1. Life, Writings, and general character of his Work.
Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. at Stagirus, a Grecian colony and seaport on the coast of Thrace. His father Nichomachus was court physician to King Amyntas of Macedonia, and from this began Aristotle's long association with the Macedonian Court, which considerably influenced his life and destinies. While he was still a boy his father died, and he was sent by his guardian, Proxenus, to Athens, the intellectual centre of the world, to complete his education. He was then aged seventeen. He joined the Academy and studied under Plato, attending the latter's lectures for a period of twenty years. In subsequent times, Aristotle's detractors, anxious to vilify his character, accused him of "ingratitude" to his master, Plato. It was said that Plato's old age had been embittered by dissensions in the school caused by the factious spirit of Aristotle. That there is no ground for attaching any blame to Aristotle for the troubles of Plato, which either did not exist or have been grossly exaggerated, is evident both from the facts within our knowledge and from the reference to Plato in Aristotle's works. It is not likely that, had Aristotle rendered himself genuinely objectionable, he could have remained for twenty years in [{250}] the Academy, and only left it upon the death of Plato. Moreover, although Aristotle in his works attacks the teaching of Plato with unsparing vigour, there is nowhere to be found in these attacks any suggestion of acrimony or personal rancour. On the contrary, he refers to himself as the friend of Plato, but a greater friend of the truth. The fact, in all probability, is that a man of such independent and original mind as Aristotle did not accord to Plato the kind of blind adoration and hero-worship which he may have received from the inferior intellects in the school. As is so often the case with young men of marked ability, the brilliant student may have suffered from the impatience and self-assertion of youth. There was certainly nothing worse.
While at the Academy Aristotle exhibited an unflagging spirit and unwearied zeal in the pursuit of knowledge in all its forms, a spirit which gave rise to nick-names and anecdotes, which probably contained as much truth, or as little, as most of the anecdotes which gather round remarkable characters. One of these stories was that he used a mechanical contrivance to wake him up whenever sleep threatened to put an end to his hours of study.
In 347 B.C. Plato died, and his nephew Speusippus was chosen as head of the Academy. Aristotle left Athens with his fellow-student Xenocrates, and together they repaired to the court of Hermeias, King of Atarneus, in Asia Minor. Hermeias, a man of low origin, but of high instincts and advanced education, had himself attended the lectures of Plato, and received the two young philosophers as welcome guests. Aristotle stayed three years at Atarneus, and, while there, married [{251}] Pythias, the niece of the King. In later life he was married a second time to one Herpyllis, who bore him a son, Nichomachus. At the end of three years Hermeias fell a victim to the treachery of the Persians, and Aristotle went to Mytilene. Here he remained for several years till he received an invitation from Philip of Macedonia to become the tutor of the young Alexander, afterwards conqueror of the world, then aged thirteen. Aristotle obeyed the summons, and for about five years superintended the education of Alexander. Both Philip and Alexander appear to have paid Aristotle high honour, and there were stories that he was supplied by the Macedonian court, not only with funds for the prosecution of learning, but even with thousands of slaves for the collection of specimens. These stories are probably false and certainly exaggerated. But there is no doubt that, in his scientific and philosophical enquiries, he was backed by the influence of the court, and could even perhaps have looked to that quarter for supplies, had it ever been necessary.
Upon the death of Philip, Alexander succeeded to the kingship. The period of his studies was now over, and he began to make preparations for his subsequent conquests. Aristotle's work being finished, he returned to Athens, which he had not visited since the death of Plato. He found the Platonic school flourishing under Xenocrates, and Platonism the dominant philosophy of Athens. He thereupon set up his own school at a place called the Lyceum. It was in connection with this that his followers became known, in after years, as the "peripatetics," a name which arose from Aristotle's habit of walking about as he discoursed. The period of [{252}] his residence in Athens lasted thirteen years, during which time he was occupied in the leadership of his school and in literary labours. This appears to have been the most fruitful period of his life. There is no doubt that all his most important writings were composed at this time. But at the end of this period his fortunes changed.
In B.C. 323 Alexander the Great died suddenly at Babylon in the midst of his triumphs. The Athenian Government was in the hands of a pro-Macedonian party. Upon the death of Alexander this party was overthrown, and a general reaction occurred against everything Macedonian. Alexander had been regarded in Greece much as Napoleon was regarded in Europe a century ago. He had insulted the free Greek cities. He had even sacked the city of Thebes. The whole of Greece lived in perpetual terror of invasion. Now that this fear was removed by his death, there was a general outburst of feeling against Macedonia. An anti-Macedonian party came into power. Now Aristotle had always been regarded as a representative and protege of the Macedonian court, although, as a matter of fact, he had recently fallen out of favour with the autocratic Alexander. A charge of impiety was trumped up against him. To escape prosecution he fled to Chalcis in Euboea, in order that, as he said, "the Athenians might not have another opportunity of sinning against philosophy as they had already done in the person of Socrates." He perhaps intended to return to Athens as soon as the storm had blown over. But in the first year of his residence at Chalcis he was overtaken by a sudden illness, and died at the age of sixty-three, in B.C. 322.
Aristotle is said to have composed some four hundred books. Our astonishment at this productivity diminishes somewhat when we remember that what is here called a "book" is much the same as what we should call a chapter in a modern treatise. More than three-quarters of these writings have been lost. But, by good fortune, what remains to us is undoubtedly by far the most important part, and we have preserved in it a fairly complete account of the whole Aristotelian system in all its departments. Nearly all the writings, however, have come down to us in a mutilated state. This is especially the case with the "Metaphysics." This treatise is unfinished, and it was probably left unfinished by its author at his death. But apart from this, several of the books of the "Metaphysics" are undoubtedly spurious. Others apparently come in the wrong order. We end one book in the middle of a discussion, and when we begin the next we find ourselves in the middle of an entirely different subject. There are frequent repetitions, and parts of it read as if they were mere lecture notes. There are many interpolations. The same characteristics are to be observed in Aristotle's other writings, though in a less degree. It seems probable that they were not intended, in their present state, for publication. Final revision and finishing touches are lacking. In spite of these defects, the writings are voluminous and clear enough to enable us to trace out the whole of the main positions of Aristotle's thought.
We saw, in the case of Plato, that, as his literary activity lasted over a period of half a century, during which his philosophy was in constant development, it became important to trace this development in the [{254}] order of his Dialogues. The same thing is not true in the case of Aristotle. The whole of his writings, or rather those that have come down to us, seem to have been written during his last thirteen years, while he was at Athens, that is to say, after he had passed his fiftieth year. His system was then complete, mature, and fully developed. The question of the order in which they were written has no great importance. The result of critical investigations, however, is to show that he probably began with the various works upon logic, composed next the treatises upon physical science, next the ethical and political books, and lastly the "Metaphysics," which he left unfinished.
It must not be forgotten that Aristotle was not only a philosopher in the modern restricted sense of that term. He was a man of universal learning. There is no branch of knowledge which did not receive his attention, and upon which he was not the greatest expert of his time, except perhaps mathematics. So far was he from being only an abstract philosopher, that his natural tastes seem to have lain rather in the field of physical science than of abstract thought. But his design seems to have been to work over the entire field of knowledge, thoroughly to overhaul the sciences already in existence, rejecting what seemed false in the work of his predecessors, and invariably adding to the residue valuable developments and suggestions of his own. Where there was no science already in existence, his plan involved the foundation of new sciences wherever necessary, and he thus became the founder of at least two sciences, Logic and Zoology. He thus attained to a pre-eminence in all branches [{255}] of knowledge which would be impossible for a single man in modern times. His works include treatises upon Logic and Metaphysics, upon Ethics, Politics, and Art. He wrote a treatise upon the principles of Rhetoric, another upon Astronomy, under the title "On the Heavens," another upon Meteorology. Several of his treatises deal with the biology of animal life, in which he was intensely interested. They include books entitled "On the Parts of Animals," "On the Movements of Animals," "On the Origin of Animals," as well as his great treatise, "Researches on Animals," which contains an enormous mass of facts collected from every possible source. It is true that a large proportion of these facts have turned out to be fictions, but this was inevitable in the infancy of science. It has been calculated that Aristotle shows himself acquainted with about five hundred different species of living beings, though they are not, of course, classified by him in the modern way. With these books upon animals he founded the science of Zoology, for no one before his day had made any special study of the subject.