Chapter VI: Characteristics of Aristotle (3)

[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.