ARISTOTLE. 129 



to play the part of a sort of president in his school, holding the office 

 for the space of ten days, after which another took his place. 1 This 

 peculiarity seems to derive illustration from the practice of the univer- 

 sities of Europe in the middle ages, in which, as is well known, it 

 was the custom for individuals on various occasions to maintain certain 

 theses against all who chose to controvert them. A remnant of this 

 practice remains to this day in the * Acts' (as they are termed), which 

 are kept in the University of Cambridge by candidates for a degree in 

 either of the Faculties. It is an arrangement which results necessarily 

 from the scarcity of books of instruction, and is dropped or degenerates 

 into a mere form when this deficiency is removed. While information 

 on any given subject must be derived entirely or mainly from the 

 mouth of the teacher, as was the case in the time of Aristotle, no 

 less than that of Scotus and Aquinas, the most satisfactory test of 

 the learner's proficiency is his ability to maintain the theory which he 

 has received against all arguments which may be brought against it. 

 We shall probably be right in supposing that this was the duty of the 

 president (apx wj/ ) spoken of by Diogenes. He was, in the language 

 of the sixteenth century, keeping an act. He had for the space of ten 

 days to defend his own theory and to refute the objections (aWpicu) 

 which his brother-disciples might either entertain or invent, the master 

 in the meantime taking the place of a moderator, occasionally inter- 

 posing to show where issue must be joined, to prevent either party 

 from drawing illogical conclusions from acknowledged premises, and, 

 probably, after the discussion had been continued for a sufficient time, 

 to point out the ground of the fallacy. This explanation will also 

 serve to account for a phenomenon, which cannot fail to strike a reader 

 on the perusal of any one of Aristotle's writings that have come down 

 to us. The systematic treatment of a subject is continually broken by 

 an apparently needless discussion of objections which may be brought 

 against some particular part. These are stated more or less fully, and 

 are likewise taken off; or it sometimes happens that merely the prin- 

 ciple on which the solution must proceed is indicated, and it is left to 

 the ingenuity of the reader to fill up the details. To return to our 

 subject, it is quite obvious that such a discipline as we have described 



xxi Iv ry ff-^o^ vopoQirilv, ftiftevpivov Sivuxgoirvv utrrt xaret 1x0, 

 a^avra voiiTv. (Diog. Laert. Vit. sec. 4.) Itaque mihi semper Peripateticorum 

 Academiseque consuetude de omnibus rebus in contrarias partes disserendi non ob 

 earn causam solum placuit, quod aliter non posset, quid in quaque re veri simile 

 esset, inveniri ; sed etiam quod esset ea maxima dicendi exercitatio : qu^, princeps 

 usus est Aristoteles, deinde, eum qui secuti sunt. (Cicero, Tusc. Qu. ii. 3.) Sin 

 aliquis extiterit aliquando, qui Aristoteleo more de omnibus rebus in utramque 

 partem possit dicere, et in omni caus duas contrarias orationes, prseceptis illius 

 cognitis, explicare ; aut hoc Arcesilae modo et Carneadi, contra omne quod proposi- 

 turn sit disserat; quique ad earn rationem adjungat hunc rhetoricum usum moremque 

 dicendi, is sit verus, is perfectus, is solus orator." (Cicero, De Oral. iii. 21.) The 

 passage from Quintilian (i. 2, 23), quoted by Menage in his note on Diogenes (Joe. 

 cit.), refers to an essentially different kind of discipline, arising out of other grounds 

 and directed to other ends. 



[O. R. P.] K 



