164 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



which these sentiments are embodied is of proportionate dignity to 

 the theme: it is totally unlike the dry and jejune style in which 

 the works which have come down to us are written ; on the contrary, 

 it is rather diffuse and ornamented, and fully enables, us to understand 

 the expression of Cicero, "Aristotle, with his golden flood of language," 1 

 which, judging from his rigidly demonstrative works alone, we should 

 deem singularly inappropriate. One of the passages preserved in 

 Cicero is even more gorgeous and eloquent than the one in Plutarch, 

 and for the sake of the subject we will endeavour to give some notion 

 of its rhythm and structure, although, of course, a translation twice 

 removed from the original can do this but very inadequately. The 

 argument is the common one of natural theology, the evidence which 

 the wonders of the universe afford of the existence of an intelligent 

 Creator, Aristotle's reasoning appears to be directed against those 

 who asserted that such an inference was the result of a traditional 

 belief handed down from generation to generation, and interpreting all 

 phenomena into an accordance with itself. He attempts by an illus- 

 tration to show that this is not the case, but that it proceeds from the 

 natural, conviction of the human mind, unswayed by any particular 

 bias, as soon as its attention is roused to these objects. " Suppose 

 there to exist," says he, " a race of beings, who had always inhabited 

 a region in the heart of the earth, dwelling in fair and lordly mansions 

 adorned by statues and pictures, and provided with all the appliances 

 of luxury in which those whom the world envies abound, but who 

 never had visited the surface. Now, if these had heard by rumours and 

 hearsay that there was a certain Divine power, living and acting ; and 

 then at some time the jaws of the earth were to open and allow them 

 to quit their obscure dwelling-place and come forth into the region 

 which we inhabit, then, when all at once they beheld earth, sea, and 

 sky, the enormous clouds, the mighty winds, when they gazed on 

 the sun, and perceived how vast, how beautiful it was, how potent in 

 its operation, how, by diffusing its light through the whole of the 

 heaven, it was the cause of the day ; when, again, after night had 

 veiled the earth in darkness, they observed the whole firmament 

 studded and lit up with stars, the moon with her varying phases, now 

 increasing, now waning, and all rising, and setting, and running on their 

 courses steadily and unvaryingly for an eternity of ages ; surely, when 

 they beheld all this they would believe both that there were gods, and 

 that these mighty works were from their hand !" The passage in the 

 4 De Officiis ' appears rather to be a summary of Aristotle's expressions 

 in his own words than a translation like the above ; but even there the 

 reader will easily recognise an oratorical structure quite unlike what is to 



1 Veniet, flumen orationis aureum fundens. (Aristoteles, Acad. Pr. ii. 38.) In 

 another passage, Torquatus alleges that his adversary is prepossessed against Epi- 

 curus, hecause his writings are deficient in those " ornaments of style " which he 

 finds in Plato, Theophrastus, and Aristotle. (De Fin. i. 5.) To the scientific 

 works this description is about as applicable as to the Elements of Euclid. 



