18 
MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE 
all that is curious or valuable in science ami philo- 
sophy as they existed in Greece, when Greece, for 
learning and arts, was the most illustrious country 
in the world. At an early period of its history, the 
wisdom of the East, including the dark traditions of 
Egypt and India, with their mythology, geometry, 
and astronomy, were imported by native travellers, 
whom the gratitude of their fellow-citizens dignified 
with the title of Sophi, or wise men, on account of 
their extraordinary pre-eminence in natural and mo- 
ral knowledge. For many centuries the vestal fires 
of this adopted literature continued to burn with in- 
creasing splendour in the schools of Athens, Corinth, 
and Megara, under a succession of able masters, 
most of whom were the founders of distinct sects, 
who adopted their name and opinions. At the time 
when Aristotle appeared, the prevailing sects were 
the Ionic, the Socratic, the Cyrenaic, the Megaric, 
the Academic, and the Peripatetic ; each of which 
had its partisans, and generally flourished or declin- 
ed according to the celebrity of its teachers. 
About a century before the reign of Alexander, 
speculative philosophy had assumed a new and more 
systematic form ; many of its fanciful theories had 
been exploded ; a more rational method of instruc- 
tion was introduced, by treating the different sub- 
jects, whether in ethics, physics, or politics, under 
their proper subdivisions ; all of which were studied 
in the Grecian academies with a rivalry and enthu- 
siasm unparalleled perhaps in the history of civilized 
