66 
MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 
more indebted for a familiar notion of several of Aris- 
totle’s most important doctrines, than to the labours 
of all bis commentators collectively.* The enco- 
mium, however, must not be understood to imply 
that the ancients approved exclusively of his physi- 
cal and moral theories as preferable to all other sys- 
tems ; or that they gave an entire and unlimited as- 
sent to all his tenets. Even his own disciples and 
successors in the Lycseum disagreed with him on cer- 
tain points ; nor did the followers of other sects, who 
commented on parts of his works which they thought 
most ingenious, espouse liis general principles, or 
acknowledge him their master in philosophy. Such 
servile adoration did not obtain until the dark age of 
literature arose, in which all taste for liberal inquiry 
became extinct, and the human faculties themselves 
appeared to be sunk in irretrievable torpor. It was 
then that the benighted world embraced him as an 
infallible guide, and bowed with submissive indolence 
to his dogmas. Revering him as an oracle, they be- 
lieved that where his text was obscure, it was to be 
explained into some profound meaning which, being 
inexpressible by any known words, might be denot- 
ed by terms of their own invention, that had either 
a very dubious sense, or were as unintelligible as 
* “ Cum omnis ratio diligens disserendi dnas habet partes, 
unam inveniendi, alteram judicandi, utriusque Princeps, 
ut mihi quidem videtur, Aristoteles fuit .” — Cicero in Topic. 
And again, “Aristoteles longo omnibus (Platonem semper 
excipio) prsestans et ingenio, et diligent.ia.” — Tusculan. 
( incest . lib. i. 
