In the fourth and fifth chapters of my work on ‘Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates,’ I investigated the question of the Platonic Canon, and attempted to determine, upon the best grounds open to us, the question, What are the real works of Plato? I now propose to discuss the like question respecting Aristotle.
But the premisses for such a discussion are much less simple in regard to Aristotle than in regard to Plato. As far as the testimony of antiquity goes, we learn that the Canon of Thrasyllus, dating at least from the time of the Byzantine Aristophanes, and probably from an earlier time, was believed by all readers to contain the authentic works of Plato and none others; an assemblage of dialogues, some unfinished, but each undivided and unbroken. The only exception to unanimity in regard to the Platonic Canon, applies to ten dialogues, which were received by some (we do not know by how many, or by whom) as Platonic, but which, as Diogenes informs us, were rejected by agreement of the most known and competent critics. This is as near to unanimity as can be expected. The doubts, now so multiplied, respecting the authenticity of various dialogues included in the Canon of Thrasyllus, have all originated with modern scholars since the beginning of the present century, or at least since the earlier compositions of Wyttenbach. It was my task to appreciate the value of those doubts; and, in declining to be guided by them, I was at least able to consider myself as adhering to the views of all known ancient critics.
Very different is the case when we attempt to frame an Aristotelian Canon, comprising all the works of Aristotle and none others. We find the problem far more complicated, and the matters of evidence at once more defective, more uncertain, and more contradictory.
The different works now remaining, and published in the Berlin edition of Aristotle, are forty-six in number. But, among these, several were disallowed or suspected even by some ancient critics, while modern critics have extended the like judgment yet farther. Of several others again, the component sections (either the books, in our present phraseology, or portions thereof) appear to have existed once as detached rolls, to have become disjointed or even to have parted company, and to have been re-arranged or put together into aggregates, according to the judgment of critics and librarians. Examples of such doubtful aggregates, or doubtful arrangements, will appear when we review the separate Aristotelian compositions (the Metaphysica, Politica, &c.). It is, however, by one or more of these forty-six titles that Aristotle is known to modern students, and was known to mediæval students.
But the case was very different with ancient literati, such as Eratosthenes, Polybius, Cicero, Strabo, Plutarch, &c., down to the time of Alexander of Aphrodisias, Athenæus, Diogenes Laertius, &c., towards the close of the second century after the Christian era. It is certain that these ancients perused many works of Aristotle, or generally recognized as his, which we do not now possess; and among those which we do now possess, there are many which it is not certain that they perused, or even knew.
Diogenes Laertius, after affirming generally that Aristotle had composed a prodigious number of books (πάμπλειστα βίβλια), proceeds to say, that, in consequence of the excellence of the author in every variety of composition, he thinks it proper to indicate them briefly.[1] He then enumerates one hundred and forty-six distinct titles of works, with the number of books or sections contained in each work. The subjects are exceedingly heterogeneous, and the form of composition likewise very different; those which come first in the list being Dialogues,[2] while those which come last are Epistles, Hexameters, and Elegies. At the close of the list we read: “All of them together are 445,270 lines, and this is the number of books (works) composed by Aristotle.â€�[3] A little farther on, Diogenes adds, as an evidence of the extraordinary diligence and inventive force of Aristotle, that the books (works) enumerated in the preceding list were nearly four hundred in number, and that these were not contested by any one; but that there were many other writings, and dicta besides, ascribed to Aristotle — ascribed (we must understand him to mean) erroneously, or at least so as to leave much doubt.[4]
[1] Diog. La. v. 21. Συνέγραψε δὲ πάμπλειστα βίβλια, ἅπερ ἀκόλουθον ἡγησάμην ὑπογράψαι, διὰ τὴν περὶ πάντας λόγους τἀνδρὸς ἀρετήν.
[2] Bernays has pointed out (in his valuable treatise, Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, p. 133) that the first in order, nineteen in number, among the titles enumerated by Diogenes, designate Dialogues. The longest of them, those which included more than one book or section, are enumerated first of all. Some of the dialogues appear to have coincided, either in title or in subject, with some of the Platonic:— Περὶ Δικαιοσύνης, in four books (comparable with Plato’s Republic); Πολιτικοῦ, in two books; Σοφιστὴς, Μενέξενος, Συμπόσιον, each in one book; all similar in title to works of Plato; perhaps also another, Περὶ ῥητορικῆς ἢ Γρύλλος, the analogue of Plato’s Gorgias.
[3] Diog. La. v. 27. γίγνονται αἱ πᾶσαι μυριάδες στίχων τέτταρες καὶ τετταράκοντα πρὸς τοῖς πεντακισχιλίοις καὶ διακοσίοις ἑβδομήκοντα. Καὶ τοσαῦτα μὲν αὐτῷ πεπραγμάτευται βίβλια.
[4] Diog. La. v. 34. Heitz (Die Verlorenen Schriften des Aristoteles, p. 17) notices, as a fact invalidating the trustworthiness of the catalogue given by Diogenes, that Diogenes, in other places, alludes to Aristotelian compositions which are not mentioned in his own catalogue. For example, though Diogenes, in the catalogue, allows only five books to the Ethica, yet he himself alludes (v. 21) to the seventh book of the Ethica. But this example can hardly be relied upon, because ἐν τῷ ἑβδόμῳ τῶν ἠθικῶν is only a conjecture of H. Stephens or Ménage. The only case which Heitz really finds to sustain his remark, is the passage of the ProÅ“mium (i. 8), where Diogenes cites Aristotle ἐν τῷ Μαγικῷ, that work not being named in his catalogue. But there is another case (not noticed by Heitz) which appears to me still stronger. Diogenes cites at length the Hymn or Pæan composed by Aristotle in honour of Hermeias. Now there is no general head of his catalogue under which this hymn could fall. Here Anonymus (to be presently mentioned) has a superiority over Diogenes; for he introduces, towards the close of his catalogue, one general head — ἐγκώμια ἢ ὕμνους, which is not to be found in Diogenes.