10 INTEODUCTOEY. 



Possessed of considerable means, enjoying the friend 

 ship of the most powerful rulers of his time, occupying a 

 high social position, and having great opportunities for pro 

 secuting his investigations, Aristotle was the most fortunate 

 of philosophers. He appears to have lived a highly honour 

 able life, and no charge indicating any serious defect of 

 character seems to have been proved against him. Many 

 passages in his works are indicative of high moral feeling. 

 Of his religious beliefs we know very little. When he refers 

 to the gods, or Hellenic beliefs, he does so reverently, but 

 these subjects appear to have been avoided by him. Although 

 his views on the subject are not sufficiently clearly ex 

 pressed, he does not seem to have believed in the immor 

 tality of the soul of an individual. According to him, all 

 parts of the soul, except perhaps the intellectual soul, are 

 inseparable from the body.* Man and other animals 

 cannot participate in immortality, yet each individual tries, 

 one more and another less, to participate in a kind of immor 

 tality by producing individuals like itself, all being members 

 of an everlasting species.! 



Antipater testifies to the effect that Aristotle was courteous 

 and persuasive in manner. That he was kind and con 

 siderate is shown by the way in which he drew up his will, 

 as it is given by Diogenes Laertius, carefully providing for 

 his second wife Herpyllis, his daughter Pythias, his son 

 Nicomachus, and his slaves. He made provision for some 

 of his slaves, and expressly willed that none of his young 

 slaves should be sold. 



After his death there were many detractors of his 

 reputation. ^Elian states that Aristotle squandered his 

 paternal fortune, then served in the army, and, failing there, 

 became a seller of drugs. I One of the characters in 

 Athenoeus says that he could narrate a great deal about the 

 nonsense which the seller of drugs talked, and then gives 

 statements about Aristotle agreeing with those cited above 

 from ./Elian, but adds significantly that Epicurus alone 

 spoke thus of him, for, although Eubulides and Cephiso- 

 dorus wrote books against him, neither ventured to assert 

 anything of this kind. Grote tells us that Epicurus was 

 not the only witness, for the same statements were made by 

 Other charges were made against Aristotle, but 



* De Anima, ii. c. 1, 413a; ii. c. 2, 413&. 



f .Ibid. ii. c. 4, 4156. 



I Varies Historic, v. 9. De ^n. viii. 50. 



