( "7 ) 
yet I fliould think it not neceflary that every 
perambulation fhould be thus employed. 
Ariftotle, we are told, wrote no lefs than 
four hundred books. If they were books of 
any fize; if they were even pamphlets, they 
can hardly have been worth reading. I be- 
lieve, in general, thofe authors that have 
written leafl, have written beft. About 
twenty of thefe books are all that have ef- 
caped the deftruftive hand of Time, and 
the more relentlefs hand of Barbarifm. The 
fubjects on which they treat, are ethics, poe- 
try* ^gic, rhetoric, politics, phyjics, and rneta-* 
phyjics. But, as he wrote without fyftem, 
without data, without method, and without 
precifion, it is very difficult to afcertain his 
opinions: and what greatly adds to the un- 
certainty is, that his works have come down 
to us through the turbid medium of Latin 
tranflations from the Arabic, or Greek tran- 
ilations from the Latin. 
Ariftotle appears, however, to have been 
the inventor of the art which we now call 
Logic, and of the fcience of Metaphyfics. 
His Ethics deferve but little praife. His 
Politics are prolix and obfcure: neverthe- 
lefs, we muft do him the juftice to acknow- 
ledge, that, though preceptor to the fon of 
H 3 an 
