I
LIFE AND WORKS

THE LIFE OF ARISTOTLE¹

Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. in the little town of Stagira, the modern Stavró, on the north-east coast of the peninsula of Chalcidice. An attempt has sometimes been made² to detect a non-Greek strain in his character and to attribute this to his northern birth; but Stagira was in the fullest sense a Greek town, colonized from Andros and Chalcis and speaking a variety of the Ionic dialect. His father, Nicomachus, belonged to the clan or guild of the Asclepiadae, and it seems probable³ that the family had migrated from Messenia in the eighth or seventh century. The family of his mother, Phæstis, belonged to Chalcis, where in his last days Aristotle took refuge from his enemies. His father was the physician and friend of Amyntas II of Macedonia, and it is possible that part of Aristotle’s boyhood was spent at Pella, the royal seat. It is reasonable to trace Aristotle’s interest in physical science and above all in biology to his descent from a medical family. Galen tells us⁴ that Asclepiad families trained their sons in dissection, and it is possible that Aristotle had some such training; further, he may have helped his father in his surgery, and this is probably the origin of the story which charged him with having been a quack-doctor. His parents died while he was still a boy, and he became the ward of a relation named Proxenus, whose son Nicanor he later adopted.

In his eighteenth year he entered the school of Plato at Athens, and here he remained for nineteen years, until Plato’s death. We need not suppose that it was any attraction to the life of philosophy that drew him to the Academy; he was simply getting the best education that Greece could offer. Whatever the motive of his joining the school may have been, it is clear that in Plato’s philosophy he found the master-influence of his life. It was impossible that so powerful a mind should accept implicitly all Plato’s doctrines. Grave differences on important points became gradually more apparent to Aristotle. But of his philosophical, in distinction from his scientific, works, there is no page which does not bear the impress of Platonism. Even when he attacks particular Platonic doctrines, he often groups himself with those he is criticising and reminds them of their common principles.⁵ Like other great men of antiquity, he was not without his calumniators. He was accused in later times of insolent behaviour towards Plato. At one time he stood high in Plato’s favour, and was called by him ‘the reader’ par excellence, and ‘the mind of the school’; later as his own point of view became more distinct, their relations may have been less cordial. But while Plato lived Aristotle remained a loyal member of the Academy. In a well-known passage⁶ he speaks with delicacy of the unpleasant task of criticising those so dear to him as the Platonic School.

We must not suppose, however, that during these twenty years he was simply a pupil. The ancient schools of philosophy were bodies of men united by a common spirit and sharing the same fundamental views, but following out their own enquiries in comparative independence. In particular, it is permissible to suppose that during these years Aristotle carried his studies in natural science to a point far beyond that to which Plato or any other member of the school could have taken him. He seems also to have lectured, but perhaps only on rhetoric, and in opposition to Isocrates. He appears not to have studied under Isocrates, but his even, easy style, so well adapted to convey meaning with exactness and without redundance, and capable of rising to an impressive dignity,⁷ owes much to ‘that old man eloquent’ whose influence on Greek and Latin style was so great. There is no writer (except Homer) whom he quotes so often in the Rhetoric. But he shared Plato’s contempt for Isocrates’ poverty of thought, and for his elevation of oratorical success over the pursuit of truth; and in his youthful days this led him to criticise the orator in a way which was warmly resented by the Isocratean school. To this period probably belong several of his lost writings, in which he expressed in a more or less popular way not very original philosophical tenets. Further, in this period some of his extant works seem to have been begun.

When Plato was succeeded, in 348–7 B.C., by Speusippus, who represented the tendencies of Platonism with which Aristotle was most dissatisfied—in particular its tendency to ‘turn philosophy into mathematics’⁸—he doubtless felt a reluctance to continue in the school; nor was he, apparently, conscious of any vocation to start a school of his own. It is possible, too, that the outburst of anti-Macedonian feeling at Athens due to the fall of Olynthus and the destruction of the Greek confederacy made Athens an uncomfortable residence for an alien with Macedonian connexions; but this reason can hardly have affected Xenocrates, the fellow-Academic who accompanied him in his migration from Athens. Whatever were his reasons, he accepted an invitation from a former fellow-student in the Academy, Hermeias, who had risen from being a slave to be the ruler of Atarneus and Assos in Mysia, and had there gathered round him a small Platonic circle. In this circle Aristotle spent some three years. He married Pythias, the niece and adopted daughter of Hermeias, who bore him a daughter of the same name and seems to have died during his later stay in Athens. After her death he entered into a permanent and affectionate though unlegalised union with a native of Stagira, Herpyllis, and had by her a son, Nicomachus, from whom the Nicomachean Ethics received their name.

At the end of these three years, Aristotle moved to Mitylene, in the neighbouring island of Lesbos. We do not know what took him there, but it seems likely that Theophrastus, a native of the island and already known to him as a fellow-Academic, may have found him a suitable residence. To his stay at Assos, and even more to his stay at Mitylene, belong many of his enquiries in the region of biology; his works refer with remarkable frequency to facts of natural history observed in the vicinity, and more particularly in the island lagoon of Pyrrha.⁹

A reference by Isocrates,¹⁰ about this time, to upstart philosophers who had established themselves in the Lyceum and treated him with insufficient respect has been thought to refer to Aristotle along with others; if so, he must at this period have paid a visit to Athens of which the ancient biographers know nothing. But the conjecture seems to be unfounded. In 343–2 Philip of Macedon, who had probably known Aristotle as a boy of about his own age, and had certainly heard of him from Hermeias, invited him to undertake the education of Alexander, then thirteen years old. Aristotle, willing to renew old connexions with the Macedonian court, and attaching, as we can see from the Politics, great importance to the training of future rulers, accepted the invitation. The position gave him influence at court, and enabled him to intercede successfully on behalf of Stagira, of Athens, and of Eresus, the native town of Theophrastus, who went with him to Pella. Little or nothing is known of the education imparted by him to his distinguished pupil. The main subject of his teaching would probably be Homer and the dramatists, the staple of Greek education; Aristotle is said to have revised the text of the Iliad for Alexander. But his pupil was old enough to profit by more advanced instruction. In particular it is certain that Aristotle must have discussed with him the duties of rulers and the art of government. He composed for him a work on Monarchy, and one on Colonies, both subjects of special interest to one who was to be the greatest of Greek kings and of Greek colonisers. We may suppose that it was during his stay with Alexander— first at Pella and later at the royal castle of Mieza in its neighbourhood—that Aristotle’s attention was specially drawn to political subjects, and that he formed the idea of his great collection of Constitutions. Alexander’s genius led him to a life of action, not of study—to the subjugation of Asia, against which Aristotle had warned Philip, and to the attempt, inconsistent with Aristotle’s belief in the unquestionable superiority of the Greek over the barbarian, to fuse Greek with Oriental civilisation. Relations between the two men seem never to have been entirely broken off, but there is no sign of real intimacy between them after Alexander’s pupillage ended with his appointment as regent for his father in 340. Aristotle then probably settled at Stagira. It was no doubt during his stay with Alexander that he made the most permanent of his Macedonian friendships, his friendship with Antipater, soon to be appointed regent by Alexander during his absence in Asia, and thus to become the most important man in Greece.¹¹

In 335–4, soon after the death of Philip, Aristotle returned to Athens; and now begins the most fruitful period of his life. Outside the city to the northeast, probably between Mount Lycabettus and the Ilissus, lay a grove sacred to Apollo Lyceius and the Muses, in former days a favourite haunt of Socrates.¹² Here Aristotle rented some buildings¹³—as an alien he could not buy them—and founded his school. Here, every morning, he walked up and down with his pupils¹⁴ in the loggie or among the trees, and discussed the more abstruse questions of philosophy; and in the afternoon or evening expounded less difficult matters to a larger audience. An old tradition distinguishes thus between the acroamatic or advanced discourses and the exoteric or popular. The distinction is no doubt sound enough, but it does not point, as has sometimes been thought, to anything mystical in the acroamatic discourses, or to the practice of an economy of truth towards the public. The more abstract subjects—logic, physics, and metaphysics—required a more intensive study and interested a smaller number, while subjects such as rhetoric, sophistic, or politics answered to a wider demand and could be expounded in a more popular way.¹⁵

Here also Aristotle collected probably some hundreds of manuscripts, the first of all great libraries and the model for those of Alexandria and of Pergamon; a number of maps; and a museum of objects to illustrate his lectures, especially those on natural history. Alexander is said to have given him 800 talents to enable him to form this collection, and to have laid all the hunters, fowlers, and fishermen of the Macedonian empire under injunctions to report to Aristotle any matters of scientific interest that they observed. The sum is no doubt exaggerated, and Aristotle’s knowledge of the more distant parts of the empire is not such as might have been expected from these orders; but the story probably has some foundation in fact. We hear of a constitution imposed by Aristotle on the school, whereby, for example, members took it in turn to ‘rule’ for ten days at a time; which may have meant, among other things, that one man during this period took the part of leader by maintaining theses against all comers, in the manner which became common in the mediaeval universities.¹⁶ We hear of common meals, and of a symposium once a month for which Aristotle composed the rules. But of the work of the school, of the division of labour within it, we know very little. The composition of the lectures of which Aristotle’s extant works are the notes probably belongs in the main to the twelve or thirteen years of his headship of the Lyceum, and the thought and research implied, even if we suppose that some of the spade-work was done for him by pupils, implies an energy of mind which is perhaps unparalleled. During this time Aristotle fixed the main outlines of the classification of the sciences in the form which they still retain, and carried most of the sciences to a further point than they had hitherto reached; in some of them, such as logic,¹⁷ he may fairly claim to have had no predecessor, and for centuries no worthy successor. And at the same time the school, by the interest in practical subjects like ethics and politics, was exercising an influence on ordinary life comparable to that of Socrates or Plato and far greater than that exercised by the cloistered students of the contemporary Academy.

On the death of Alexander in 323, Athens once more became the centre of an outbreak of anti-Macedonian feeling, and Aristotle’s Macedonian connexions made him an object of suspicion. It is possible that the hostility of the Platonic and Isocratean schools conspired with political feeling against him. At all events, an absurd charge of impiety, based on a hymn and an epitaph which he had written on Hermeias, was brought against him. Determined not to let the Athenians ‘sin twice against philosophy,’¹⁸ he left the school in Theophrastus’ hands, and withdrew to Chalcis, a stronghold of Macedonian influence. Here in 322 he died of a disease to which he had long been subject. Diogenes has preserved for us his will, in which he makes careful provision for his relations, secures his slaves against being sold, and puts into practice one of the recommendations of the Politics by arranging for the emancipation of several of them. We are apt sometimes to think of Aristotle as simply an intellect incarnate; but his will affords the clearest evidence of a grateful and affectionate nature.

Little is known of his appearance or his manner of life.¹⁹ A credible tradition describes him as bald, thin-legged, with small eyes and a lisp in his speech, and as noticeably well-dressed. The malevolence of enemies represented him as living a life of effeminacy and self-indulgence; what we may fairly believe, in view of his expressed opinions, is that he was not ascetic in his habits. We are told further that he had a mocking disposition which showed itself in his expression; and several sayings which indicate a ready wit are quoted by Diogenes Laertius.

THE WORKS OF ARISTOTLE

Aristotle’s literary work may be divided into three main sections, the first consisting of works of a more or less popular order which were published by himself, the second of memoranda and collections of material for scientific treatises, and the third of the scientific works themselves. Apart from the Athenaion Politeia, the whole existing Corpus of his works, so far as it is authentic, belongs to the third class. Of the others our knowledge rests on the fragments preserved in ancient authors, and on three lists which have come down from antiquity. Of these the oldest is that of Diogenes Laertius (early third century A.D.).²⁰ His list begins with nineteen works which appear to have been popular in their character, and of which the greater number were, in imitation of Plato, written in dialogue. The dialogues seem to have been less dramatic than at any rate the earlier dialogues of Plato; but they were doubtless written with more care for literary effect than the extant works, and it must be to them that Cicero’s praise of Aristotle’s flumen orationis aureum²¹ and Quintilian’s of his eloquendi suavitas²² refer. It is natural to suppose that his use of this form of composition belongs to his early life, when he was still a member of Plato’s school; and this is confirmed by the Platonic titles of some of the dialogues—Politicus, Sophistes, Menexenus Symposium—and by the generally Platonic character of the contents. Among the earliest of the dialogues, probably, was that On Rhetoric, also known as the Grylus. Grylus was the son of Xenophon who was killed at the battle of Mantinea (362–1), and the dialogue probably dates from a time not much later. Another early dialogue was the Eudemus, or On the Soul, which takes its name from Aristotle’s friend Eudemus of Cyprus, who died in 354–3. It was modelled closely on the Phaedo, and accepted without question the Platonic doctrines of pre-existence, transmigration, and recollection. To the same period probably belongs the Protrepticus²³ an exhortation to the philosophic life addressed to the Cyprian prince Themiso; it was very popular in antiquity, and furnished Iamblichus with materials for his own Protrepticus, and Cicero with a model for his Hortensius. A later date should be assigned to the dialogue On Philosophy, in which Aristotle gave an account of the progress of mankind, largely Platonic in character but differing from Plato’s in asserting the eternal pre-existence of the world, and proceeded to oppose definitely the doctrine of Ideas and of Ideal Numbers. The dialogue belongs to about the same date as the earliest parts of the Metaphysics. To a still later period, i.e. to his stay at the Macedonian court (or later), belong the Alexander, or about Colonists (? Colonies) and the work On Monarchy. Other dialogues of which little but the names are known are those On Justice, On the Poets, On Wealth, On Prayer, On Good Birth, On Education, On Pleasure, the Nerinthus, and the Eroticus.

With these works may be named his poems, of which three specimens have been preserved, and his letters. Of the fragments of the latter which we possess, those to Antipater have the ring of authenticity.

Little need be said of the lost memoranda and collections of material²⁴ nor of the lost scientific works. Over 200 titles of works believed at the time to be Aristotle’s have been preserved in the three ancient catalogues. But the titles often repeat one another, and there is every reason to suppose that the lists are lists of separate manuscripts rather than of separate books. Many entries in Diogenes Laertius’ list with titles at first sight unfamiliar seem nevertheless to refer to parts of extant works.²⁵ In this connexion it must be noted that the longer existing works are not unitary wholes but collections of essays on connected themes, and that the separate essays are the original units, which were connected together sometimes by Aristotle and sometimes (as in the case of the Metaphysics) by his editors.²⁶ Of some of the lost books considerable fragments are quoted by ancient authors, and it is possible in such cases to form a fairly accurate idea of their contents. At least one genuine work has reached us, it would seem, in a fairly complete abbreviated form.²⁷ Much scholarship has been expended, and by no means without result, in tracing probable connexions between the lost and the extant works. But the latter alone are enough to give us a fairly comprehensive idea of the variety of subjects Aristotle covered, though not of his immense literary activity.

Of the extant works we may first consider the group of logical treatises known at least since the sixth century as the Organon or instrument of thought. The first of these, in the usual order, is the Categories. The authenticity of this book has been denied. There are no clear references to it in admittedly genuine works of Aristotle. But it was accepted without question in antiquity,²⁸ and commented on as a genuine work by a series of commentators beginning in the third century A.D. with Porphyry; indeed the evidence for its acceptance goes back to Andronicus (early first century B.C.).²⁹ Thearguments against it from the point of view of Aristotelian doctrine³⁰ are not conclusive, and its grammar³¹ and style are thoroughly Aristotelian. The last six chapters, dealing with the so-called Post-predicaments, stand on a some-what different footing. They were suspected by Andronicus, and are foreign to the purpose of the book. But they may well be the work of Aristotle.

The De Interpretatione was suspected by Andronicus, on the ground, apparently,³² of a reference³³ to the De Anima to which nothing in that work corresponds. There are, however, many such references in undoubtedly genuine works of Aristotle, and more than one way of explaining them. There is strong external evidence for its authenticity; Theophrastus and Eudemus both wrote books which seem to presuppose it, and Ammonius tells us that Andronicus was the only critic who cast doubt on it.³⁴ Finally, its style and grammar seem to be genuinely Aristotelian. All that can really be said against it is that much of it is some-what elementary; but Aristotle doubtless gave elementary as well as advanced lectures.³⁵

The Prior and the Posterior Analytics are undoubtedly genuine, as are also the Topics³⁶ and the Sophistic Elenchi. Aristotle quotes the latter by the name of Topics, and its concluding passage is an epilogue to the Topics as a whole.

The physical treatises begin with a group of undoubtedly genuine works, the Physics, the De Caelo, the De Generatione et Corruptione, and the Meteorologica. The Physics was originally composed as two distinct treatises, the first comprising books I.-IV., the second books V., VI., VIII., for Aristotle usually refers to the first group as the Physics or the books On Nature, and to the second as the books On Movement and there are many traces of this distinction among the later Peripatetics. But he also uses the term Physics to include not only the later books but others of the physical treatises. Book VII. was passed over by Eudemus in his revision of the work, and is rather of the nature of preliminary notes.³⁷ Of the Meteorologica, Book IV. is pretty certainly not genuine,³⁸ and may have taken the place of a missing book.

The next treatise in the Corpus, the De Mundo, has no claim to be regarded as Aristotle’s. It is a work of popular philosophy which combines with much that is genuine Aristotelian doctrine a good deal that is Stoic in origin, and in particular owes much to Posidonius. It may probably be dated between 50 B.C. and 100 A.D.

Next comes a series of authentic works on psychology, the De Anima and the works known collectively as the Parva Naturalia, viz. De Sensu et Sensibilibus, De Memoria et Reminiscentia, De Somno, De Insomniis, De Divinatione per Somnum, De Longitudine et Brevitate Vitae, De Vita et Morte, De Respiratione. The first two chapters of the De Vita are headed by the editors De Juventute et Senectute, but, though Aristotle elsewhere promises a work on this subject, it is uncertain whether he ever wrote it; certainly these two chapters do not deal with the subject.

The De Spiritu, which closes this series of psychological works, is not by Aristotle, for it recognises the distinction of veins and arteries, which was unknown to him. It seems to reflect the teaching of the famous physician Erasistratus, and may perhaps be dated about 250 B.C.

The psychological series is succeeded by a group of works on natural history. Of the first of the group, the Historia Animalium, Book X. and probably also Books VII., VIII. 21–30, and IX. are spurious, and date in all likelihood from the third century B.C. The Historia Animalium is a collection of facts; it is succeeded by works in which Aristotle states his theories based on them. The first of these is the De Partibus Animalium, of which the first book is a general introduction to biology. The De Motu Animalium has by many scholars been regarded as spurious, largely because of a supposed reference in it to the De Spiritu,³⁹ but recent opinion is in its favour; its style is Aristotelian,⁴⁰ and its contents not unworthy of the master. The De Incessu Animalium and the De Generatione Animalium are of undoubted authenticity; the last book of the latter is an epilogue to the De Partibus as well as to the De Generatione.

The biological works are succeeded by a number of spurious treatises. The De Coloribus has been ascribed to Theophrastus and to Strato, the De Audibilibus with more probability to Strato. The Physiognomonica (? third century B.C.) is a combination of two treatises, both perhaps Peripatetic. The De Plantis is, of all the works in the Corpus, that which has had the most peculiar history. Aristotle seems, from references by himself, to have written a work on plants, but it had perished by the time of Alexander of Aphrodisias, and the extant work is translated from a Latin translation of an Arabic translation of a work whose probable author was Nicolaus of Damascus, a Peripatetic of the time of Augustus. The amusing work known as the De Mirabilibus Auscultationibus consists (1) of excerpts from biological works of Theophrastus and others; (2) of historical extracts, mostly derived from Timaeus of Tauromenium (c. 350–260 B.C.) through Posidonius; these two sections were probably put together not earlier than the time of Hadrian; (3) of an appendix (cc. 152–178) which may be as late as the sixth century. The Mechanica seem to belong to the early Peripatetic school—perhaps to Strato or one of his pupils. They discuss the lever, the pulley, and the balance, and expound with considerable success some of the main principles of statics —the law of virtual velocities, the parallelogram of forces, and the law of inertia.

The Problems, though resting in the main on Aristotelian presuppositions, show considerable traces of a materialism which was characteristic of the later Peripatetic school. The work seems to have been put together, perhaps not before the fifth or sixth century out of various collections of problems— mathematical, optical, musical, physiological and medical— excerpted in the main from the Theophrastean Corpus, but largely also from the writings of the Hippocratic school, and in a few cases from extant works of Aristotle. It affords interesting evidence of the variety of the studies to which Aristotle stimulated his pupils. The Musical Problems, which are on the whole the most interesting, consist of two collections which have been dated as early as 300 B.C. and as late as 100 A.D.

The De Lineis Insecabilibus is directed primarily against Xenocrates, and presumably is at all events not much later than his time. Its doctrine resembles that of Theophrastus, to whom Simplicius ascribed it; Strato has also been suggested as the author. The Ventorum Situs is an extract from a treatise De Signis usually ascribed to Theophrastus and dating from about his time. The De Xenophane, Zenone, Gorgia (more properly De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia) is probably based on authentic treatises of Aristotle but actually the work of an eclectic of the first century A.D.

The earliest reference that we have to the Metaphysics by that name occurs in Nicolaus of Damascus. As the name occurs constantly from him onwards, it may safely be supposed that it was due to the editorial work of his older contemporary Andronicus, and that it meant merely the treatises which were placed after the physical works in Andronicus’ edition. Hesychius’ catalogue of Aristotle’s works mentions a Metaphysics in ten books. This was probably our Metaphysics with the omission of (1) book a, the name of which shows that it was inserted in the Metaphysics only when the original numbering was complete. This book is an introduction not to metaphysics but to physics or to theoretical philosophy in general It is Aristotelian in character, but an ancient tradition ascribed it to Pasicles, nephew of Eudemus,⁴¹ and this ascription is more likely to be correct than one to a better-known person would have been. The ten-book Metaphysics doubtless excluded (2) book Λ, which appears separately in Hesychius’ list as the book On the Various Meanings of Words, and (3) book K, of which the first part is merely a shorter version of books B ГE and the latter part a series of extracts from Physics II., III., and V. The grammar of K is in some respects unaristotelian,⁴² and it represents pretty certainly the notes of a pupil.⁴³ Finally, the ten-book Metaphysics probably excluded (4) book Ë, which does not refer to any of the other books and forms a separate treatise on the First Cause (with a preliminary account of physical substance).

The earliest parts of the Metaphysics are probably A, Λ, K (first part), Ë, N. K was later replaced by B ГE; M (a later, and very different, version of N) was prefixed to N; and A B ГE Z H Θ I M N were worked up into a fairly well-knit whole, linked together by frequent cross-references which may well go back to Aristotle himself.

Next follows a group of ethical treatises, the Nicomachean Ethics, the Magna Moralia, and the Eudemian Ethics. Many scholars have supposed the Eudemian Ethics to be a later work, written by Aristotle’s pupil Eudemus, but the most natural explanation of the titles Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics is that these works are editions by Nicomachus and Eudemus respectively of two courses on ethics by Aristotle.⁴⁴ The most detailed investigator of Aristotle’s grammar⁴⁵ came to the conclusion that the grammar of the Eudemian Ethics was that of Aristotle. It has recently, moreover, been pointed out that this work stands in the direct line of development from the Protrepticus to the Nicomachean Ethics.⁴⁶ The probability is that it is a fairly early work, dating, like the earliest parts of the Metaphysics, from Aristotle’s stay at Assos between 348 and 345. A problem which has exercised the curiosity and the ingenuity of many scholars is presented by the fact that at the end of the third book of the Eudemian Ethics (answering to the fourth of the Nicomachean) the MSS. state that the next three books are identical with the next three of the Nicomachean, and pass forthwith to what they call the seventh book. Do these three books belong to the Nicomachean or to the Eudemian Ethics, or partly to the one, partly to the other; did two treatises ever exist on the subjects dealt with in these books, or is the version we have the only one that ever existed? Almost every possible variety of answer has been given to both these questions and several of them have been supported by attractive arguments; opinion is still divided on the subject. Most of the parallels or cross-references between these books and the other books of the two treatises may be met by others equally apposite. The following points, however, have not received the attention they deserve:—(1) The oldest catalogue of Aristotle’s works (that of Diogenes Laertius) refers only to one Ethics, to which it assigns five books; this can only be the Eudemian Ethics without the doubtful books. The next oldest catalogue contains only one Ethics, to which it assigns ten books; this can only be the Nicomachean Ethics with the doubtful books. If, as is commonly supposed, both these lists rest on the authority of Hermippus, we find the doubtful books assigned as early as 200 B.C. to the Nicomachean Ethics and not to the Eudemian. (2) Certain grammatical peculiarities have been noticed in the Eudemian Ethics which do not appear in the disputed books.⁴⁷

These books, then, probably belong to the Nicomachean Ethics. The Eudemian Ethics probably had at one time a corresponding section of its own. For (1) there are references in the Eudemian Ethics which seem to presuppose a rather different handling of the matter of the central three books, and (2) the Magna Moralia, which follows very closely the Eudemian Ethics, introduces in the corresponding section matter which is not found in the three books as we have them. The Magna Moralia apparently dates from the early third century B.C.; it contains traces of Theophrastean doctrine and its language is in some respects late.⁴⁸ The De Virtutibus et Vitiis is an attempt, dating probably from the first century before or the first century after Christ, to reconcile Peripatetic with Platonic ethics.

The Politics is an undoubted work of Aristotle. There has been much discussion of the ‘proper’ order of its books. Really, however, it consists of a number of originally independent essays, which are not completely worked up into a whole.⁴⁹

Of the Oeconomica, the first book is a treatise based on the first book of the Politics and on Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, and probably written by Theophrastus or by some other Peripatetic of the first or the second generation. The second book, a compilation of historical incidents illustrating various financial devices, probably dates from about 300 B c. The third, which exists only in a Latin translation, may be identical with the Laws of Husband and Wife mentioned in Hesychius’ catalogue, but is not by Aristotle. It is thought to be the work partly of a Peripatetic living between 250 and 30 B.C., and partly of a Stoic living between 100 and 400 A.D.

The Rhetoric is, as regards its first two books, undoubtedly the work of Aristotle. The third book was at one time suspected, but its authenticity has been sufficiently vindicated.⁵⁰ The Rhetorica ad Alexandrum was by some scholars attributed to Aristotle’s earlier contemporary Anaximenes of Lampsacus, but contains elements of Aristotelian doctrine and probably dates from the beginning of the third century B.C.⁵¹ TheCorpus closes with the genuine but fragmentary Poetics. Of the lost works of Aristotle, none is more to be regretted than his description of the Constitutions of 158 Greek states. A happy fortune brought to light in Egypt, in 1890, a papyrus containing the first of these, the Constitution of Athens.

The whole, or almost the whole, of the extant works of Aristotle are commonly thought to belong to the period of his headship of the Lyceum, and the question naturally arises, what is the relation of the written works to his oral teaching? It has often been suggested that the rough and unfinished condition of many of his works, the repetitions and digressions, are due to their being not works prepared for publication but either Aristotle’s own lecture notes or notes taken down by pupils. The latter hypothesis is ruled out by various considerations. It is hard to suppose that the notes of pupils would have produced so coherent and intelligible a result as the works in the main present, or that the notes of different pupils (for we can hardly suppose one to be responsible for the whole Corpus) would have shown such a uniformity of style.⁵² Nor is it possible to regard the works as nothing but Anstotle’s own rough notes for lectures. A portion of one book definitely presents such a character,⁵³ and it is likely that others, in which terseness is pushed to the point of obscurity⁵⁴ have a similar origin.⁵⁵ But most of the works are not like this. They show a fullness of expression and an attention to literary form which is incompatible with their being mere rough memoranda for lectures. Two passages have been cited as evidence that Aristotle is addressing hearers and not readers, but neither is convincing.⁵⁶ There can be no doubt, however, of the close connection of most of the written works with the teaching in the Lyceum.⁵⁷ Aristotle may have written out his lectures complete before delivering them, and the written works may be his lectures in this sense; but it seems likely that he lectured more freely than this, and that the books as we have them were written down subsequently by him as memoranda to show to those who had missed the lectures, and by way of having a more accurate record of his views than the memory or the notes of his students could provide. The repetitions and the slight divergences of view which have been observed in his works are to be explained by the fact that he did not deal with a subject once and for all, but returned to it again and again. Unskilful editorship has often preserved, through unwillingness to sacrifice anything that the master had written, double or triple versions of his thought on the same question.

The probable connection of most of the extant works with Aristotle’s second residence at Athens (c. 335–323) is on the whole confirmed by such notes of time as can be detected in the works themselves. The casual allusions—to the road from Athens to Thebes, the sail to Aegina, the festivals of the Dionysia and the Thargelia, the actor Theodorus’ management of his voice⁵⁸—presuppose an Athenian audience. The observation on the position of the constellation Corona agrees with the latitude of Athens much better than with that of Pella.⁵⁹ The second period of Aristotle’s residence at Athens rather than the first is suggested by casual references to the Lyceum itself.⁶⁰ References to historical events point in the same direction. In the Meteorologica Aristotle refers to the archonship of Nicomachus (341).⁶¹ The Politics refer to the murder of Philip (336);⁶² the Rhetoric refers to events in 338– 336;⁶³ the Constitution of Athens cannot be earlier than 329– 8.⁶⁴ Theastronomical theories of Callippus referred to in Metaphysics Ë can hardly be dated before 330–325. On the other hand, in Meteor. 371 a31 the burning of the temple of Ephesus (356), and in Pol. 1312 b10 the expulsion of Dionysius II from Syracuse by Dion (357–6), are referred to as having happened v.v, from which it follows that these works were probably begun in Aristotle’s first residence at Athens.

If we ask in what order it is psychologically most likely that Aristotle’s works were written, the answer must be that presumably his writings would reflect a progressive withdrawal from Plato’s influence. Taking this as our leading principle, and using such minor indications of date as we have at our disposal, we may say that he began by writing dialogues on the Platonic model, but that in the latest of these his protest against Plato’s ‘separation’ of the Forms from sensible things began to be felt. The dialogues probably belong in the main to the time of his membership of the Academy. To the period of his stay in the Troad, in Lesbos, and in Macedonia belongs the earliest form of those extant works which are largely Platonic in character— the Organon,⁶⁵ the Physics, the De Caelo, the De Generatione et Corruptione, the third book of the De Anima, the Eudemian Ethics, the oldest parts of the Metaphysics and of the Politics;⁶⁶ to these we must probably add the earliest parts of the Historia Animalium. To his second Athenian period belong the rest of his works of research -the Meteorologica, the works on psychology and biology, the collection of Constitutions and the other great historical researches which we know little more than by name. To this period also belong the Nicomachean Ethics, the Poetics, the Rhetoric, and the completion and working-up of the extant works begun in the middle period.⁶⁷ The general movement, we may say, was from otherworldliness towards an intense interest in the concrete facts both of nature and of history, and a conviction that the ‘form’ and meaning of the world is to be found not apart from but embedded in its ‘matter.’

NOTES

1 The main authority for the life of Aristotle is Diogenes Laertius (early third century A.D.). Some information is contained in the First Letter of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (fl. 30–8 B.C.) to Ammæus. The other ancient lives are Neo-Platonist or Byzantine. Diogenes’ chronology rests for the most part on the authority of Apollodorus of Athens (fl. 144 B.C.).

2 By Bernays and W.von Humboldt.

3 Cf. Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, Aristoteles und Athen, I. 311.

4 Anatom. Administr. ii. I, vol. ii. 280 K.

5 E.g. Met. 990 ^b16.

6 E.N. 1096 ^a11–17. Cf. Pol. 1265 ^a10–12.

7 E.g In De Coelo, I., II.; P.A. I.; Met. Ë.; E.N. X.; Pol. VII. VIII.

8 Met. 992 ^a32.

9 Other places mentioned are Antandria, Arginusæ, Lectum, Pordoselene, Proconnesus, Scamander, Sigeum, Xanthus, the Hellespont, the Propontis. Cf. Thompson, trans. of Hist. An., p. vii.; id., Arisiotle as a Biologist, 12.

10 12. 18 ff.

11 In his will he put his affairs into Antipater’s hands; but this seems to have been merely the common form for invoking legal protection.

12 Pl. Euthyph. 2 a; Lysis, 203 a; Euthyd. 271 a.

13 In Theophrastus’ will, Diog. Laert. V. 51, we read of and (presumably the shrines of the Muses and of Apollo), and of a large and a small or loggia.

14 Hence the name Peripatetics. XXXV.

15 In J. of P. XXXV. 191–203, Prof. Henry Jackson reconstructed from Aristotle’s works some interesting features of his lecture-room and his lectures.

16 Blakesley, Life of Arist. 63.

17 Soph. El 183 ^b34–184 ^b3.

18 Ps.-Ammonius, Aristotelis Vita.

19 But F.Studniczka in Ein Bildnis des Arist. (Leipzig, 1908) has made out a good case for treating a group of extant statues as representing Aristotle.

20 It cannot well be based on the list drawn up by Andronicus (early first century B.C.), since it omits many of the extant works, which correspond to Andronicus’ canon; nor can it be meant to supplement that list, since it contains several of the extant works. It probably is, or is based on, a list made by Hermippus c. 200 B.C., when many of the works edited later by Andronicus had been forgotten.

21 Acad. 2. 38. 119.

22 10. 1. 83.

23 It has been much discussed whether this was a dialogue or a continuous address. The balance of argument is in favour of the latter view.

24 These collections of material were sometimes produced by Aristotle in collaboration; a Delphic inscription shows that a list of victors in the Pythian games was the joint work of Aristotle and his nephew Callisthenes.

25 E.g. Nos. 31, 32, 53, 57–60 (Rose, Aristotelis Fragmenta, 1886) probably refer to parts of the Topics, and No. 36 to Met.Λ.

26 This is well brought out by Jaeger in Entstehungsgeschichte der Metaphysik des Aristoteles (148–163), which is the best discussion of the mode of production of Aristotle’s works.

27 Partsch has made out a good case for the Aristotelian origin of the book On the Rising of the Nile (Des Aristoteles Buch ‘Uber das Steigen des Nil’, Leipzig, 1909) .

28 With the exception of an unnamed critic apparently referred to in Schol 33 ^a28 ff. (in Berlin ed. of Aristotle, Vol. 4).

29 This seems to be implied by his rejection of the Post-predicaments, Schol 81 ^a27 ff. Ammonius (Schol 28 ^a40) says that Theophrastus and Eudemus wrote Categories in imitation of Aristotle’s work.

30 The most recent presentation of them is by E.Dupréel in Arch. f. Gesch. d. Phil. XXII. 230–251. He rightly calls attention to the cut-and-dried, dogmatic style of the book, which is very different from Aristotle’s usual method of advance by free discussion of difficulties. I should be inclined to attribute this characteristic (which is found also in the De Interpretatione and in large parts of the Prior Analytics) to the fact that logic is in Aristotle’s view a study preliminary to science and philosophy. Books addressed to less advanced students are naturally more dogmatic in their tone.

31 Detailed evidence on the grammar of Aristotle and of the pseudo-Aristotelian works may be seen in Eucken, De Aristotelis Dicendi Ratione and Ueber den Sprachgebrauch des Aristoteles (on the use of particles and prepositions respectively).

32 Schol. 97 ^a20.

33 De Int. 16 ^a8.

34 Schol. 97 ^a13.

35 The authenticlty of the book is elaborately and successfully defended by H. Maier in Arch. f Gesch. d. Phil XIII. 23–71. He suggests that the reference in 16 ^a8 should be transferred to 16 ^a13 and relates to De An. III. 6.

36 With the possible exception of Bk. V.

37 Perhaps taken down by a pupil, cf. Eucken, De Ar. Dic. Rat. 11.

38 One critic has recently ascribed it to Strato.

39 703 ^a10. Mr. Farquharson in his translation has suggested other works to which the reference may point.

40 Eucken detected nothing unaristotelian in its grammar.

41 Schol 589 ^a41.

42 Eucken, De Ar. Dic. Rat. 10, 11.

43 Alexander comments only on the first part.

44 Alexander tells us (Schol 760 b20) that the Metaphysics similarly was edited by Eudemus. Cf. Asclepius (Schol 519 ^b38).

45 Eucken.

46 Jaeger, Arist. 237–270; cf. Case in Enc. Brit.¹¹ II. 512–515.

47 Cf. Eucken, De Ar. Dic. Rat. 9, 34; Sprachgeb. des Ar. 10. These peculiarities may be due to Eudemus.

48 But von Arnim’s view (cf. p. 294 infra) that it is the earliest of the three ethical treatises deserves careful consideration.

49 Cf. pp. 19, 235 f.

50 Diels has shown (Abh. d. preuss. Akad. 1886) that Book III. was originally a separate treatise, probably the which figures in Diogenes’ list.

51 Mr. Case argues in Enc. Brit.¹¹ II. 515 f. that it is a genuine work, earlier than the Rhetoric. He succeeds in showing that if earlier than the Rhetoric it must be by Aristotle, and therefore that it cannot be by Anaximenes. But its language seems in some respects to belong to a date later than that of Aristotle.

52 Phys. VII., Met. a K may not improbably be pupils’ notes of Aristotle’s lectures.

53 Met. Ë. 1–5, which contains only one reference to another work, and twice (1069 ^b35, 1070 ^a4) has the phrase ‘the next point to be made is that’ Cf. An. Pr. 24 ^a10–15.

54 E. g. De An. III.

55 Prof. H.Jackson has well brought out in J. of P. XXXV. 196–200 the appearance in Aristotle’s works of many of the habitual methods of lecturers.

56 (a) Soph. El. 184 b3–8. distinguishes followers of the course from a wider circle addressed—apparently readers (cf. (b) E.N. 1104 ^b18 But is as likely to mean ‘a little way back’ as ‘the day before yesterday.’ The Ethics contains, of all the works the most frequent references to hearers (1095 ^a2 ff., 12, ^b4, 1147 ^b9, 1179 ^b25).

57 The Physics is headed in the MSS. ‘Course on Physics,’ and the Politics was at one time headed ‘Course on Politics.’

58 Phys. 202 ^b13; Met. Λ. 1015 ^a25, 1025 ^a25, 1023 ^b10; Rhet. 1404 ^b22. Cf. Pol. 1336 ^b28, Poet. 1448 ^b31.

59 Meteor. 362 ^b9. There are, however, reasons for doubting the genuineness of this passage.

60 Cat. 2 ^a1; Phys. 219 ^b21; Rhet. 1385 ^a28. But the conjunction of the Lyceum with the agora in the first two passages reminds us that these were Socrates’ favourite resorts. The selection of them as instances of place may easily have been earlier than the foundation of Aristotle’s school.

61 345 ^a1.

62 1311 ^b1.

63 1397 ^b31, 1399 ^b12.

64 See ch. 54. 7.

65 The Topics may have been composed in the order—II.-VII. 2, VII. 3–5, I., VIII. So H. Maier in Syllogistik des A. II. 2. 78, n. 3. The main part of the work, II.-VII. 2, moves for the most part within the Platonic circle of ideas. F.Solmsen has argued in Entwicklung der Aristotelischen Logik und Rhetorik that Aristotle first worked out (in the Topias) a logic of dialectic, then (in the Posterior Analytics) a logic of science, and finally (in the Prior Analytics) a formal logic applicable both to dialectic and to science. Cf. J.L.Stocks in Class. Qu. XXVII (1933). 115–24. This view is in several ways attractive, but has not yet been sufficiently examined for any clear conclusions about its truth to have emerged. If the Posterior Analytics were written before the Prior, they must have been much retouched later. . H.Maier argues in Arch. f. Gesch. d. Phil. XIII. 23–72 for the view that the De Interpretatione is the latest of all the extant works, and was left unfinished by Aristotle: But Mr. Case has pointed out in Enc. Brit.¹¹ II. 511 f. that the analysis of the judgment in the De Int. is more primitive than that in the Prior Analytics, and more akin to that in Pl. Soph, 261 e ff.

66 There has been much recent discussion of the comparative age of the books of the Politics. The protagonists are W.Jaeger (Aristoteles, ch.6) and H.von Arnim (Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der aristotelischen Politik). Jaeger argues for the order III, II, VII, VIII; IV, V, VI; I; von Arnim for the order I, III; IV, V; VI; II; VII, VIII. There are also discussions by B.Hochmiller (in Opuscula Philologa, 1928), who follows von Arnim, and by A.Mansion (in Revue Néo-Scolastique de Philosophie, XXIX (1927). 451–63), J.L.Stocks (in Class. Qu. XXI (1927). 177–87), E.Barker (in Class. Rev. XLV (1931). 162–72), A.Rosenberg (in Rh. Mus. LXXXII (1933). 338–61), and W.Siegfried (in Philol. LXXXVIII (1933). 362–91), who on the whole follow Jaeger. A study of these discussions has now led me to think that the priority of VII, VIII to IV, V, VI has been made out; but the relation of the three detached treatises in Bks. I, II, III to the other books remains doubtful. The question is much too complicated to be gone into here. Cf. p. 235 f.

67 Jaeger’s brilliant argument for this order in his Aristoteles seems to me convincing.