160 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



be reserved for them. Similarly, in the Nicomachean Ethics, 1 he 

 refers his readers to " the exoteric discourses " for an analysis of the 

 human mind. The law of subordination among the parts of a com- 

 posite whole, as, for instance, the law of harmony in music, is another 

 subject which he considers as ** rather proper for an exoteric investiga- 

 tion. 2 In " the exoteric discourses," he discussed the philosophy of 

 life, the relative importance of the several elements which go to make 

 up happiness, and the conditions which the social relation imposes on " 

 a mail 3 And in the same he proposes that an examination of the 

 idea of Time should be gone into. 4 Here then we have ample evidence 

 that the most abstruse subjects, physical, metaphysical, and moral, 

 were treated of somehow or other in discourses bearing the name of 

 exoteric,' a name to which modern usage has almost indissolubly 

 attached the notion of shallowriess, if not something like fraud also. 

 Of anything like freemasonry, anything amounting to a severance of 

 knowledge into two distinct spheres, the one to be inhabited by the 

 vulgar, the other by choicer spirits, there is not a vestige. If any 

 acroamatic work by Aristotle has come down to us, the Nicomachean 

 Ethics is one. Yet in it is nothing requiring such profundity of re- 

 flection or sobriety of mind as would be demanded by the psychological 

 discussion in the exoteric work to which the author refers. And as 

 for the terms by which Plutarch and Clement of Alexandria denote 

 that class of works which they place in contradistinction to the exoteric, 

 they are in part not used by Aristotle at all, and in part used in a 

 totally different sense. 5 The phrases by which he designates such 



1 P. 1102, col. 1, line 26, Bekk. 



2 Politic, i. p. 1254, col. 1, line 33, Bekk. Kal yap ev rots /*r? jueTe'xou<n fays 

 ^ffri TIS &pxni ^ ov o-pfJ-ovias. aAAa ravra jjiev fff(as efyrepiKwrepas effTL er/ceij/ecos. 



3 Politic, p. 1323, col. 1, line 22, Bekk. In a remarkable passage (Sat. iii. 

 67-72) the Stoic Persius sums up all the great questions with which the philosophy 

 of his school engaged. The parts printed in italics would all have been handled by 

 Aristotle in the exoteric discourses to which he in this passage refers : 



causas cogrioscite rerum ; 



Quid SUTTMS ; et quidnam victuri gignimur ; ordo 



Quis datus ; aut metas quam mollis flexus, et unde ; 



Quis modus argento; quid fas optare ; quid asper 



Utile nummus habet patrice, carisque propinquis 



Quantum elargiri deceat ; quern te Deus esse 



Jussit et humand qua parte locatus es in re. 



It is apparently to this work of Aristotle that Cicero refers. Acad. ii. 42 5 DeFin. 

 ii. sec. 13, iv. 18, 20, 26 ; and probably De Offic. iii. 8. 



4 Phys. Auscult. p. 217, col. 2, line 31, Bekk. 



5 Plutarch, Vit. Alex. c. 7, opposes rbv T]9iKbv Kal TroXiriKbv \byov to a! 

 airoppfiTcu Kal fiafivrepai StSatr/caA-fat, and describes these latter as &s oi avtipes 



iSiws aKpoapaTiKas KOI eiroTrriKas Trpoffayopevovres OVK Qetyspov els TOVS 

 TroAAous. Clement (Stronim. v. p. 575) classes Pythagoras, Plato, Epicurus, the 

 Stoics, and Aristotle together as philosophers who concealed a part of their opinions. 

 \eyovffi 8e al oi'A.piffroTf\ovs, ra /j.ev effcarepiKa elvai ru>v ffvyypa/ji. l u.dT(av 

 , ra Se Kowd re Kal e'lcoTep^' and that as the Pythagoreans have their 

 y and p.aO'n/j.aTiKov, so the Peripatetics have their ev$oov and eVi<r- 

 The terms ctK/Joa/xa-n/cbs, eiroTrTiitbs, ecrwrept/cbs, and 



