Philosophy of Botany. 195 



Honored with the esteem and confidence of the king, he en- 

 joyed a true filial attachment of the juvenile Alexander, with 

 whom he remained vmtil he opened his Asiatic campaign. 

 After Aristotle had thus left his pupil, they carried on a 

 friendly correspondence, in which the philosopher prevailed 

 upon Alexander to employ his increasing power and wealth in 

 the service of philosophy by furnishing him in his retirement 

 with the means of enlarging his acquaintance with nature. 

 Alexander responded to this request with an abundant supply 

 of specimens of objects of natural history from both animal 

 and vegetable kingdoms, and which were either maintained in 

 zoological gardens or preserved in a museum. Upon this col- 

 lection he composed a work of fifty volumes on the history of 

 animated nature, only ten of which are now extant. He also 

 wrote on the nature of plants, and collected notes and obser- 

 vations from scattering writings on natural history for centu- 

 lies before him. He arranged his objects in systematic dispo- 

 sition, created a scientific language for exact definition, and 

 taught the graduations into classes, genera, species, and indi- 

 viduals. This made him the creator and founder of natural 

 history. 



He was an exceedingly productive writer, and his utterances 

 were the illuminating beacon of philosophy and science for all 

 nations for twenty centuries. The writings generally received 

 under his name may be classed under the heads of logic, 

 physics, metaphysics, mathematics, ethics, rhetoric, and poetry. 



After his departure from Alexander, Aristotle returned to 

 Athens and resolved to acquire the fame of a leader in philos- 

 ophy by founding a new sect, in opposition to the academy, 

 and teaching a system of doctrines different from that of Plato. 

 He chose a place in the suburbs of Athens, a grove, called the 

 Lyceum. From his habit of walking while he delivered his 

 discourses his followers were called Peripatetics. He con- 

 tinued his school for twelve years. 



The philosophical method of Aristotle is the inverse of that 

 of Plato, whose starting point was universals, the very exist- 

 ence of which was a matter of faith, and from there he de- 

 scended upon particulars or details. Aristotle, on the con- 

 trary, rose from particulars to universals, advancing to them 



