CHAPTER VIII.

REMAINING WORKS OF ARISTOTLE.

WE shall conclude this memoir by a list and a brief literary notice of the Works which have come down to us under the name of Aristotle, in the order in which they are given in the edition of the Berlin Academy.

I. Categories. (κατηγορίαι oι κατηγορίαι περὶ τῶν δέκα γενικωτάτων γενών.)

The genuineness of this work was much disputed in the time of the ancient commentators. Adrastus found a work on the same subject bearing the name of Aristotle, and, singularly enough, consisting of exactly the same number of lines. It was however by them determined to be genuine, with the exception of the last part, which treats on what the Latin Logicians term the Post-prædicamenta. This extends from the tenth chapter to the end. The work of Harris called Philosophical Arrangements is an exposition, very much in the manner of the old commentators, of this Treatise. A short but most masterly critique on it will be found in Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 79. Adrastus wished to call the work Tà πро Tŵν TOTIKOV, considering it as merely an introduction to the Topics, an appellation of which Porphyry disapproves. The evidence which determined the ancient critics in their decision between the rival works bearing this name was solely internal. The cast of thought and the phraseology appeared to them to be Aristotle's, and they conceived that references to this one were to

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be found in others of the Aristotelian writings. But before Aristotle, Archytas the Pythagorean philosopher, in his work περὶ παντός, had written on the Ten Categories, and some of the moderns' have considered that this work was to be referred to one of that School. Grotius quotes the book without naming Aristotle as the author2. Brandis however on the principle we have indicated above (p. 116) has established the prevalent opinion on this subject, on evidence possessing a very high degree of authority.

II. On interpretation. (Tepi épuŋvelas.)

A philosophical treatise on grammar as far as relates to the nature of nouns and verbs. Some of the old commentators from its obscurity imagined it to be a mere collection of notes, and Andronicus considered it not to be Aristotle's. Alexander of Aphrodisias, however, and Ammonius proved it to be his, and to have been used by Theophrastus in a treatise of the same name which he wrote. Still the latter of these, as well as Porphyry, suspected that the last part of the work was the addition of some more modern hand.

III.

Former Analytics, I. II.

Latter Analytics, Ι. ΙΙ. (αναλυτικὰ πρότερα, ἀναλυτικὰ ὕστερα.)

I.

Of the former of these treatises the true and ancient title was περὶ συλλογισμοῦ and that of the latter περὶ άmodeíčews. Diogenes Laertius, (Vit. § 23) speaks of ἀποδείξεως. eight books of the Former Analytics, or as one MS. has it, ten, and of two of the Latter. And Petiti conceived that the work which is referred to in the

1 Jonsius De Historia Philosophicæ Scriptoribus p. 4. "Auctor libri de Categoriis, quicumque Platonicorum vel Pythagoreorum is demum fuerit."

2 Ad Matth. Ev. xiv. 4

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LOGICAL WRITINGS.

Nicomachean Ethics,' has not come down to us. The old commentators found forty books on this subject, professedly by Aristotle, and determined on the genuineness of these only, rejecting all the rest. Their subject is that which in modern times is especially termed Logic, but would be more properly called Dialectics, that is, an examination of the possible forms in which an assertion may be made and a conclusion established.

Theophrastus, Eudemus and Phanias, scholars of Aristotle, wrote treatises on the same subjects as these three of their master, and called them by the same name, a circumstance which probably had some connection with the number of "Analytics" ascribed to him.

IV. Topics. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. (TOжKά.)

An analysis of the different heads from which demonstrative arguments may be brought. It was considered by the ancient commentators as the easiest of all Aristotle's systematic writings. The Romans however, as Cicero tells us in the preface to his work of the same name, found it so difficult as to be repelled by it, although he himself praises it no less for its language than for its scientific merits. His own work is an epitome of it made by himself from memory during a sea voyage from Velia to Rhegium2.

V. On sophistical proofs. I. II. (Tеρi σopiσTIKWV ἐλέγχων.)

An analysis of the possible forms of fallacy in demonstration. This work has a natural connection with the Topics, as Aristotle himself remarks in the beginning of the last chapter of the second book.

PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL WRITINGS. 145

The preceding works taken together complete Aristotle's Logical writings, and with the introduction of Porphyry to the Categories have gone generally in modern times by the name of the Organum, from the circumstance of Aristotle having called Logic ὄργανον ὀργάνων. The philosopher gave this name to the art because of all others it is the most purely instrumental, that is, the most entirely a means to something else, and the least an end to be desired for its own sake. The term however, was in subsequent ages misapplied to mean that it was the best of all instruments for the discovery of truth, as opposed to the observation of facts, and the art was correspondently abused.

VI. Physical Lectures. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. (φυσικὴ ἀκρόασις).

φυσικά.

It is a very questionable matter whether this treatise was published by the author as one organic whole. The last three books probably formed a treatise by themselves under the name Teρi Kivnσews3, and the five first another, under that of puoká. Again, of these the first one is quite independent of the rest, and is devoted to the discussion of primal principles (apxai), to which every thing in nature may be resolved. This book is extremely valuable for the history of philosophy before the time of Aristotle. He discusses in it the theories of Melissus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and others. The second is taken up with an examination

3

Simpl. ad Phys. Auscult. f. 216. Diogenes however gives a work Tepi Kinσews in two books. This is not conclusive against the opinion quoted in the text. See below, the notice respecting the Rhetoric. pag. 159.

4

* Perhaps it is to this book that the title Tepi apyns, in Diogenes's Catalogue, refers.

146 PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL WRITINGS.

of the ideas of Nature, Necessity, and Chance; and the next three with the properties of Body, or rather with the analysis of those notions of the understanding which are involved in the idea of Body. Of this work abstracts and syllabuses (κεφαλαία καὶ συνόψεις were very early made by the Peripatetic school', and these by keeping their attention fixed upon the connection of a system of dogmas, perhaps contributed much to divert them from the observation of nature, and to keep up that perpetually-recurring confusion between laws of the Understanding and laws of the external World which characterizes the whole of the ancient physical speculations.

VII. On the Heavens. I. II. III. IV. (πeρì ovpaνοῦ).

Alexander of Aphrodisias considered that the proper name for this work was Tepi kóσμou, as only the first two books are really on the subject of the heavenly bodies and their circular motion. The two last treat on the four elements and the properties of gravity and lightness, and afford much information relative to the systems of Empedocles and Democritus.

VIII. On Generation and Decay. I. II. (πepi yeνέσεως καὶ φθορᾶς).

This work treats on those properties of bodies which in our times would be considered to be the proper subjects of physiological and of chemical science. Many other notions, however, of a metaphysical nature, are mixed up with these, and it is only for its illustration of the history of philosophy that this work, like the

1

Simplicius, (Introd. ad. Phys. Ausc. vi. and vii.)