standing the influence of such enormous treasures as those he seized at Susa, amounting, it is said, to £80,000,000 sterling; the plunder of the Persian empire; the inconceivable luxury of Asiatic life; the uncontrolled power to which he attained. But he was not so imbecile as to believe himself the descendant of Jupiter Ammon; that was only an artifice he permitted for the sake of influencing those around him. We must not forget that he lived in an age when men looked for immaculate conceptions and celestial descents. These Asiatic ideas had made their way into Europe. The Athenians themselves were soon to be reconciled to the appointment of divine honours to such as Antigonus and Demetrius, adoring them as gods-saviour gods-and instituting sacrifices and priests for their worship.

age of Rea

in.

ty to ac

tion of Eu

Great as were the political results of the Macedonian ex- The Greek pedition, they were equalled by the intellectual. The times son usherca were marked by the ushering in of a new philosophy. Greece had gone through her age of Credulity, her age of Inquiry, her age of Faith; she had entered on her age of Reason, and, had freedom of action been permitted to her, she would have given a decisive tone to the forthcoming civilization of Europe. As will be seen in the following pages, that great destiny did not await her. From her eccentric position at Alexandria she Its inabili could not civilize Europe. In her old-age, the power of Eu- complish rope, concentrated in the Roman empire, overthrew her. There the civilizaare very few histories of the past of more interest to modern rope. times, and none unfortunately more misunderstood, than this Greek age of Reason manifested at Alexandria. It illustrates, in the most signal manner, that affairs control men more than men control affairs. The scientific associations of the Macedonian conqueror directly arose from the contemporaneous state of Greek philosophy in the act of reaching the close of its age of faith, and these influences ripened under the Macedonian captain who became king of Egypt. As it was, the learning of Alexandria, though diverted from its most appropriate and desirable direction by the operation of the Byzantine system, in the course of a few centuries acting forcibly upon it, was not without an influence on the future thought

of Europe. Even at this day Europe will not bear to be fully told how great that influence has been.

The age of Reason, to which Aristotle is about to introduce us, stands in striking contrast with the preceding ages. cannot escape the reader that what was done by the men of science in Alexandria resembles what is doing in our own times; their day was the foreshadowing of ours. And yet a long and dreary period of almost twenty centuries parts us from them. Politically, Aristotle, through his friendship with Alexander and the perpetuation of the Macedonian influence in Ptolemy, was the connecting link between the Greek age of Faith and that of Reason, as he was also philosophically by the nature of his doctrines. He offers us an easy passage from the speculative methods of Plato to the scientific methods. of Archimedes and Euclid. The copiousness of his doctrines, and the obscurity of many of them, might perhaps discourage a superficial student, unless he steadily bears in mind the singular authority they maintained for so many ages, and the brilliant results in all the exact parts of human knowledge to which they so quickly led. The history of Aristotle and his philosophy is therefore our necessary introduction to the grand, the immortal achievements of the Alexandrian school. Aristotle was born at Stagira, in Thrace, B.C. 384. His father was an eminent author of those times on subjects of natural history; by profession he was a physician. Dying while his son was yet quite young, he bequeathed to him not only very ample means, but also his own tastes. Aristotle soon found his way to Athens, and entered the school of Plato, with whom it is said he remained for nearly twenty years. During this period he spent most of his patrimony, and in the end was obliged to support himself by the trade of a druggist. At length differences arose between them, for, as we shall soon find, the great pupil was by no means a blind follower of the great master. In a fortunate moment, Philip, the king of Macedon, appointed him preceptor to his son Alexander, an incident of importance in the intellectual history of Europe. It was to the friendship arising through this relation that Aristotle owed that effectual assistance, to which we have al

Compared with that of Plato.

171

luded, from the conqueror during his Asiatic expedition, for the composition of the 'Natural History,' and also gained that prestige which gave his name such singular authority for more than fifteen centuries. He eventually founded a school in the Lyceum at Athens, and, as it was his habit to deliver his lectures while walking, his disciples received the name of Peripatetics, or walking philosophers. These lectures were of two kinds, esoteric and exoteric, the former being delivered to the more advanced pupils only. He wrote a very large number of works, of which about one-fourth remain.

the induc

The philosophical method of Aristotle is the inverse of that He founds of Plato, whose starting-point was universals, the very exist- tive philosophy. ence of which was a matter of faith, and from which he descended to particulars or details. Aristotle, on the contrary, rose from particulars to universals, advancing to them by inductions; and his system, thus an inductive philosophy, was in reality the true beginning of science.

son.

of Plato.

Plato therefore trusts to the Imagination, Aristotle to Rea- His method compared The contrast between them is best seen by the attitude with that in which they stand as respects the Ideal theory. Plato regards universals, types, or exemplars as having an actual existence; Aristotle declares that they are mere abstractions of reasoning. For the fanciful reminiscences derived from former experience in another life by Plato, Aristotle substitutes the reminiscences of our actual experience in this. These ideas of experience are furnished by the memory, which enables us not only to recall individual facts and events witnessed by ourselves, but also to collate them with one another, thereby discovering their resemblances and their differences. Our induction becomes the more certain as our facts are more numerous, our experience larger. "Art commences when, from a great number of experiences, one general conception is formed which will embrace all similar cases." "If we properly observe celestial phenomena, we may demonstrate the laws which regulate them." With Plato, philosophy arises from faith in the past; with Aristotle, reason alone can constitute it from existing facts. Plato is analytic, Aristotle synthetic. The philosophy of Plato arises from the decomposition of a primitive

The results of Platonism and Aristotel

ism.

Aristotle's

logic

And metaphysics.

idea into particulars, that of Aristotle from the union of particulars into a general conception. The former is essentially an idealist, the latter a materialist.

From this it will be seen that the method of Plato was capable of producing more splendid, though they were necessarily more unsubstantial results; that of Aristotle was more tardy in its operation, but much more solid. It implied endless labours in the collection of facts, the tedious resort to experiment and observation, the application of demonstration. In its very nature it was such that it was impossible for its author to carry by its aid the structure of science toward completion. The moment that Aristotle applies his own principles we find him compelled to depart from them through the want of a sufficient experience and sufficient precision in his facts. The philosophy of Plato is a gorgeous castle in the air, that of Aristotle is a solid structure, laboriously, and with many failures, founded on the solid rock.

Under logic Aristotle treats of the methods of arriving at general propositions, and of reasoning from them. His logic is at once the art of thinking and the instrument of thought. The completeness of our knowledge depends on the extent and completeness of our experience. His manner of reasoning is by the syllogism, an argument consisting of three propositions, such that the concluding one follows of necessity from the two premises, and of which, indeed, the whole theory of demonstration is only an example. Regarding logic as the instrument of thought, he introduces into it, as a fundamental feature, the ten categories. These predicaments are the genera to which everything may be reduced, and denote the most general of the attributes which may be assigned to a thing.

His metaphysics overrides all the branches of the physical sciences. It undertakes an examination of the postulates on which each one of them is founded, determining their truth or fallacy. Considering that all science must find a support for its fundamental conditions in an extensive induction from facts, he puts at the foundation of his system the consideration of the individual; in relation to the world of sense, he rcgards four causes as necessary for the production of a fact—

the material cause, the substantial cause, the efficient cause, the final cause.

Temporary failure of

Motion,

Time.

But as soon as we come to the physics of Aristotle we see at once his weakness. The knowledge of his age does not his system. furnish him facts enough whereon to build, and the consequence is that he is forced into speculation. It will be sufficient for our purpose to allude to a few of his statements, either in this or in his metaphysical branch, to show how great is his uncertainty and confusion. Thus, he asserts that matter The Peripatetic phicontains a triple form,-simple substance, higher substance, fosophy. which is eternal, and absolute substance, or God himself; that the universe is immutable and eternal, and though in relation with the vicissitudes of the world, it is unaffected thereby; that the primitive force which gives rise to all the motions and Substance, changes we see is Nature; it also gives rise to Rest; that the Space, world is a living being, having a soul; that, since every thing is for some particular end, the soul of man is the end of his body; that Motion is the condition of all nature; that the world has a definite boundary and a limited magnitude; that Space is the immovable vessel in which whatever is may be moved; that Space, as a whole, is without motion, though its parts may move; that it is not to be conceived of as without contents; that it is impossible for a vacuum to exist, and hence there is not beyond and surrounding the world a void which contains the world; that there could be no such thing as Time unless there was a soul, for time being the number of motion, number is impossible except there be one who numbers; that perpetual motion in a finite right line being impossible, but in a curvilinear path possible, the world, which The world. is limited and ever in motion, must be of a spherical form; that the earth is its central part, the heavens the circumferential, hence the heaven is nearest to the prime cause of motion; that the orderly, continuous, and unceasing movement of the celestial bodies implies an unmoved mover, for the unchangeable alone can give birth to uniform motion; that unmoved existence is God; that the stars are passionless beings, having attained the end of existence, and worthy above. other things of human adoration; that the fixed stars are in