ARISTOTLE. 131 



prehend what is not clear and distinct. Hence a continual tendency 

 to stretch nature on the Procrustes-bed of logical definition, where, 

 with more or less gentle truncation or extension, a plausible theory 

 will be formed. If one weak point after another be discovered in this, 

 a new bulwark of hypothesis will be thrown up to protect it, and at 

 last the fort be made impregnable, but, alas ! in the meantime it has 

 become a castle in the air. Should, however, the genius of the dis- 

 putant lie less in the power of distinguishing and refining, than in that 

 of presenting his views in a broad and striking manner, should his 

 fancy be rich and his feelings strong, above all, should he be one of 

 a nation where eloquence is at once the most common gift and the 

 most envied attainment, he will call in rhetoric to the aid of his 

 cause ; and, in this event, as the accessory gradually encroaches and 

 elbows out that interest in whose aid it was originally introduced, 

 as the handling of the question becomes more important, and the 

 question itself less so, there will result, not, as in the former case, a 

 scholastic philosophy, but an arena for closet orators, who will 1 abandon 

 the systematic study of philosophy, and varnish up declamations on sel 

 subjects. Such results, doubtless, did not follow in the time of Aristotle 

 and Xenocrates. Under them, unquestionably, the original purpose 

 of this discipline was kept steadily in sight ; and it was not suffered 

 to pass from being the test of clear and systematic thought to a mere 

 substitute for it. But the transition must have been to a considerable 

 extent effected when an Arcesilaus or a Carneades could deliver formal 

 dissertations in opposition to any question indifferently, and when 

 Cicero could regard the rhetorical practice as co-ordinate in import- 

 ance with the other advantages resulting to the student. 2 In the very Beason of 

 excellence and reputation then of this peculiar discipline of the founder n^racy g ofth 

 of the Peripatetic school, we have a germ adequate to produce a rapid later Peripa- 

 decay of his philosophy, and we have no occasion to look either to tetlcs ' 

 external accidents or to the internal nature of his doctrines for a reason 

 of the degeneracy of the Peripatetics after Theophrastus. The im- 

 portance of this remark will be seen in the sequel. 



It was probably in the course of this sojourn at Athens, which Aristotle's 

 lasted for the space of thirteen years, that the greater number of Aris- 

 totle's works were produced. His external circumstances were at this 

 time most favourable. The Macedonian party was the prevalent one 

 at Athens, so that he needed be under no fears for his personal quiet ; 

 and the countenance and assistance he received from Alexander enabled 

 him to prosecute his investigations without any interruption from the 

 scantiness of pecuniary means. The conqueror is said in Athenasus to 



1 /xrjSej/ exeij/ tyiXoffoQe'iv Trpayfji.aTiKws, a\\a Oeffeis XfiKvQi^iv. Strabo, xiii. 

 p. 124. 



2 See the passage cited above, p. 129, note *. Compare also Acad. Prior, ii. 18. 

 " Quis enim ista tarn aperte perspicueque et perversa et falsa secutus esset, nisi 

 tanta in Arcesila, multo etiam major in Carneade, et copia rerum, et dicendi vis 

 fuisset." Yet the eloquent Arcesilaus and Carneades left nothing behind them 

 written. Plutarch, De Fort. Alex. p. 323, ed Paris. 



K2 



