Natus XXV. Decemb. MDCXLII. Obiit XX. Mart.

MDCCXXVI.

[5]. Aristotle is supposed, by some, to have imbibed the best and most rational of his notions from his master Plato; to whom, notwithstanding, he seems to have been greatly inferior as a moral philosopher.

His opinions respecting government, abound in good sense. As a general outline of his sentiments on this subject, it may serve to mention, that he distinguished civil government into two kinds; one, in which the general welfare is the great object; the other, in which this is not at all considered.[[5a]] In the first class, he places the limited monarchy—the aristocratical form of government—and the republic, properly so called. In the second, he comprehends tyranny—oligarchy—and democracy; considering these as corruptions of the three first. Limited monarchy, he alleges, degenerates into despotism, when the sovereign assumes to himself the exercise of the entire authority of the state, refusing to submit his power to any controul;[[5b]] the aristocracy sinks into an oligarchy, when the supreme power is no longer possessed by a reasonable proportion of virtuous men,—but by a small number of rulers, whose wealth alone constitutes their claim to authority; and the republican government is debased into a democracy, when the poorest class of the people have too great an influence in the public deliberations.[[5c]]

In Physics, Aristotle scarcely deserves the name of a Philosopher.—As to his metaphysical opinions, in the common acceptation of the term,—it is impossible to ascertain, with certainty, what they really were. It was not until eighteen centuries after his death, that his philosophy—such as it was then promulgated, anew—began to be generally known and studied. After the sacking of Constantinople by the Turks, in the year 1453, some fugitive Greeks, who had escaped the fury of the Ottoman arms, brought from that city into the west of Europe many of the writings of the Stagyritish philosopher: But, although some of his treatises were previously known, they were such as had passed through the hands of the Arabs, in translations into their tongue; done by men who, it may be fairly presumed, very imperfectly understood the author’s language; consequently not capable, even if they were disposed, to do justice to the sense of the original. Subsequent translations of those writings, from the Arabic, probably occasioned, in the same way, further departures from the meaning of the original Greek. Thus varying, as may be supposed, from the opinions taught by Aristotle himself,—the philosophy of the schoolmen, engrafted upon his systems, was neither entirely that of the Stagyrite, nor altogether different. His writings, nevertheless, gave birth to what is termed the Scholastic Philosophy,—“that motley offspring of error and ingenuity,” as it is called by Mr. Mallet.[[5d]] “To trace at length,” says this writer, “the rise, progress, and variations of this philosophy, would be an undertaking not only curious, but instructive; as it would unfold to us all the mazes in which the force, the subtlety, the extravagance of human wit, can lose themselves: till not only profane learning, but Divinity itself, was at last, by the refined frenzy of those who taught both, subtilized into mere notion and air.”[[5e]]

[5a]. Aristot. de Rep.—lib, 3. cap. 6.

[5b]. Id. Rhet.—lib. 1. cap. 8.

[5c]. Id. de Rep.—lib. 3. cap. 7.

[5d]. In his Life of Lord Chancellor Bacon.

[5e]. Ibid.