siological contents, of feeling, memory, sleep and waking, sleeplessness, dreams, of animal motion, shortness and length of life, youth and old age. Physiognomic (mostly forgery.) Of Plants, 2 books, Latin, (forged or false.) Problems in 38 sections, (a compilation of a later date.) III. Mathematics. IV. Metaphysics, (under this name these writings have been first cited by Plutarch) researches into the primitive causes of real things, ontology and theology. V. Ethics, or ethical doctrines of happiness, partly general, and partly in their applications to particular circumstances. Ethics to Nicomachus, 10 books. Ethics to Eudemus, 8 books, may be either an earlier composition of the aforesaid work, or by another author. On virtue and vice, is an extract of the real ethics. The same is the case with the compilation of the magna choralia. Politics or of government, 8 books, a work of ripe age and deep and well-examined experience, the supreme aim of which is justice. It has been preserved neither complete nor without falsification. The one hundred and fifty is, which he, together with Theophrastus, collected, being accounts of the ancient constitutions and forms of government, are said to have been found by Carlisle in an Arabic translation, in the library of the Seraglio of Constantinople.* Economy, 2 books, is cited by Philodemus as a work of Theophrastus. VI. Theory of Rhetoric.-Rhetoric, 3 books, precepts taken from the best models. The shorter Rhetoric is considered, since P. Vettori, as the work of Anaximenes of Lampsacus. The compositions on Poetry, in 3 books, appear to be either extracts of a part of a lost work, intermixed with grammatical and rhetorical passages from the other writings of Aristotle, or the first interpolated and imperfect sketch-it is full of deep and just remarks. VII. Poems-Epitaphs on Homeric heroest-Hymn on Virtue. The style of Aristotle is partly esoteric, strictly scientific, and partly exoteric, popular, and in the form of dialogue-of the latter kind, no writings have been preserved. His expression is quite suitable for instruction, being pure, concise, rich in thought, yet often, on account of the new technical terms, obscure; he never shows any desire to be elegant in his diction, nor to indulge his imagination in any way whatever. The * Memoirs relative to European and Asiatic Turkey. London, 1817. ** works of Aristotle, together with his library, fell into the hands of Theophrastus, (322) and from him passed to Neleus, (275) who sold the books to the Alexandrian library. The works of Aristotle which were not sold-on account of their high valuewere hidden by the heirs of Neleus, from fear of the bibliomania of the Pergamenian kings, in a cellar, where they received much injury. Apellicon of Teos, a citizen of Athens, (d. 87) discovered and purchased them, and they were, together with the well selected library of this lover of literary rarities, transferred to Rome after the conquest of Athens by Sylla. There the learned grammarian, Tyrannion, made use of them and multiplied them by many copies, and coming into the hands of Andronicus of Rhodes, (70?) he arranged them according to their general contents, and assisted in their further circulation. The copies increased, but were often full of faults and very incomplete. Many works were falsely attributed to Aristotle, especially in the times of the Arabs. Theophrastust of Eresus, of Lesbos, (b. 370, d. 285) the successor of Aristotle in instruction, confined his lectures to exoteric and popular subjects, natural history, psychology and ethics. Many of his writings, except the few fragments, which were likewise arranged by Andronicus Rhodius, are lost-those which are preserved, are distinguished by noble simplicity, brevity and clearness. Of his writings, we possess, thirty moral characteristics, often dramatically sketched representations of vices, follies and virtues, full of fine observations and correct features. History of more than five hundred plants, in 10 books, the last of which is incomplete-this botany is full of rich observations, and is adapted even to the purposes of domestic economy. Of the causes of plants, in 8 books, the two last of which are lost-it is a valuable physiology of plants. Of stones and gems. Many physical and physiological treatises. Of his lost works, those on politics and legislation are most lamented. The following Peripatetics are renowned as authors. Strato of Lampsacus, (280) is said to have renounced all researches into supernatural objects, and to have established a pure dynamic system of nature. Lycon of Troas, (270) Hieronymus, the Rhodian, Ariston, Critolaus Phaselites, and the Tyrian Diodorus, seem to have been attached to ethical Eudæmonism. The most remarkable literary adherents of this school, except Dicearchus, are Aristoxenus of Tarentum, (318) who commenced the * Buhle proleg. 1. J. G. Schneider Epim. de satis libris. Ar. in Ed. his anim. + Fabr. 3, 408. Fabr. Bib. gr. 3, 458. cultivation of music* and rhythm after mathematical principles. We possess, besides, fragments of his other works-on the principles of harmony, in 3 books, and two portions of the third book of rhythm.† Afterwards arose commentators upon the works of Aristotle. Many (150 A. D.) endeavoured to combine his philosophy with other systems. By means of the Arabs and schoolmen, the Aristotelian dialectics became fashionable in the middle ages, and were, in the fifteenth century, attacked by the Humanists, but regained an honourable station in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Epicurust of Gargettus, near Athens, (b. 337, d. 271) a thinker, distinguished less by his profound researches, than by his propensity to novel peculiarities, which he fearlessly promulgated and complacently practised, endeavoured to affirm and perfect the philosophy of Aristippus on the enjoyment of life, by the mechanical principles of Democritus. His system, which he promulgated, first in lectures at Lampsacus, and afterwards in his garden at Athens, was recommended by his legal and moral conduct of life, and was well suited to the spirit of the age, which was opposed to moral energy. It does appear, when methodically pursued, to be the basis of materialism and atheism, but Epicurus avoided the acknowledgment of the latter by confessing his belief of a world of gods, to which he, either really or apparently, adhered. His system consists of three parts, ethics, physics and logic, and is provided with some new experimental proofs, which cannot bear a rigorous examination. In ethics, he takes the external senses as the criterion of truth; in physics, accident, which, according to him, determines and decides every thing; in logic, the feelings. Of the many compositions of Epicurus, (supposed 300) only forty-four axioms (ugi doga) and three letters of Diogenes Laertius (10, 11, 12 & 28) are preserved; some fragments of the work On Nature, have been found in the Herculanean scrolls. Of Epicurus' numerous adherents, Philodemus of Gadara, (120) is worthy notice as an author. We possess of him thirty-four epigrams, and fragments of his work on music, opposing the supposition of Diogenes of Babylon, that music ennobles the mind; also fragments of his work on rhetoric. § * Drieberg On the Musical Sciences of the Greeks. + Fabr. Bib. gr. 3, 632. Fabr. Bib. gr. 3, 582-the sources are Lucretius, Cicero, Diogenes L. Compare, Bayle. Epicure. Here. vol. v. p. 721. Comp. Fabr. 3, 609. VOL. VI. NO. 12. 48 The Stoic philosophy* contended, in direct opposition to the Epicurean, for influence over an age which was much wanting in mental strength. It was the mother and nurse of moral liberty and valour, and required resignation of will, freedom from sensuality, and a dependence upon the mind, which can alone procure felicity. Its founder was Zeno of Citium, in Cyprus, (b. 361, d. 264) who was generally esteemed for his firm moral sense and spotless honesty, and served as a model and guide to many great men of antiquity. He heard the cynic Crates, the Megarians, Stilpo and Diodorus Cronus, the Platonians, Xenocrates and Polemon. None of the systems of these men satisfied him-none appeared to him entirely to be rejected. He also found it necessary, urged by political circumstances, to meet vigorously the systems which threatened to endanger morality, and the scepticism which menaced the safety of theoretical sciences. This polemic point of view explains the form of the system which he developed at Athens (300?) in the Porticus (Toxin goa) famous by the paintings of Polygnotus. It was intended to teach the highest perfection of man in thinking, comprehension and action, and has three principal parts. The logic or dialectic portion is to guard against formal errors, and fixes, by laws, the activity of the comprehensive power. The natural sciences explain the nature of the universe and its author, who lives in it, in constant activity according to the eternal laws of nature. This portion contains many hypotheses, and is defective in the reconciliation of the contradiction between liberty and omnipotent fate. His doctrines of the soul are full of materialism. The most important part is his ethics, the doctrine of the acquisition of the supreme good, which exists exclusively in morals and in freedom of life, when it is consistent with the laws of reason. His successor in the Stoa was Cleanthes, who was followed by Chrysippus of Soli, (b. 276, d. 206) who cultivated this system more completely, gave to logic its peculiar form, and founded jurisprudence scientifically-a few fragments of his writings remain to us.t By Diogenes of Babylon, (170) the stoic philosophy was introduced at Rome, where the Rhodians, Panætius, (130) and his scholar, Posidonius, (100) the teacher of Cicero, taught with much applause, and the stoic philosophy was held in great honour by statesmen and lawyers. 4. The philosophers of the middle and modern academy, after Arcesilaus, directed the power of their scepticism, particularly, * Fabr. Bib. gr. 3, 526, J. Lipsius. + Fabr. 3, 547. Bayle. Dict. Fabr. Bib. gr. 3, 547. against the Stoic dialectics, and insisted upon the limitation of the judgment, which, they affirm, can only furnish probabilities. The laws and degrees of induction were more precisely fixed by Carneades of Cyrene, (b. 213, d. 130) who transferred this system to Rome (155.) Philo of Larissa, (100) and Antiochus of Ascalon, (d. 69) limited scepticism, and gave to its speculations an almost exclusively ethical direction. 5. The Pyrrhonic scepticism was revived at Alexandria by Enesidemus of Crete, (80) with partial ingenuity. He gave it a general extent, attacked all kinds of dogmatism, and established the ten general causes of doubts. Of the eight books of his "uggwveiwv λoywv," fragments have been preserved in Photius Bibl. Cod. 212, and in the works of Sextus Emp. Many physicians of the empirical and methodical school adhered to this system. Mathematics obtained at Alexandria the scientific form, which had been previously prepared by Pythagoras and Plato, as well as by Aristotle and the disciples of these efficacious thinkers. Arithmetic was excellently arranged in system and method by Euclid, and enriched by Eratosthenes and Archimedes (in his ψαμμίτης.) For geometry, much was done by Plato and Menæchmus, who discovered the first principles of the geometrical analysis, and by Dinostrates, who directed his attention to the discovery of the quadrature of the circle. Euclid deduced, with incomparable solidity, the truths of geometry from a few axioms, and taught the strict mathematical demonstration. Apollonius of Perge, established the theory of the ellipse and hyperbole. Archimedes discovered the proportion of the circumference to the diameter, and that of the sphere to its circumscribed cylinder-the geometrical analysis is also indebted to him for important improvement. Diocles, who solved the problem of the multiplication of the dice, as well as Nicomedes, (180) the inventor of the Conchoid, of the geometrical curved line, and many others, acquired great merit in mathematical science, which is known to us by the quotations and citations of the later mathematicians and compilers. Mechanics were suggested by Aristotle, and reduced to simple principles by Archimedes, the inventor of the screw, of the theory of the balance, &c. and brought to a complete system by Heron. Not only at Alexandria, but also at Rhodes and Pergamus, many expert mechanics distinguished themselves. Less known to us was the progress in optics-the facts which refer to them are of no great authority-the writings of Euclid being suspected, and those of Heron lost. The science of acoustics |