MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. (io 
in his writings ; considering that the greatest, and 
perhaps the best, part of them are lost, and that his 
copyists and interpreters have ascribed to him innu- 
merable opinions which he did not hold ; while by 
universally confounding his solid sense with the fan- 
cies of Plato, they have introduced incongruities and 
absurdities of which he was never guilty. 
We do not say with some of his extravagant ad- 
mirers, that he treated all his subjects in a manner 
complete, so as to surpass every preceding exertion of 
the human intellect. This eulogium is only partial- 
ly true. But the praise and merit must be allowed 
him of having introduced and exemplified a stricter 
method of philosophising thpn what had been before 
observed in the Grecian schools. In every doctrine 
and theory he excluded the mixtures of poetry and 
fable which, in some degree, still prevailed ; and he 
endeavoured to subject every hypothesis to the test 
of reason and argument. He framed with penetra- 
tion and acuteness superior to all others, the rules 
of logical induction and demonstrative reasoning. It 
was from the accuracy and the novelty of his sys- 
tem in this respect, as well as from the universality 
of his genius, which appeared to master every subject 
of study with equal facility, that some of the ablest 
judges in antiquity, on perusing his elaborate treatises 
on the different branches of knowledge, hesitated not 
to pronounce him “ the most excellent in all science, 
Plato only excepted.” This is the opinion of Cicero, 
to whose philosophical works the world at large is 
E 
