The Ethics and Politics have universally been allow ed to contain a most valuable store of sound practical knowledge. They are comprehended in the following hooks : Ten addressed to Xicomachus ;—the Greater Murals ;—seven books to Eudenzus ; one on Virtue and Vice ; eight on Government, and two on Oeconomics.
his a curious fact with regard to the ethics, that for a long time previous to the reformation, they had been read or preached to the people on Sundays, instead of the gospels, in the churches of Germany. Melanctnon, a person of great veracity and candour, assures us, that he had often been a witness to this practice, which he says was very common.
The Rhetorics and the Poetics of Aristotle, the most finished of all his productions which have reached our times, afford an ample proof of the consummate skill with which he was capable of treating every subject to which he turned his attention. It is enough to say, that in the space of 2000 years, these masterly treatises have never been excelled. The canons delivered in the lat ter treatise, which was written for the use of Alexander, arc, with scarcely any exception, still received as the irreversible laws of the poetic art, and the infallible standard of criticism. As Pope finely expresses it, Aristotle wrote also on Mathematics and on Music; but the fragments on these subjects, which have esca ped the ravages of time, entitle us only to say, that he appears to have studied these sciences as profoundly as any other.
All these branches of knowledge were reduced by Aristotle to three great heads, God, Nature, and Man ; a classification sufficiently comprehensive, but not dis distinguished for its logical precision.
Hitherto we have adverted only incidentally to the style of Aristotle. Both Cicero and Quintilian speak in the highest terms of admiration concerning the unrival led suavity and copiousness of his diction. A more prominent quality which it possesses, is that nervous conciseness, which disdains every superfluous ornament ; that peaxeoAevicc, which requires incessant attention. He appears to have entertained such an abhorrence for what is tumid or redundant, that he always prefers harshness, if accompanied with energy, to that softness which must he the effect of dilution. His language is not only sim ple, but castigated to a degree of thorough meagreness, resembling the condition of a human body, fenced with bones and sinews, and knit together by articulations and ligaments, but void of that cellular membrane which gives a pleasing and graceful appearance to the figure.
It would be improper to say, that it is sterile or jejune ; but in the exuberance of his distinctions, there is often a tenuity, which has at the same time baffled all attempts to epitomise his writings, and furnished the literary artisans with abundant materials for the manufacture of paraphrases, scholia, annotations, and commentaries. It is the language of intellect, unweakencd by passion, and must therefore be obscure to those whose attention is unstedfast, and whose judgments arc infirm. To con genial minds only does it unfold its artless charms ; and, like the lyrics of the Theban bard, it captivates the soul of the intelligent, while to the million it will always seem to require explication.
We cannot undertake in this article to give a view or the progress of Aristotle's philosophy, and the reverses which it has sustained at different periods. See LOGIC, METAPHYSICS, PERIPATETICS, &C.
The best editions of Aristotle's whole works, arc that of Aldus, in 4 vols. fol. Ven. 1498 ; that of Erasmus, Basil, 1531 ; that of Gesner, Basil, 1550 ; another of Aldus, 6 vols 8vo, Venet. 1552 ; that of Casaubon, Lugd, 1590 ; and that of Du Val, Paris, 1619, and 1629, 2 vols fol.; and 1639, 1654, 4 vols fol. The two last men tioned have a Latin translation ; the others are all in pure Greek.
See Dion. Laert. Suid. in Aristot. Ammonii Vita Aristot. Dionys. Halicarn. .Epist, ad Amm. Diodor. Sicul. Aul. Gel!. Plut. in Alex. Athenmus Deipnc soph. Strabo. Fabricii Bibl. Grec. Melancthonis Orat. de .grist. Voss. de Sectis. Malebranche de Inquire. Verit. Gassendi Exercitat. Paradox adverszts .grist. Ludov. Vives de Caus. Cor. An Launois de Var. Fort. .grist. Paschal de Opt. Gen. expl. Arise. Bacon de Augur. Scientiarum. Nunnesii Inst. Phil. Perip. Cud worth's Inte!l. System. Harris's Phil. Arrangements, and his Three Treatises. Locke on the Human Under standing. Lord Monboddo's Ancient Metaphysics. Gil lies's Aristotle. Reid's tVorks. Karnes's Sketches. Ra pin Reflex. sur la Philosophic. Bayle's Dictionary. Bruckeri Hist. Phil. (A)