329 



ARISTOTLE. 



ARIUS. 



330 



and friends; and they received from time to time additions and correc- 

 tions ; a circumstance alluded to by Cicero, and confirmed by allusions 

 contained in them, which indicate different times of composition. 

 (Cicero, ' De Fin.' v. 5 ; Niebuhr, ' Hist, of Rome,' vol. i. note 30.) 



None of Aristotle's exoteric writings have come down to UB. This 

 would be the more singular, if the story told by some ancient authors 

 with regard to the preservation of his writings were true. [APELLICON.] 

 The researches of recent scholars have shown that nearly all Aristotle's 

 scientific works were known to the followers of Theophrastus in the 

 Peripatetic school, and that there were numerous copies of them in the 

 Alexandrine library. Such facts are inconsistent with the supposition 

 that Aristotle's philosophical works were concealed from the world till 

 the time of Apellicon, more than two hundred years after his death. 



Aristotle's genuine extant works may be divided into three classes : 

 1, those relating to the philosophy of the mind; 2, those relating to 

 the physical sciences ; 3, those relating to moral and political philo- 

 sophy. To the first class belong the Metaphysics, the Categories, the 

 treatise on Interpretation, or the Meaning of Propositions, the first 

 and second Analytics, the Topics, and the work on the Refutation of 

 Sophistical Arguments, which, with the exception of the first, obtained 

 the name of his ' Organon,' or instrument for the analysis of reasoning. 

 Under the second class come the Physics, the Treatises on the Heavens, 

 on Generation and Destruction, on the Soul, on Sensation and the 

 Objects of Sense, on Memory and Recollection, on Sleeping and 

 Awaking, on Dreams and Prophecy in Sleep, on Length and Shortness 

 of Life, on Youth and Old Age, on Life and Death, on Breathing. 

 The title of his great work on Natural History means, literally trans- 

 lated, ' inquiries concerning Animals.' To the third class belong the 

 three ethical treatises, the Great, the Eudemian, and the Nicomachean 

 Ethics, which seem to have been written at different periods of his 

 life, the first being the most meagre, and the last, addressed to his son 

 Nicomachus (in which three books of the Kudemian Ethics are 

 embodied), the most complete and matured. 



The most valuable of Aristotle's lost works, and indeed the most 

 valuable of all the lost works of Greek prose, is his collection of 158 

 Constitutions, both of Grecian and Barbarian States, the Democratic, 

 Oligarchical, Aristocratical, and Tyrannical being treated separately, 

 containing an account of the manners, customs, and institutions of each 

 country. (Cicero, ' De Fin.' v. 4.) The loss of his works on Colonies, 

 on Nobility, and on Royal Government ; of his Chronological Collec- 

 tions, and of his Epistles to Philip, Alexander, Antipater, and others, 

 is also much to be regretted. He likewise revised a copy of the 

 ' Iliad,' which Alexander carried with him during his campaigns in a 

 precious casket : hence this recension (called the 'casket-copy') passed 

 into the Alexandrine Library, and was used by the Alexandrine critics. 

 (Wolf, 'Prolog, ad. Homer,' a. 45.) His entire works, according to 

 Diogenes Laertius, occupied in the Greek manuscripts 415,270 lines. 



Writings contained in the collection of Aristotle's works falsely attri- 

 buted to him are the treatise on the ' Universe,' the author of which 

 (Mr. Payne Knight remarks) has " retailed the common opinions of 

 his age in the common language of a common declaimer, and by a 

 strange inconsistency attributed them to the condensed, refined, and 

 abstruse Stagirite " (see also Lord Aberdeen on ' Grecian Architecture,' 

 p. 207) ; the ' Rhetoric to Alexander ;' the second book of the ' (Eco- 

 nomics ;' and a treatise on Marvellous Reports, written between the 

 time of Agathocles and the first Punic war, probably about the 130th 

 Olympiad, or B.C. 260. (Niebuhr, ' Hist of Rome,' vol. i., p. 16, and 

 note 342.) An extract about Winds, from Aristotle on the ' Signs 

 of Bad Weather,' vol. ii, p. 973, ed. Bekker, is considered by Niebuhr 

 as spurious. (' Hist, of Rome,' vol. L p. 15.) The genuineness of part 

 of the ' Physiognomies' has likewise been doubted. (Muller, ' Archiio- 

 logic iler Kuust,' s. 331, n. 1.) A set of 'Epistles' is also attributed 

 to Aristotle, which, like those of Phalaris, Socrates, Euripides, and 

 othen), are all spurious. 



Aristotle's philosophical works many centuries after his death ob- 

 tained a prodigious influence, not only in Europe, but even in Asia : 

 they were translated into Arabic, and thence an abstract of his logical 

 system passed into the language of Persia. (Balfour in the ' Asiatic 

 Researches,' voL viii, pp. 89-135, ed. 8vo., London.) In Europe they 

 acquired an immense ascendancy in the middle ages, and were con- 

 sidered as an authority without appeal, and only second to that of 

 Scripture : we are even informed that in a part of Germany his 

 ' Ethics ' were read in the churches on Sunday in the place of the 

 Gospel. Parts of his philosophy, which are the most worthless, as 

 bin ' Physics,' were much cultivated ; and his logical writings were in 

 many cases abused so as to lead to vain subtleties and captious con- 

 test* about words. The connection between some of his philosophical 

 tenets and the Roman Catholic theology tended much to uphold his 

 authority, which the Reformation lowered in a corresponding degree. 

 His doctrines were in general strongly opposed by the early reformers : 

 in 1518 Luther sustained a thesis at Heidelberg, ' Qui in Aristotele 

 vult philosophari prius oportet in Christo stultiticari:' 'He who wishes 

 to philosophise in Aristotle must bo first stultified in Christ.' (Bayle, 

 ' Aristotle,' n. Y. Bee also a curious passage of Luther's, containing a 

 moat scurrilous attack on Aristotle, cited in Bayle, ' Luther,' n. II.) 

 Luther gave way afterwards, and did not oppose Aristotle as to human 

 learning. Melancthon, who was however one of the mildest of the 

 reformers, was a great supporter of Aristotle. (' Morulis Philosoph. 



Epitome,' Argentor., 1539; with the introductory address, and the 

 commentary on the fifth book of Aristotle's ' Ethics.') Many of his 

 doctrines were in the same century zealously attacked by Pierre de la 

 Ramee [RiMCs], a French philosopher ; and Bacon afterwards, with 

 others of his followers, added the weight of their arguments and 

 authority. Aristotle's philosophy accordingly fell into undeserved 

 neglect during the latter part of the 17th and the whole of the 18th 

 century ; of late years however the true worth of his writings has been 

 more fully appreciated, and the study of hia best treatises has much 

 revived. 



The best edition of Aristotle's entire works is that by Bekker, 1831, 

 Berlin, 3 vols., 4to., in which the text is established on the authority 

 of more than a hundred manuscripts of Italy, France, and England. 



The English translations of Aristotle are for the most part of little 

 value, on account of their unfaithfulness and inaccuracy. That of the 

 ' Poetic,' by Twining, should however be excepted. A translation of 

 all Aristotle's works, by Mr. T. Taylor, was published in 9 vols., 4to., 

 London, 1810. 



ARISTO'XENUS of Tarentum, the earliest of the extant Greek 

 writers on music. He was a disciple first of his father Mnesias, who 

 was acquainted with music, and subsequently of Aristotle ; but, 

 according to Suidas, he never spoke well of his great master after the 

 latter had appointed Theophrastua as his successor. On the same 

 authority it is stated that he wrote 453 treatises on music, philosophy, 

 history, &c. He was the author of a work on the ' Elements of Har- 

 mony,' and the founder of a musical sect, usually called Aristoxeneun, 

 in opposition to the Pythagorean. The disciples of Aristoxenus were 

 called Musicians by Ear, in opposition to the Pythagoreans, who were 

 termed Musicians by Rule. 



The Pythagoreans had discovered the simplicity of the ratios whidi 

 exist between the notes of the diatonic scale. Founding their notions 

 entirely upon arithmetic, they laid down intervals, as concordant or 

 discordant, by theory alone, even to the extent of rejecting the interval 

 of an eleventh from among the consonances, though of course they 

 retained the fourth. They had also discovered the unequal intervals 

 which exist between the tones of the scale, and, had they considered 

 different keys, would have been obliged to invent a method of tem- 

 perament. In the entire rejection of the ear they were undoubtedly 

 wrong, and Aristoxenus was equally so in taking the other extreme. 

 He asserts that the octave consists of six whole tones, each of them 

 equal to the interval between the fourth and fifth to the tonic ; that 

 the fourth consists of two such tones and a hah", the fifth of three and 

 a half. It is now sufficiently known that this system is erroneous 

 even in the judgment of the ear, and that the only mark of musical 

 tact displayed in it is the determination of the tone, not from the 

 unassisted ear, though on its principles that would be admissible, but 

 from the previous determination of a fourth and fifth. Six whole tones 

 are more than an octave, and three different tones would be derived 

 from the octave, fourth, and fifth, as defined by Aristoxenus. To put 

 it in the power of any one to try his system, we subjoin the number 

 of parts out of a thousand which each note requires ; that is, calling 

 the length of the string which sounds C, 1000 ; the length (tension 

 being the same) corresponding to the several notes appears underneath 

 them : 



C DBF GABC 



System of Aristoxenus 1000 891 794 749 667 595 530 500 

 Perfect Intervals 1000 889 800 750 667 600 533 500 



Of course the system of Aristoxenus is, so far as it goes, that now 

 known by the name of ' equal temperament,' which Dr. Smith (a stern 

 theorist) prefers to all others, but of which the first principle is the 

 abolition of all distinction between the characters of the different keys. 

 The above is not on the exact principle of Aristoxenus, which cannot 

 be represented, because it disagrees with itself; but the practical truth 

 of the fourth and fifth of its scale (a mere accident) brings the pre- 

 ceding representation very close to it. The system of Aristoxenus had 

 its followers till the time of Ptolemscus, who wrote against it in hia 

 ' Harmonics.' There is an opinion attributed to Aristoxenus, that the 

 soul bears to the body some such relation as the sound of a string 

 to the string itself: this is perspicuous poetry, but rather cloudy 

 philosophy. 



(Teuneman, Mimud, &c., Cousin's translation, who cites G. L. Mahne, 

 Diotr. de Ariatoxeno P/Mot. Peripatetico, 8vo., Amsterdam, 1793.) 



ARIUS was a native of Cyrenaica, in Africa : the date of his birth 

 seems to be unknown. He was distinguished for personal beauty, 

 graceful manuors, extensive learning, logical eloquence, and ascetic 

 abstinence. He has been accused, but without sufficient ground, of 

 restless ambition, and a predilection for innovations. The doctrine 

 taught by Arius was not in his time a novelty, but had been propa- 

 gated in the Alexandrine school of divinity. Arius obtained the favour 

 of three successive patriarchs of Alexandria. The patriarch Peter 

 ordained him deacon, but prohibited him from the exercise of eccle- 

 siastical functions when in A.D. 306, he joined the party of Meletius. 

 The patriarch Achilles, moved by the repentance of Arius, made 

 hun in 313 presbyter and pastor of the church Baucalis, at Alexandria; 

 and the patriarch Alexander gave him the first rank among his 

 clergy. 



The patriarch Alexander, in 318, having asserted, in a conference 



