his writings. The anecdotes related of him reveal a kindly, affectionate character, and show little trace of the self-importance which appears in his work. His will, which has been preserved, exhibits the same traits in its references to his happy family life and its solicitous care for the future of his children and servants. He was twice married, first to Pythias, and secondly to a certain Herpyllis, by whom he left a son Nicomachus and a daughter. The "goodness" of Herpyllis to her husband is specially mentioned in the clauses of the will which make provision for her, while the warmth of the writer's feelings for Pythias is shown by the direction that her remains are to be placed in the same tomb with his own. The list of servants remembered and the bequests enumerated show the philosopher to have been in easier circumstances than Plato.

The Works of Aristotle.--The so-called works of Aristotle present us with a curious problem. When we turn from Plato to his pupil we seem to have passed into a different atmosphere. The Discourses of Socrates exhibit a prose style which is perhaps the most marvellous of all literary achievements. Nowhere else do we meet with quite the same combination of eloquence, imaginative splendour, incisive logic, and irresistible wit and humour. The manner of Aristotle is dry and formal. His language bristles with technicalities, makes little appeal to the emotions, disdains graces of style, and frequently defies the simplest rules of composition. Our surprise is all the greater that we find later writers of antiquity, such as Cicero, commending Aristotle for his copious and golden eloquence, a characteristic which is conspicuously wanting in the Aristotelian writings we possess. The explanation of the puzzle is, however, simple. Plato and Aristotle were at once what we should call professors and men of letters; both wrote works for general circulation, and both delivered courses of lectures to special students. But while Plato's lectures have perished, his books have come down to us. Aristotle's books have almost wholly been lost, but we possess many of his lectures. The "works" of Aristotle praised by Cicero for their eloquence were philosophical dialogues, and formed the model for Cicero's own compositions in this kind. None of them have survived, though some passages have been preserved in quotations by later writers. That the "works" are actually the MSS. of a lecturer posthumously edited by his pupils seems clear from external as well as from internal evidence. In one instance we have the advantage of a double recension. Aristotle's Ethics or Discourses on Conduct have come down to us in two forms--the so-called Nicomachean Ethics, a redaction by the philosopher's son, Nicomachus, preserving all the characteristics of an oral course of lectures; and a freer and more readable recast by a pupil, the mathematician Eudemus, known as the Eudemian Ethics. In recent years we have also recovered from the sands of Egypt what appears to be our one specimen of a "work" of Aristotle, intended to be read by the public at large, the essay on the Constitution of Athens. The style of this essay is easy, flowing, and popular, and shows that Aristotle could write well and gracefully when he thought fit.

CHAPTER II

THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES: SCIENTIFIC METHOD

Philosophy, as understood by Aristotle, may be said to be the organised whole of disinterested knowledge, that is, knowledge which we seek for the satisfaction which it carries with itself, and not as a mere means to utilitarian ends. The impulse which receives this satisfaction is curiosity or wonder, which Aristotle regards as innate in man, though it does not get full play until civilisation has advanced far enough to make secure provision for the immediate material needs of life. Human curiosity was naturally directed first to the outstanding "marvellous works" of the physical world, the planets, the periodicity of their movements, the return of the seasons, winds, thunder and lightning, and the like. Hence the earliest Greek speculation was concerned with problems of astronomy and meteorology. Then, as reflection developed, men speculated about geometrical figure, and number, the possibility of having assured knowledge at all, the character of the common principles assumed in all branches of study or of the special principles assumed in some one branch, and thus philosophy has finally become the disinterested study of every department of Being or Reality. Since Aristotle, like Hegel, thought that his own doctrine was, in essentials, the last word of speculation, the complete expression of the principles by which his predecessors had been unconsciously guided, he believes himself in a position to make a final classification of the branches of science, showing how they are related and how they are discriminated from one another. This classification we have now to consider.

Classification of the Sciences.--To begin with, we have to discriminate Philosophy from two rivals with which it might be confounded on a superficial view, Dialectic and Sophistry. Dialectic is the art of reasoning accurately from given premisses, true or false. This art has its proper uses, and of one of these we shall have to speak. But in itself it is indifferent to the truth of its premisses. You may reason dialectically from premisses which you believe to be false, for the express purpose of showing the absurd conclusions to which they lead. Or you may reason from premisses which you assume tentatively to see what conclusions you are committed to if you adopt them. In either case your object is not directly to secure truth, but only to secure consistency. Science or Philosophy aims directly at truth, and hence requires to start with true and certain premisses. Thus the distinction between Science and Dialectic is that Science reasons from true premisses, Dialectic only from "probable" or "plausible" premisses. Sophistry differs from Science in virtue of its moral character. It is the profession of making a living by the abuse of reasoning, the trick of employing logical skill for the apparent demonstration of scientific or ethical falsehoods. "The sophist is one who earns a living from an apparent but unreal wisdom." (The emphasis thus falls on the notion of making an "unreal wisdom" into a trade. The sophist's real concern is to get his fee.) Science or Philosophy is thus the disinterested employment of the understanding in the discovery of truth.

We may now distinguish the different branches of science as defined. The first and most important division to be made is that between Speculative or Theoretical Science and Practical Science. The broad distinction is that which we should now draw between the Sciences and the Arts (i.e. the industrial and technical, not the "fine" arts). Speculative or Theoretical Philosophy differs from Practical Philosophy in its purpose, and, in consequence, in its subject-matter, and its formal logical character. The purpose of the former is the disinterested contemplation of truths which are what they are independently of our own volition; its end is to know and only to know. The object of "practical" Science is to know, but not only to know but also to turn our knowledge