20 
MEMOIR OP ARISTOTLE. 
been superseded by the gradual advancement of the 
human mind in intellectual and physical knowledge. 
Before proceeding, however, to give an analysis of 
his writings, it will be proper to relate what has 
been recorded of his life and character. Several of 
his own countrymen discharged the friendly task due 
to his genius, by becoming his biographers ; but 
their memoirs, except a few fragments, have perish- 
ed in the general tvreck of antiquity. Whatever is 
now known concerning this remarkable man, must 
be gleaned from the meagre and often contradictory 
notices to be found in the pages of Diogenes Laer- 
tius, Dionysius Halicarnassus, Hesychius the Mi- 
lesian, Suidas, Ammonius, and a few others of more 
doubtful authenticity. Modern writers have not 
thrown much additional light on the subject, and 
their efforts have accomplished little more than at- 
tempting to reconcile what is discordant, or rejecting 
what is improbable, in the statements of the ancients. 
Aristotle was born at Stagira, a city and sea-port 
of Macedonia, about the beginning of the 99th Olym- 
piad, and 384 years before the Christian era. The 
place of his birth, which derives its chief celebrity 
from being associated with his name, and which, 
but for this fortunate accident, might have been 
blotted from the geography of Europe, was situated 
on the Strymonic Gulf, and long numbered among 
the Greek cities of Thrace ; but in the reign of Phi- 
lip it belonged to Macedon, as the conquests of that 
monarch had extended the name of his country far 
