J8 MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 



all that is curious or valuable in science and philo- 

 sophy as they existed in Greece, when Greece, for 

 learning and arts, was the most illustrious country 

 in the world. At an early period of its history, the 

 wisdom of the East, including the dark traditions of 

 Egypt and India, with their mythology, geometry, 

 and astronomy, were imported by native travellers, 

 whom the gratitude of their fellow-citizens dignified 

 with the title of Sophi, or wise men, on account of 

 their extraordinary pre-eminence in natural and mo- 

 ral knowledge. For many centuries the vestal fires 

 of this adopted literature continued to burn with in- 

 creasing splendour in the schools of Athens, Corinth, 

 and Megara, under a succession of able masters, 

 most of whom were the founders of distinct sects, 

 who adopted their name and opinions. At the time 

 when Aristotle appeared, the prevailing sects were 

 the Ionic, the Socratic, the Cyrenaic, the Megaric, 

 the Academic, and the Peripatetic ; each of which 

 had its partisans, and generally flourished or declin- 

 ed according to the celebrity of its teachers. 



About a century before the reign of Alexander, 

 speculative philosophy had assumed a new and more 

 systematic form ; many of its fanciful theories had 

 been exploded ; a more rational method of instruc- 

 tion was introduced, by treating the different sub^ 

 jects, whether in ethics, physics, or politics, under 

 their proper subdivisions ; all of which were studied 

 in the Grecian academies with a rivalry and enthu* 

 unparalleled perhaps in the history of civilized 



