INTRODUCTION 



supplied by the above conjecture. It is even possible 

 that in one place (3. 12. i.) the name of one of these 

 students has been preserved. 



Theophrastus, like his master, was a very volu- 

 mmous writer; Diogenes gives a list of 227 treatises 

 from his pen, covering most topics of human interest, 

 as Religion, Politics, Ethics, Education, Rhetoric, 

 Mathematics, Astronomy, Logic, Meteorology and 

 other natural sciences. His oratorical works enjoyed 

 a high reputation in antiquity. Diogenes attributes 

 to him ten works on Rhetoric, of which one On Style 

 was known to Cicero, who adopted from it the 

 classification of styles into the ' grand,' the ' plain,' 

 and the ' intermediate.' ^ Of one or two other lost 

 works we have some knowledge. Thus the substance 

 of an essay on Piety is preserved in Porphyry de 

 Abstinentia.^ The principal works still extant are 

 the nine books of the Enquiry into Plants, and the 

 six books on the Causes of Plants ; these seem to be 

 complete. We have also considerable fragments of 

 treatises entitled : — of Sense-perception and objects 

 of Sense, of Stones, of Fire, of Odours, of Winds, of 

 W^eather-Signs, of Weariness, of Dizziness, of Sweat, 

 Metaphysics, besides a number of unassigned excerpts. 

 The style of these works, as of the botanical books, 

 suggests that, as in the case of Aristotle, what we 

 jjossess consists of notes for lectures or notes taken 

 of lectures. There is no literary charm ; the sen- 



1 Sandys, i. p. 99. 



' Bemays, Theophrastus, 1866. 



