Aristotle; a chapter from the history of science, including analyses of Aristotle's scientific writings

Front matter

CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILIIAMS SAGE

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Preface

THE conception of evolution as the law of life, and consequently as the law of Humanity, a conception which links the Present indissolubly with the whole Past, and gives to the study of history a new and deeper significance, is the creation of our age. By a venial, yet fatal error, Catholicism separated itself from the traditions of ancient thought; with equal exclusiveness, Protestantism opposed the great labours of the Middle Ages; and the philosophy of the 18th century in turn rejected both, shouting the watchwords of Progress and Enlightenment, as if these words were then heard for the first time. All piety towards the Past was gone.

With clearer vision the leading minds of the 19th century have attempted a reconciliation by accepting the positive, and rejecting the negative tendencies of all schools. History has consequently been studied with increasing ardour, and with ever-widening aims. Nor is it only the development of national life which History is summoned to investigate. Everywhere questions of origin ‘and development have become paramount. The history of our globe, and the development of animal life, are debated with a fervour which would have been incomprehensible a century viii PREFACE.

ago. Even the anatomist is no longer contented to display what the tissues are ; he must also trace their origin, and show how they became what they are.

The origin and development of Science are questions of high interest, and fortunately admit of being handled even by those who would shrink from the gigantic difficulties of a History of the Sciences. I have been for many years preparing myself to attempt a sketch of the Embryology of Science, so to speak,—an exposition of the great momenta in scientific development; and the present volume is the first portion of such an exposition, which I publish separately because in itself it forms a monograph, and because I may never live to complete the larger scheme.

As a monograph it has not, I believe, been forestalled. Numerous and exhaustive as are the works devoted to Aristotle’s moral and metaphysical writings, there is not one which attempts to display, with any fulness, his scientific researches. The only considerable treatise which touches on this ground,* is strictly confined within the limits of Natural History.

Although Aristotle mainly represents the science of twenty centuries, his scientific writings are almost unknown in England. Casual citations, mostly at secondhand, and vague eulogies, often betraying great misconception, are abundant; but rare indeed is the indication of any accurate appreciation extending beyond two works, the De Animd, and the History of Animals. The absence of translations is at once a cause and a sign of this neglect. Of the 15 treatises analyzed in the present volume, only the two just named have been translated,

* J.B. Mayer: Aristoteles Thierhunde, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Zoologie, Physiologie, und alten Philosophie, Berlin, 1855.

PREFACE. ix and one of these appeared after my work was written.* Nor would translations be of much help to the ordinary student, unless illuminated by an ample commentary, such as would place him at the requisite point of view for appreciating these ancient monuments of scientific labour. I have endeavoured to furnish such a point of view, as far as the limits and the object of my work permitted.

Instead of following the usual plan of weaving together various passages scattered through widely different works, which thus presents a succinct, systematic, and often false outline of the doctrines, I have analyzed the separate treatises, given the doctrines precisely as Aristotle gave them (illuminating them when necessary and possible from other sources), and have never distorted them into modern formule, nor eliminated from them their essential or incidental absurdities. This latter point is of some importance. Most expositions of Aristotle’s doctrines, when they have not been dictated by a spirit of virulent detraction, or unsympathetic indifference, have carefully suppressed all, or nearly all, the absurdities, and only retained what seemed plausible and consistent. But in this procedure their historical significance disappears. Writing as an historian, not as a partisan, I have allowed the errors and the crudities to take their rightful place beside the plausibilities and truths; thus preserving, as far as may be, the historical colouring derived from the inherent weakness of early Science, and the individual weakness of Aristotle.

* There is, indeed, a version of all Aristotle’s works, by Thomas Taylor, in 10 vols. 4to. But there are two reasons for considering this as practically nonexistent: first, its rarity, only a very few copies having been printed ; secondly, and chiefly, the translator’s imperfect knowledge of science. I speak of the work only from report ; but from what I have seen quoted, I believe the report does him substantial justice.

x PREFACE.

That I have not been unmindful of what my predecessors in all ages have done towards the elucidation of various points, will be apparent from the notes, of which it is only needful to say, that all citations made at secondhand have been scrupulously acknowledged, and all references not thus acknowledged may be accepted as the results of my own research. It is eminently desirable that the growing practice of secondhand citation should be discouraged; since our native infirmity renders us all sufficiently liable to error, without our taking on ourselves the responsibility of other men’s carelessness or of their misrepresentations.

Readers who have but small interest in the details of Biology, may perhaps object to my having sometimes—especially in the notes—wandered from the broad path, into the windings and obscure alleys whither only a certain class will care to follow. Let me plead in anticipation, that although my own predilections have seduced me into adding details for the sake of a class, I have not sacrificed any general interest to such predilections, but merely given these details in addition.

The first draught of this volume was completed in February, 1862. The rewriting was finished in July, 1862; but fresh researches, and many revisions, have retarded its publication.

Tae Priory, January, 1864,

Contents

+o CHAPTER PAGE 1. Tue Lire or ΑΒΙΒΤΟΤΙ 1

VI. Anrsrorie’s ΜΈΤΗΟΡ 108 VIL. Sereroreae Puaysics, Merzoronoey, anp Mucuanics 122 ὙΠ]. Anristoriz’s Anatomy 154 TX. Anristotin’s ῬΗΥΒΙΟΙΟΟΥ 171 Χ. GeweraL PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY.......ccccssssssesssssessseesene 182 ΧΙ. Anricrpation.of-Mepprn DISCOVERIES ose 197 XII. Lire anp Mino: De Awrua 221 XIII. On tae SEnsEs 246 XIV. On Memory, Steer, Dreams, anp LonGeEvIry .......... 256 XV. ‘Tue History or Anmats” 269 XVI. “ΟΝ Tae Parts or ANmaALs” 292 XVII. On GENERATION AND DEVELOPMENT .....ccccsssssscsssssesssseeseens 325 XVIII. Conciusion 376

InpEx sce 988

Chapter I. The Life Of Aristotle

§ 1. Ir is difficult to speak of Aristotle -without exaggeration: he is felt to be so mighty, and is known to be so wrong. History, surveying the whole scope of his pretensions, gazes on him with wonder. Science, challenging these separate pretensions, and testing their results, regards them with indifference ; an indifference easily exasperated into antagonism by the clamorous urgency of unauthenticated praise. It is difficult to direct the opposing streams of criticism into the broad equable current of a calm appreciation ; because the splendour of his fame perpetuates the memory of his failure; and to be just we must appreciate both. His intellect was piercing and comprehensive; his attainments surpassed those of every known philosopher ; his influence has only been exceeded by the great founders of Religions; nevertheless, if we now estimate the product of his labours in the discovery of positive truths, it appears insignificant, when not erroneous. None of the great germinal discoveries in science are due to him, or to his disciples. His vast and active intellect gave an impulse to philosophy, and for twenty centuries held the 1 world in awe. Then came a change; the long-murmuring spirit of rebellion grew strong enough to dethrone him. Ages of servility had raised him to an unexampled eminence; in the tumult of revolution this pedestal became a pillory. When the Arabs kill a lion, their released terror vents itself in insults on the harmless corpse: they kick, and spit upon, and apostrophize in sarcasms the helpless image of their former dread. It was thus with the great lion of Stagira. Men who a few years before would have burned a presumptuous critic for daring to think that the great teacher could be wrong, were now laughing to scorn the method and conclusions of the rejected sophist.*

Our task is twofold: we shall constantly have to bear in mind the relative (or historical) and the absolute (or scientific) aspect which his achievements present; never permitting our natural and justifiable admiration for the effort, to disguise our appreciation of its result; nor, conversely, permitting our contempt or disregard of the result, to mislead us into an unjust depreciation of the effort. ‘‘It is the destiny and glory

1 The virulence with which some of the reformers attacked him is at times amusing. A good example is Ramus: Scholarum Physicarum libri octo, 1565 (which I only know at second hand). Less virulent, but not less decided, is the antagonism of Nizoius: De veris Principiis et vera Ratione Philosophandi contra pseudo Philosophos, Parma, 1553. He complains indignantly of the Greeks being followed, “ perinde ac si essent oracula quedam Delphica, aut arcana divinitus revelata, que: nullo pacto falsa esse possent,” and he compares Aristotle to the cuttlefish escaping in a cloud of ink—perhaps the earliest example of this now threadbare comparison. Lerpnirz thought this treatise worth republishing, and wrote a preface to it; see Trranoscn1: Storia della Litteratura Italiana, 1812,, VIL. 44, where he truly says that if Nizoxrus is right in combating the Peripatetics, he is less happy in the attempt to replace them. A more formidable antagonist is Texusio, whose work, De Natura Rerum juxta propria Principia libri novem, Naples, 1586, I shall have to quote hereafter. Even more virulent is Patrizio (see Note 9). GiorpaNno Brvno, though relentless towards the peripatetics of his day, is more respectful to Aristotle. The same must be said of Garizno and Drscarrss ; and notably of TavRetivs, in his attack on Casatrinus, punningly entitled Alpes Case, hoc est A. Caesalpini monstrosa et superba Dogmata discussa et excussa, Frankfort, 1650. No longer worthy of more than a passing glance is Basso: Philosophie Naturalis adversus Aristotelem libri XII, Elzcvir, 1649, though once

CHAP, I.] THE LIFE OF ARISTOTLE. 3 of the anatomist of Stagira,” says Istporz St. ἩΤΙΠΑΙΒΕ, ἢ “to have had before him simply precursors and after him only disciples.” In yielding our most ample tribute, we must be careful to make that tribute generously just: we must hold the balance fairly, weighing the failures with the successes. In an attempt so delicate, I cannot pretend to have preserved the balance; but I can affirm that it has been my constant aim; and I wish that I could be certain of so expressing myself as to prevent readers from misconstruing either the praise or the blame which will have to be pronounced. The risk must be run; both praise and blame must be expressed without reticence. Piety towards the Past demands of us to be ready with our gratitude for all good work; and an equal piety towards the Present commands us to beware of an exaggeration which would convert panegyric of the departed into insults against the living. It is the glory of Science to be constantly progressive. After the lapse of a century, the greatest teacher, on reappearing among men, would have to assume the attitude of a learner. His point of view would no longer command the whole field of knowledge. The very seed sown by himself would have sprung up into a forest to obscure the view. But we who rejoice in the grandeur of the forest must not forget by whom the seeds were sown. His heritors, we are richer, but not greater than he. ‘ The similitude which many have fancied between the superiority of the moderns to the ancients, and the elevation of a dwarf on the back of a giant, is altogether false and puerile. Neither were they giants nor are we dwarfs; but all of us men of the same standard, and we the taller of the two highly prized. Campanetta I have not read. GassENDI is an uncompromising adversary (see Note 18). If we except the two great luminous intellects Gaxiteo and Descartes, the inferiority of these adversaries to the man they attack is so conspicuous that nothing but sympathy with their revolutionary fervour can make them tolerable.

2Isipore Grorrroy St. Hinare: Histoire Générale des Régnes Organiques, Paris, 1854, I. 19.

1—2

4 THE LIFE OF ARISTOTLE. [CHAP. 1.

by adding their height to our own: provided always that we do not yield to them in study, attention, vigilance and love of truth, for if these qualities be wanting, so far from mounting on the giant’s shoulders, we throw away the advantage of our own stature by remaining prostrate on the ground.” ὃ

§ 2. The ancient biographies of Aristotle have been gathered by Bunz into the first volume of his valuable but unfinished edition of the Opera Omnia. Meagre in detail, and of suspicious authenticity, these are all that moderns have to rely on for the facts of Aristotle’s career. And as I was aware, from previous experience, that the whole race of compilers is far from trustworthy, and that little confidence is to be placed in an ancient compiler (though to moderns it generally seems as if anything written in Greek must have a peculiar authenticity, even nonsense wearing an august air in that language), it occurred to me that perhaps the mere registration of the dates at which these several biographies were compiled, might amply justify scepticism as to their accuracy. All ancient writers, except, perhaps, Thucydides, are uncritical in their reception of facts. “Even in our own critical age, as it is rashly called, we find it extremely difficult to ascertain the truth respecting celebrated persons ; so powerful is the mythical tendency, and so funguslike the rapidity with which lies are propagated. But the ancients had not risen to the conception of what constitutes evidence; they were as credulous as children; and accepted almost any marvel which was narrated gravely.

What then are the dates, or thereabouts? Aristotle was born 8.0. 884. Drioamnzs Larrtius, whose narrative is the fullest, the best, and the most generally followed, was born, at the earliest, nearly six centuries later—i.c. a.p. 200; and it is even supposed that he was as late as Constantine. The next on our list is Ammontus (if the work be really his), who comes

5 This fine passage is quoted from Lupovicus Vives by Dugazp Srmwarr.

CHAP. 1. THE LIFE OF ARISTOTLE. 5 eight centuries after his hero, in a.p. 460; and that these eight centuries have not been profitably employed in sifting tradition, and bringing it nearer to accuracy, may be gathered from a single detail noticed by Bunuz,* that Aristotle is made a pupil of Socrates, who died just fifteen years before the Stagirite was born. The nearest biographer, in point of time, is Dionysius of Halicarnassus (B.c. 50), and this gives a gap of three centuries; moreover, one ‘meagre page comprises all he has to say. Husycuius was born a.p. 500—nearly nine centuries too late; the date of Surpas is uncertain, but probably not earlier than the eleventh century of our era.

These writers contradict each other on separate points. What means have we for deciding between them? They may have had contemporary documents as their authorities ; but what guarantee have we for the accuracy of these documents? It is but just three hundred years since SHAKSPEARE was born; throughout this period he has been prized, and written about; compilers have done their worst upon this subject; yet what do we authentically know of his life? above all, what value do we attach to the earliest biography, that by Rowe Ὁ

If, therefore, modern scholars have pieced together the various details traditionally preserved about Aristotle, we

4 Quis enim Ammonium credat tam absurdum, ut Aristotelem per tres annos Socratis, qui diu ante mortuus esset, discipulum, eundemque Alexandri in itinere per Asiam usque ad Indos comitem fuisse, temere asseruerit ἢ ” BUHLE: ‘Arist. Opera, I., 51. Ithas been suggested that instead of Socrates we should read the school of Socrates; but there was no such school. Mr. BiakEseY, by a plausible emendation, suggests XENOCRATES as the name which by corruption has become Socrates. This, however, ill accords with the statement of Ammonius; nor have we any evidence that Xenocrates taught till many years afterwards. During the revision of this chapter there has fallen in my way a copy of the Greek text of Ammonius, from the Library of St. Mark’s at Venice, now first published by Dr. Ross; Vita Aristotelis ex codice Marciano Grace nune primum edita, Lugd.-Batav., 1861, which gives the same reading as the old Latin translation, previously our only guide. Here is the passage: ἐτῶν δὲ γενόμενος ἑπτὰ καὶ δέκα, τοῦ Πυθοὶ θεοῦ χρήσαντος αὐτῷ φιλοσοφεῖν παρ᾽ ᾿Αθηναίοις, φοιτᾷ Σωκράτει, καὶ συνῆν τὸν, μέχρι τελευτῆς αὐτοῦ χρόνον ὀλίγον ὄντα.

may accept their narrative as the best which is now procurable, though with no firm reliance on any side when separate points are under discussion. I shall not, therefore, occupy the reader’s time with discussions, where decisive evidence is necessarily deficient ; but tell the story, by using at my own discretion the narratives given in the latest and most authoritative treatises,’ leaving the unprofitable task of weighing imponderable evidence to those who delight in such ingenuities.

§ 8. Stagira—which, Back says, should correctly be written Stageiros—was ἃ town in Northern Greece, on the western coast of the Strymonic Gulf (now called the Gulf of Contezza) just where the coast begins to take a southerly bend. Its situation has been compared with the southern part of the Bay of Naples. Immediately south, a promontory, like the Punta della Campanella, and nearly in the same latitude, runs out in an easterly direction, thus effectually screening the little town and its harbour, Capros, from the stormy squalls of the Augean. Stagira is said to resemble Sorrento, not only in the general disposition of its coast lines, but also in the terraced windings of its multitudinous orange and lemon groves.®

§ 4. In this picturesque seaport, Aristotle was born, B.c. 384, that is, exactly one century after the birth of Herodotus ; one century before the foundation of the Alexandrian library, and the execution of the Septuagint version of the Scriptures ; and two centuries before the death of Philopwmen, “the last of the Greeks,” when the Achran league dissolved before the Roman power, and Greece merged her splendid existence in the dependence of a Roman province.

5 Bune, 1., 80-104. Rirrer: History of Philosophy, trans. by Morrison, 1839, III. Buanestry: Life of Aristotle, 1839. Sraur, art. Arist. in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, 1844, Branpis: Aristoteles seine Academischen Zeitgenossen und nichsten Nachfolger, 1853. ZELLER; Die Philosophie der Griechen, 1860, II.

6 BLakEsuty : Op. cit., p. 12.

Chap. 1.] The Life Of Aristotle. 7

His father, Nicomacuus, was a physician and an Asclepiad; but whether he had any better claim to the honour of descent from A‘sculapius.than so many others who usurped the title,’ or simply belonged to the famous guild, cannot now be determined. It is certain that he was a physician of repute, attached to Amynras II., the father of the Macedonian Puiu. The fact of his profession, coupled with the fact of Stagira being on the sea-coast, may have been of moment in determining his son’s studies in the direction of physiology and marine zoology. There is indeed a passage in GALEN, often quoted, which affirms that among the Asclepiads children were taught dissection, just as they were taught reading and writing, thus becoming as familiar with anatomy as with the alphabet. But this must be accepted with a large handful of salt; for, as we shall see presently, the Asclepiads, and Aristotle himself, were very imperfectly acquainted with anatomy. The statement, however, even in its exaggeration, points to the important fact that anatomy was not neglected, but formed one part of the boy’s education ; and this isolated fact sums up all we know of that education.

§ 5. It is unknown how long he remained at Stagira before accompanying his father to the court of Amywras, at Pella, where he learned to know and ingratiate himself with Puizsp, who was hereafter to befriend him. Everything at this epoch is conjecture, and conjecture may amuse, but cannot instruct.

§ 6. At the age of seventeen he lost his father. This is the next isolated fact which has been recorded, and it is important. He thus became his own master, with the command of a large fortune ; a perilous condition to most youths the temptation to squander his fortune in frivolous dissipation must have been great, and could only be withstood by an unusual seriousness of mind, or unusual felicity in his social connections. So plausible is the supposition that a youth

1 8566 Hantess: De Medicis Veteribus “ Asclepiades’’ dictis, 2 work only known to me at second hand, thus cireumstanced will be ruined, that idle gossip, which always flits about a celebrated name, invented a story of his having wasted his means, and having been reduced to sell drugs for a subsistence; a story which, however, found refutation even among the ancients, and is wholly irreconcilable with the known facts of his subsequent career, .

He was young, ardent, ambitious, rich. Athens, the glory of the world, though her political sun was setting, the luminous centre of Philosophy and Art, beckoned to him, as Rome and Florence beckon to the students of our day. Pato taught there, and might admit him to the groves of the Academy. To listen to this “‘old man eloquent,” was a rare attraction, and naturally it drew him to Athens. Arrived there, he found that Puaro was absent. Awaiting the great teacher's return, he qualified himself for discipleship by three years of arduous study. Had he squandered his wealth in dissipation, as the babblers reported, he could not have collected the treasure of books which he is known to have bought; for in those days it was almost as costly to create a library of books as in our own to create a gallery of pictures.® To collect books and to read them are not always the same thing. With him they were one; and Puaro, alluding to the extraordinary passion he displayed, called him ‘“ the reader.” His writings show how diligently he had studied all accessible literature ; and it is to his punctilious quotation

8 According to Griirus, he paid for the works of Srrusippus alone three Attic talents, that is about 7007. of our money, a sum not to be spared out of the profits of drug-selling unless by a merchant prince. In our own days 1,000]. has been paid for a rare edition of an Italian poet ; but that was merely the avidity of a collector’s furor backed by the wealth of an English nobleman. Curious details on the price of books in the Middle Ages may be read in Moraror1: Dissertazione sopra Vantichitéa Italiane, Diss. XLII. Compare also Herren: Geschichte der Classischen Litteratur im Mittelalter, Werke, 1822, IV. In our days of cheap literature—cheap, because we have cheap paper, and that because we wear linen instead of woollen clothes

—these details seem to render the darkness of the dark ages more intelligible.

CHAP. I] THE LIFE OF ARISTOTLE. 9 of his predecessors that we are greatly indebted for the preservation of many fragments of ancient thought. So little justice is there in Bacon’s sarcasm, that like an Eastern despot he strangled his rivals in order to reign peaceably.9

§ 7. When Aristotle came to Athens the splendour of her life was fast departing, and near at hand was the towering greatness of Macedon, so soon to overshadow her on the plains of Cheronecia. The sun was setting on the Age of Pericles, and was rising on the Age of Alexander. For sixty years Prrictus had ceased to thunder from the bema; had ceased to communicate his agitating stimulus to art and politics ; had ceased to adorn the beautiful city with

® Aristotle’s precepts, no less than his practice, answer this accusation. See Metaph., 11.,1, 995; De Calo, I., 10, 279; and De Anima, 1,1. Bacon simply echoed Parrizio, whose enmity was virulent and avowed, and who declares that one cause of this hatred was the abuse which Aristotle heaps on the writers from whom his best ideas are stolen. Parritu: Discussionum Peripateticarum tomi quatuor, Bale, 1581, from which learned but untrustworthy work some moderns have largely drawn. The first volume contains a life and a list of the extant works, with an account of allthe Peripatetics. In the third book there is a valuable collection of the passages in which A. refers to his own writings ; a collection subsequently used and expanded by Ritrer, but without the acknowledgment due in such acase. The second volume gives an exposition of the points of agreement between the doctrines of A. and Plato, and the older writers. In the third volume the points of difference are noted. In the preface he complains of the insults to philosophers (p. 291-2), and sarcastically adds that there is no mention of Hippocrates. (Some moderns, coupling this supposed silence with the silence of THucypipzs, have argued that Hippocrates lived after Aristotle ; but the fact is that Hippocrates is mentioned, and in the Politics there is a sketch of his views on climate.) In the fourth volume Patrizio gives full expression to his antagonism. G1orpaNo Bruno, in spite of his own opposition to the peripatetic system, speaks with measureless contempt of Patrizio as “ un sterco di pedante Italiano che ha imbrattati tanti quinterni con le sue discussione peripatetiche,” and vows that he has not understood the Stagirite, but only read and reread him “ cucito, scucito e confeiito con mill’ altri greci autori amici e nemici di quello, et al fine fatta una grandissima fatica non sola senza profitto alcuno, ma etiam con un grandissimo sproposito.” De la Causa Principio et Uno (Opere Ital., Leipzig, 1830), I., 250. Parrizio had many admirers and imitators; a notable one is Basso (see Note 1). I have not had the courage to extend my wanderings further through this rubbish of denunciation and criticism heaped up by the iconoclasts, his munificence and taste. SorpHocnEs and EvRIPIDES were gone; and the grand and pathetic drama they had unfolded to applauding thousands, had fallen into the hands of Cu#REMoN, CLEoPHON, and ΤΉΞΟΡΕΟΤΕΒ (the last the friend of Aristotle), whose efforts to make rhetoric supply the place of poetry pointed unmistakably towards decline. ARrsTo- PHANES no longer laughed at the absurdities, and scourged the corruptions of his time, in riotous and reckless farces, which too often wilfully misrepresented persons and ideas essentially wise and noble. No great prose writer except XENOPHON remained ; not one poet of eminence.

But if a sunset, it was still a glorious sunset, with some splendour of the after-glow. Great memories swelled ambitious minds. Powerful vibrations were still felt from Salamis, Marathon, and Platea. Isoorates upheld the renown of Athenian eloquence; and the greater DEMOSTHENES was preparing for his matchless displays. PRAXITELES was at work upon statues, the very copies of which were for centuries to be the despair of artists. Scopas, the’ sculptor of the immortal Niobe and the Venus of Milo, had enchanted the Athenians with his Furies. D1ocEnss, with drastic energy, despised the citizens from his tub. The schools were crowded with listeners to many teachers. In every direction there was intellectual activity and social ferment. A young, keen intellect would find there abundant stimulus.

§ 8. As years ripened his intelligence, and free intercourse with eminent men procured him the advantages and opportunity of display, Aristotle gradually won for himself a foremost position. He came there a raw ambitious youth, not only with the disadvantages of inexperience, but with those disadvantages of accent and manner which, in the eyes of supercilious Athenians—the Frenchmen of antiquity—made him seem almost a barbarian. These, however, he soon modified. One fact recorded of him—that he was some-

CHAP. I.] THE LIFE OF ARISTOTLE. 11 what given to foppery in costume—implies an eager sensitiveness to approbation, which would have directed his attention to anything provincial in his air. Keen, witty, logical, and learned, he was a brilliant talker, and in that city of talkers could hold his own with the best; not even refraining from controversy with his great master. Without pretending to decide the much vexed question of his ingratitude towards Prato, I must express my own disbelief in the accusation ; although it is very credible, and by no means derogatory to him, that, differing from his master in cast of mind, as well as on certain fundamental points of philosophy, he should often, during the seventeen years they were together, have been seduced into warm, and sometimes irritating, discussion with one whom, on the whole, he considered as the noblest of thinkers. All opposition is apt to be construed as an offence ; and if Aristotle’s criticisms and allusions to Plato are not always remarkable for their judicial calmness, they have never any approach to irreverence. Often in antagonism—how could this sincerely be avoided?—he is never in hostility to Plato. Indeed, in the Hthics, he complains of the necessity of attacking doctrines held by ““ dear friends,” adding— “Tt is our duty to slay our own flesh and blood where the cause of Truth is at stake, especially as we are philo- | sophers; loving both, it is our sacred duty to give the , preference to Truth.” It is a timidity unworthy of a noble mind to shrink from intellectual opposition as an offence against friendship, and to suppress convictions for fear of misconstruction.