66 MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 



more indebted for a familiar notion ot several of Aris- 

 totle's most important doctrines, than to the labours 

 of all his commentators collectively.* The enco- 

 mium, however, must not be understood to imply 

 that the ancients approved exclusively of his physi- 

 cal and moral theories as preferable to all other sys- 

 tems ; or that they gave an entire and unlimited as- 

 sent to all his tenets. Even his own disciples and 

 successors in the Lycaeum disagreed with him on cer- 

 tain points ; nor did the followers of other sects, who 

 commented on parts of his works which they thought 

 most ingenious, espouse his general principles, or 

 acknowledge him their master in philosophy. Such 

 servile adoration did not obtain until the dark age of 

 literature arose, in which all taste for liberal inquiry 

 became extinct, and the human faculties themselves 

 appeared to be sunk in irretrievable torpor. It was 

 then that the benighted world embraced him as an 

 infallible guide, and bowed with submissive indolence 

 to his dogmas. Revering him as an oracle, they be- 

 lieved that where his text was obscure, it was to be 

 explained into some profound meaning which, being 

 inexpressible by any known words, might be denot- 

 ed by terms of their own invention, that had either 

 a very dubious sense, or were as unintelligible as 



* " Cum omnis ratio diligens disserendi duas habet partes, 

 unam inveniendi, alteram judicandi, utriusque Princeps, 

 ut mihi quidem videtur, Aristoteles fuit." Cicero in Topic, 

 And again, " Aristoteles longe omnibus (Platonem semper 

 excipio) praestans et ingenio, et diligenfcia." Tusculan. 

 Q*nest. lib. i. 



