Aristotle. 0S 



found its different departments. He assigns their precise limits 

 to the sciences ; and the manner in which he classes them is so 

 judicious, so accordant with nature, that the labours of twenty 

 centuries have not improved upon it. We must confine ourselves 

 to the examination of such of his works as have reference to 

 natural history ; but we cannot dispense with mentioning the 

 others, to give an idea of the pnxligious extent of the acquire- 

 ments of this man of truly universal genius. 



His first works relate to Logic or Psychology ; and it was 

 natural in fact that the study of the human mind should pre- 

 cede every other study. It is in these books that we find for 

 the first time exposed the rules of syllogism, an art, by means of 

 which it may easily be discovered, if a reasoning be deficient in 

 some points, by giving it certain determinate forms. Plato, it 

 is true, in his Dialogues, has made use of the syllogism, but it is 

 in a manner instinctively. Aristotle, on the contrary, treats of 

 it in a didactic manner. 



Next come the works on Rhetoric and Poetry. Aristotle here 

 gives rules which he derives from observation, and which, for 

 this reason, have not yet become obsolete ; while all those which 

 have been since laid down in an arbitrary manner, have been 

 found false or insufficient, and have been successively aban- 

 doned. 



It is also by the method of observation that the author pro- 

 ceeds in his works on Morals and Politics. In the latter, we find 

 some ideas which would not be admitted now, especially those 

 which refer to slavery. But these ideas were so much those of 

 the period, that to render more humane sentiments prevalent, 

 it cost Christianity several centuries of continued efforts. 



In Metaphysics, Aristotle treats of the being considered as 

 existing by itself. Here we do not find the same clearness of 

 expression as in his other works, which partly depends upon the 

 circumstance of the subjects being more abstract, and is partly 

 caused by the author''s ideas being less precise. However, in 

 this matter also, we do not find that Aristotle has been surpass- 

 ed by those who have come after him ; and it is even to be re- 

 marked, that of all the parts of his works, it is this which most 

 contributed to extend his influence, and to make it prevail in 

 the schools during the middle ages. 



