MEMOIR OF 
36 
.which Philip invited him to undertake this office 
expresses his high opinion of the philosopher's 
attainments. He declares that he “ thanked the 
gods, not more for having given him a son, than for 
having bestowed him in the time of Aristotle.” 
Nor less expressive are Alexander’s own words 
of the value he placed in his tutor’s instructions, 
— “ I am not less indebted to Aristotle than to 
my father ; since, if it was through the one that I 
lived, it was through the other that I have learned 
to live well.” During his residence at the court 
of Macedon, he not only superintended the 
education of the youthful prince, but most likely, 
amid many other improvements in science, formed 
that system of Zoology which has justly obtained 
for him the titles of “ The father of Natural 
History,” and, “ The secretary of Nature.” 
Alexander was called to the throne at the early 
age of twenty, through the assassination of his 
father by Pausanias, one of the officers of the 
guard. Two years afterwards he set out on his 
Asiatic expedition, and Aristotle returned to 
Athens ; and during the nest thirteen years he 
lectured in the Lyceum, a large enclosure in the 
suburbs ; still, however, continuing to correspond 
with his former pupil. That celebrated prince 
had already bestowed on his tutor the magnificent 
sum of eight hundred talents, to be appropriated 
to the furtherance of his investigations, and had 
placed at his disposal many thousands of per- 
sons, who were employed by him in collecting 
animals for his inspection, by hawking, hunting, 
