VII.

This, then, was the revolution effected by Aristotle, that he found Greek thought in the form of a solid, and unrolled into a surface of the utmost possible tenuity, transparency, and extension. In so doing, he completed what Socrates and Plato had begun, he paralleled the course already described by Greek poetry, and he offered the first example of what since then has more than once recurred in the history of philosophy. It was thus that the residual substance of Locke and Berkeley was resolved into phenomenal succession by Hume. It was thus that the unexplained reality of Kant and Fichte was drawn out into a play of logical relations by Hegel. And, if we may venture on a forecast of the future towards which speculation is now advancing, it is thus that the limits imposed on human knowledge by positivists and agnostics in our own day, are yielding to the criticism of those who wish to establish either a perfect identity or a perfect equation between consciousness and being. This is the position represented in France by M. Taine, a thinker offering many points of resemblance to Aristotle, which it would be interesting to work out had we space at our command for the purpose. The forces which are now guiding English philosophy in an analogous direction have hitherto escaped observation on account of their disunion among themselves, and their intermixture with others of a different character. But on the whole we may say that the philosophy of Mill and his school corresponds very nearly in its practical idealism to Plato’s teaching; that Mr. Herbert Spencer approaches Aristotle on the side of theorising systematisation, while sharing to a more limited extent the metaphysical and political realism which accompanied it: that Lewes was carrying the same transformation a step further in his unfinished _Problems of Life and Mind_; that the philosophy of Mr. Shadworth Hodgson is marked by the same spirit of actuality, though not without a vista of multitudinous possibilities in the background; that the Neo-Hegelian school are trying to do over again for us what their master did in Germany; and that the lamented Professor Clifford had already given promise of one more great attempt to widen the area of our possible experience into co-extension with the whole domain of Nature.[209]

The systematising power of Aristotle, his faculty for bringing the isolated parts of a surface into co-ordination and continuity, is apparent even in those sciences with whose material truths he was utterly unacquainted. Apart from the falseness of their fundamental assumptions, his scientific treatises are, for their time, masterpieces of method. In this respect they far surpass his moral and metaphysical works, and they are also written in a much more vigorous style, occasionally even rising into eloquence. He evidently moves with much more assurance on the solid ground of external nature than in the cloudland of Platonic dialectics, or among the possibilities of an ideal morality. If, for example, we open his _Physics_, we shall find such notions as Causation, Infinity, Matter, Space, Time, Motion, and Force, for the first time in history separately discussed, defined, and made the foundation of natural philosophy. The treatise _On the Heavens_ very properly regards the celestial movements as a purely mechanical problem, and strives throughout to bring theory and practice into complete agreement. While directly contradicting the truths of modern astronomy, it stands on the same ground with them; and anyone who had mastered it would be far better prepared to receive those truths than if he were only acquainted with such a work as Plato’s _Timaeus_. The remaining portions of Aristotle’s scientific encyclopaedia follow in perfect logical order, and correspond very nearly to Auguste Comte’s classification, if, indeed, they did not directly or indirectly suggest it. We cannot, however, view the labours of Aristotle with unmixed satisfaction until he comes on to deal with the provinces of natural history, comparative anatomy, and comparative psychology. Here, as we have shown, the subject exactly suited the comprehensive observation and systematising formalism in which he excelled. Here, accordingly, not only the method but the matter of his teaching is good. In theorising about the causes of phenomena he was behind the best science of his age; in dissecting the phenomena themselves he was far before it. Of course very much of what he tells was learned at second-hand, and some of it is not authentic. But to collect such masses of information from the reports of uneducated hunters, fishermen, grooms, shepherds, beemasters, and the like, required an extraordinary power of putting pertinent questions, such as could only be acquired in the school of Socratic dialectic. Nor should we omit to notice the vivid intelligence which enabled even ordinary Greeks to supply him with the facts required for his generalisations. But some of his most important researches must be entirely original. For instance, he must have traced the development of the embryo chicken with his own eyes; and, here, we have it on good authority that his observations are remarkable for their accuracy, in a field where accuracy, according to Caspar Friedrich Wolff, is almost impossible.[210]

Still more important than these observations themselves is the great truth he derives from them—since rediscovered and worked out in detail by Von Baer—that in the development of each individual the generic characters make their appearance before the specific characters.[211] Nor is this a mere accidental or isolated remark, but, as we shall show in the next chapter, intimately connected with one of the philosopher’s metaphysical theories. Although not an evolutionist, he has made other contributions to biology, the importance of which has been first realised in the light of the evolution theory. Thus he notices the antagonism between individuation and reproduction;[212] the connexion of increased size with increased vitality;[213] the connexion of greater mobility,[214] and of greater intelligence,[215] with increased complexity of structure; the physiological division of labour in the higher animals;[216] the formation of heterogeneous organs out of homogeneous tissues;[217] the tendency towards greater centralisation in the higher organisms[218]—a remark connected with his two great anatomical discoveries, the central position of the heart in the vascular system, and the possession of a backbone by all red-blooded animals;[219] the resemblance of animal intelligence to a rudimentary human intelligence, especially as manifested in children;[220] and, finally, he attempts to trace a continuous series of gradations connecting the inorganic with the organic world, plants with animals, and the lower animals with man.[221]

The last mentioned principle gives one more illustration of the distinction between Aristotle’s system and that of the evolutionist, properly so called. The continuity recognised by the former only obtains among a number of coexisting types; it is a purely logical or ideal arrangement, facilitating the acquisition and retention of knowledge, but adding nothing to its real content. The continuity of the latter implies a causal connexion between successive types evolved from each other by the action of mechanical forces. Moreover, our modern theory, while accounting for whatever is true in Aristotle’s conception, serves, at the same time, to correct its exaggeration. The totality of existing species only imperfectly fill up the interval between the highest human life and the inorganic matter from which we assume it to be derived, because they are collaterally, and not lineally, related. Probably no one of them corresponds to any less developed stage of another, although some have preserved, with more constancy than others, the features of a common parent. In diverging from a single stock (if we accept the monogenetic hypothesis,) they have become separated by considerable spaces, which the innumerable multitude of extinct species alone could fill up.

Our preliminary survey of the subject is now completed. So far, we have been engaged in studying the mind of Aristotle rather than his system of philosophy. In the next chapter we shall attempt to give a more complete account of that system in its internal organisation not less than in its relations to modern science and modern thought.

FOOTNOTES:

[161] _Aristotelis Opera._ Edidit Academia Regia Borussica. Berlin. 1831-70.

[162] _Die Philosophie der Griechen._ Zweiter Theil, Zweite Abtheilung: _Aristoteles u. d. alten Peripatetiker_. By Dr. Eduard Zeller. Leipzig. 1879.

[163] _Aristoteles._ By Christian Aug. Brandis. Berlin. 1853-57.

[164] _Aristotle._ By Sir Alexander Grant, Bart., LL.D. Edinburgh and London. 1877.

[165] _Outlines of the Philosophy of Aristotle._ Compiled by Edwin Wallace, M.A. Oxford and London. 1880.

[166] _De la Métaphysique: Introduction à la Métaphysique d’ Aristote._ By Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire. Paris. 1879.

[167] Wallace’s _Outlines_, preface, pp. vi-viii.

[168] As will be shown in the next chapter.

[169] _Outlines_, pp. 29 and 38.

[170] Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 513.

[171] _Ibid._, p. 407.

[172] Written before the appearance of Teichmüller’s _Lit. Fehden_ (already referred to in the preceding chapter).

[173] Zeller’s opinion that all the Platonic Dialogues except the _Laws_ were composed before Aristotle’s arrival in Athens, does not seem to be supported by any satisfactory evidence. [Since the above was first published I have found that a similar view of the _Parmenides_ had already been maintained by Tocco (_Ricerche Platoniche_, p. 105); and afterwards, but independently, by Teichmüller (_Neue Studien_, III. 363). See Chiapelli, _Della Interpretazione panteistica di Platone_, p. 152.]

[174] Teichmüller infers, from certain expressions in the _Panathenaicus_ of Isocrates, that Aristotle had returned from Mitylênê to Athens and resumed his former position as a teacher of rhetoric when the summons to Pella reached him. (_Lit. Fehden_, 261.)

[175] _Gesch. d. Phil._, II., 302.

[176] Zeller, _op. cit._, p. 25.

[177] Cf. Teichmüller, _Lit. Fehden_, 192.

[178] Zeller, p. 38.

[179] Ritter and Preller, _Hist. Ph._, p. 329.

[180] Zeller, p. 41, _note_ 2.

[181] Diog. L., V., 17-21.

[182] Grant’s _Aristotle_, p. 7.

[183] We think, however, that Mr. Edwin Wallace has overstated the case, when he makes Aristotle say that ‘democracy is not unlikely with the spread of population to become the ultimate form of government; and may be anticipated without dread by considering that the _collective_ voice of a people is as likely to be sound in state administration as in criticisms on art,’ pp. 57-8. In the first place, the expressions of opinion which are brought together in Mr. Wallace’s summary are separated in the original text by a considerable interval—an important circumstance when we are dealing with so inconsistent a writer; then what Aristotle says about the collective wisdom of the people, besides being advanced with extreme hesitation, is not a reassurance against any danger to be dreaded from their supremacy, but an answer to the argument that the few had a natural right to political power from their greater wealth and better education; the whole question being, in this connexion, one of political justice, not of political expediency; finally, not only is ‘ultimate form of government’ a very strong rendering of the Greek words, but what Aristotle says on the subject in his third book is virtually retracted in the fifth, where oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny are regarded as succeeding each other in any order indifferently, and Plato (or the Platonic Socrates) is censured for assuming a constant sequence of revolutions. The explanation of this change seems to be that when Aristotle wrote his third book he was only acquainted with the history of Athens and a few other of the greater states, but that subsequently a vast collection of facts bearing on the subject came to his knowledge, showing that each form of government embraced more varieties and admitted of more mutations than he had been originally aware of; and this led to a complete recast of his opinions.

[184] Many of the topics noted are not only trite enough, but have no possible bearing on the subject under which they stand. For instance, in discussing judicial eloquence Aristotle goes into the motives for committing crime; among these are pleasurable feelings of every kind, including the remembrance of past trouble. Even the hero of a spasmodic tragedy would hardly have committed an offence for the purpose of procuring himself this form of experience.

[185] _Poet._, xv., p. 1454, a, 20.

[186]

Μάτην ἄρ’ εἰς γυναῖκας ἐξ ἀνδρῶν ψόγος Ψάλλει κενὸν τόξευμα καὶ κακῶς λέγει. αἱ δ’ εἴσ’ ἀμείνους ἀρσένων, ἐγὼ λέγω. Euripides, _Frag._ 512. (Didot.)

[187] _Poet._, xiii., p. 1453, a, 8.

[188] _Pol._, VIII., vii., p. 1342, a, 10.

[189] Zeller, p. 780.

[190] As an illustration of the stimulating effect produced by the study of Aristotle’s logic, we quote the following anecdote from the notes to Whately’s edition of Bacon’s _Essays_:—‘The late Sir Alexander Johnstone, when acting as temporary Governor of Ceylon (soon after its cession), sat once as judge in a trial of a prisoner for a robbery and murder; and the evidence seemed to him so conclusive, that he was about to charge the jury (who were native Cingalese) to find a verdict of guilty. But one of the jurors asked and obtained permission to examine the witnesses himself. He had them brought in one by one, and cross-examined them so ably as to elicit the fact that they were _themselves_ the perpetrators of the crime, which they afterwards had conspired to impute to the prisoner. And they were accordingly put on their trial and convicted. Sir Alexander Johnstone was greatly struck by the intelligence displayed by this juror, the more so as he was only a small farmer, who was not known to have had any remarkable advantages of education. He sent for him, and after commending the wonderful sagacity he had shown, inquired eagerly what his studies had been. The man replied that he had never read but one book, the only one he possessed, which had long been in his family, and which he delighted to study in his leisure hours. This book he was prevailed on to show to Sir Alexander Johnstone, who put it into the hands of one who knew the Cingalese language. It turned out to be a translation into that language of a large portion of Aristotle’s _Organon_. It appears that the Portuguese, when they first settled in Ceylon and other parts of the East, translated into the native languages several of the works then studied in the European Universities, among which were the Latin versions of Aristotle. The Cingalese in question said that if his understanding had been in any degree cultivated and improved, it was to that book that he owed it. It is likely, however (as was observed to me [Whately] by the late Bishop Copleston), that any other book, containing an equal amount of close reasoning and accurate definition, might have answered the same purpose in sharpening the intellect of the Cingalese.’ Possibly, but not to the same effect. What the Cingalese got into his hands was a triple-distilled essence of Athenian legal procedure. The cross-examining elenchus was first borrowed by Socrates from the Athenian courts and applied to philosophical purposes; it was still further elaborated by Plato, and finally reduced to abstract rules by Aristotle; so that in using it as he did the juror was only restoring it to its original purposes.

[191] _Metaph._, XII., vii., p. 1072, b, 13.

[192] _Eth. Nic._, X., vii. (somewhat condensed).

[193] It is perfectly possible that Aristotle was not acquainted at first hand with human anatomy. But Sir A. Grant is hardly justified in observing that the words quoted above ‘do not show the hardihood of the practised dissecter’ (_Aristotle_, p 3). Aristotle simply takes the popular point of view in order to prove that the internal structure of the lower animals is no more offensive to the eye than that of man. And, as he took so much delight in the former, nothing but want of opportunity is likely to have prevented him from extending his researches to the latter.

[194] _De Part. An._, I. v.

[195] Compare the arguments in _Phys._, IV., ix.

[196] The hypothesis of the earth’s diurnal rotation had clearly been suggested by a celebrated passage in Plato’s _Timaeus_, though whether Plato himself held it is still doubtful. That he accepted the revolution of the celestial spheres is absolutely certain; but while to our minds the two beliefs are mutually exclusive, Grote thinks that Plato overlooked the inconsistency. It seems probable that the one was at first actually a generalisation from the other; it was thought that the earth must revolve _because_ the crystal spheres revolved; then the new doctrine, thus accidentally struck out, was used to destroy the old one.

[197] _De Coel._, II., viii., 290, a, 26.

[198] Zeller, p. 469.

[199] _De Sens._, vi., 446, a, 26.

[200] _De Coel._, I., viii., 277, b, 2.

[201] _De Respir._, i. and ii.

[202] _De Gen. An._, I., xvii.

[203] _Outlines_, p. 30.

[204] There is a passage in the _Politics_ (I., ii., _sub. in._) in which Aristotle distinctly inculcates the method of studying things by observing how they are first produced, and how they grow; but this is quite inconsistent with the more deliberate opinion referred to in the text (_De Part. An._, I., i., p. 640, a, 10). Perhaps, in writing the first book of the _Politics_ he was more immediately under the influence of Plato, who preferred the old genetic method in practice, though not in theory.

[205] _Meteor._, II., iii., 357, a, 15 ff.

[206] _Hist. An._, IX., xxxix., _sub fin._

[207] _De Part. An._, III., iv., _sub in._

[208] This characterisation applies neither to the _Antigone_ nor to the _Oedipus in Colônus_, the first and the last extant dramas of Sophocles. The reason is that the one is still half Aeschylean, and the other distinctly an imitation of Euripides.

[209] Cf. the memorable declaration of Mr. F. Pollock: ‘To me it amounts to a contradiction in terms to speak of unknowable existence or unknowable reality in an absolute sense. I cannot tell what existence means if not the possibility of being known or perceived.’—_Spinoza_, p. 163.

[210] _Aristoteles von d. Zeugung u. Entwickelung d. Thiere._ Aubert u. Wimmer, Einleitung, p. 15.

[211] _De Gen. An._, II., iii., 736, b, 1.

[212] _Ibid._, I., xviii., 725, b, 25.

[213] _De Respir._, 477, a, 18.

[214] _De Part. An._, I., vii., _sub. in._

[215] _Ibid._, II., x., 656, a, 4.

[216] _Ibid._, IV., vi., 683, a, 25.

[217] _Ibid._, II., i.

[218] _Ibid._, IV., v., 682, a, 8; _De Long._, vi., 467, a, 18; _De Ingr. An._, vii., 707, a, 24.

[219] _De Part. An._, II., ix., 664, b, 11; Zeller, p. 522.

[220] _Hist. An._, VIII., i., _sub in._

[221] Zeller, p. 553.

## CHAPTER VII.

THE SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.