MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 
43 
country in which he lived, may be assumed, from 
the fact, that, in the midst of his brilliant victories and 
unexampled conquests, he reminded him of the supe- 
riority of religious excellence to worldly greatness ; 
concluding an epistle to him with this memorable ad- 
monition, “ that those who entertain just notions of 
the Deity, are better entitled to be high-minded than 
those who subdue kingdoms.” Persecution for avow- 
ing opinions differing from those of the national creed, 
was not then uncommon in Greece ; and had the royal 
preceptor ventured to maintain the unity and perfection 
of God in plain and popular language, he must have 
exposed himself to the tragical fate that overtook 
Socrates. 
It has been asserted by authors even so recent 
as Brucker, that for sordid and selfish purposes 
Aristotle accommodated the tenets of his philosophy 
to the base morals of courts ; but his ethical writings 
which still remain, and which are the most practically 
useful of any that Pagan antiquity can boast, are an 
ample refutation of a calumny, which must be ranked 
as another “ weak invention of the enemy.” So sen- 
sible was Alexander of the benefits derived from his 
instructions, that he considered them more valuable 
than the advantages he inherited from his father, be- 
cause, as he used to remark, the one gave him life, 
but the other had taught him to live well. “ I have 
not reigned to-day,” is said to have been his ordinary 
reflection, if a single day had passed without his do- 
ing some worthy or benevolent action. Upon the 
