50 ARISTOTLE. 



teemed pupil. The bones of Pythias lie orders to 

 be disinterred and buried with his own body, as she 

 herself had desired. None of his slaves are to be 

 sold ; they are all either emancipated by his will, 

 or ordered to be set free by his heirs whenever they 

 shall become worthy of liberty. Finally, he orders 

 that the dedications which he had vowed for the 

 safety of Nicanor be presented at Stagira to Jupi- 

 ter and Minerva. 



The same writer gives the titles of 260 works of 

 Aristotle. Many of these, however, have perished. 

 From his situation in society, and the munificent 

 patronage of Alexander, he possessed more ample 

 resources than any other man of science that could 

 be named ; and, considering the age in which he 

 lived, his success in the investigation of nature may 

 be considered as almost unrivalled. It is to be re- 

 gretted that so many of his treatises have been lost, 

 and that even those which have been transmitted 

 to us have not been preserved in a perfect state. 



Strabo has given a melancholy history of these 

 works, in the ninth book of his geography. Aris- 

 totle, as we have stated above, had bequeathed 

 them to Theophrastus, the most distinguished of 

 his pupils, and his successor in the school. That 

 philosopher left them, together with his own works, 

 to his scholar Neleus, who carried them to his 

 native city, Scepsis in Asia Minor. The heirs of 

 Neleus, who were unlettered men, kept them locked 

 up ; and when they understood that the King of 

 Pergamos, to whom the town belonged, was collect- 

 ing books, to form a library on the plan of the Alex- 

 andrian, they concealed them in a vault or cellar, 

 where they lay forgotten 130 years. When acci- 



