MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 48 



country in which he lived, may be assumed, from 

 the fact, that, in the midst of his brilliant victories and 

 unexampled conquests, he reminded him of the supe- 

 riority of religious excellence to worldly greatness ; 

 concluding an epistle to him with this memorable ad- 

 monition, " that those who entertain just notions of 

 the Deity, are better entitled to be high-minded than 

 those who subdue kingdoms." Persecution for avow- 

 ing opinions differing from those of the national creed, 

 was not then uncommon in Greece ; and had the royal 

 preceptor ventured to maintain the unity and perfection 

 of God in plain and popular language, he must have 

 exposed himself to the tragical fate that overtook 

 Socrates. 



It has been asserted by authors even so recent 

 as Brucker, that for sordid and selfish purposes 

 Aristotle accommodated the tenets of his philosophy 

 to the base morals of courts ; but his ethical writings 

 which still remain, and which are the most practically 

 useful of any that Pagan antiquity can boast, are an 

 ample refutation of a calumny, which must be ranked 

 as another " weak invention of the enemy." So sen- 

 sible was Alexander of the benefits derived from his 

 instructions, that he considered them more valuable 

 than the advantages he inherited from his father, be- 

 cause, as he used to remark, the one gave him life, 

 but the other had taught him to live well. " I have 

 not reigned to-day," is said to have been his ordinary 

 reflection, if a single day had passed without his do- 

 ing some worthy or benevolent action. Upon the 



