ARISTOTLE. 163 



tions have lost as works of art, they have gained as works of science. 



The distinct and explicit exposition of a principle which prevents them 



from being the former, is a merit in them as the latter. And as the 



dialogic form, even where it fails in producing the dramatic impression Dialogic form 



that we receive from Plato, admits to the fullest extent of all the 



assistance which rhetoric can afford, it is not wonderful that it should 



have been selected by Aristotle as an appropriate one for many or even 



most of his exoteric treatises. 1 



Neither in those cases in which he adopted this form can we be style of the 

 surprised that Aristotle should have made use of a style, which, * 

 however unfit for the purposes of a rigidly scientific investigation, is 

 not at all inappropriate to compositions such as we have described. 

 A few relics (and unfortunately a very few) have come down to us of 

 them ; about thirty lines in the original Greek are quoted by Plutarch 2 

 from one of the most celebrated, and Cicero has in a Latin dress pre- 

 served two other small fragments. 3 The first of these is part of a 

 treatise either addressed to Eudemus, Aristotle's disciple, or written 

 on the subject of his death, and from the nature of the extract, no less 

 than from the name it bore, 4 seems to be upon the subject of the 

 immortality of the soul, and the miserable condition of man while 

 imprisoned in the body, as compared \vith that which preceded and 

 will follow the present life. Our existence on earth is regarded as a 

 punishment inflicted upon us by the gods; and in support of this 

 opinion an appeal is made to the experience of the human race mani- 

 festing itself to that effect in proverbs and mythological tales. The 

 dead are represented as dwelling in a higher sphere of being than the 

 living, and as dishonoured by any expressions or feelings on the part 

 of the latter which involve an opposite opinion. The language in 



tension to dramatic effect. The very names of the collocutors indicate the prin- 

 ciples which they profess. In our opinion, Berkeley has acted wisely, but would 

 have done better still to have dropped the dialogic form. Harris's three treatises 

 are an attempt to come much nearer to the Platonic dialogue, and, in our judgment, 

 a signal failure. 



1 Cicero, although he does not expressly say that the exoteric works were all 

 dialogues, speaks of them as if they were nearly coextensive. So too Ammonius 

 (Introd. ad Categ. sec. 2) divides the regular treatises of Aristotle into two heads, 

 , ra p.sv avroTrp6ffu)ira Kal aKpoafj-ariKa- ra 8e Sia\oyiKa Kal 

 But Simplicius and Pbiloponus prevent us from construing their 



meaning too rigidly. The former says, Sixfi 5e ir)pr]/j.ev(t>v avrov ru>v crvyypa/j.- 

 fj.d.T<av, els re ra e^carepiKa, oia ra iffropiKa Kal ra 5ia\oyiKa, Kal oAo>s TO /JLI] 

 &Kpas aKptfitias <$>povr(ovra, /cat ets ra a/cpoa^art/ca, &c. (ad Phys. Auscult. 

 init.), and the latter, speaking of the exoteric writings, says, among which are the 

 Dialogues, of which the Eudemus is one (ad Arist. De Anima, i. 138). 



2 De Consolat. ad Apollon. p. 115. He also alludes to the same work in his 

 Life of Dion, cap. 22. 



8 De Natural Deorum, ii. 37 ; De Officiis, ii. 16. 



4 y Eu5rj|Uos' r) Trepl ^U^TJS. It is probably this treatise which is referred to in 

 the Nicomachean Ethics, p. 1102, col. 1, line 26, and which was quoted by Cicero 

 in his Dialogue Hortensius (ap. Augustin. c. Julian, vol. x. p. 623, ed. Benedict). 

 The fragment is given by Orelli in the seventh volume of his edition of Cicero's 

 works, pp. 485, 486. 



M2 



