It was during his second residence in Athens, in the twelve years from b.c. 335 to 323, that Aristotle composed most of those great works in which he sought to sum up, in an encyclopædic way, the results of a life of all-embracing study and thought. He had been in no haste to put himself on record, and it was not until he had reached a consistent view of the world that he ventured to treat, in a definitive way, any aspect of it. Thus it was that each of his treatises formed part of one great whole of thought. Had he succeeded in completing his plan, he would have left to the world a body of science such as, even in our own day, would look in vain for a peer among the works of any one man. Unfortunately, his plan was not completed, and even of the works which he did write only a portion has come down to us. But that portion is sufficient to place their author at the head of all scientific men. Some of his works, for example, his Logic, Metaphysics, Ethics, and Politics, still occupy the first place in the literature of these subjects. How a single man could have done all that he did, and in so many different departments, is almost inconceivable. No doubt he had helpers, in the shape of secretaries, learned slaves, and disciples; and it is certain that he received from his royal pupil munificent aid, which enabled him to do much, especially in the directions of physical and political research, that would have been impossible for a poor man; but, after all allowances have been made, his achievement still seems almost miraculous.
During all the years in which Aristotle was thus engaged, his position at Athens was becoming more and more insecure. The anti-Macedonian party were waiting for the first opportunity to rid the city of him, and were prevented from open attempts at this only by dread of Alexander's displeasure. Even when it was known that Aristotle had incurred disfavor with his old pupil, they did not venture to attack him; but in 323, when the news of Alexander's sudden death made all Greece feel that now the time had come to get rid forever of the hated Macedonians, and recover its liberty, they at once gave vent to their long-cherished hatred. How hard it was to find matter for an accusation against him, is shown by the fact that they had to go back to his old poem on Worth, written in memory of Hermias (see [p. 4]), and to base thereon a charge of impiety—a charge always easily made, and always sure to arouse strong popular prejudice. According to Athenian law, the defendant in any such case might, if he chose, escape punishment by leaving the city any time before the trial; and Aristotle, not being, like Socrates, a citizen, could have no ground for refusing to take advantage of this liberty. Accordingly, with the remark that he would not voluntarily allow the Athenians to sin a second time against philosophy, he withdrew to his country residence at Chalcis in Eubœa, the old home of his mother's family, to wait till affairs should take another turn, as, indeed, they soon afterwards did, when Athens had to open her gates to Antipater. But, ere that happened, Aristotle was in his grave, having died in 322, shortly before Demosthenes, of disease of the stomach, from which he had long suffered. His remains are said to have been carried to Stagira, where the grateful inhabitants erected an altar over them and paid divine honors to his memory. His library and the manuscripts of his works he left in the hands of Theophrastus, who succeeded him in the Lyceum. His will, the text of which has come down to us, bears testimony, along with all else that we know of him, to the nobility, kindliness, and justice of his nature.
CHAPTER II
ARISTOTLE'S PHILOSOPHY
Platon rêvait; Aristote pensait.—Alfred de Musset.
Are God and Nature then at strife
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
—Tennyson.
There are three Essences. Two of these are sensible; one being eternal, and the other perishable. The latter is admitted by all, in the form, for example, of plants and animals; in regard to the former, or eternal one, we shall have to consider its elements, and see whether they be one or many. The third is immutable [and, therefore, inaccessible to sense], and this some thinkers hold to be transcendent.—Aristotle.
The vision of the divine is what is sweetest and best; and if God always enjoys that vision as we sometimes do, it is wonderful, and if he does so in a yet higher degree, it is more wonderful still. And so even it is. And life belongs to him; for the self-determination of thought is life, and he is self-determination. And his absolute self-determination is the supreme and eternal life. And we call God a living being, eternal, best; so that life and duration, uniform and eternal, belong to God; for this is God.—Id.
We must consider in what way the system of the universe contains the good and the best, whether as something transcendent and self-determined, or as order. Surely in both ways at once, as in any army, for which the good is in order, and is the general, and the latter more than the former. For the general is not due to the order, but the order to the general.—Id.
The thought of Aristotle differs from that of Plato both in its method and in its results. Plato, reared in the school of Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Socrates, had, naturally enough, come to look for truth in the supersensual region of mind, and thought he found it in ideas attainable by a process of dialectic within the individual consciousness. He thus came to put forward a doctrine which, despite its ostensible purpose to cement the bonds of society, in reality tended to withdraw men from society altogether and increase the very individualism it was intended to cure. Aristotle, while still in Plato's school, had turned away from this doctrine, and in after-life he never lost an opportunity of combating it. He could point to Plato's Republic as a warning example of its logical consequences. But, in doing this, he was prepared to put another doctrine in its place, and he did so on the basis of a profound study of the whole course of Greek thought, mythological and philosophical.