I. ing the master from his unworthy scholars, and CHAP. in separating the gold from the dross. All truth, indeed, is necessarily consistent; and reason and revelation, coming from the same God of truth, can never possibly announce themselves in contradictory propositions. Real religion, therefore, can have nothing to fear from true philosophy. But in the zeal for reformation, these plain truths were not suffi ciently regarded. Great and good men are obnoxious to human frailty; and the highestminded among them, invulnerable to pleasure, are not equally secure against the disturbance of anger. ter cen the world. It was sufficient to provoke this anger, that Their bitAristotle's name had been employed for many sures taken centuries, as the prop of a church that affected on trust by to be universal, headed by a man who pretended to be infallible. To retaliate for this imputed injury, there is no excess of invective, no extravagance of calumny, no grossness of abusive ribaldry, to which the first reformers did not descend, and employ bitterly against his writings and his person. 20 A large portion of the same spirit, corrected only by the more softened manners of the times, was imbibed by the theologians who followed them. From these learned divines, the hostile disposition was communi 20 Nisi caro fuisset Aristoteles, vere diabolum cum fuisse, haud puderet dicere.-Aristoteles prince pstenebrarum, triceps Cerberus, tricorpor Geryonn bestia, et quidem teterrima. Such was the style in which Aristotle is treated by Luther and his followers. The learned Melancthon formed an exception. See the articles, Luther and Melancthon, in Bayle. I. CHAP. cated even to the ingenious and liberal of other professions; and by them diffused through society at large, especially among those individuals who aimed at distinction by refinement of taste and elegance of literature. At length the reading of Aristotle, which too was made an object of reproach, was confined within the walls of a few colleges, whilst every writer who piqued himself on being fashionable, or aspired to become so, must have a sneer at the organum, and a fling at the Stagirite." 21 Of this carping disposition the examples are innumerable. I shall be contented with the following quotation from an ingenious and popular work, in which it was least to be expected. "Aristotle has observed that, in poetry, that which is credible but impossible, is preferable to that which is possible but incredible. This great philosopher's acuteness seems, however, in this instance, to have forsaken him; for, in reasoning from experience or analogy, possibility is only a degree of credibility; and the greater degree must necessarily include the less; wherefore, that which is thought to be credible, must previously be thought to be possible. A negative, too, in its nature, excludes all degrees whatever; for, where there is none, there cannot be either more or less: and though a negative on one side may, in some cases, imply an affirmative, either contingent or necessary, on the other, it is surely most absurdly paradoxical to assert, that an absolute negative on one side, may include a contingent affirmative on the other side. Yet this is the conclusion to which we must come, before we admit of a credible impossible. But the nature and extent of human knowledge had not been ascertained in the time of the Stagirite; it being to the profound investigation of our own countrymen, particularly Locke, that we owe these most important discoveries in philosophy." Thus does this elegant scholar go out of his way to exalt Locke, at the expense of Aristotle; and even engage in the rash attempt of overwhelming the latter by the weight of his own syllogisms. But he forgets what Aristotle has taught, that the show of syllogism may exist without the substance. The impossible in Mr. Knight's premiss, are things believed to be impossible, which it would be a contradiction in terms to call credible. The impossible in Aristotle, are things impossible in their own nature; Knight on Taste, part ii. c. ii p. 269. I. It happened, unfortunately, that the only CHAP. writers who ventured to oppose this popular current, had deeply imbibed the errors of the Mr. Harris but which, he teaches, may, by the admirable skill of the poet, be ren- In opposition to such criticisms, for they are all alike founded on misconception, I cannot refrain from citing a passage from an author not less eminent in erudition and in science, than in rank and character. In 1816, Dr. Magee, now archbishop of Dublin, having bestowed his approbation on my interpretation of Aristotle, subjoins, "It has been singularly the fate of the Greek philosopher, to be at one time superstitiously venerated, and at another contemptuously ridiculed; without sufficient pains taken, either by his adversaries or his admirers, to understand his meaning. It has been too frequently his misfortune to be judged from the opinions of his followers, rather than from his own. Even the celebrated Locke is not to be acquitted of this unfair treatment of his illustrious predecessor in the paths of metaphysics; although, perhaps, it is not too much to say of his well-known Essay, that there is scarcely to be found in it one valuable and important truth concerning the operations of the understanding, which may not be traced in Aristotle's writings; whilst, at the same time, they exhibit many results of deep thinking, which have entirely escaped Locke's perspicacity. Indeed it may be generally pronounced of those who have within the two last centuries been occupied in the investigation of the intellectual powers of man, that had they studied Aristotle more, and (what would have been a necessary consequence) reviled him less, they would have been more successful in their endeavours to extend the sphere of human knowledge." Magee on Atonement, vol. ii. p. 4., fourth edit. 2 Confer Poetic. c. xxv. p. 269, and p. 277. edit. Buhle. The English reader may consult Twining's translation, part iii. sect. vi p. 119. and part iv. sect. vi. p. 130. 3 Mr. Knight acknowledges" that very ignorant persons may think even probable, what the learned know to be impossible." Knight, ibid. But according to Aristotle, a great poet will produce this effect on the and Lord I. Monbod do guided CHAP. Alexandrian school, and never ceased to view the Stagirite's writings through the antic trappings in which those visionary commentaries had disguised them. In this manner the labours of two ingenious and learned men, the elegant Mr. Harris and the acute Lord Monboddo, had a tendency rather to increase the evil than to remedy it. by the Alexan drian com mentators. My design was to do the Reformers had done for religion. Under these circumstances, to a translation of for philo- the Ethics and Politics, I prefixed a life of the sophy what author, and a new analysis of his speculative works. This I did, that the efficacy of his important practical lessons, instead of being weakened by the false subtleties and glaring absurdities erroneously ascribed to him, might receive additional authority from his virtues as a man, and his pre-eminence as a philosopher. My undertaking, indeed, was not a light one. I was ambitious of doing for philosophy what the reformers had done for religion; to remove an oppressive weight of cumbrous and incongruous appendages, and to show the original text of truth in its genuine purity. With the success of my work, I had no reason to be dissatisfied: it was read by the learned; recommended by the general voice of public criticism; and, what was of real importance, Aristotle again became an author in some degree popular. Not many years before my publication, his writings had been attacked in a manner more marked than ed and ordinary, by three men of much eminence, Lord embodied Kames, Dr. Reid, and Dr. Campbell; and since that publication, to which he does me the honour The objections against Aristotel ism renew I. Stewart. frequently to advert, Professor Dugald Stewart, CHAP. long considered as the chief ornament of the University of Edinburgh, has re-enforced the by Mr. attack, by repeating all the strictures of his precursors, and combining with them many new objections of his own. This circumstance will afford me an advantage which every author should much prize; it will enable me to consult the conveniency of my readers, by referring them solely to the well known and justly admired volumes of Mr. Stewart. I shall endeavour, therefore, to show every one of the strictures or objections contained in them to be founded on misconception; and should this be done to the complete satisfaction of my readers, their minds will be prepared for entering on the more important part of this discourse; I mean that abstruse but accurate science, to which the treatise on Rhetoric perpetually refers; a science which, rightly understood, would have stifled in their birth many romances that have long passed for philosophy. I know not whether it be worth while to ad- Objection 1. vert, in the outset, to an observation, in which answered. Mr. Stewart's candour would not have allowed him to indulge, had he read attentively the words that gave occasion to it. In the preface to my translation and analysis, I say that the present work is a fit counterpart to my history of ancient Greece, since "the learning of Greece properly terminates in the Stagirite, by whom it was embodied into one great work; a work rather impaired than improved by the labours of |