The whole consisting of four hundred and forty-five thousand two hundred and seventy lines.
XIII. These then are the books which were written by him. And in them he expresses the following opinions:—that there is in philosophy a two-fold division; one practical, and the other theoretical. Again, the practical is divided into ethical and political, under which last head are comprised considerations affecting not only the state, but also the management, of a single house. The theoretical part, too, is subdivided into physics and logic; the latter forming not a single division, turning on one special point, but being rather an instrument for every art brought to a high degree of accuracy. And he has laid down two separate objects as what it is conversant about, the persuasive and the true. And he has used two means with reference to each end; dialectics and rhetoric, with reference to persuasion; analytical examination and philosophy, with reference to truth; omitting nothing which can bear upon discovery, or judgment, or use. Accordingly, with reference to discovery, he has furnished us with topics and works on method, which form a complete armoury of propositions, from which it is easy to provide one’s self with an abundance of probable arguments for every kind of question. And with reference to judgment, he has given us the former and posterior analytics; and by means of the former analytics, we may arrive at a critical examination of principles; by means of the posterior, we may examine the conclusions which are deduced from them. With reference to the use or application of his rules, he has given us works on discussion, on question, on disputation, on sophistical refutation, on syllogism, and on things of that sort.
He has also furnished us with a double criterion of truth. One, on the perception of those effects, which are according to imagination; the other, the intelligence of those things which are ethical, and which concern politics, and economy, and laws. The chief good he has defined to be the exercise of virtue in a perfect life. He used also to say, that happiness was a thing made up of three kinds of goods. First of all, the goods of the soul, which he also calls the principal goods in respect of their power; secondly, the goods of the body, such as health, strength, beauty, and things of that sort; thirdly, external goods, such as wealth, nobility of birth, glory, and things like those. And he taught that virtue was not sufficient of itself to confer happiness; for that it had need besides of the goods of the body, and of the external goods, for that a wise man would be miserable if he were surrounded by distress, and poverty, and circumstances of that kind. But, on the other hand, he said, that vice was sufficient of itself to cause unhappiness, even if the goods of the body and the external goods were present in the greatest possible degree. He also asserted that the virtues did not reciprocally follow one another, for that it was possible for a prudent, and just, and impartial man, to be incontinent and intemperate; and he said, that the wise man was not destitute of passions, but endowed with moderate passions.
He also used to define friendship as an equality of mutual benevolence. And he divided it into the friendship of kindred, and of love, and of those connected by ties of hospitality. And he said, that love was divided into sensual and philosophical love. And that the wise man would feel the influence of love, and would occupy himself in affairs of state, and would marry a wife, and would live with a king. And as there were three kinds of life, the speculative, the practical, and the voluptuous, he preferred the speculative. He also considered the acquisition of general knowledge serviceable to the acquisition of virtue. As a natural philosopher, he was the most ingenious man that ever lived in tracing effects back to their causes, so that he could explain the principles of the most trifling circumstances; on which account he wrote a great many books of commentaries on physical questions.
He used to teach that God was incorporeal, as Plato also asserted, and that his providence extends over all the heavenly bodies; also, that he is incapable of motion. And that he governs all things upon earth with reference to their sympathy with the heavenly bodies. Another of his doctrines was, that besides the four elements there is one other, making the fifth, of which all the heavenly bodies are composed; and that this one possesses a motion peculiar to itself, for it is a circular one. That the soul is incorporeal, being the first ἐντελέχεια; for it is the ἐντελέχεια of a physical and organic body, having an existence in consequence of a capacity for existence. And this is, according to him, of a twofold nature. By the word ἐντελέχεια, he means something which has an incorporeal species, either in capacity, as a figure of Mercury in wax, which has a capacity for assuming any shape; or a statue in brass; and so the perfection of the Mercury or of the statue is called ἐντελέχεια, with reference to its habit. But when he speaks of the ἐντελέχεια[47] of a natural body, he does so because, of bodies some are wrought by the hands, as for instance, those which are made by artists, for instance, a tower, or a ship; and some exist by nature, as the bodies of plants and animals. He has also used the term with reference to an organic body, that is to say, with reference to something that is made, as the faculty of sight for seeing, or the faculty of hearing for the purpose of hearing. The capacity of having life must exist in the thing itself. But the capacity is twofold, either in habit or in operation. In operation, as a man, when awake, is said to have a soul; in habit, as the same is said of a man when asleep. That, therefore, he may come under his definition, he has added the word capacity.
He has also given other definitions on a great many subjects, which it would be tedious to enumerate here. For he was in every thing a man of the greatest industry and ingenuity, as is plain from all his works which I have lately given a list of; which are in number nearly four hundred, the genuineness of which is undoubted. There are, also, a great many other works attributed to him, and a number of apophthegms which he never committed to paper.
XIV. There were eight persons of the name of Aristotle. First of all, the philosopher of whom we have been speaking; the second was an Athenian statesman, some of whose forensic orations, of great elegance, are still extant; the third was a man who wrote a treatise on the Iliad; the fourth, a Siciliot orator, who wrote a reply to the Panegyric of Isocrates; the fifth was the man who was surnamed Myth, a friend of Æschines, the pupil of Socrates; the sixth was a Cyrenean, who wrote a treatise on Poetry; the seventh was a schoolmaster, who is mentioned by Aristoxenus in his Life of Plato; the eighth, was an obscure grammarian, to whom a treatise on Pleonasm is attributed.
XV. And the Stagirite had many friends, the most eminent of whom was Theophrastus, whom we must proceed to speak of.