MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 
4 ] 
and invigorating amidst objects of the highest intel- 
lectual pursuits, might thereby learn the more readily 
and the more perfectly to comprehend ordinary mat- 
ters. This recondite philosophy, which Aristotle 
first delivered to his royal pupil, and afterwards to 
his hearers in the Lycamm at Athens, received the 
epithet of Acroatic, to distinguish those parts of his 
lectures which were confined to a select audience, 
from such as were delivered to the public at large, 
and these were called Exoteric. This technical di- 
vision of the writings of the Stagirite, has given rise 
to a variety of different opinions and disputes. Some 
have imagined that in the two kinds of prelections just 
noticed, he maintained contrary doctrines on the sub- 
jects of religion and morality. But the fact is quite 
the reverse ; his practical tenets being uniformly the 
same in both. His Exoteric or popular Treatises, 
nearly resembled the philosophical dialogues of Plato 
or Cicero ; while his Acroatic writings, contained in a 
concise energetic style peculiar to himself, those deep 
and broad principles on which all science is built ; 
and, independently of which, the most perverse rea- 
sonings, and the most intricate combinations, are but 
matters of common mechanical practice.* 
The sublimity of this abstract and recondite philo- 
sophy, accorded exactly with the loftiness of Alexan- 
der’s mind. Amidst the tumult and bustle of distant 
war, he considered it a source of pride to have made 
an acquisition which was then denied to the vulgar ; 
* Dr Gillies’s Analysis of Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics. 
