Among this few
Aristotle
holds not the lowest
place.
place.
Aristotle by A. E. Taylor
?
ARISTOTLE
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Title: Aristotle
Author: A. E. Taylor
Release Date: January 16, 2015 [EBook #48002]
Language: English
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARISTOTLE ***
Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: Aristotle]
*ARISTOTLE*
BY A. E. TAYLOR, M. A. , D. LITT. , F. B. A.
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
67 LONG ACRE, W. C. , AND EDINBURGH
NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.
*CONTENTS*
CHAP.
I. LIFE AND WORKS
II. THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES: SCIENTIFIC METHOD
III. FIRST PHILOSOPHY
IV. PHYSICS
V. PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
*ARISTOTLE*
*CHAPTER I*
*LIFE AND WORKS*
It has not commonly been the lot of philosophers, as it is of great
poets, that their names should become household words. We should hardly
call an Englishman well read if he had not heard the name of Sophocles
or Moliere. An educated man is expected to know at least who these
great writers were, and to understand an allusion to the _Antigone_ or
_Le Misanthrope_. But we call a man well read if his mind is stored with
the verse of poets and the prose of historians, even though he were
ignorant of the name of Descartes or Kant. Yet there are a few
philosophers whose influence on thought and language has been so
extensive that no one who reads can be ignorant of their names, and that
every man who speaks the language of educated Europeans is constantly
using their vocabulary. Among this few Aristotle holds not the lowest
place. We have all heard of him, as we have all heard of Homer. He has
left his impress so firmly on theology that many of the formulae of the
Churches are unintelligible without acquaintance with his conception of
the universe. If we are interested in the growth of modern science we
shall readily discover for ourselves that some knowledge of
Aristotelianism is necessary for the understanding of Bacon and Galileo
and the other great anti-Aristotelians who created the "modern
scientific" view of Nature. If we turn to the imaginative literature of
the modern languages, Dante is a sealed book, and many a passage of
Chaucer and Shakespeare and Milton is half unmeaning to us unless we are
at home in the outlines of Aristotle's philosophy. And if we turn to
ordinary language, we find that many of the familiar turns of modern
speech cannot be fully understood without a knowledge of the doctrines
they were first forged to express. An Englishman who speaks of the
"golden mean" or of "liberal education," or contrasts the "matter" of a
work of literature with its "form," or the "essential" features of a
situation or a scheme of policy with its "accidents," or "theory" with
"practice," is using words which derive their significance from the part
they play in the vocabulary of Aristotle. The unambitious object of
this little book is, then, to help the English reader to a better
understanding of such familiar language and a fuller comprehension of
much that he will find in Dante and Shakespeare and Bacon.
*Life of Aristotle. *--The main facts of Aristotle's life may be briefly
told. He was born in 385-4 B. C. at Stagirus, a little city of the
Chalcidic peninsula, still called, almost by its ancient name, Chalcis,
and died at the age of sixty-two at Chalcis in Euboea. Thus he is a
contemporary of Demosthenes, his manhood witnessed the struggle which
ended in the establishment of the Macedonian monarchy as the dominant
power in Hellas, and his later years the campaigns in which his pupil
Alexander the Great overthrew the Persian Empire and carried Greek
civilisation to the banks of the Jumna. In studying the constitutional
theories of Aristotle, it is necessary to bear these facts in mind.
They help to explain certain limitations of outlook which might
otherwise appear strange in so great a man. It throws a great deal of
light on the philosopher's intense conviction of the natural inferiority
of the "barbarian" intellect and character to remember that he grew up
in an outlying region where the "barbarian" was seen to disadvantage in
the ordinary course of life. Hence the distinction between Greek and
"barbarian" came to mean for him much what the "colour-line" does to an
American brought up in a Southern State. So, again, when we are struck
by his "provincialism," his apparent satisfaction with the ideal of a
small self-contained city-state with a decently oligarchical government,
a good system of public education, and no "social problems," but devoid
alike of great traditions and far-reaching ambitions, we must remember
that the philosopher himself belonged to just such a tiny community
without a past and without a future. The Chalcidic cities had been first
founded, as the name of the peninsula implies, as colonies from the town
of Chalcis in Euboea; Corinth had also been prominent in establishing
settlements in the same region. At the height of Athenian Imperial
prosperity in the age of Pericles the district had fallen politically
under Athenian control, but had been detached again from Athens, in the
last years of the Archidamian war, by the genius of the great Spartan
soldier and diplomat Brasidas. Early in the fourth century the Chalcidic
cities had attempted to form themselves into an independent federation,
but the movement had been put down by Sparta, and the cities had fallen
under the control of the rising Macedonian monarchy, when Aristotle was
a baby. A generation later, a double intrigue of the cities with Philip
of Macedon and Athens failed of its effect, and the peninsula was
finally incorporated with the Macedonian kingdom. It is also important
to note that the philosopher belonged by birth to a guild, the
Asclepiadae, in which the medical profession was hereditary. His father
Nicomachus was court physician to Amyntas II. , the king for whose
benefit the Spartans had put down the Chalcidic league. This early
connection with medicine and with the Macedonian court explains largely
both the predominantly biological cast of Aristotle's philosophical
thought and the intense dislike of "princes" and courts to which he more
than once gives expression. At the age of eighteen, in 367-6, Aristotle
was sent to Athens for "higher" education in philosophy and science, and
entered the famous Platonic Academy, where he remained as a member of
the scientific group gathered round the master for twenty years, until
Plato's death in 347-6. For the three years immediately following
Aristotle was in Asia Minor with his friend and fellow-student Hermeias,
who had become by force of sheer capacity monarch of the city of
Atarneus in the Troad, and was maintaining himself with much energy
against the Persian king. Pythias, the niece of Hermeias, became the
philosopher's wife, and it seems that the marriage was happy.
Examination of Aristotle's contributions to marine biology has shown
that his knowledge of the subject is specially good for the Aeolic coast
and the shores of the adjacent islands. This throws light on his
occupations during his residence with Hermeias, and suggests that Plato
had discerned the bent of his distinguished pupil's mind, and that his
special share in the researches of the Academy had, like that of
Speusippus, Plato's nephew and successor in the headship of the school,
been largely of a biological kind. We also know that, presumably
shortly after Plato's death, Aristotle had been one of the group of
disciples who edited their teacher's unpublished lectures. In 343
Hermeias was assassinated at the instigation of Persia; Aristotle
honoured his memory by a hymn setting forth the godlikeness of virtue as
illustrated by the life of his friend. Aristotle now removed to the
Macedonian court, where he received the position of tutor to the Crown
Prince, afterwards Alexander the Great, at this time (343 B. C. ) a boy of
thirteen. The association of the great philosopher and the great king as
tutor and pupil has naturally struck the imagination of later ages; even
in Plutarch's _Life of Alexander_ we meet already with the full-blown
legend of the influence of Aristotle's philosophical speculations on
Alexander. It is, however, improbable that Aristotle's influence
counted for much in forming the character of Alexander. Aristotle's
dislike of monarchies and their accessories is written large on many a
page of his _Ethics_ and _Politics_; the small self-contained city-state
with no political ambitions for which he reserves his admiration would
have seemed a mere relic of antiquity to Philip and Alexander. The only
piece of contemporary evidence as to the relations between the master
and the pupil is a sentence in a letter to the young Alexander from the
Athenian publicist Isocrates who maliciously congratulates the prince on
his preference for "rhetoric," the art of efficient public speech, and
his indifference to "logic-choppers. " How little sympathy Aristotle can
have had with his pupil's ambitions is shown by the fact that though his
political theories must have been worked out during the very years in
which Alexander was revolutionising Hellenism by the foundation of his
world-empire, they contain no allusion to so momentous a change in the
social order. For all that Aristotle tells us, Alexander might never
have existed, and the small city-state might have been the last word of
Hellenic political development. Hence it is probable that the selection
of Aristotle, who had not yet appeared before the world as an
independent thinker, to take part in the education of the Crown Prince
was due less to personal reputation than to the connection of his family
with the court, taken together with his own position as a pupil of
Plato, whose intervention in the public affairs of Sicily had caused the
Academy to be regarded as the special home of scientific interest in
politics and jurisprudence. It may be true that Alexander found time in
the midst of his conquests to supply his old tutor with zoological
specimens; it is as certain as such a thing can be that the ideals and
characters of the two men were too different to allow of any intimate
influence of either on the other.
When Alexander was suddenly called to the Macedonian throne by the
murder of his father in 336 B. C. , Aristotle's services were no longer
needed; he returned to Athens and gave himself to purely scientific
work. Just at this juncture the presidency of the Academy was vacant by
the death of Speusippus, Aristotle's old associate in biological
research. Possibly Aristotle thought himself injured when the school
passed him over and elected Xenocrates of Chalcedon as its new
president. At any rate, though he appears never to have wholly severed
his connection with the Academy, in 335 he opened a rival institution in
the Lyceum, or gymnasium attached to the temple of Apollo Lyceus, to
which he was followed by some of the most distinguished members of the
Academy. From the fact that his instruction was given in the
_peripatos_ or covered portico of the gymnasium the school has derived
its name of Peripatetic. For the next twelve years he was occupied in
the organisation of the school as an abode for the prosecution of
speculation and research in every department of inquiry, and in the
composition of numerous courses of lectures on scientific and
philosophical questions. The chief difference in general character
between the new school and the Academy is that while the scientific
interests of the Platonists centred in mathematics, the main
contributions of the Lyceum to science lay in the departments of biology
and history.
Towards the end of Alexander's life his attention was unfavourably
directed on his old teacher. A relative of Aristotle named Callisthenes
had attended Alexander in his campaigns as historiographer, and had
provoked disfavour by his censure of the King's attempts to invest his
semi-constitutional position towards his Hellenic subjects with the pomp
of an Oriental despotism. The historian's independence proved fatal.
He was accused of instigating an assassination plot among Alexander's
pages, and hanged, or, as some said, thrown into a prison where he died
before trial. Alexander is reported to have held Aristotle responsible
for his relative's treason, and to have meditated revenge. If this is
so, he was fortunately diverted from the commission of a crime by
preoccupation with the invasion of India.
On the death of Alexander in 323 a brief but vigorous anti-Macedonian
agitation broke out at Athens. Aristotle, from his Macedonian
connections, naturally fell a victim, in spite of his want of sympathy
with the ideals of Philip and Alexander. Like Socrates, he was indicted
on the capital charge of "impiety," the pretext being that his poem on
the death of Hermeias, written twenty years before, was a virtual
deification of his friend. This was, however, only a pretext; the real
offence was political, and lay in his connection with the Macedonian
leader Antipater. As condemnation was certain, the philosopher
anticipated it by withdrawing with his disciples to Chalcis, the mother
city of his native Stagirus. Here he died in the following year, at the
age of sixty-two or sixty-three.
The features of Aristotle, familiar to us from busts and intaglios, are
handsome, but indicate refinement and acuteness rather than originality,
an impression in keeping with what we should expect from a study of his
writings. The anecdotes related of him reveal a kindly, affectionate
character, and show little trace of the self-importance which appears in
his work. His will, which has been preserved, exhibits the same traits
in its references to his happy family life and its solicitous care for
the future of his children and servants. He was twice married, first to
Pythias, and secondly to a certain Herpyllis, by whom he left a son
Nicomachus and a daughter. The "goodness" of Herpyllis to her husband
is specially mentioned in the clauses of the will which make provision
for her, while the warmth of the writer's feelings for Pythias is shown
by the direction that her remains are to be placed in the same tomb with
his own. The list of servants remembered and the bequests enumerated
show the philosopher to have been in easier circumstances than Plato.
*The Works of Aristotle*. --The so-called works of Aristotle present us
with a curious problem. When we turn from Plato to his pupil we seem to
have passed into a different atmosphere. The _Discourses of Socrates_
exhibit a prose style which is perhaps the most marvellous of all
literary achievements. Nowhere else do we meet with quite the same
combination of eloquence, imaginative splendour, incisive logic, and
irresistible wit and humour. The manner of Aristotle is dry and formal.
His language bristles with technicalities, makes little appeal to the
emotions, disdains graces of style, and frequently defies the simplest
rules of composition. Our surprise is all the greater that we find
later writers of antiquity, such as Cicero, commending Aristotle for his
copious and golden eloquence, a characteristic which is conspicuously
wanting in the Aristotelian writings we possess. The explanation of the
puzzle is, however, simple. Plato and Aristotle were at once what we
should call professors and men of letters; both wrote works for general
circulation, and both delivered courses of lectures to special students.
But while Plato's lectures have perished, his books have come down to
us. Aristotle's books have almost wholly been lost, but we possess many
of his lectures. The "works" of Aristotle praised by Cicero for their
eloquence were philosophical dialogues, and formed the model for
Cicero's own compositions in this kind. None of them have survived,
though some passages have been preserved in quotations by later writers.
That the "works" are actually the MSS. of a lecturer posthumously edited
by his pupils seems clear from external as well as from internal
evidence. In one instance we have the advantage of a double recension.
Aristotle's _Ethics_ or _Discourses on Conduct_ have come down to us in
two forms--the so-called _Nicomachean Ethics_, a redaction by the
philosopher's son, Nicomachus, preserving all the characteristics of an
oral course of lectures; and a freer and more readable recast by a
pupil, the mathematician Eudemus, known as the _Eudemian Ethics_. In
recent years we have also recovered from the sands of Egypt what appears
to be our one specimen of a "work" of Aristotle, intended to be read by
the public at large, the essay on the Constitution of Athens. The style
of this essay is easy, flowing, and popular, and shows that Aristotle
could write well and gracefully when he thought fit.
*CHAPTER II*
*THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES: SCIENTIFIC METHOD*
Philosophy, as understood by Aristotle, may be said to be the organised
whole of disinterested knowledge, that is, knowledge which we seek for
the satisfaction which it carries with itself, and not as a mere means
to utilitarian ends. The impulse which receives this satisfaction is
curiosity or wonder, which Aristotle regards as innate in man, though it
does not get full play until civilisation has advanced far enough to
make secure provision for the immediate material needs of life. Human
curiosity was naturally directed first to the outstanding "marvellous
works" of the physical world, the planets, the periodicity of their
movements, the return of the seasons, winds, thunder and lightning, and
the like. Hence the earliest Greek speculation was concerned with
problems of astronomy and meteorology. Then, as reflection developed,
men speculated about geometrical figure, and number, the possibility of
having assured knowledge at all, the character of the common principles
assumed in all branches of study or of the special principles assumed in
some one branch, and thus philosophy has finally become the
disinterested study of every department of Being or Reality. Since
Aristotle, like Hegel, thought that his own doctrine was, in essentials,
the last word of speculation, the complete expression of the principles
by which his predecessors had been unconsciously guided, he believes
himself in a position to make a final classification of the branches of
science, showing how they are related and how they are discriminated
from one another. This classification we have now to consider.
*Classification of the Sciences*. --To begin with, we have to
discriminate Philosophy from two rivals with which it might be
confounded on a superficial view, Dialectic and Sophistry. Dialectic is
the art of reasoning accurately from given premisses, true or false.
This art has its proper uses, and of one of these we shall have to
speak. But in itself it is indifferent to the truth of its premisses.
You may reason dialectically from premisses which you believe to be
false, for the express purpose of showing the absurd conclusions to
which they lead. Or you may reason from premisses which you assume
tentatively to see what conclusions you are committed to if you adopt
them. In either case your object is not directly to secure truth, but
only to secure consistency. Science or Philosophy aims directly at
_truth_, and hence requires to start with true and certain premisses.
Thus the distinction between Science and Dialectic is that Science
reasons from true premisses, Dialectic only from "probable" or
"plausible" premisses. Sophistry differs from Science in virtue of its
moral character. It is the profession of making a living by the abuse
of reasoning, the trick of employing logical skill for the apparent
demonstration of scientific or ethical falsehoods. "The sophist is one
who earns a living from an apparent but unreal wisdom. " (The emphasis
thus falls on the notion of making an "unreal wisdom" into a _trade_.
The sophist's real concern is to get his fee. ) Science or Philosophy is
thus the disinterested employment of the understanding in the discovery
of truth.
We may now distinguish the different branches of science as defined.
The first and most important division to be made is that between
Speculative or Theoretical Science and Practical Science. The broad
distinction is that which we should now draw between the Sciences and
the Arts (_i. e. _ the industrial and technical, not the "fine" arts).
Speculative or Theoretical Philosophy differs from Practical Philosophy
in its purpose, and, in consequence, in its subject-matter, and its
formal logical character. The purpose of the former is the
disinterested contemplation of truths which are what they are
independently of our own volition; its end is to _know_ and only to
_know_. The object of "practical" Science is to know, but not only to
know but also to turn our knowledge to account in devising ways of
successful interference with the course of events. (The real importance
of the distinction comes out in Aristotle's treatment of the problems of
moral and social science. Since we require knowledge of the moral and
social nature of men not merely to satisfy an intellectual interest, but
as a basis for a sound system of education and government, Politics, the
theory of government, and Ethics, the theory of goodness of conduct,
which for Aristotle is only a subordinate branch of Politics, belong to
Practical, not to Theoretical Philosophy, a view which is attended by
important consequences. )
It follows that there is a corresponding difference in the objects
investigated by the two branches of Philosophy. Speculative or
Theoretical Philosophy is concerned with "that which cannot possibly be
other than it is," truths and relations independent of human volition
for their subsistence, and calling simply for _recognition_ on our part.
Practical Philosophy has to do with relations which human volition can
modify, "things which may be other than they are," the contingent.
(Thus _e. g. _ not only politics, but medicine and economics will belong
to Practical Science. )
Hence again arises a logical difference between the conclusions of
Theoretical and those of Practical Philosophy. Those of the former are
universal truths deducible with logical necessity from self-evident[#]
principles. Those of the latter, because they relate to what "can be
otherwise," are never rigidly universal; they are _general_ rules which
hold good "in the majority of cases," but are liable to occasional
exceptions owing to the contingent character of the facts with which
they deal. It is a proof of a philosopher's lack of grounding in logic
that he looks to the results of a practical science (_e. g. _ to the
detailed precepts of medicine or ethics) for a higher degree of
certainty and validity than the nature of the subject-matter allows.
Thus for Aristotle the distinction between the necessary and the
contingent is real and not merely apparent, and "probability is the
guide" in studies which have to do with the direction of life.
[#] Self-evident, that is, in a purely logical sense. When you apprehend
the principles in question, you _see_ at once that they are true, and do
not require to have them _proved_. It is not meant that any and every
man _does_, in point of fact, always apprehend the principles, or that
they can be apprehended without preliminary mental discipline.
We proceed to the question how many subdivisions there are within
"theoretical" Philosophy itself. Plato had held that there are none.
All the sciences are deductions from a single set of ultimate principles
which it is the business of that supreme science to which Plato had
given the name of Dialectic to establish. This is not Aristotle's view.
According to him, "theoretical" Philosophy falls into a number of
distinct though not co-ordinate branches, each with its own special
subjects of investigation and its own special axiomatic principles. Of
these branches there are three, First Philosophy, Mathematics, and
Physics. First Philosophy--afterwards to be known to the Middle Ages as
Metaphysics[#]--treats, to use Aristotle's own expression, of "Being
_qua_ Being. " This means that it is concerned with the universal
characteristics which belong to the system of knowable reality as such,
and the principles of its organisation in their full universality. First
Philosophy alone investigates the character of those causative factors
in the system which are without body or shape and exempt from all
mutability. Since in Aristotle's system God is the supreme Cause of
this kind, First Philosophy culminates in the knowledge of God, and is
hence frequently called Theology. It thus includes an element which
would to-day be assigned to the theory of knowledge, as well as one
which we should ascribe to metaphysics, since it deals at once with the
ultimate postulates of knowledge and the ultimate causes of the order of
real existence.
[#] The origin of this name seems to be that Aristotle's lectures on
First Philosophy came to be studied as a continuation of his course on
Physics. Hence the lectures got the name _Metaphysica_ because they came
_after_ (_meta_) those on Physics. Finally the name was transferred (as
in the case of _Ethics_) from the lectures to the subject of which they
treat.
Mathematics is of narrower scope. What it studies is no longer "real
being as such," but only real being in so far as it exhibits number and
geometrical form. Since Aristotle holds the view that number and figure
only exist as determinations of objects given in perception (though by a
convenient fiction the mathematician treats of them in abstraction from
the perceived objects which they qualify), he marks the difference
between Mathematics and First Philosophy by saying that "whereas the
objects of First Philosophy are separate from matter and devoid of
motion, those of Mathematics, though incapable of motion, have no
separable existence but are inherent in matter. " Physics is concerned
with the study of objects which are both material and capable of motion.
Thus the principle of the distinction is the presence or absence of
initial restrictions of the range of the different branches of Science.
First Philosophy has the widest range, since its contemplation covers
the whole ground of the real and knowable; Physics the narrowest,
because it is confined to a "universe of discourse" restricted by the
double qualification that its members are all material and capable of
displacement. Mathematics holds an intermediate position, since in it,
one of these qualifications is removed, but the other still remains, for
the geometer's figures are boundaries and limits of sensible bodies, and
the arithmetician's numbers properties of collections of concrete
objects. It follows also that the initial axioms or postulates of
Mathematics form a less simple system than those of First Philosophy,
and those of Physics than those of Mathematics. Mathematics requires as
initial assumptions not only those which hold good for _all_ thought,
but certain other special axioms which are only valid and significant
for the realm of figure and number; Physics requires yet further axioms
which are only applicable to "what is in motion.
Among this few Aristotle holds not the lowest
place. We have all heard of him, as we have all heard of Homer. He has
left his impress so firmly on theology that many of the formulae of the
Churches are unintelligible without acquaintance with his conception of
the universe. If we are interested in the growth of modern science we
shall readily discover for ourselves that some knowledge of
Aristotelianism is necessary for the understanding of Bacon and Galileo
and the other great anti-Aristotelians who created the "modern
scientific" view of Nature. If we turn to the imaginative literature of
the modern languages, Dante is a sealed book, and many a passage of
Chaucer and Shakespeare and Milton is half unmeaning to us unless we are
at home in the outlines of Aristotle's philosophy. And if we turn to
ordinary language, we find that many of the familiar turns of modern
speech cannot be fully understood without a knowledge of the doctrines
they were first forged to express. An Englishman who speaks of the
"golden mean" or of "liberal education," or contrasts the "matter" of a
work of literature with its "form," or the "essential" features of a
situation or a scheme of policy with its "accidents," or "theory" with
"practice," is using words which derive their significance from the part
they play in the vocabulary of Aristotle. The unambitious object of
this little book is, then, to help the English reader to a better
understanding of such familiar language and a fuller comprehension of
much that he will find in Dante and Shakespeare and Bacon.
*Life of Aristotle. *--The main facts of Aristotle's life may be briefly
told. He was born in 385-4 B. C. at Stagirus, a little city of the
Chalcidic peninsula, still called, almost by its ancient name, Chalcis,
and died at the age of sixty-two at Chalcis in Euboea. Thus he is a
contemporary of Demosthenes, his manhood witnessed the struggle which
ended in the establishment of the Macedonian monarchy as the dominant
power in Hellas, and his later years the campaigns in which his pupil
Alexander the Great overthrew the Persian Empire and carried Greek
civilisation to the banks of the Jumna. In studying the constitutional
theories of Aristotle, it is necessary to bear these facts in mind.
They help to explain certain limitations of outlook which might
otherwise appear strange in so great a man. It throws a great deal of
light on the philosopher's intense conviction of the natural inferiority
of the "barbarian" intellect and character to remember that he grew up
in an outlying region where the "barbarian" was seen to disadvantage in
the ordinary course of life. Hence the distinction between Greek and
"barbarian" came to mean for him much what the "colour-line" does to an
American brought up in a Southern State. So, again, when we are struck
by his "provincialism," his apparent satisfaction with the ideal of a
small self-contained city-state with a decently oligarchical government,
a good system of public education, and no "social problems," but devoid
alike of great traditions and far-reaching ambitions, we must remember
that the philosopher himself belonged to just such a tiny community
without a past and without a future. The Chalcidic cities had been first
founded, as the name of the peninsula implies, as colonies from the town
of Chalcis in Euboea; Corinth had also been prominent in establishing
settlements in the same region. At the height of Athenian Imperial
prosperity in the age of Pericles the district had fallen politically
under Athenian control, but had been detached again from Athens, in the
last years of the Archidamian war, by the genius of the great Spartan
soldier and diplomat Brasidas. Early in the fourth century the Chalcidic
cities had attempted to form themselves into an independent federation,
but the movement had been put down by Sparta, and the cities had fallen
under the control of the rising Macedonian monarchy, when Aristotle was
a baby. A generation later, a double intrigue of the cities with Philip
of Macedon and Athens failed of its effect, and the peninsula was
finally incorporated with the Macedonian kingdom. It is also important
to note that the philosopher belonged by birth to a guild, the
Asclepiadae, in which the medical profession was hereditary. His father
Nicomachus was court physician to Amyntas II. , the king for whose
benefit the Spartans had put down the Chalcidic league. This early
connection with medicine and with the Macedonian court explains largely
both the predominantly biological cast of Aristotle's philosophical
thought and the intense dislike of "princes" and courts to which he more
than once gives expression. At the age of eighteen, in 367-6, Aristotle
was sent to Athens for "higher" education in philosophy and science, and
entered the famous Platonic Academy, where he remained as a member of
the scientific group gathered round the master for twenty years, until
Plato's death in 347-6. For the three years immediately following
Aristotle was in Asia Minor with his friend and fellow-student Hermeias,
who had become by force of sheer capacity monarch of the city of
Atarneus in the Troad, and was maintaining himself with much energy
against the Persian king. Pythias, the niece of Hermeias, became the
philosopher's wife, and it seems that the marriage was happy.
Examination of Aristotle's contributions to marine biology has shown
that his knowledge of the subject is specially good for the Aeolic coast
and the shores of the adjacent islands. This throws light on his
occupations during his residence with Hermeias, and suggests that Plato
had discerned the bent of his distinguished pupil's mind, and that his
special share in the researches of the Academy had, like that of
Speusippus, Plato's nephew and successor in the headship of the school,
been largely of a biological kind. We also know that, presumably
shortly after Plato's death, Aristotle had been one of the group of
disciples who edited their teacher's unpublished lectures. In 343
Hermeias was assassinated at the instigation of Persia; Aristotle
honoured his memory by a hymn setting forth the godlikeness of virtue as
illustrated by the life of his friend. Aristotle now removed to the
Macedonian court, where he received the position of tutor to the Crown
Prince, afterwards Alexander the Great, at this time (343 B. C. ) a boy of
thirteen. The association of the great philosopher and the great king as
tutor and pupil has naturally struck the imagination of later ages; even
in Plutarch's _Life of Alexander_ we meet already with the full-blown
legend of the influence of Aristotle's philosophical speculations on
Alexander. It is, however, improbable that Aristotle's influence
counted for much in forming the character of Alexander. Aristotle's
dislike of monarchies and their accessories is written large on many a
page of his _Ethics_ and _Politics_; the small self-contained city-state
with no political ambitions for which he reserves his admiration would
have seemed a mere relic of antiquity to Philip and Alexander. The only
piece of contemporary evidence as to the relations between the master
and the pupil is a sentence in a letter to the young Alexander from the
Athenian publicist Isocrates who maliciously congratulates the prince on
his preference for "rhetoric," the art of efficient public speech, and
his indifference to "logic-choppers. " How little sympathy Aristotle can
have had with his pupil's ambitions is shown by the fact that though his
political theories must have been worked out during the very years in
which Alexander was revolutionising Hellenism by the foundation of his
world-empire, they contain no allusion to so momentous a change in the
social order. For all that Aristotle tells us, Alexander might never
have existed, and the small city-state might have been the last word of
Hellenic political development. Hence it is probable that the selection
of Aristotle, who had not yet appeared before the world as an
independent thinker, to take part in the education of the Crown Prince
was due less to personal reputation than to the connection of his family
with the court, taken together with his own position as a pupil of
Plato, whose intervention in the public affairs of Sicily had caused the
Academy to be regarded as the special home of scientific interest in
politics and jurisprudence. It may be true that Alexander found time in
the midst of his conquests to supply his old tutor with zoological
specimens; it is as certain as such a thing can be that the ideals and
characters of the two men were too different to allow of any intimate
influence of either on the other.
When Alexander was suddenly called to the Macedonian throne by the
murder of his father in 336 B. C. , Aristotle's services were no longer
needed; he returned to Athens and gave himself to purely scientific
work. Just at this juncture the presidency of the Academy was vacant by
the death of Speusippus, Aristotle's old associate in biological
research. Possibly Aristotle thought himself injured when the school
passed him over and elected Xenocrates of Chalcedon as its new
president. At any rate, though he appears never to have wholly severed
his connection with the Academy, in 335 he opened a rival institution in
the Lyceum, or gymnasium attached to the temple of Apollo Lyceus, to
which he was followed by some of the most distinguished members of the
Academy. From the fact that his instruction was given in the
_peripatos_ or covered portico of the gymnasium the school has derived
its name of Peripatetic. For the next twelve years he was occupied in
the organisation of the school as an abode for the prosecution of
speculation and research in every department of inquiry, and in the
composition of numerous courses of lectures on scientific and
philosophical questions. The chief difference in general character
between the new school and the Academy is that while the scientific
interests of the Platonists centred in mathematics, the main
contributions of the Lyceum to science lay in the departments of biology
and history.
Towards the end of Alexander's life his attention was unfavourably
directed on his old teacher. A relative of Aristotle named Callisthenes
had attended Alexander in his campaigns as historiographer, and had
provoked disfavour by his censure of the King's attempts to invest his
semi-constitutional position towards his Hellenic subjects with the pomp
of an Oriental despotism. The historian's independence proved fatal.
He was accused of instigating an assassination plot among Alexander's
pages, and hanged, or, as some said, thrown into a prison where he died
before trial. Alexander is reported to have held Aristotle responsible
for his relative's treason, and to have meditated revenge. If this is
so, he was fortunately diverted from the commission of a crime by
preoccupation with the invasion of India.
On the death of Alexander in 323 a brief but vigorous anti-Macedonian
agitation broke out at Athens. Aristotle, from his Macedonian
connections, naturally fell a victim, in spite of his want of sympathy
with the ideals of Philip and Alexander. Like Socrates, he was indicted
on the capital charge of "impiety," the pretext being that his poem on
the death of Hermeias, written twenty years before, was a virtual
deification of his friend. This was, however, only a pretext; the real
offence was political, and lay in his connection with the Macedonian
leader Antipater. As condemnation was certain, the philosopher
anticipated it by withdrawing with his disciples to Chalcis, the mother
city of his native Stagirus. Here he died in the following year, at the
age of sixty-two or sixty-three.
The features of Aristotle, familiar to us from busts and intaglios, are
handsome, but indicate refinement and acuteness rather than originality,
an impression in keeping with what we should expect from a study of his
writings. The anecdotes related of him reveal a kindly, affectionate
character, and show little trace of the self-importance which appears in
his work. His will, which has been preserved, exhibits the same traits
in its references to his happy family life and its solicitous care for
the future of his children and servants. He was twice married, first to
Pythias, and secondly to a certain Herpyllis, by whom he left a son
Nicomachus and a daughter. The "goodness" of Herpyllis to her husband
is specially mentioned in the clauses of the will which make provision
for her, while the warmth of the writer's feelings for Pythias is shown
by the direction that her remains are to be placed in the same tomb with
his own. The list of servants remembered and the bequests enumerated
show the philosopher to have been in easier circumstances than Plato.
*The Works of Aristotle*. --The so-called works of Aristotle present us
with a curious problem. When we turn from Plato to his pupil we seem to
have passed into a different atmosphere. The _Discourses of Socrates_
exhibit a prose style which is perhaps the most marvellous of all
literary achievements. Nowhere else do we meet with quite the same
combination of eloquence, imaginative splendour, incisive logic, and
irresistible wit and humour. The manner of Aristotle is dry and formal.
His language bristles with technicalities, makes little appeal to the
emotions, disdains graces of style, and frequently defies the simplest
rules of composition. Our surprise is all the greater that we find
later writers of antiquity, such as Cicero, commending Aristotle for his
copious and golden eloquence, a characteristic which is conspicuously
wanting in the Aristotelian writings we possess. The explanation of the
puzzle is, however, simple. Plato and Aristotle were at once what we
should call professors and men of letters; both wrote works for general
circulation, and both delivered courses of lectures to special students.
But while Plato's lectures have perished, his books have come down to
us. Aristotle's books have almost wholly been lost, but we possess many
of his lectures. The "works" of Aristotle praised by Cicero for their
eloquence were philosophical dialogues, and formed the model for
Cicero's own compositions in this kind. None of them have survived,
though some passages have been preserved in quotations by later writers.
That the "works" are actually the MSS. of a lecturer posthumously edited
by his pupils seems clear from external as well as from internal
evidence. In one instance we have the advantage of a double recension.
Aristotle's _Ethics_ or _Discourses on Conduct_ have come down to us in
two forms--the so-called _Nicomachean Ethics_, a redaction by the
philosopher's son, Nicomachus, preserving all the characteristics of an
oral course of lectures; and a freer and more readable recast by a
pupil, the mathematician Eudemus, known as the _Eudemian Ethics_. In
recent years we have also recovered from the sands of Egypt what appears
to be our one specimen of a "work" of Aristotle, intended to be read by
the public at large, the essay on the Constitution of Athens. The style
of this essay is easy, flowing, and popular, and shows that Aristotle
could write well and gracefully when he thought fit.
*CHAPTER II*
*THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES: SCIENTIFIC METHOD*
Philosophy, as understood by Aristotle, may be said to be the organised
whole of disinterested knowledge, that is, knowledge which we seek for
the satisfaction which it carries with itself, and not as a mere means
to utilitarian ends. The impulse which receives this satisfaction is
curiosity or wonder, which Aristotle regards as innate in man, though it
does not get full play until civilisation has advanced far enough to
make secure provision for the immediate material needs of life. Human
curiosity was naturally directed first to the outstanding "marvellous
works" of the physical world, the planets, the periodicity of their
movements, the return of the seasons, winds, thunder and lightning, and
the like. Hence the earliest Greek speculation was concerned with
problems of astronomy and meteorology. Then, as reflection developed,
men speculated about geometrical figure, and number, the possibility of
having assured knowledge at all, the character of the common principles
assumed in all branches of study or of the special principles assumed in
some one branch, and thus philosophy has finally become the
disinterested study of every department of Being or Reality. Since
Aristotle, like Hegel, thought that his own doctrine was, in essentials,
the last word of speculation, the complete expression of the principles
by which his predecessors had been unconsciously guided, he believes
himself in a position to make a final classification of the branches of
science, showing how they are related and how they are discriminated
from one another. This classification we have now to consider.
*Classification of the Sciences*. --To begin with, we have to
discriminate Philosophy from two rivals with which it might be
confounded on a superficial view, Dialectic and Sophistry. Dialectic is
the art of reasoning accurately from given premisses, true or false.
This art has its proper uses, and of one of these we shall have to
speak. But in itself it is indifferent to the truth of its premisses.
You may reason dialectically from premisses which you believe to be
false, for the express purpose of showing the absurd conclusions to
which they lead. Or you may reason from premisses which you assume
tentatively to see what conclusions you are committed to if you adopt
them. In either case your object is not directly to secure truth, but
only to secure consistency. Science or Philosophy aims directly at
_truth_, and hence requires to start with true and certain premisses.
Thus the distinction between Science and Dialectic is that Science
reasons from true premisses, Dialectic only from "probable" or
"plausible" premisses. Sophistry differs from Science in virtue of its
moral character. It is the profession of making a living by the abuse
of reasoning, the trick of employing logical skill for the apparent
demonstration of scientific or ethical falsehoods. "The sophist is one
who earns a living from an apparent but unreal wisdom. " (The emphasis
thus falls on the notion of making an "unreal wisdom" into a _trade_.
The sophist's real concern is to get his fee. ) Science or Philosophy is
thus the disinterested employment of the understanding in the discovery
of truth.
We may now distinguish the different branches of science as defined.
The first and most important division to be made is that between
Speculative or Theoretical Science and Practical Science. The broad
distinction is that which we should now draw between the Sciences and
the Arts (_i. e. _ the industrial and technical, not the "fine" arts).
Speculative or Theoretical Philosophy differs from Practical Philosophy
in its purpose, and, in consequence, in its subject-matter, and its
formal logical character. The purpose of the former is the
disinterested contemplation of truths which are what they are
independently of our own volition; its end is to _know_ and only to
_know_. The object of "practical" Science is to know, but not only to
know but also to turn our knowledge to account in devising ways of
successful interference with the course of events. (The real importance
of the distinction comes out in Aristotle's treatment of the problems of
moral and social science. Since we require knowledge of the moral and
social nature of men not merely to satisfy an intellectual interest, but
as a basis for a sound system of education and government, Politics, the
theory of government, and Ethics, the theory of goodness of conduct,
which for Aristotle is only a subordinate branch of Politics, belong to
Practical, not to Theoretical Philosophy, a view which is attended by
important consequences. )
It follows that there is a corresponding difference in the objects
investigated by the two branches of Philosophy. Speculative or
Theoretical Philosophy is concerned with "that which cannot possibly be
other than it is," truths and relations independent of human volition
for their subsistence, and calling simply for _recognition_ on our part.
Practical Philosophy has to do with relations which human volition can
modify, "things which may be other than they are," the contingent.
(Thus _e. g. _ not only politics, but medicine and economics will belong
to Practical Science. )
Hence again arises a logical difference between the conclusions of
Theoretical and those of Practical Philosophy. Those of the former are
universal truths deducible with logical necessity from self-evident[#]
principles. Those of the latter, because they relate to what "can be
otherwise," are never rigidly universal; they are _general_ rules which
hold good "in the majority of cases," but are liable to occasional
exceptions owing to the contingent character of the facts with which
they deal. It is a proof of a philosopher's lack of grounding in logic
that he looks to the results of a practical science (_e. g. _ to the
detailed precepts of medicine or ethics) for a higher degree of
certainty and validity than the nature of the subject-matter allows.
Thus for Aristotle the distinction between the necessary and the
contingent is real and not merely apparent, and "probability is the
guide" in studies which have to do with the direction of life.
[#] Self-evident, that is, in a purely logical sense. When you apprehend
the principles in question, you _see_ at once that they are true, and do
not require to have them _proved_. It is not meant that any and every
man _does_, in point of fact, always apprehend the principles, or that
they can be apprehended without preliminary mental discipline.
We proceed to the question how many subdivisions there are within
"theoretical" Philosophy itself. Plato had held that there are none.
All the sciences are deductions from a single set of ultimate principles
which it is the business of that supreme science to which Plato had
given the name of Dialectic to establish. This is not Aristotle's view.
According to him, "theoretical" Philosophy falls into a number of
distinct though not co-ordinate branches, each with its own special
subjects of investigation and its own special axiomatic principles. Of
these branches there are three, First Philosophy, Mathematics, and
Physics. First Philosophy--afterwards to be known to the Middle Ages as
Metaphysics[#]--treats, to use Aristotle's own expression, of "Being
_qua_ Being. " This means that it is concerned with the universal
characteristics which belong to the system of knowable reality as such,
and the principles of its organisation in their full universality. First
Philosophy alone investigates the character of those causative factors
in the system which are without body or shape and exempt from all
mutability. Since in Aristotle's system God is the supreme Cause of
this kind, First Philosophy culminates in the knowledge of God, and is
hence frequently called Theology. It thus includes an element which
would to-day be assigned to the theory of knowledge, as well as one
which we should ascribe to metaphysics, since it deals at once with the
ultimate postulates of knowledge and the ultimate causes of the order of
real existence.
[#] The origin of this name seems to be that Aristotle's lectures on
First Philosophy came to be studied as a continuation of his course on
Physics. Hence the lectures got the name _Metaphysica_ because they came
_after_ (_meta_) those on Physics. Finally the name was transferred (as
in the case of _Ethics_) from the lectures to the subject of which they
treat.
Mathematics is of narrower scope. What it studies is no longer "real
being as such," but only real being in so far as it exhibits number and
geometrical form. Since Aristotle holds the view that number and figure
only exist as determinations of objects given in perception (though by a
convenient fiction the mathematician treats of them in abstraction from
the perceived objects which they qualify), he marks the difference
between Mathematics and First Philosophy by saying that "whereas the
objects of First Philosophy are separate from matter and devoid of
motion, those of Mathematics, though incapable of motion, have no
separable existence but are inherent in matter. " Physics is concerned
with the study of objects which are both material and capable of motion.
Thus the principle of the distinction is the presence or absence of
initial restrictions of the range of the different branches of Science.
First Philosophy has the widest range, since its contemplation covers
the whole ground of the real and knowable; Physics the narrowest,
because it is confined to a "universe of discourse" restricted by the
double qualification that its members are all material and capable of
displacement. Mathematics holds an intermediate position, since in it,
one of these qualifications is removed, but the other still remains, for
the geometer's figures are boundaries and limits of sensible bodies, and
the arithmetician's numbers properties of collections of concrete
objects. It follows also that the initial axioms or postulates of
Mathematics form a less simple system than those of First Philosophy,
and those of Physics than those of Mathematics. Mathematics requires as
initial assumptions not only those which hold good for _all_ thought,
but certain other special axioms which are only valid and significant
for the realm of figure and number; Physics requires yet further axioms
which are only applicable to "what is in motion. " This is why, though
the three disciplines are treated as distinct, they are not strictly
co-ordinate, and "First Philosophy," though "first," is only _prima
inter pares_.
We thus get the following diagrammatic scheme of the classification of
sciences:--
Science
|
+-----------+------------+
| |
Theoretical Practical
|
+---+---------+-----------+
| | |
First Philosophy Mathe- Physics
or matics
Theology
Practical Philosophy is not subjected by Aristotle to any similar
subdivision. Later students were accustomed to recognise a threefold
division into Ethics (the theory of individual conduct), Economics (the
theory of the management of the household), Politics (the theory of the
management of the State). Aristotle himself does not make these
distinctions. His general name for the theory of conduct is Politics,
the doctrine of individual conduct being for him inseparable from that
of the right ordering of society. Though he composed a separate course
of lectures on individual conduct (the _Ethics_), he takes care to open
the course by stating that the science of which it treats is Politics,
and offers an apology for dealing with the education of individual
character apart from the more general doctrine of the organisation of
society. No special recognition is given in Aristotle's own
classification to the Philosophy of Art. Modern students of Aristotle
have tried to fill in the omission by adding artistic creation to
contemplation and practice as a third fundamental form of mental
activity, and thus making a threefold division of Philosophy into
Theoretical, Practical, and Productive. The object of this is to find a
place in the classification for Aristotle's famous _Poetics_ and his
work on Rhetoric, the art of effective speech and writing. But the
admission of the third division of Science has no warrant in the text of
Aristotle, nor are the _Rhetoric_ and _Poetics_, properly speaking, a
contribution to Philosophy. They are intended as collections of
practical rules for the composition of a pamphlet or a tragedy, not as a
critical examination of the canons of literary taste. This was
correctly seen by the dramatic theorists of the seventeenth century.
They exaggerated the value of Aristotle's directions and entirely
misunderstood the meaning of some of them, but they were right in their
view that the _Poetics_ was meant to be a collection of rules by obeying
which the craftsman might make sure of turning out a successful play.
So far as Aristotle has a Philosophy of Fine Art at all, it forms part
of his more general theory of education and must be looked for in the
general discussion of the aims of education contained in his _Politics_.
*The Methods of Science*. --No place has been assigned in the scheme to
what we call logic and Aristotle called _Analytics_, the theory of
scientific method, or of proof and the estimation of evidence. The
reason is that since the fundamental character of proof is the same in
all science, Aristotle looks upon logic as a study of the methods common
to all science. At a later date it became a hotly debated question
whether logic should be regarded in this way as a study of the methods
instrumental to proof in all sciences, or as itself a special
constituent division of philosophy. The Aristotelian view was concisely
indicated by the name which became attached to the collection of
Aristotle's logical works. They were called the _Organon_, that is, the
"instrument," or the body of rules of method employed by Science. The
thought implied is thus that logic furnishes the _tools_ with which
every science has to work in establishing its results. Our space will
only permit of a brief statement as to the points in which the
Aristotelian formal logic appears to be really original, and the main
peculiarities of Aristotle's theory of knowledge.
(a) *Formal Logic*. --In compass the Aristotelian logic corresponds
roughly with the contents of modern elementary treatises on the same
subject, with the omission of the sections which deal with the so-called
Conditional Syllogism. The inclusion of arguments of this type in
mediaeval and modern expositions of formal logic is principally due to
the Stoics, who preferred to throw their reasoning into these forms and
subjected them to minute scrutiny. In his treatment of the doctrine of
Terms, Aristotle avoids the mistake of treating the isolated name as
though it had significance apart from the enunciations in which it
occurs. He is quite clear on the all-important point that the unit of
thought is the proposition in which something is affirmed or denied, the
one thought-form which can be properly called "true" or "false. " Such
an assertion he analyses into two factors, that about which something is
affirmed or denied (the Subject), and that which is affirmed or denied
of it (the Predicate). Consequently his doctrine of the classification
of Terms is based on a classification of Predicates, or of Propositions
according to the special kind of connection between the Subject and
Predicate which they affirm or deny. Two such classifications, which
cannot be made to fit into one another, meet us in Aristotle's logical
writings, the scheme of the ten "Categories," and that which was
afterwards known in the Middle Ages as the list of "Predicaments" or
"Heads of Predicates," or again as the "Five Words. " The list of
"Categories" reveals itself as an attempt to answer the question in how
many different senses the words "is a" or "are" are employed when we
assert that "_x_ is _y_" or "_x_ is a _y_" or "_x_s are _y_s. " Such a
statement may tell us (1) what _x_ is, as if I say "_x_ is a lion"; the
predicate is then said to fall under the category of Substance; (2) what
_x_ is like, as when I say "_x_ is white, or _x_ is wise,"--the category
of Quality; (3) how much or how many _x_ is, as when I say "_x_ is tall"
or "_x_ is five feet long,"--the category of Quantity; (4) how _x_ is
related to something else, as when I say "_x_ is to the right of _y_,"
"_x_ is the father of _y_,"--the category of Relation. These are the
four chief "categories" discussed by Aristotle. The remainder are (5)
Place, (6) Time, (7) and (8) Condition or State, as when I say "_x_ is
sitting down" or "_x_ has his armour on,"--(the only distinction between
the two cases seems to be that (7) denotes a more permanent state of _x_
than (8)); (9) Action or Activity, as when I say "_x_ is cutting," or
generally "_x_ is doing something to _y_"; (10) Passivity, as when I say
"_x_ is being cut," or more generally, "so-and-so is being done to _x_. "
No attempt is made to show that this list of "figures of predication" is
complete, or to point out any principle which has been followed in its
construction. It also happens that much the same enumeration is
incidentally made in one or two passages of Plato. Hence it is not
unlikely that the list was taken over by Aristotle as one which would be
familiar to pupils who had read their Plato, and therefore convenient
for practical purposes.
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Title: Aristotle
Author: A. E. Taylor
Release Date: January 16, 2015 [EBook #48002]
Language: English
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARISTOTLE ***
Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: Aristotle]
*ARISTOTLE*
BY A. E. TAYLOR, M. A. , D. LITT. , F. B. A.
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
67 LONG ACRE, W. C. , AND EDINBURGH
NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.
*CONTENTS*
CHAP.
I. LIFE AND WORKS
II. THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES: SCIENTIFIC METHOD
III. FIRST PHILOSOPHY
IV. PHYSICS
V. PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
*ARISTOTLE*
*CHAPTER I*
*LIFE AND WORKS*
It has not commonly been the lot of philosophers, as it is of great
poets, that their names should become household words. We should hardly
call an Englishman well read if he had not heard the name of Sophocles
or Moliere. An educated man is expected to know at least who these
great writers were, and to understand an allusion to the _Antigone_ or
_Le Misanthrope_. But we call a man well read if his mind is stored with
the verse of poets and the prose of historians, even though he were
ignorant of the name of Descartes or Kant. Yet there are a few
philosophers whose influence on thought and language has been so
extensive that no one who reads can be ignorant of their names, and that
every man who speaks the language of educated Europeans is constantly
using their vocabulary. Among this few Aristotle holds not the lowest
place. We have all heard of him, as we have all heard of Homer. He has
left his impress so firmly on theology that many of the formulae of the
Churches are unintelligible without acquaintance with his conception of
the universe. If we are interested in the growth of modern science we
shall readily discover for ourselves that some knowledge of
Aristotelianism is necessary for the understanding of Bacon and Galileo
and the other great anti-Aristotelians who created the "modern
scientific" view of Nature. If we turn to the imaginative literature of
the modern languages, Dante is a sealed book, and many a passage of
Chaucer and Shakespeare and Milton is half unmeaning to us unless we are
at home in the outlines of Aristotle's philosophy. And if we turn to
ordinary language, we find that many of the familiar turns of modern
speech cannot be fully understood without a knowledge of the doctrines
they were first forged to express. An Englishman who speaks of the
"golden mean" or of "liberal education," or contrasts the "matter" of a
work of literature with its "form," or the "essential" features of a
situation or a scheme of policy with its "accidents," or "theory" with
"practice," is using words which derive their significance from the part
they play in the vocabulary of Aristotle. The unambitious object of
this little book is, then, to help the English reader to a better
understanding of such familiar language and a fuller comprehension of
much that he will find in Dante and Shakespeare and Bacon.
*Life of Aristotle. *--The main facts of Aristotle's life may be briefly
told. He was born in 385-4 B. C. at Stagirus, a little city of the
Chalcidic peninsula, still called, almost by its ancient name, Chalcis,
and died at the age of sixty-two at Chalcis in Euboea. Thus he is a
contemporary of Demosthenes, his manhood witnessed the struggle which
ended in the establishment of the Macedonian monarchy as the dominant
power in Hellas, and his later years the campaigns in which his pupil
Alexander the Great overthrew the Persian Empire and carried Greek
civilisation to the banks of the Jumna. In studying the constitutional
theories of Aristotle, it is necessary to bear these facts in mind.
They help to explain certain limitations of outlook which might
otherwise appear strange in so great a man. It throws a great deal of
light on the philosopher's intense conviction of the natural inferiority
of the "barbarian" intellect and character to remember that he grew up
in an outlying region where the "barbarian" was seen to disadvantage in
the ordinary course of life. Hence the distinction between Greek and
"barbarian" came to mean for him much what the "colour-line" does to an
American brought up in a Southern State. So, again, when we are struck
by his "provincialism," his apparent satisfaction with the ideal of a
small self-contained city-state with a decently oligarchical government,
a good system of public education, and no "social problems," but devoid
alike of great traditions and far-reaching ambitions, we must remember
that the philosopher himself belonged to just such a tiny community
without a past and without a future. The Chalcidic cities had been first
founded, as the name of the peninsula implies, as colonies from the town
of Chalcis in Euboea; Corinth had also been prominent in establishing
settlements in the same region. At the height of Athenian Imperial
prosperity in the age of Pericles the district had fallen politically
under Athenian control, but had been detached again from Athens, in the
last years of the Archidamian war, by the genius of the great Spartan
soldier and diplomat Brasidas. Early in the fourth century the Chalcidic
cities had attempted to form themselves into an independent federation,
but the movement had been put down by Sparta, and the cities had fallen
under the control of the rising Macedonian monarchy, when Aristotle was
a baby. A generation later, a double intrigue of the cities with Philip
of Macedon and Athens failed of its effect, and the peninsula was
finally incorporated with the Macedonian kingdom. It is also important
to note that the philosopher belonged by birth to a guild, the
Asclepiadae, in which the medical profession was hereditary. His father
Nicomachus was court physician to Amyntas II. , the king for whose
benefit the Spartans had put down the Chalcidic league. This early
connection with medicine and with the Macedonian court explains largely
both the predominantly biological cast of Aristotle's philosophical
thought and the intense dislike of "princes" and courts to which he more
than once gives expression. At the age of eighteen, in 367-6, Aristotle
was sent to Athens for "higher" education in philosophy and science, and
entered the famous Platonic Academy, where he remained as a member of
the scientific group gathered round the master for twenty years, until
Plato's death in 347-6. For the three years immediately following
Aristotle was in Asia Minor with his friend and fellow-student Hermeias,
who had become by force of sheer capacity monarch of the city of
Atarneus in the Troad, and was maintaining himself with much energy
against the Persian king. Pythias, the niece of Hermeias, became the
philosopher's wife, and it seems that the marriage was happy.
Examination of Aristotle's contributions to marine biology has shown
that his knowledge of the subject is specially good for the Aeolic coast
and the shores of the adjacent islands. This throws light on his
occupations during his residence with Hermeias, and suggests that Plato
had discerned the bent of his distinguished pupil's mind, and that his
special share in the researches of the Academy had, like that of
Speusippus, Plato's nephew and successor in the headship of the school,
been largely of a biological kind. We also know that, presumably
shortly after Plato's death, Aristotle had been one of the group of
disciples who edited their teacher's unpublished lectures. In 343
Hermeias was assassinated at the instigation of Persia; Aristotle
honoured his memory by a hymn setting forth the godlikeness of virtue as
illustrated by the life of his friend. Aristotle now removed to the
Macedonian court, where he received the position of tutor to the Crown
Prince, afterwards Alexander the Great, at this time (343 B. C. ) a boy of
thirteen. The association of the great philosopher and the great king as
tutor and pupil has naturally struck the imagination of later ages; even
in Plutarch's _Life of Alexander_ we meet already with the full-blown
legend of the influence of Aristotle's philosophical speculations on
Alexander. It is, however, improbable that Aristotle's influence
counted for much in forming the character of Alexander. Aristotle's
dislike of monarchies and their accessories is written large on many a
page of his _Ethics_ and _Politics_; the small self-contained city-state
with no political ambitions for which he reserves his admiration would
have seemed a mere relic of antiquity to Philip and Alexander. The only
piece of contemporary evidence as to the relations between the master
and the pupil is a sentence in a letter to the young Alexander from the
Athenian publicist Isocrates who maliciously congratulates the prince on
his preference for "rhetoric," the art of efficient public speech, and
his indifference to "logic-choppers. " How little sympathy Aristotle can
have had with his pupil's ambitions is shown by the fact that though his
political theories must have been worked out during the very years in
which Alexander was revolutionising Hellenism by the foundation of his
world-empire, they contain no allusion to so momentous a change in the
social order. For all that Aristotle tells us, Alexander might never
have existed, and the small city-state might have been the last word of
Hellenic political development. Hence it is probable that the selection
of Aristotle, who had not yet appeared before the world as an
independent thinker, to take part in the education of the Crown Prince
was due less to personal reputation than to the connection of his family
with the court, taken together with his own position as a pupil of
Plato, whose intervention in the public affairs of Sicily had caused the
Academy to be regarded as the special home of scientific interest in
politics and jurisprudence. It may be true that Alexander found time in
the midst of his conquests to supply his old tutor with zoological
specimens; it is as certain as such a thing can be that the ideals and
characters of the two men were too different to allow of any intimate
influence of either on the other.
When Alexander was suddenly called to the Macedonian throne by the
murder of his father in 336 B. C. , Aristotle's services were no longer
needed; he returned to Athens and gave himself to purely scientific
work. Just at this juncture the presidency of the Academy was vacant by
the death of Speusippus, Aristotle's old associate in biological
research. Possibly Aristotle thought himself injured when the school
passed him over and elected Xenocrates of Chalcedon as its new
president. At any rate, though he appears never to have wholly severed
his connection with the Academy, in 335 he opened a rival institution in
the Lyceum, or gymnasium attached to the temple of Apollo Lyceus, to
which he was followed by some of the most distinguished members of the
Academy. From the fact that his instruction was given in the
_peripatos_ or covered portico of the gymnasium the school has derived
its name of Peripatetic. For the next twelve years he was occupied in
the organisation of the school as an abode for the prosecution of
speculation and research in every department of inquiry, and in the
composition of numerous courses of lectures on scientific and
philosophical questions. The chief difference in general character
between the new school and the Academy is that while the scientific
interests of the Platonists centred in mathematics, the main
contributions of the Lyceum to science lay in the departments of biology
and history.
Towards the end of Alexander's life his attention was unfavourably
directed on his old teacher. A relative of Aristotle named Callisthenes
had attended Alexander in his campaigns as historiographer, and had
provoked disfavour by his censure of the King's attempts to invest his
semi-constitutional position towards his Hellenic subjects with the pomp
of an Oriental despotism. The historian's independence proved fatal.
He was accused of instigating an assassination plot among Alexander's
pages, and hanged, or, as some said, thrown into a prison where he died
before trial. Alexander is reported to have held Aristotle responsible
for his relative's treason, and to have meditated revenge. If this is
so, he was fortunately diverted from the commission of a crime by
preoccupation with the invasion of India.
On the death of Alexander in 323 a brief but vigorous anti-Macedonian
agitation broke out at Athens. Aristotle, from his Macedonian
connections, naturally fell a victim, in spite of his want of sympathy
with the ideals of Philip and Alexander. Like Socrates, he was indicted
on the capital charge of "impiety," the pretext being that his poem on
the death of Hermeias, written twenty years before, was a virtual
deification of his friend. This was, however, only a pretext; the real
offence was political, and lay in his connection with the Macedonian
leader Antipater. As condemnation was certain, the philosopher
anticipated it by withdrawing with his disciples to Chalcis, the mother
city of his native Stagirus. Here he died in the following year, at the
age of sixty-two or sixty-three.
The features of Aristotle, familiar to us from busts and intaglios, are
handsome, but indicate refinement and acuteness rather than originality,
an impression in keeping with what we should expect from a study of his
writings. The anecdotes related of him reveal a kindly, affectionate
character, and show little trace of the self-importance which appears in
his work. His will, which has been preserved, exhibits the same traits
in its references to his happy family life and its solicitous care for
the future of his children and servants. He was twice married, first to
Pythias, and secondly to a certain Herpyllis, by whom he left a son
Nicomachus and a daughter. The "goodness" of Herpyllis to her husband
is specially mentioned in the clauses of the will which make provision
for her, while the warmth of the writer's feelings for Pythias is shown
by the direction that her remains are to be placed in the same tomb with
his own. The list of servants remembered and the bequests enumerated
show the philosopher to have been in easier circumstances than Plato.
*The Works of Aristotle*. --The so-called works of Aristotle present us
with a curious problem. When we turn from Plato to his pupil we seem to
have passed into a different atmosphere. The _Discourses of Socrates_
exhibit a prose style which is perhaps the most marvellous of all
literary achievements. Nowhere else do we meet with quite the same
combination of eloquence, imaginative splendour, incisive logic, and
irresistible wit and humour. The manner of Aristotle is dry and formal.
His language bristles with technicalities, makes little appeal to the
emotions, disdains graces of style, and frequently defies the simplest
rules of composition. Our surprise is all the greater that we find
later writers of antiquity, such as Cicero, commending Aristotle for his
copious and golden eloquence, a characteristic which is conspicuously
wanting in the Aristotelian writings we possess. The explanation of the
puzzle is, however, simple. Plato and Aristotle were at once what we
should call professors and men of letters; both wrote works for general
circulation, and both delivered courses of lectures to special students.
But while Plato's lectures have perished, his books have come down to
us. Aristotle's books have almost wholly been lost, but we possess many
of his lectures. The "works" of Aristotle praised by Cicero for their
eloquence were philosophical dialogues, and formed the model for
Cicero's own compositions in this kind. None of them have survived,
though some passages have been preserved in quotations by later writers.
That the "works" are actually the MSS. of a lecturer posthumously edited
by his pupils seems clear from external as well as from internal
evidence. In one instance we have the advantage of a double recension.
Aristotle's _Ethics_ or _Discourses on Conduct_ have come down to us in
two forms--the so-called _Nicomachean Ethics_, a redaction by the
philosopher's son, Nicomachus, preserving all the characteristics of an
oral course of lectures; and a freer and more readable recast by a
pupil, the mathematician Eudemus, known as the _Eudemian Ethics_. In
recent years we have also recovered from the sands of Egypt what appears
to be our one specimen of a "work" of Aristotle, intended to be read by
the public at large, the essay on the Constitution of Athens. The style
of this essay is easy, flowing, and popular, and shows that Aristotle
could write well and gracefully when he thought fit.
*CHAPTER II*
*THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES: SCIENTIFIC METHOD*
Philosophy, as understood by Aristotle, may be said to be the organised
whole of disinterested knowledge, that is, knowledge which we seek for
the satisfaction which it carries with itself, and not as a mere means
to utilitarian ends. The impulse which receives this satisfaction is
curiosity or wonder, which Aristotle regards as innate in man, though it
does not get full play until civilisation has advanced far enough to
make secure provision for the immediate material needs of life. Human
curiosity was naturally directed first to the outstanding "marvellous
works" of the physical world, the planets, the periodicity of their
movements, the return of the seasons, winds, thunder and lightning, and
the like. Hence the earliest Greek speculation was concerned with
problems of astronomy and meteorology. Then, as reflection developed,
men speculated about geometrical figure, and number, the possibility of
having assured knowledge at all, the character of the common principles
assumed in all branches of study or of the special principles assumed in
some one branch, and thus philosophy has finally become the
disinterested study of every department of Being or Reality. Since
Aristotle, like Hegel, thought that his own doctrine was, in essentials,
the last word of speculation, the complete expression of the principles
by which his predecessors had been unconsciously guided, he believes
himself in a position to make a final classification of the branches of
science, showing how they are related and how they are discriminated
from one another. This classification we have now to consider.
*Classification of the Sciences*. --To begin with, we have to
discriminate Philosophy from two rivals with which it might be
confounded on a superficial view, Dialectic and Sophistry. Dialectic is
the art of reasoning accurately from given premisses, true or false.
This art has its proper uses, and of one of these we shall have to
speak. But in itself it is indifferent to the truth of its premisses.
You may reason dialectically from premisses which you believe to be
false, for the express purpose of showing the absurd conclusions to
which they lead. Or you may reason from premisses which you assume
tentatively to see what conclusions you are committed to if you adopt
them. In either case your object is not directly to secure truth, but
only to secure consistency. Science or Philosophy aims directly at
_truth_, and hence requires to start with true and certain premisses.
Thus the distinction between Science and Dialectic is that Science
reasons from true premisses, Dialectic only from "probable" or
"plausible" premisses. Sophistry differs from Science in virtue of its
moral character. It is the profession of making a living by the abuse
of reasoning, the trick of employing logical skill for the apparent
demonstration of scientific or ethical falsehoods. "The sophist is one
who earns a living from an apparent but unreal wisdom. " (The emphasis
thus falls on the notion of making an "unreal wisdom" into a _trade_.
The sophist's real concern is to get his fee. ) Science or Philosophy is
thus the disinterested employment of the understanding in the discovery
of truth.
We may now distinguish the different branches of science as defined.
The first and most important division to be made is that between
Speculative or Theoretical Science and Practical Science. The broad
distinction is that which we should now draw between the Sciences and
the Arts (_i. e. _ the industrial and technical, not the "fine" arts).
Speculative or Theoretical Philosophy differs from Practical Philosophy
in its purpose, and, in consequence, in its subject-matter, and its
formal logical character. The purpose of the former is the
disinterested contemplation of truths which are what they are
independently of our own volition; its end is to _know_ and only to
_know_. The object of "practical" Science is to know, but not only to
know but also to turn our knowledge to account in devising ways of
successful interference with the course of events. (The real importance
of the distinction comes out in Aristotle's treatment of the problems of
moral and social science. Since we require knowledge of the moral and
social nature of men not merely to satisfy an intellectual interest, but
as a basis for a sound system of education and government, Politics, the
theory of government, and Ethics, the theory of goodness of conduct,
which for Aristotle is only a subordinate branch of Politics, belong to
Practical, not to Theoretical Philosophy, a view which is attended by
important consequences. )
It follows that there is a corresponding difference in the objects
investigated by the two branches of Philosophy. Speculative or
Theoretical Philosophy is concerned with "that which cannot possibly be
other than it is," truths and relations independent of human volition
for their subsistence, and calling simply for _recognition_ on our part.
Practical Philosophy has to do with relations which human volition can
modify, "things which may be other than they are," the contingent.
(Thus _e. g. _ not only politics, but medicine and economics will belong
to Practical Science. )
Hence again arises a logical difference between the conclusions of
Theoretical and those of Practical Philosophy. Those of the former are
universal truths deducible with logical necessity from self-evident[#]
principles. Those of the latter, because they relate to what "can be
otherwise," are never rigidly universal; they are _general_ rules which
hold good "in the majority of cases," but are liable to occasional
exceptions owing to the contingent character of the facts with which
they deal. It is a proof of a philosopher's lack of grounding in logic
that he looks to the results of a practical science (_e. g. _ to the
detailed precepts of medicine or ethics) for a higher degree of
certainty and validity than the nature of the subject-matter allows.
Thus for Aristotle the distinction between the necessary and the
contingent is real and not merely apparent, and "probability is the
guide" in studies which have to do with the direction of life.
[#] Self-evident, that is, in a purely logical sense. When you apprehend
the principles in question, you _see_ at once that they are true, and do
not require to have them _proved_. It is not meant that any and every
man _does_, in point of fact, always apprehend the principles, or that
they can be apprehended without preliminary mental discipline.
We proceed to the question how many subdivisions there are within
"theoretical" Philosophy itself. Plato had held that there are none.
All the sciences are deductions from a single set of ultimate principles
which it is the business of that supreme science to which Plato had
given the name of Dialectic to establish. This is not Aristotle's view.
According to him, "theoretical" Philosophy falls into a number of
distinct though not co-ordinate branches, each with its own special
subjects of investigation and its own special axiomatic principles. Of
these branches there are three, First Philosophy, Mathematics, and
Physics. First Philosophy--afterwards to be known to the Middle Ages as
Metaphysics[#]--treats, to use Aristotle's own expression, of "Being
_qua_ Being. " This means that it is concerned with the universal
characteristics which belong to the system of knowable reality as such,
and the principles of its organisation in their full universality. First
Philosophy alone investigates the character of those causative factors
in the system which are without body or shape and exempt from all
mutability. Since in Aristotle's system God is the supreme Cause of
this kind, First Philosophy culminates in the knowledge of God, and is
hence frequently called Theology. It thus includes an element which
would to-day be assigned to the theory of knowledge, as well as one
which we should ascribe to metaphysics, since it deals at once with the
ultimate postulates of knowledge and the ultimate causes of the order of
real existence.
[#] The origin of this name seems to be that Aristotle's lectures on
First Philosophy came to be studied as a continuation of his course on
Physics. Hence the lectures got the name _Metaphysica_ because they came
_after_ (_meta_) those on Physics. Finally the name was transferred (as
in the case of _Ethics_) from the lectures to the subject of which they
treat.
Mathematics is of narrower scope. What it studies is no longer "real
being as such," but only real being in so far as it exhibits number and
geometrical form. Since Aristotle holds the view that number and figure
only exist as determinations of objects given in perception (though by a
convenient fiction the mathematician treats of them in abstraction from
the perceived objects which they qualify), he marks the difference
between Mathematics and First Philosophy by saying that "whereas the
objects of First Philosophy are separate from matter and devoid of
motion, those of Mathematics, though incapable of motion, have no
separable existence but are inherent in matter. " Physics is concerned
with the study of objects which are both material and capable of motion.
Thus the principle of the distinction is the presence or absence of
initial restrictions of the range of the different branches of Science.
First Philosophy has the widest range, since its contemplation covers
the whole ground of the real and knowable; Physics the narrowest,
because it is confined to a "universe of discourse" restricted by the
double qualification that its members are all material and capable of
displacement. Mathematics holds an intermediate position, since in it,
one of these qualifications is removed, but the other still remains, for
the geometer's figures are boundaries and limits of sensible bodies, and
the arithmetician's numbers properties of collections of concrete
objects. It follows also that the initial axioms or postulates of
Mathematics form a less simple system than those of First Philosophy,
and those of Physics than those of Mathematics. Mathematics requires as
initial assumptions not only those which hold good for _all_ thought,
but certain other special axioms which are only valid and significant
for the realm of figure and number; Physics requires yet further axioms
which are only applicable to "what is in motion.
Among this few Aristotle holds not the lowest
place. We have all heard of him, as we have all heard of Homer. He has
left his impress so firmly on theology that many of the formulae of the
Churches are unintelligible without acquaintance with his conception of
the universe. If we are interested in the growth of modern science we
shall readily discover for ourselves that some knowledge of
Aristotelianism is necessary for the understanding of Bacon and Galileo
and the other great anti-Aristotelians who created the "modern
scientific" view of Nature. If we turn to the imaginative literature of
the modern languages, Dante is a sealed book, and many a passage of
Chaucer and Shakespeare and Milton is half unmeaning to us unless we are
at home in the outlines of Aristotle's philosophy. And if we turn to
ordinary language, we find that many of the familiar turns of modern
speech cannot be fully understood without a knowledge of the doctrines
they were first forged to express. An Englishman who speaks of the
"golden mean" or of "liberal education," or contrasts the "matter" of a
work of literature with its "form," or the "essential" features of a
situation or a scheme of policy with its "accidents," or "theory" with
"practice," is using words which derive their significance from the part
they play in the vocabulary of Aristotle. The unambitious object of
this little book is, then, to help the English reader to a better
understanding of such familiar language and a fuller comprehension of
much that he will find in Dante and Shakespeare and Bacon.
*Life of Aristotle. *--The main facts of Aristotle's life may be briefly
told. He was born in 385-4 B. C. at Stagirus, a little city of the
Chalcidic peninsula, still called, almost by its ancient name, Chalcis,
and died at the age of sixty-two at Chalcis in Euboea. Thus he is a
contemporary of Demosthenes, his manhood witnessed the struggle which
ended in the establishment of the Macedonian monarchy as the dominant
power in Hellas, and his later years the campaigns in which his pupil
Alexander the Great overthrew the Persian Empire and carried Greek
civilisation to the banks of the Jumna. In studying the constitutional
theories of Aristotle, it is necessary to bear these facts in mind.
They help to explain certain limitations of outlook which might
otherwise appear strange in so great a man. It throws a great deal of
light on the philosopher's intense conviction of the natural inferiority
of the "barbarian" intellect and character to remember that he grew up
in an outlying region where the "barbarian" was seen to disadvantage in
the ordinary course of life. Hence the distinction between Greek and
"barbarian" came to mean for him much what the "colour-line" does to an
American brought up in a Southern State. So, again, when we are struck
by his "provincialism," his apparent satisfaction with the ideal of a
small self-contained city-state with a decently oligarchical government,
a good system of public education, and no "social problems," but devoid
alike of great traditions and far-reaching ambitions, we must remember
that the philosopher himself belonged to just such a tiny community
without a past and without a future. The Chalcidic cities had been first
founded, as the name of the peninsula implies, as colonies from the town
of Chalcis in Euboea; Corinth had also been prominent in establishing
settlements in the same region. At the height of Athenian Imperial
prosperity in the age of Pericles the district had fallen politically
under Athenian control, but had been detached again from Athens, in the
last years of the Archidamian war, by the genius of the great Spartan
soldier and diplomat Brasidas. Early in the fourth century the Chalcidic
cities had attempted to form themselves into an independent federation,
but the movement had been put down by Sparta, and the cities had fallen
under the control of the rising Macedonian monarchy, when Aristotle was
a baby. A generation later, a double intrigue of the cities with Philip
of Macedon and Athens failed of its effect, and the peninsula was
finally incorporated with the Macedonian kingdom. It is also important
to note that the philosopher belonged by birth to a guild, the
Asclepiadae, in which the medical profession was hereditary. His father
Nicomachus was court physician to Amyntas II. , the king for whose
benefit the Spartans had put down the Chalcidic league. This early
connection with medicine and with the Macedonian court explains largely
both the predominantly biological cast of Aristotle's philosophical
thought and the intense dislike of "princes" and courts to which he more
than once gives expression. At the age of eighteen, in 367-6, Aristotle
was sent to Athens for "higher" education in philosophy and science, and
entered the famous Platonic Academy, where he remained as a member of
the scientific group gathered round the master for twenty years, until
Plato's death in 347-6. For the three years immediately following
Aristotle was in Asia Minor with his friend and fellow-student Hermeias,
who had become by force of sheer capacity monarch of the city of
Atarneus in the Troad, and was maintaining himself with much energy
against the Persian king. Pythias, the niece of Hermeias, became the
philosopher's wife, and it seems that the marriage was happy.
Examination of Aristotle's contributions to marine biology has shown
that his knowledge of the subject is specially good for the Aeolic coast
and the shores of the adjacent islands. This throws light on his
occupations during his residence with Hermeias, and suggests that Plato
had discerned the bent of his distinguished pupil's mind, and that his
special share in the researches of the Academy had, like that of
Speusippus, Plato's nephew and successor in the headship of the school,
been largely of a biological kind. We also know that, presumably
shortly after Plato's death, Aristotle had been one of the group of
disciples who edited their teacher's unpublished lectures. In 343
Hermeias was assassinated at the instigation of Persia; Aristotle
honoured his memory by a hymn setting forth the godlikeness of virtue as
illustrated by the life of his friend. Aristotle now removed to the
Macedonian court, where he received the position of tutor to the Crown
Prince, afterwards Alexander the Great, at this time (343 B. C. ) a boy of
thirteen. The association of the great philosopher and the great king as
tutor and pupil has naturally struck the imagination of later ages; even
in Plutarch's _Life of Alexander_ we meet already with the full-blown
legend of the influence of Aristotle's philosophical speculations on
Alexander. It is, however, improbable that Aristotle's influence
counted for much in forming the character of Alexander. Aristotle's
dislike of monarchies and their accessories is written large on many a
page of his _Ethics_ and _Politics_; the small self-contained city-state
with no political ambitions for which he reserves his admiration would
have seemed a mere relic of antiquity to Philip and Alexander. The only
piece of contemporary evidence as to the relations between the master
and the pupil is a sentence in a letter to the young Alexander from the
Athenian publicist Isocrates who maliciously congratulates the prince on
his preference for "rhetoric," the art of efficient public speech, and
his indifference to "logic-choppers. " How little sympathy Aristotle can
have had with his pupil's ambitions is shown by the fact that though his
political theories must have been worked out during the very years in
which Alexander was revolutionising Hellenism by the foundation of his
world-empire, they contain no allusion to so momentous a change in the
social order. For all that Aristotle tells us, Alexander might never
have existed, and the small city-state might have been the last word of
Hellenic political development. Hence it is probable that the selection
of Aristotle, who had not yet appeared before the world as an
independent thinker, to take part in the education of the Crown Prince
was due less to personal reputation than to the connection of his family
with the court, taken together with his own position as a pupil of
Plato, whose intervention in the public affairs of Sicily had caused the
Academy to be regarded as the special home of scientific interest in
politics and jurisprudence. It may be true that Alexander found time in
the midst of his conquests to supply his old tutor with zoological
specimens; it is as certain as such a thing can be that the ideals and
characters of the two men were too different to allow of any intimate
influence of either on the other.
When Alexander was suddenly called to the Macedonian throne by the
murder of his father in 336 B. C. , Aristotle's services were no longer
needed; he returned to Athens and gave himself to purely scientific
work. Just at this juncture the presidency of the Academy was vacant by
the death of Speusippus, Aristotle's old associate in biological
research. Possibly Aristotle thought himself injured when the school
passed him over and elected Xenocrates of Chalcedon as its new
president. At any rate, though he appears never to have wholly severed
his connection with the Academy, in 335 he opened a rival institution in
the Lyceum, or gymnasium attached to the temple of Apollo Lyceus, to
which he was followed by some of the most distinguished members of the
Academy. From the fact that his instruction was given in the
_peripatos_ or covered portico of the gymnasium the school has derived
its name of Peripatetic. For the next twelve years he was occupied in
the organisation of the school as an abode for the prosecution of
speculation and research in every department of inquiry, and in the
composition of numerous courses of lectures on scientific and
philosophical questions. The chief difference in general character
between the new school and the Academy is that while the scientific
interests of the Platonists centred in mathematics, the main
contributions of the Lyceum to science lay in the departments of biology
and history.
Towards the end of Alexander's life his attention was unfavourably
directed on his old teacher. A relative of Aristotle named Callisthenes
had attended Alexander in his campaigns as historiographer, and had
provoked disfavour by his censure of the King's attempts to invest his
semi-constitutional position towards his Hellenic subjects with the pomp
of an Oriental despotism. The historian's independence proved fatal.
He was accused of instigating an assassination plot among Alexander's
pages, and hanged, or, as some said, thrown into a prison where he died
before trial. Alexander is reported to have held Aristotle responsible
for his relative's treason, and to have meditated revenge. If this is
so, he was fortunately diverted from the commission of a crime by
preoccupation with the invasion of India.
On the death of Alexander in 323 a brief but vigorous anti-Macedonian
agitation broke out at Athens. Aristotle, from his Macedonian
connections, naturally fell a victim, in spite of his want of sympathy
with the ideals of Philip and Alexander. Like Socrates, he was indicted
on the capital charge of "impiety," the pretext being that his poem on
the death of Hermeias, written twenty years before, was a virtual
deification of his friend. This was, however, only a pretext; the real
offence was political, and lay in his connection with the Macedonian
leader Antipater. As condemnation was certain, the philosopher
anticipated it by withdrawing with his disciples to Chalcis, the mother
city of his native Stagirus. Here he died in the following year, at the
age of sixty-two or sixty-three.
The features of Aristotle, familiar to us from busts and intaglios, are
handsome, but indicate refinement and acuteness rather than originality,
an impression in keeping with what we should expect from a study of his
writings. The anecdotes related of him reveal a kindly, affectionate
character, and show little trace of the self-importance which appears in
his work. His will, which has been preserved, exhibits the same traits
in its references to his happy family life and its solicitous care for
the future of his children and servants. He was twice married, first to
Pythias, and secondly to a certain Herpyllis, by whom he left a son
Nicomachus and a daughter. The "goodness" of Herpyllis to her husband
is specially mentioned in the clauses of the will which make provision
for her, while the warmth of the writer's feelings for Pythias is shown
by the direction that her remains are to be placed in the same tomb with
his own. The list of servants remembered and the bequests enumerated
show the philosopher to have been in easier circumstances than Plato.
*The Works of Aristotle*. --The so-called works of Aristotle present us
with a curious problem. When we turn from Plato to his pupil we seem to
have passed into a different atmosphere. The _Discourses of Socrates_
exhibit a prose style which is perhaps the most marvellous of all
literary achievements. Nowhere else do we meet with quite the same
combination of eloquence, imaginative splendour, incisive logic, and
irresistible wit and humour. The manner of Aristotle is dry and formal.
His language bristles with technicalities, makes little appeal to the
emotions, disdains graces of style, and frequently defies the simplest
rules of composition. Our surprise is all the greater that we find
later writers of antiquity, such as Cicero, commending Aristotle for his
copious and golden eloquence, a characteristic which is conspicuously
wanting in the Aristotelian writings we possess. The explanation of the
puzzle is, however, simple. Plato and Aristotle were at once what we
should call professors and men of letters; both wrote works for general
circulation, and both delivered courses of lectures to special students.
But while Plato's lectures have perished, his books have come down to
us. Aristotle's books have almost wholly been lost, but we possess many
of his lectures. The "works" of Aristotle praised by Cicero for their
eloquence were philosophical dialogues, and formed the model for
Cicero's own compositions in this kind. None of them have survived,
though some passages have been preserved in quotations by later writers.
That the "works" are actually the MSS. of a lecturer posthumously edited
by his pupils seems clear from external as well as from internal
evidence. In one instance we have the advantage of a double recension.
Aristotle's _Ethics_ or _Discourses on Conduct_ have come down to us in
two forms--the so-called _Nicomachean Ethics_, a redaction by the
philosopher's son, Nicomachus, preserving all the characteristics of an
oral course of lectures; and a freer and more readable recast by a
pupil, the mathematician Eudemus, known as the _Eudemian Ethics_. In
recent years we have also recovered from the sands of Egypt what appears
to be our one specimen of a "work" of Aristotle, intended to be read by
the public at large, the essay on the Constitution of Athens. The style
of this essay is easy, flowing, and popular, and shows that Aristotle
could write well and gracefully when he thought fit.
*CHAPTER II*
*THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES: SCIENTIFIC METHOD*
Philosophy, as understood by Aristotle, may be said to be the organised
whole of disinterested knowledge, that is, knowledge which we seek for
the satisfaction which it carries with itself, and not as a mere means
to utilitarian ends. The impulse which receives this satisfaction is
curiosity or wonder, which Aristotle regards as innate in man, though it
does not get full play until civilisation has advanced far enough to
make secure provision for the immediate material needs of life. Human
curiosity was naturally directed first to the outstanding "marvellous
works" of the physical world, the planets, the periodicity of their
movements, the return of the seasons, winds, thunder and lightning, and
the like. Hence the earliest Greek speculation was concerned with
problems of astronomy and meteorology. Then, as reflection developed,
men speculated about geometrical figure, and number, the possibility of
having assured knowledge at all, the character of the common principles
assumed in all branches of study or of the special principles assumed in
some one branch, and thus philosophy has finally become the
disinterested study of every department of Being or Reality. Since
Aristotle, like Hegel, thought that his own doctrine was, in essentials,
the last word of speculation, the complete expression of the principles
by which his predecessors had been unconsciously guided, he believes
himself in a position to make a final classification of the branches of
science, showing how they are related and how they are discriminated
from one another. This classification we have now to consider.
*Classification of the Sciences*. --To begin with, we have to
discriminate Philosophy from two rivals with which it might be
confounded on a superficial view, Dialectic and Sophistry. Dialectic is
the art of reasoning accurately from given premisses, true or false.
This art has its proper uses, and of one of these we shall have to
speak. But in itself it is indifferent to the truth of its premisses.
You may reason dialectically from premisses which you believe to be
false, for the express purpose of showing the absurd conclusions to
which they lead. Or you may reason from premisses which you assume
tentatively to see what conclusions you are committed to if you adopt
them. In either case your object is not directly to secure truth, but
only to secure consistency. Science or Philosophy aims directly at
_truth_, and hence requires to start with true and certain premisses.
Thus the distinction between Science and Dialectic is that Science
reasons from true premisses, Dialectic only from "probable" or
"plausible" premisses. Sophistry differs from Science in virtue of its
moral character. It is the profession of making a living by the abuse
of reasoning, the trick of employing logical skill for the apparent
demonstration of scientific or ethical falsehoods. "The sophist is one
who earns a living from an apparent but unreal wisdom. " (The emphasis
thus falls on the notion of making an "unreal wisdom" into a _trade_.
The sophist's real concern is to get his fee. ) Science or Philosophy is
thus the disinterested employment of the understanding in the discovery
of truth.
We may now distinguish the different branches of science as defined.
The first and most important division to be made is that between
Speculative or Theoretical Science and Practical Science. The broad
distinction is that which we should now draw between the Sciences and
the Arts (_i. e. _ the industrial and technical, not the "fine" arts).
Speculative or Theoretical Philosophy differs from Practical Philosophy
in its purpose, and, in consequence, in its subject-matter, and its
formal logical character. The purpose of the former is the
disinterested contemplation of truths which are what they are
independently of our own volition; its end is to _know_ and only to
_know_. The object of "practical" Science is to know, but not only to
know but also to turn our knowledge to account in devising ways of
successful interference with the course of events. (The real importance
of the distinction comes out in Aristotle's treatment of the problems of
moral and social science. Since we require knowledge of the moral and
social nature of men not merely to satisfy an intellectual interest, but
as a basis for a sound system of education and government, Politics, the
theory of government, and Ethics, the theory of goodness of conduct,
which for Aristotle is only a subordinate branch of Politics, belong to
Practical, not to Theoretical Philosophy, a view which is attended by
important consequences. )
It follows that there is a corresponding difference in the objects
investigated by the two branches of Philosophy. Speculative or
Theoretical Philosophy is concerned with "that which cannot possibly be
other than it is," truths and relations independent of human volition
for their subsistence, and calling simply for _recognition_ on our part.
Practical Philosophy has to do with relations which human volition can
modify, "things which may be other than they are," the contingent.
(Thus _e. g. _ not only politics, but medicine and economics will belong
to Practical Science. )
Hence again arises a logical difference between the conclusions of
Theoretical and those of Practical Philosophy. Those of the former are
universal truths deducible with logical necessity from self-evident[#]
principles. Those of the latter, because they relate to what "can be
otherwise," are never rigidly universal; they are _general_ rules which
hold good "in the majority of cases," but are liable to occasional
exceptions owing to the contingent character of the facts with which
they deal. It is a proof of a philosopher's lack of grounding in logic
that he looks to the results of a practical science (_e. g. _ to the
detailed precepts of medicine or ethics) for a higher degree of
certainty and validity than the nature of the subject-matter allows.
Thus for Aristotle the distinction between the necessary and the
contingent is real and not merely apparent, and "probability is the
guide" in studies which have to do with the direction of life.
[#] Self-evident, that is, in a purely logical sense. When you apprehend
the principles in question, you _see_ at once that they are true, and do
not require to have them _proved_. It is not meant that any and every
man _does_, in point of fact, always apprehend the principles, or that
they can be apprehended without preliminary mental discipline.
We proceed to the question how many subdivisions there are within
"theoretical" Philosophy itself. Plato had held that there are none.
All the sciences are deductions from a single set of ultimate principles
which it is the business of that supreme science to which Plato had
given the name of Dialectic to establish. This is not Aristotle's view.
According to him, "theoretical" Philosophy falls into a number of
distinct though not co-ordinate branches, each with its own special
subjects of investigation and its own special axiomatic principles. Of
these branches there are three, First Philosophy, Mathematics, and
Physics. First Philosophy--afterwards to be known to the Middle Ages as
Metaphysics[#]--treats, to use Aristotle's own expression, of "Being
_qua_ Being. " This means that it is concerned with the universal
characteristics which belong to the system of knowable reality as such,
and the principles of its organisation in their full universality. First
Philosophy alone investigates the character of those causative factors
in the system which are without body or shape and exempt from all
mutability. Since in Aristotle's system God is the supreme Cause of
this kind, First Philosophy culminates in the knowledge of God, and is
hence frequently called Theology. It thus includes an element which
would to-day be assigned to the theory of knowledge, as well as one
which we should ascribe to metaphysics, since it deals at once with the
ultimate postulates of knowledge and the ultimate causes of the order of
real existence.
[#] The origin of this name seems to be that Aristotle's lectures on
First Philosophy came to be studied as a continuation of his course on
Physics. Hence the lectures got the name _Metaphysica_ because they came
_after_ (_meta_) those on Physics. Finally the name was transferred (as
in the case of _Ethics_) from the lectures to the subject of which they
treat.
Mathematics is of narrower scope. What it studies is no longer "real
being as such," but only real being in so far as it exhibits number and
geometrical form. Since Aristotle holds the view that number and figure
only exist as determinations of objects given in perception (though by a
convenient fiction the mathematician treats of them in abstraction from
the perceived objects which they qualify), he marks the difference
between Mathematics and First Philosophy by saying that "whereas the
objects of First Philosophy are separate from matter and devoid of
motion, those of Mathematics, though incapable of motion, have no
separable existence but are inherent in matter. " Physics is concerned
with the study of objects which are both material and capable of motion.
Thus the principle of the distinction is the presence or absence of
initial restrictions of the range of the different branches of Science.
First Philosophy has the widest range, since its contemplation covers
the whole ground of the real and knowable; Physics the narrowest,
because it is confined to a "universe of discourse" restricted by the
double qualification that its members are all material and capable of
displacement. Mathematics holds an intermediate position, since in it,
one of these qualifications is removed, but the other still remains, for
the geometer's figures are boundaries and limits of sensible bodies, and
the arithmetician's numbers properties of collections of concrete
objects. It follows also that the initial axioms or postulates of
Mathematics form a less simple system than those of First Philosophy,
and those of Physics than those of Mathematics. Mathematics requires as
initial assumptions not only those which hold good for _all_ thought,
but certain other special axioms which are only valid and significant
for the realm of figure and number; Physics requires yet further axioms
which are only applicable to "what is in motion. " This is why, though
the three disciplines are treated as distinct, they are not strictly
co-ordinate, and "First Philosophy," though "first," is only _prima
inter pares_.
We thus get the following diagrammatic scheme of the classification of
sciences:--
Science
|
+-----------+------------+
| |
Theoretical Practical
|
+---+---------+-----------+
| | |
First Philosophy Mathe- Physics
or matics
Theology
Practical Philosophy is not subjected by Aristotle to any similar
subdivision. Later students were accustomed to recognise a threefold
division into Ethics (the theory of individual conduct), Economics (the
theory of the management of the household), Politics (the theory of the
management of the State). Aristotle himself does not make these
distinctions. His general name for the theory of conduct is Politics,
the doctrine of individual conduct being for him inseparable from that
of the right ordering of society. Though he composed a separate course
of lectures on individual conduct (the _Ethics_), he takes care to open
the course by stating that the science of which it treats is Politics,
and offers an apology for dealing with the education of individual
character apart from the more general doctrine of the organisation of
society. No special recognition is given in Aristotle's own
classification to the Philosophy of Art. Modern students of Aristotle
have tried to fill in the omission by adding artistic creation to
contemplation and practice as a third fundamental form of mental
activity, and thus making a threefold division of Philosophy into
Theoretical, Practical, and Productive. The object of this is to find a
place in the classification for Aristotle's famous _Poetics_ and his
work on Rhetoric, the art of effective speech and writing. But the
admission of the third division of Science has no warrant in the text of
Aristotle, nor are the _Rhetoric_ and _Poetics_, properly speaking, a
contribution to Philosophy. They are intended as collections of
practical rules for the composition of a pamphlet or a tragedy, not as a
critical examination of the canons of literary taste. This was
correctly seen by the dramatic theorists of the seventeenth century.
They exaggerated the value of Aristotle's directions and entirely
misunderstood the meaning of some of them, but they were right in their
view that the _Poetics_ was meant to be a collection of rules by obeying
which the craftsman might make sure of turning out a successful play.
So far as Aristotle has a Philosophy of Fine Art at all, it forms part
of his more general theory of education and must be looked for in the
general discussion of the aims of education contained in his _Politics_.
*The Methods of Science*. --No place has been assigned in the scheme to
what we call logic and Aristotle called _Analytics_, the theory of
scientific method, or of proof and the estimation of evidence. The
reason is that since the fundamental character of proof is the same in
all science, Aristotle looks upon logic as a study of the methods common
to all science. At a later date it became a hotly debated question
whether logic should be regarded in this way as a study of the methods
instrumental to proof in all sciences, or as itself a special
constituent division of philosophy. The Aristotelian view was concisely
indicated by the name which became attached to the collection of
Aristotle's logical works. They were called the _Organon_, that is, the
"instrument," or the body of rules of method employed by Science. The
thought implied is thus that logic furnishes the _tools_ with which
every science has to work in establishing its results. Our space will
only permit of a brief statement as to the points in which the
Aristotelian formal logic appears to be really original, and the main
peculiarities of Aristotle's theory of knowledge.
(a) *Formal Logic*. --In compass the Aristotelian logic corresponds
roughly with the contents of modern elementary treatises on the same
subject, with the omission of the sections which deal with the so-called
Conditional Syllogism. The inclusion of arguments of this type in
mediaeval and modern expositions of formal logic is principally due to
the Stoics, who preferred to throw their reasoning into these forms and
subjected them to minute scrutiny. In his treatment of the doctrine of
Terms, Aristotle avoids the mistake of treating the isolated name as
though it had significance apart from the enunciations in which it
occurs. He is quite clear on the all-important point that the unit of
thought is the proposition in which something is affirmed or denied, the
one thought-form which can be properly called "true" or "false. " Such
an assertion he analyses into two factors, that about which something is
affirmed or denied (the Subject), and that which is affirmed or denied
of it (the Predicate). Consequently his doctrine of the classification
of Terms is based on a classification of Predicates, or of Propositions
according to the special kind of connection between the Subject and
Predicate which they affirm or deny. Two such classifications, which
cannot be made to fit into one another, meet us in Aristotle's logical
writings, the scheme of the ten "Categories," and that which was
afterwards known in the Middle Ages as the list of "Predicaments" or
"Heads of Predicates," or again as the "Five Words. " The list of
"Categories" reveals itself as an attempt to answer the question in how
many different senses the words "is a" or "are" are employed when we
assert that "_x_ is _y_" or "_x_ is a _y_" or "_x_s are _y_s. " Such a
statement may tell us (1) what _x_ is, as if I say "_x_ is a lion"; the
predicate is then said to fall under the category of Substance; (2) what
_x_ is like, as when I say "_x_ is white, or _x_ is wise,"--the category
of Quality; (3) how much or how many _x_ is, as when I say "_x_ is tall"
or "_x_ is five feet long,"--the category of Quantity; (4) how _x_ is
related to something else, as when I say "_x_ is to the right of _y_,"
"_x_ is the father of _y_,"--the category of Relation. These are the
four chief "categories" discussed by Aristotle. The remainder are (5)
Place, (6) Time, (7) and (8) Condition or State, as when I say "_x_ is
sitting down" or "_x_ has his armour on,"--(the only distinction between
the two cases seems to be that (7) denotes a more permanent state of _x_
than (8)); (9) Action or Activity, as when I say "_x_ is cutting," or
generally "_x_ is doing something to _y_"; (10) Passivity, as when I say
"_x_ is being cut," or more generally, "so-and-so is being done to _x_. "
No attempt is made to show that this list of "figures of predication" is
complete, or to point out any principle which has been followed in its
construction. It also happens that much the same enumeration is
incidentally made in one or two passages of Plato. Hence it is not
unlikely that the list was taken over by Aristotle as one which would be
familiar to pupils who had read their Plato, and therefore convenient
for practical purposes.
