[CHAPTER VI.]
CHARACTERISTICS OF ARISTOTLE.
I.
Within the last twelve years several books, both large and small, have appeared, dealing either with the philosophy of Aristotle as a whole, or with the general principles on which it is constructed. The Berlin edition of Aristotle’s collected works was supplemented in 1870 by the publication of a magnificent index, filling nearly nine hundred quarto pages, for which we have to thank the learning and industry of Bonitz.[161] Then came the unfinished treatise of George Grote, planned on so vast a scale that it would, if completely carried out, have rivalled the author’s History of Greece in bulk, and perhaps exceeded the authentic remains of the Stagirite himself. As it is, we have a full account, expository and critical, of the Organon, a chapter on the De Animâ, and some fragments on other Aristotelian writings, all marked by Grote’s wonderful sagacity and good sense. In 1879 a new and greatly enlarged edition brought that portion of Zeller’s work on Greek Philosophy which deals with Aristotle and the Peripatetics[162] fully up to the level of its companion volumes; and we are glad to see that, like them, it is shortly to appear in an English dress. The older work of Brandis[163] goes over the same ground, and, though much behind the present state of knowledge, may still be consulted with advantage, on account of its copious and clear analyses of the Aristotelian texts. Together with these ponderous tomes, we have to mention the little work of Sir Alexander Grant,[164] which, although intended primarily for the unlearned, is a real contribution to Aristotelian scholarship, and, probably as such, received the honours of a German translation almost immediately after its first publication. Mr. Edwin Wallace’s Outlines of the Philosophy of Aristotle[165] is of a different and much less popular character. Originally designed for the use of the author’s own pupils, it does for Aristotle’s entire system what Trendelenburg has done for his logic, and Ritter and Preller for all Greek philosophy—that is to say, it brings together the most important texts, and accompanies them with a remarkably lucid and interesting interpretation. Finally we have M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire’s Introduction to his translation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, republished in a pocket volume.[166] We can safely recommend it to those who wish to acquire a knowledge of the subject with the least possible expenditure of trouble. The style is delightfully simple, and that the author should write from the standpoint of the French spiritualistic school is not altogether a disadvantage, for that school is partly of Aristotelian origin, and its adherents are, therefore, most likely to reproduce the master’s theories with sympathetic appreciation.
In view of such extensive labours, we might almost imagine ourselves transported back to the times when Chaucer could describe a student as being made perfectly happy by having
‘At his beddes hed
Twenty bookes clothed in blake or red
Of Aristotle and his philosophie.’
It seems as if we were witnessing a revival of Mediaevalism under another form; as if, after neo-Gothic architecture, pre-Raphaelitism, and ritualism, we were threatened with a return to the scholastic philosophy which the great scientific reformers of the seventeenth century were supposed to have irrevocably destroyed. And, however chimerical may seem the hopes of such a restoration, we are bound to admit that they do actually exist. One of the most cultivated champions of Ultramontanism in this country, Prof. St. George Mivart, not long ago informed us, at the close of his work on Contemporary Evolution, that, ‘if metaphysics are possible, there is not, and never was or will be, more than one philosophy which, properly understood, unites all truths and eliminates all errors—the Philosophy of the Philosopher—Aristotle.’ It may be mentioned also, as a symptom of the same movement, that Leo XIII. has recently directed the works of St. Thomas Aquinas to be reprinted for use in Catholic colleges; having, according to the newspapers, laid aside 300,000 lire for that purpose—a large sum, considering his present necessities; but not too much for the republication of eighteen folio volumes. Now, it is well known that the philosophy of Aquinas is simply the philosophy of Aristotle, with such omissions and modifications as were necessary in order to piece it on to Christian theology. Hence, in giving his sanction to the teaching of the Angelic Doctor, Leo XIII. indirectly gives it to the source from which so much of that teaching is derived.
It may, perhaps, be considered natural that obsolete authorities should command the assent of a Church whose boast is to maintain the traditions of eighteen centuries intact. But the Aristotelian reaction extends to some who stand altogether aloof from Catholicism. M. Saint-Hilaire speaks in his preface of theology with dislike and suspicion; he has recently held office in a bitterly anti-clerical Government; yet his acceptance of Aristotle’s metaphysics is almost unreserved. The same tone is common to all official teaching in France; and any departure from the strict Peripatetic standard has to be apologised for as if it were a dangerous heresy. On turning to our own country, we find, indeed, a marked change since the time when, according to Mr. Matthew Arnold, Oxford tutors regarded the Ethics as absolutely infallible. The great place given to Plato in public instruction, and the rapidly increasing ascendency of evolutionary ideas, are at present enough to hold any rival authority in check; still, not only are the once neglected portions of Aristotle’s system beginning to attract fresh attention—which is an altogether commendable movement—but we also find the eminent Oxford teacher, whose work on the subject has been already referred to, expressing himself as follows:—
We are still anxious to know whether our perception of a real world comes to us by an exercise of thought, or by a simple impression of sense—whether it is the universal that gives the individual reality, or the individual that shapes itself, by some process not explained, into a universal—whether bodily movements are the causal antecedents of mental functions, or mind rather the reality which gives truth to body—whether the highest life is a life of thought or a life of action—whether intellectual also involves moral progress—whether the state is a mere combination for the preservation of goods and property, or a moral organism developing the idea of right. And about these and such like questions Aristotle has still much to tell us.... His theory of a creative reason, fragmentary as that theory is left, is the answer to all materialistic theories of the universe. To Aristotle, as to a subtle Scottish preacher [Principal Caird] ‘the real pre-supposition of all knowledge, or the thought which is the prius of all things, is not the individual’s consciousness of himself as individual, but a thought or self-consciousness which is beyond all individual selves, which is the unity of all individual selves and their objects, of all thinkers and all objects of all thought.’[167]