46 ARISTOTLE. 



between " Macedonia's madman" and " the Stagi- 

 rite," the latter continued to enjoy at least an ap- 

 pearance of protection^ which prevented his enemies 

 from seriously molesting him. But as the splen- 

 dour of his talents, his success in teaching, and the 

 celebrity which he had acquired in all parts of 

 Greece, had excited the animosity of those who found 

 themselves eclipsed by the brightness of his genius, 

 no sooner was Alexander dead, than they stirred up 

 a priest, named Eurymedon, with whom was asso- 

 ciated Demophilus, a powerful citizen, to prefer a 

 charge of impiety against him before the court of 

 Areopagus, on the ground that he had commemorat- 

 ed the virtues of his wife and of his friend Hermeias 

 with such honours as were exclusively bestowed on 

 the gods. Warned by the fate of Socrates under 

 similar circumstances, he judged it prudent to re- 

 tire ; remarking, that he wished to spare the Athe- 

 nians the disgrace of committing another act of in- 

 justice against philosophy. 



He eifected his escape, with a few friends, to 

 Chalcis in Euboea, where he died soon after, in the 

 year 322 b. c, and the 63d of his age ; having, on 

 his deathbed, appointed Theophrastus of Lesbos, 

 one of his favourite pupils, his successor at the Ly- 

 ceum. Various accounts are given of his demise ; 

 but it is probable that an overexcited mind, and a 

 body worn out by disease, were the real causes of 

 his dissolution. 



According to Procopius and others, Aristotle 

 drowned himself in the Euboean Euripus, because he 

 could not discover the cause of its ebbing and flowing, 

 which are said to take place seven times a-day. Sir 

 Thomas Browne, in his Enquiries into Vulgar and 



