ITS EFFECT ON PHILOSOPHERS.

67

hypothesis will be thrown up to protect it, and at last the fort be made impregnable, but alas! in the mean time it has become a castle in the air. Should however the genius of the disputant lie less in the power of distinguishing and refining, than in that of presenting his views in a broad and striking manner, should his fancy be rich and his feelings strong,-above all, should he be one of a nation where eloquence is at once the most common gift and the most envied attainment,he will call in rhetoric to the aid of his cause; and, in this event, as the accessory gradually encroaches and elbows out that interest to aid which it was originally introduced, as the handling of the question becomes more important, and the question itself less so,-there will result, not, as in the former case, a Scholastic Philosophy, but an arena for closet orators, who will" abandon the systematic study of philosophy, and varnish up declamations on set subjects. Such results doubtless did not follow in the time of Aristotle and Xenocrates. Under them, unquestionably, the original purpose of this discipline was kept steadily in sight; and it was not suffered to pass from being the test of clear and systematic thought to a mere substitute for it. But the transition must have been to a considerable extent effected when an Arcesilaus or a Carneades could deliver formal dissertations in opposition to any question indifferently, and when Cicero could regard the rhetorical practice as co-ordinate in importance with the other advantages resulting to the student3. In the very excellence and reputation then of

* μηδὲν ἔχειν φιλοσοφεῖν πραγματικῶς, ἀλλὰ θέσεις ληκυθίζειν. Strabo, xiii. p. 124. ed Tauchnitz.

2

3 See the passages cited above p. 63. not. Compare also Acad. Prior. ii. 18. Quis enim ista tam aperte perspicueque et perversa et

68

RESOURCES OF ARISTOTLE.

this peculiar discipline of the founder of the Peripatetic school, we have a germ adequate to produce a rapid decay of his philosophy, and we have no occasion to look either to external accidents or to the internal nature of his doctrines for a reason of the degeneracy of the Peripatetics after Theophrastus. The importance of this remark will be seen in the sequel.

It was probably in the course of this sojourn at Athens, which lasted for the space of thirteen years, that the greater number of Aristotle's works were produced. His external circumstances were at this time most favourable. The Macedonian party was the prevalent one at Athens, so that he needed be under no fears for his personal quiet; and the countenance and assistance he received from Alexander enabled him to prosecute his investigations without any interruption from the scantiness of pecuniary means. The Conqueror is said in Athenæus to have presented his master with the sum of eight hundred talents (about two hundred thousand pounds sterling), to meet the expenses of his History of Animals', and enormous as this sum is, it is only in proportion to the accounts we have of the vast wealth acquired by the plunder of the Persian treasures. Pliny also relates that some thousands of men were placed at his disposal for the purpose of procuring zoological specimens which served as materials for this celebrated treatise. The under

falsa secutus esset, nisi tanta in Arcesila, multo etiam major in Carneade, et copia rerum, et dicendi vis fuisset. Yet the eloquent Arcesilaus and Carneades left nothing behind them in writing. (Plutarch, De fort. Alex. p. 323. ed. Paris.)

1 Athenæus, p. 398. E.

* See the authorities on this subject collected by Ste. Croix. Examen Historique, pp. 428-430.

HIS NATURAL HISTORY.

69

taking, he says, originated in the express desire of Alexander, who took a singular interest in the study of Natural History3. For this particular object indeed, he is said to have received a considerable sum from Philip, so that we must probably regard the assistance afforded him by Alexander, (no doubt after conquest had enlarged his means), as having effected the extension and completion of a work begun at an earlier period, previous to his second visit to Athens'. Independently too of this princely liberality, the profits of his occupation may have been very great, and we have before seen reason to suppose that his private fortune was not inconsiderable. It is likely therefore that not only all the means and appliances of knowledge, but the luxuries and refinements of private life were within his reach, and having as little of the cynic as of the sensualist in his character, there is every probability that he availed himself of them. Indeed the charges of luxury which his enemies brought against him after his death, absurd as they are in the form in which they were put, appear to indicate a man that could enjoy riches when possessing them as well as in case of necessity he could endure poverty.

5 See the beginning of the Hippias Major of Plato for the profits of the sophists, which there is no reason to suppose were greater than those of their more respectable successors. Hippias professes to have made during a short circuit in Sicily more than six hundred pounds, although the celebrated Protagoras was there as a competitor. (§ 5.) Hyperbolus's instructions in oratory cost him a talent, or two hundred and fifty pounds. (Aristoph. Nub. 874.) But there is nothing to enable us to determine whether Aristotle's teaching was or was not gratuitous.

CHAPTER V.

TURBULENT POLITICS AT ATHENS.

At an

FORTUNE, proverbially inconstant, was even more fickle in the days of Aristotle than our own. earlier period of his life, we have seen the virulence of political partizanship rendering it desirable for him to quit Athens. The same spirit it was which again, in his old age, forced him to seek refuge in a less agreeable but safer spot. The death of Alexander had infused new courage into the anti-Macedonian party at Athens, and a persecution of such as entertained contrary views naturally followed. Against Aristotle, the intimate friend and correspondent of Antipater, (whom Alexander on leaving Greece had left regent,) a prosecution was either instituted or threatened for an alleged offence against religion'. The flimsiness of this pretext for crushing a political opponent, or rather a wise and inoffensive man, whose very impartiality was a tacit censure of the violent party-spirit of his time, will appear at first sight of the particulars of the charge. Eurymedon the Hierophant, assisted by Demophilus, accused him of the blasphemy of paying divine honours to mortals. He had composed, it was said, a pæan and offered sacrifices to his father in law Hermias, and also honoured the memory of his deceased wife Pythias with libations such as were used in the worship of Ceres. This paan is the scolium ̓Αρετὰ

1 Phavorinus ap. Diog. Laert. Vit. § 5. Ælian, Var. Hist. iii. 36. Athenæus, p. 696. Origen c. Celsum, i. p. 51. ed. Spencer. Demochares cited by Aristocles, (ap. Euseb. Præp. Ev. xv. 2.)

ARISTOTLE GOES TO EUBŒA.

71

Tоλνμоxoè, &c., which we have described above (p. 42.) and although we cannot tell what the circumstance was which gave rise to the latter half of the charge, we may reasonably presume that it as little justified the interpretation given to it as the ode does. That ignorance and bigotry stimulated by party hatred should find matter in his writings to confirm a charge of impiety founded on such a basis, was to be expected; and he is related to have said to his friends, in allusion to the fate of Socrates, "Let us leave Athens, and not give the Athenians a second opportunity of committing sacrilege against Philosophy." He was too well acquainted with the character of "the many-headed monster" to consider the absurdity of a charge as a sufficient guarantee for security under such circumstances, and he retired with his property to Chalcis in Euboea, where at that time Macedonian influence prevailed. In a letter to Antipater he expresses his regret at leaving his old haunts, but applies a verse from Homer in a way to intimate that the disposition that prevailed there to vexatious and malignant calumnies was incorrigible3. It is not impossible that his new asylum had before this time afforded him an occasional retreat from the noise and bustle of Athens*. Now however he owed to it a greater obligation. He was out of the reach of his enemies, and enabled to justify himself in the opinion of all whose judgement was

2

Apollodorus, ap. Diog. Vit. § 10. Lycon the Pythagorean cited by Aristocles ap. Euseb. Præp. Ev. xv. 2, grounds a charge of luxury on the number of culinary utensils which were passed at the custom-house in Chalcis.

3 Pseudo-Ammon.-Ælian, V. H. iii. 36. (compare xii. 52.) Phavorinus (ap. Diog. Vit. § 9.)