constitute the pre-eminence of Aristotle. In a history of Science greater justice could be done to his encyclopaedic knowledge and marvellous power of systematization.* Here we have but to consider him as the philosopher who, resuming in himself all the results of ancient speculation, so elaborated them into a co-ordinate system, that for twenty centuries he held the world a slave.

Plato was a great speculative genius, and a writer unapproached in the art of imaginary conversations having a polemical purpose; and in most literary minds he will ever remain a greater figure than his pupil, Aristotle. But while I concede Plato's immeasurable superiority as a writer, I conceive his inferiority as a thinker to be no less marked. Aristotle seems to me to have been the greatest intellect of antiquity, an intellect at once comprehensive and subtle, patient, receptive, and original. He wrote on Politics, and the treatise, even in the imperfect state in which it has reached us, is still in many respects one of the best works on the subject. He wrote on Poetry, and the few detached passages which survive are full of valuable details. He wrote on Natural History, and his observations are still valuable, his reflections still suggestive. He wrote on Logic, and for many centuries no one could suggest any improvement. "Aristotle," says Hegel, "penetrated into the whole universe of things, and subjected to the comprehension its scattered wealth; and the greatest number of the philosophical sciences owe to him their separation and commencement. While in this manner science separates itself into a series of definitions, the Aristotelian philosophy at the same time contains the most profound speculative ideas. He is more comprehensive and speculative than any one else." While, therefore, the majority will prefer Plato, who, in spite of his difficulties, is much easier to read than Aristotle, yet all must venerate the latter as a grand intellectual phenomenon, to which scarcely any parallel can be suggested.

* Should I ever be enabled to complete a long projected plan, of writing, as a companion to the present work, a Biographical History of Science, I will endeavor to present Aristotle in this light.

His vast learning, his singular acuteness, the wide range of his investigations, and the astonishing number and the excellence of his works, will always make him a formidable rival to his more fascinating master. "A student passing from the works of Plato," it has been well said, "to those of Aristotle, is struck first of all with the entire absence of that dramatic form and that dramatic feeling with which he has been familiar. The living human beings with whom he has conversed have passed away. Protagoras, and Prodicus, and Hippias are no longer lounging upon their couches in the midst of groups of admiring pupils; we have no walks along the walls of the city; no readings beside the Ilissus; no lively symposia, giving occasion to high discourses about love; no Critias recalling the stories he had heard in the days of his youth, before he became a tyrant of ancient and glorious republics; above all, no Socrates forming a centre to these various groups, while yet he stands out clear and distinct in his individual character, showing that the most subtle of dialecticians may be the most thoroughly humorous and humane of men. Some little sorrow for the loss of those clear and beautiful pictures will perhaps be felt by every one; but by far the greater portion of readers will believe, that they have an ample compensation in the precision and philosophical dignity of the treatise, for the richness and variety of the dialogue. To hear solemn disquisitions solemnly treated; to hear opinions calmly discussed without the interruptions of personalities; above all, to have a profound and considerate judge, able and not unwilling to pronounce a positive decision upon the evidence before him; this they think a great advantage, and this and far more than this they expect, not wrongly, to find in Aristotle.'

* Maurice, Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy.

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CHAPTER II.

SUMMARY OF THE SOCRATIC MOVEMENT.

For the sake of historical clearness we may here place a few words respecting the position of the Socratic Movement (as we may call the period from the Sophists down to Aristotle) in the history of Speculation.

What Socrates himself effected we have already seen. He appeared during the reign of utter skepticism. The various tentatives of the early thinkers had all ended in a skepticism, which was turned to dexterous use by the Sophists. Socrates banished this skepticism by the invention of a new Method. He withdrew men from the metaphysical speculations about Nature, which had led them into the inextricable confusion of doubt. He bade them look inward. He created Moral Philosophy. The Cyrenaics and the Cynics attempted to carry out this tendency; but, as they did so in a one-sided manner, their endeavor was only partially successful.

Plato, the youngest and most remarkable of the disciples of Socrates, accepted the Method, but applied it more universally. Nevertheless Ethics formed the most important of his speculations. Physics were only subordinate and illustrative of Ethics. The Truth-the God-like existence-which he forever besought men to contemplate, that they might share it, had always an Ethical object it was sought by man for his own perfection. How to live in a manner resembling the Gods was the fundamental problem which he set himself to solve. But there was a germ of scientific speculation in his philosophy, and this germ was developed by his pupil, Aristotle.

The difference between Socrates and Aristotle is immense : Plato, however, fills up the interval. In Plato, we see the tran

sition-point of development, both in Method and in Doctrine. Metaphysical speculations are intimately connected with those of Ethics. In Aristotle, Ethics only form one branch of philosophy: Metaphysics and Physics usurp the larger share of his attention. One result of Aristotle's labors was precisely this: he brought Philosophy round again to that condition from which Socrates. had wrested it; he opened the world again to speculation.

Was then the advent of Socrates nullified? No. The Socratic Epoch conferred the double benefit on humanity of having first brought to light the importance of Ethical Philosophy, and of having substituted a new and incomparably better Method for that pursued by the early speculators. That Method sufficed for several centuries.

In Aristotle's systematization of the Socratic Method, and, above all, in his bringing Physics and Metaphysics again into the region of Inquiry, he paved the way for a new epoch,—the epoch of Skepticism; not the unmethodical Skepticism of helpless baffled guessers, like that which preceded Socrates, but the methodical and dogmatic exposure of the vanity of philosophy.

EIGHTH EPOCH.

SECOND CRISIS OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY: THE SKEPTICS, EPICUREANS, STOICS, AND THE NEW ACADEMY.

CHAPTER I.

THE SKEPTICS.

§ I. PYRRHO.

In the curious train which accompanied the expedition of Alexander into India, there was a serious, reflective man, who followed him with purely philosophical interest: that man was Pyrrho, the founder of the Skeptical philosophy. Conversing with the Gymnosophists of India, he must have been struck with their devout faith in doctrines so unusual to him; and this spectacle of a race of wise and studious men believing a strange creed, and acting upon their belief, may have led him to reflect on the nature of belief. He had already, by the philosophy of Democritus, been led to question the origin of knowledge: he had learned to doubt; and now this doubt became irresistible.

On his return to Elis he became remarked for the practical philosophy which he inculcated, and the simplicity of his life. The profound and absolute skepticism with which he regarded all speculative doctrines, had the same effect upon him as upon Socrates it made him insist wholly on moral doctrines. He was resigned and tranquil, accepting life as he found it, and guiding himself by the general precepts of common-sense. Socrates, on the contrary, was uneasy, restless, perpetually ques