20 MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 



been superseded by the gradual advancement of the 

 human mind in intellectual and physical knowledge. 

 Before proceeding, however, to give an analysis of 

 his writings, it will be proper to relate what has 

 been recorded of his life and character. Several of 

 his own countrymen discharged the friendly task due 

 to his genius, by becoming his biographers ; but 

 their memoirs, except a few fragments, have perish- 

 ed in the general wreck of antiquity. Whatever is 

 now known concerning this remarkable man, must 

 be gleaned from the meagre and often contradictory 

 notices to be found in the pages of Diogenes Laer- 

 tius, Dionysius Halicarnassus, Hesychius the Mi- 

 Jesian, Suidas, Ammonius, and a few others of more 

 doubtful authenticity. Modern writers have not 

 thrown much additional light on the subject, and 

 their efforts have accomplished little more than at- 

 tempting to reconcile what is discordant, or rejecting 

 what is improbable, in the statements of the ancients. 

 Aristotle was born at Stagira, a city and sea-port 

 of Macedonia, about the beginning of the 99th Olym- 

 piad, and 384 years before the Christian era. The 

 place of his birth, which derives its chief celebrity 

 from being associated with his name, and which, 

 but for this fortunate accident, might have been 

 blotted from the geography of Europe, was situated 

 on the Strymonic Gulf, and long numbered among 

 the Greek cities of Thrace ; but in the reign of Phi- 

 lip it belonged to Macedon, as the conquests of that 

 monarch had extended the name of his country far 



