ARISTOTLE.

NOTICE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

This Edition is an exact reprint of the First Edition, with the addition of two important Essays on the Ethics and Politics of Aristotle, which were found among the authors posthumous papers. They were originally published in 1876, in Fragments on Ethical Subjects, by the late George Grote, but would have been included in the First Edition of this Work, had they been discovered in time. These Essays are the fruit of long and laborious study, and, so far as they extend, embody the writers matured views upon the Ethics and the Politics: the two treatises whose omission from his published exposition of the Aristotelian philosophy has been most regretted.

The Essay on The Ethics of Aristotle falls naturally into two divisions; the first treats of Happiness; the second of what, according to Aristotle, is the chief ingredient of Happiness, namely. Virtue. On Aristotles own conception of Happiness, Mr. Grote dwells very minutely; turning it over on all sides, and looking at it from every point of view. While fully acknowledging its merits, he gives also the full measure of its defects. His criticisms on this head are in the authors best style and are no less important as regards Ethical discussion than as a commentary on Aristotle.

His handling of Aristotles doctrine of Virtue is equally subtle and instructive. Particularly striking are the remarks on the Voluntary and the Involuntary, and on προαίρεσις, or deliberate preference.

The treatment of the Virtues in detail is, unhappily, more fragmentary; but what he does say regarding Justice and Equity has a permanent interest.

The Essay on The Politics of Aristotle must be studied in connection with the preceding. Although but a brief sketch, it is remarkable for the insight which it affords us into the most consummate political ideal of the ancient world.

PREFACE BY THE EDITORS

TO THE FIRST EDITION.

The Historian of Greece, when closing his great narrative in the year 1856, promised to follow out in a separate work that speculative movement of the fourth century B.C. which upheld the supremacy of the Hellenic intellect long after the decline of Hellenic liberty. He had traced the beginnings of the movement in the famous chapter on Sokrates, but to do justice to its chief heroes Plato and Aristotle proved to be impossible within the limits of the History. When, however, the promised work appeared, after nine laborious years, it was found to compass only Plato and the other immediate companions of Sokrates, leaving a full half of the appointed task unperformed. Mr. Grote had already passed his 70th year, but saw in this only a reason for turning, without a moments pause, to the arduous labour still before him. Thenceforth, in spite of failing strength and the increasing distraction of public business, he held steadily on till death overtook him in the middle of the course. What he was able to accomplish, though not what study he had gone through towards the remainder of his design, these volumes will show. The office of preparing and superintending their publication was entrusted to the present editors by Mrs. Grote, in the exercise of her discretion as sole executrix under his last Will. As now printed, the work has its form determined by the author himself up to the end of Chapter XI. The first two chapters, containing a biography of Aristotle and a general account of his works, are followed by a critical analysis, in eight chapters, of all the treatises included under the title Organon; and in the remaining chapter of the eleven the handling of the Physica and Metaphysica (taken together for the reasons given) is begun. What now stand as Chapters III., IV., &c., were marked, however, as Chapters VI., VII., &c., by the author; his design evidently being to interpolate before publication three other chapters of an introductory cast. Unfortunately no positive indication remains as to the subject of these; although there is reason to believe that, for one thing, he intended to prefix to the detailed consideration of the works a key to Aristotles perplexing terminology. Possibly also he designed to enter upon a more particular discussion of the Canon, after having viewed it externally in Chapter II.; citations and references bearing on such a discussion being found among his loose notes.

What might have been the course of the work from the point where it is broken off, is altogether matter of inference, beyond an indication of the subject of the chapter next to follow; but the remarks at the beginning of Chapter III. point to some likely conclusions. After the metaphysical discussions, which must have been prolonged through several chapters, there would probably have been taken in order the treatises De Clo, De Generatione et Corruptione, the Meteorologica, and next the various Biological works; though with what detail in each case it is impossible to guess. Then must have followed the De Animâ with the minor Psychological treatises summed up as Parva Naturalia, and next, without doubt, the Ethica and Politica; last of all, the Rhetorica and Poetica. That Mr. Grote had carefully mastered all these works is evident from his marginal annotations in the various copies which he read. With the Ethica and Politica in particular he had early been familiar, and most there is reason to regret that he has left nothing worked out upon this field so specially his own.1 Fortunately it happens that on the psychological field next adjoining there is something considerable to show.

In the autumn of 1867 Mr. Grote undertook to write a short account of Aristotles striking recognition of the physical aspect of mental phenomena, to be appended to the third edition of the senior editors work, The Senses and the Intellect; but, on following out the indications relative to that point, he was gradually led by his interest in the subject to elaborate a full