to be learnt, by
imitation, from Aristotle.

END OF ARISTOTLE.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.