If, as Bernays justly contends, we are to admit these various writings, notwithstanding “the profound difference of form,� as having emanated from the same philosopher Aristotle, how are we to trust the Platonic critics when they reject about one-third of the preserved dialogues of Plato, though there is no difference of form to proceed upon, but only a difference of style, merit, and, to a certain extent, doctrine?
Zeller (Die Phil. der Griechen, ii. 2, pp. 45, 46, 2nd ed.) remarks that the dialogues composed by Aristotle are probably to be ascribed to the earlier part of his literary life, when he was still (or had recently been) Plato’s scholar.
In discussing the Platonic Canon, I have already declared that I consider these grounds of rejection to be unsafe and misleading. Such judgment is farther confirmed, when we observe the consequences to which they would conduct in regard to the Aristotelian Canon. In fact, we must learn to admit among genuine works, both of Plato and Aristotle, great diversity in subject, in style, and in excellence.
I see no ground for distrusting the Catalogue given by Diogenes, as being in general an enumeration of works really composed by Aristotle. These works must have been lodged in some great library — probably the Alexandrine — where they were seen and counted, and the titles of them enrolled by some one or more among the literati, with a specification of the sum total obtained on adding together the lines contained in each.[17] I do not deny the probability, that, in regard to some, the librarians may have been imposed upon, and that pseudo-Aristotelian works may have been admitted; but whether such was partially the fact or not, the general goodness of the Catalogue seems to me unimpeachable. As to the author of it, the most admissible conjecture seems that of Brandis and others, recently adopted and advocated by Heitz: that the Catalogue owes its origin to one of the Alexandrine literati; probably to Hermippus of Smyrna, a lettered man and a pupil of Kallimachus at Alexandria, between 240-210 B.C.. Diogenes does not indeed tell us from whom he borrowed the Catalogue; but in his life of Aristotle, he more than once cites Hermippus, as having treated of Aristotle and his biography in a work of some extent; and we know from other sources that Hermippus had devoted much attention to Aristotle as well as to other philosophers. If Hermippus be the author of this Catalogue, it must have been drawn up about the same time that the Byzantine Aristophanes arranged the dialogues of Plato. Probably, indeed, Kallimachus the chief librarian, had prepared the way for both of them. We know that he had drawn up comprehensive tables, including, not only the principal orators and dramatists, with an enumeration of their discourses and dramas, but also various miscellaneous authors, with the titles of their works. We know, farther, that he noticed Demokritus and Eudoxus, and we may feel assured that, in a scheme thus large, he would not omit Plato or Aristotle, the two great founders of the first philosophical schools, nor the specification of the works of each contained in the Alexandrine library.[18] Heitz supposes that Hermippus was the author of most of the catalogues (not merely of Aristotle, but also of other philosophers) given by Diogenes;[19] yet that nevertheless Diogenes himself had no direct acquaintance with the works of Hermippus, but copied these catalogues at second-hand from some later author, probably Favorinus. This last supposition is noway made out.
[17] Stahr, who in the first volume of his work Aristotelia (p. 194), had expressed an opinion that the Catalogue given by Diogenes is the Catalogue “der eigenen Schritten des Stageiriten, wie sie sich in seinem Nachlasse befanden,� retracts that opinion in the second volume of the same work (pp. 68-70), and declares the Catalogue to be an enumeration of the Aristotelian works in the library of Alexandria. Trendelenburg concurs in this later opinion (Proœmium ad Commentar. in Aristot. De Animâ, p. 123).
[18] Ἕρμιππος ὁ Καλλιμάχειος ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ περὶ Ἀριστοτέλους, is cited by Athenæus, xv. 696; also v. 213.
Among the Tables prepared by Kallimachus, one was Παντοδάπων Συγγραμμάτων Πίναξ; and in it were included the Πλακουντοποιϊκὰ συγγράμματα Αἰγιμίου, καὶ Ἡγησίππου, καὶ Μητροβίου, ἔτι δὲ Φαίτου (Athenæus, xiv. 644). If Kallimachus carried down his catalogue of the contents of the library to works so unimportant as these, we may surely believe that he would not omit to catalogue such works of Aristotle as were in it. He appears to have made a list of the works of Demokritus (i.e. such as were in the library) with a glossary. See Brandis (Aristoteles, Berlin, 1853, p. 74); also Suidas v. Καλλίμαχος, Diogen. Laert. viii. 86; Dionys. Hal. De Dinarcho, pp. 630, 652 R.; Athenæus, viii. 336, xv. 669.
[19] Heitz, Die Verl. Schr. des Aristot. pp. 45-48.
Patricius, in his Discuss. Peripatetic. (t. i. pp. 13-18), had previously considered Hermippus as having prepared a Catalogue of the works of Aristotle, partly on the authority of the Scholion annexed to the conclusion of the Metaphysica of Theophrastus. Hermippus recited the testament of Aristotle (Athenæus, xiii. 589).
Both Valentine Rose and Bernays regard Andronikus as author of the Catalogue of Aristotle in Diogenes. But I think that very sufficient reasons to refute this supposition have been shown by Heitz, pp. 49-52.