MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 
59 
propagation to the zeal of philosophical rivalry. 
The circumstances of his life, and the esteem in 
which he was universally held by his contemporaries, 
afford evidence enough, that the dark side of the 
picture has been greatly overcharged. Of this we 
have still more decisive proof in the tone and spirit 
of his writings, especially the ethical part of them, 
which breathes a purer morality than is to be found 
in any antecedent author ; a morality, also, avowed- 
ly practical, and by which he would have stood self- 
condemned, had his own conduct been at variance 
with it. “ He exhibited a character as a man (says 
a modern biographer) worthy of his pre-eminence 
as a philosopher ; inhabiting courts without mean- 
ness and without selfishness ; living in schools with- 
out pride and without austerity ; cultivating with 
ardent affection every domestic and every social vir- 
tue ; while, with indefatigable industry, he reared 
that wonderful edifice of science, the plan of which 
we are still enabled to delineate from his imperfect 
and mutilated writings.” The humanity of his na- 
ture appears in the different acts of kindness which 
he conferred on his relatives and benefactors; and his 
scrupulous regard for truth is preserved in his- me- 
morable saying — amicus Socrates, amicus Plato, sed 
magis arnica veritas, “ Socrates is dear, and Plato is 
dear, but truth dearer than all.” He possessed con- 
siderable facetiousness of disposition ; and in his po- 
litical works are to be found many strokes of genu- 
ine humour, little suspected by his commentators. 
