MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 
63 
liness strikingly discernible in all bis writings ; not 
professedly set forth, but interwoven with the tex- 
ture of his discussions, and rather betrayed uncon- 
sciously than demanding to be recognised. His 
knowledge acquired by reading can therefore only 
be reckoned an accidental help to the display of 
those amazing powers of reason and reflection which 
he naturally possessed, and which may be said to 
have qualified him to survey, with the discerning eye 
of intuition, every object of human understanding. 
There is scarcely a phenomenon which the natural 
world presents, or the human mind conceives to be 
the subject of scientific or speculative investigation, to 
which he did not extend his inquiries. In his Ethics 
he has given a full and satisfactory delineation of 
the moral nature of man, and of the discipline and 
exercise best adapted to its improvement. In his 
Politics he considers men in their social capacity, 
depending mainly for their happiness and perfection 
on the public institutions of their respective coun- 
tries. To ascertain what are the different arrange- 
ments that have been found, under given circum- 
stances, practically most conducive to these grand 
and ultimate purposes, is the important question 
which he undertakes to Bolve. The labour he be- 
stowed on tbe inquiry may be conceived from the 
fact, that he had carefully examined two hundred 
systems of legislation, many of which are nowhere 
else described. In what may be termed speculative 
science lie stood unrivalled, and it was in this de- 
