Aristotle
admiration: [Greek: paralêpte/on de\ kai\ A)ristote/lê ei)s mi/mêsin
tê=s te peri\ tê\n e(rmênei/an deino/têtos kai\ tê=s saphênei/as,
kai\ tou= ê(de/os kai\ polumathou=s] (De Veter. Script. Censurâ, p.
430, R.; De Verb. Copiâ, p. 187). Quintilian extols the "eloquendi
suavitas" among Aristotle's excellences (Inst. Or. X. i. p. 510).
Demetrius Phalereus (or the author who bears that title), De
Eloquentiâ, s. 128, commends [Greek: ai( A)ristote/lous cha/rites].
David the Armenian, who speaks of him (having reference to the
dialogue) as [Greek: A)phrodi/tês e)nno/mou ge/môn] (the correction
of Bernays, Dial. des Arist. p. 137) [Greek: kai\ chari/tôn
a)na/mestos], probably copies the judgment of predecessors (Scholia
ad Categor. p. 26, b. 36, Brandis).
Bernays (Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, pp. 3-5) points out how little
justice has been done by modern critics to the literary merits,
exhibited in the dialogues and other works now lost, of one whom _we_
know only as a "dornichten und wortkargen Systematiker."]
[Footnote 10: This opinion is insisted on by Ravaisson, Essai sur la
Métaphysique d'Aristote, pp. 210, 211.]
[Footnote 11: Valentine Rose, Aristoteles Pseudepigraphus, p. 23:
"Cicero philosophicis certe ipsius Aristotelis libris nunquam usus
est." Heitz, Die Verlor. Schrift. des Aristot. pp. 31, 158, 187:
"Cicero, dessen Unbekanntschaft mit beinahe sämmtlichen heute
vorhandenen Werken des Aristoteles eine unstreitige Thatsache bildet,
deren Bedeutung man sich umsonst bemüht hat abzuschwächen." Madvig,
Excursus VII. ad Ciceron. De Finibus, p. 855: "Non dubito profiteri,
Ciceronem mihi videri dialogos Aristotelis populariter scriptos, et
Rhetorica (quibus hic Topica adnumero) tum [Greek: politei/as]
legisse; difficiliora vero, quibus omnis interior philosophia
continebatur, aut omnino non attigisse, aut si aliquando attigerit,
non longe progressum esse, ut ipse de subtilioribus Aristotelis
sententiis aliquid habere possit explorati." The language here used
by Madvig is more precise than that of the other two; for Cicero must
be allowed to have known, and even to have had in his library, the
Topica of Aristotle.]
[Footnote 12: See this point enforced by Heitz, pp. 29-31. Athenæus
(xiv. 656) refers to a passage of Philochorus, in which Philochorus
alludes to Aristotle, that is, as critics have hitherto supposed, to
Aristot. Meteorol. iv. 3, 21. Bussemaker (in his Præfat. ad Aristot.
Didot, vol. iv. p. xix.) has shewn that this supposition is
unfounded, and that the passage more probably refers to one of the
Problemata Inedita (iii. 43) which Bussemaker has first published in
Didot's edition of Aristotle.]
Here, then, we find several embarrassing facts in regard to the
Aristotelian Canon. Most of the works now accepted and known as
belonging to Aristotle, are neither included in the full Aristotelian
Catalogue given by Diogenes, nor were they known to Cicero; who,
moreover, ascribes to Aristotle attributes of style not only
different, but opposite, to those which _our_ Aristotle presents.
Besides, more than twenty of the compositions entered in the
Catalogue are dialogues, of which form _our_ Aristotle affords not a
single specimen: while others relate to matters of ancient exploit or
personal history; collected proverbs; accounts of the actual
constitution of many Hellenic cities; lists of the Pythian victors
and of the scenic representations; erotic discourses; legendary
narratives, embodied in a miscellaneous work called 'Peplus'--a title
perhaps borrowed from the _Peplus_ or robe of Athênê at the
Panathenaic festival, embroidered with various figures by Athenian
women; a symposion or banquet-colloquy; and remarks on intoxication.
All these subjects are foreign in character to those which _our_
Aristotle treats.[13]
[Footnote 13: Brandis and Zeller, moreover, remark, that among the
allusions made by Aristotle in the works which we possess to other
works of his own, the majority relate to other works actually extant,
and very few to any of the lost works enumerated in the Catalogue
(Brand. Aristoteles, pp. 97-101; Zeller, Phil. der Griech. ii. 2, p.
79, ed. 2nd). This however is not always the case: we find (_e.g._)
in Aristotle's notice of the Pythagorean tenets (Metaphys. A. p. 986,
a. 12) the remark, [Greek: diô/ristai de\ peri\ tou/tôn e)n e(te/rois
ê(mi=n a)kribe/steron]; where he probably means to indicate his
special treatises, [Greek: Peri\ tô=n Puthagorei/ôn] and [Greek:
Pro\s tou\s Puthagorei/ous], enumerated by Diog. L. v. 25, and
mentioned by Alexander, Porphyry, and Simplikius. See Alexander,
Schol. ad Metaphys. p. 542, b. 5, 560, b. 25, Br.; and the note of
Schwegler on Metaphys. i. 5, p. 47.]
The difficulty of harmonizing _our_ Aristotle with the Aristotle of
the Catalogue is thus considerable. It has been so strongly felt in
recent years, that one of the ablest modern critics altogether
dissevers the two, and pronounces the works enumerated in the
Catalogue not to belong to _our_ Aristotle. I allude to Valentine
Rose, who in his very learned and instructive volume, '_Aristoteles
Pseudepigraphus_,' has collected and illustrated the fragments which
remain of these works. He considers them all pseudo-Aristotelian,
composed by various unknown members of the Peripatetic school, during
the century or two immediately succeeding the death of Aristotle, and
inscribed with the illustrious name of the master, partly through
fraud of the sellers, partly through carelessness of purchasers and
librarians.[14] Emil Heitz, on the other hand, has argued more
recently, that upon the external evidence as it stands, a more
correct conclusion to draw would be (the opposite of that drawn by
Rose, viz.): That the works enumerated in the Catalogue are the true
and genuine; and that those which we possess, or most of them, are
not really composed by Aristotle.[15] Heitz thinks this conclusion
better sustained than that of Rose, though he himself takes a
different view, which I shall presently mention.
[Footnote 14: Valent. Rose, Aristoteles Pseudepigr. pp. 4-10. The
same opinion is declared also in the earlier work of the same author,
De Aristotelis Librorum Ordine et Auctoritate.]
[Footnote 15: Heitz, Die Verlor. Schrift. des **Ar. pp. 29, 30.]
It will be seen from the foregoing observations how much more
difficult it is to settle a genuine Canon for Aristotle than for
Plato. I do not assent to either of the two conclusions just
indicated; but I contend that, if we applied to this question the
same principles of judgment as those which modern Platonic critics
often apply, when they allow or disallow dialogues of Plato, we
should be obliged to embrace one or other of them, or at least
something nearly approaching thereto. If a critic, after attentively
studying the principal compositions now extant of _our_ Aristotle,
thinks himself entitled, on the faith of his acquired
"_Aristotelisches Gefühl_," to declare that no works differing
materially from them (either in subject handled, or in manner of
handling, or in degree of excellence), can have been composed by
Aristotle--he will assuredly be forced to include in such rejection a
large proportion of those indicated in the Catalogue of Diogenes.
Especially he will be forced to reject the Dialogues--the very
compositions by which Aristotle was best known to Cicero and his
contemporaries. For the difference between them and the known
compositions of Aristotle, not merely in form but in style (the style
being known from the epithets applied to them by Cicero), must have
been more marked and decisive than that between the Alkibiades,
Hippias, Theages, Erastæ, Leges, &c.--which most Platonic critics now
set aside as spurious--and the Republic, Protagoras, Gorgias,
Philêbus, &c., which they treat as indisputably genuine.[16]
[Footnote 16: Thus (for example) in Bernays, who has displayed great
acuteness and learning in investigating the Aristotelian Canon, and
in collecting what can be known respecting the lost dialogues of
Aristotle, we read the following observations:--"In der That mangelt
es auch nicht an den bestimmtesten Nachrichten über die vormalige
Existenz einer grossen aristotelischen Schriftenreihe, die von der
jetzt erhaltenen _durch die tiefste formale Verschiedenheit_ getrennt
war. Das Verzeichniss aristotelischer Werke führt an seiner Spitze
sieben und zwanzig Bände jetzt verlorener Schriften auf, die alle in
der künstlerischen Gesprächsform abgefasst waren," &c. (Bernays, Die
Dialoge des Aristoteles, p. 2; compare ibid. p. 30).
If, as Bernays justly contends, we are to admit these various
writings, notwithstanding "the profound difference of form," as
having emanated from the same philosopher Aristotle, how are we to
trust the Platonic critics when they reject about one-third of the
preserved dialogues of Plato, though there is no difference of form
to proceed upon, but only a difference of style, merit, and, to a
certain extent, doctrine?
Zeller (Die Phil. der Griechen, ii. 2, pp. 45, 46, 2nd ed.) remarks
that the dialogues composed by Aristotle are probably to be ascribed
to the earlier part of his literary life, when he was still (or had
recently been) Plato's scholar.]
In discussing the Platonic Canon, I have already declared that I
consider these grounds of rejection to be unsafe and misleading. Such
judgment is farther confirmed, when we observe the consequences to
which they would conduct in regard to the Aristotelian Canon. In
fact, we must learn to admit among genuine works, both of Plato and
Aristotle, great diversity in subject, in style, and in excellence.
I see no ground for distrusting the Catalogue given by Diogenes, as
being in general an enumeration of works really composed by
Aristotle. These works must have been lodged in some great
library--probably the Alexandrine--where they were seen and counted,
and the titles of them enrolled by some one or more among the
_literati_, with a specification of the sum total obtained on adding
together the lines contained in each.[17] I do not deny the
probability, that, in regard to some, the librarians may have been
imposed upon, and that pseudo-Aristotelian works may have been
admitted; but whether such was partially the fact or not, the general
goodness of the Catalogue seems to me unimpeachable. As to the author
of it, the most admissible conjecture seems that of Brandis and
others, recently adopted and advocated by Heitz: that the Catalogue
owes its origin to one of the Alexandrine _literati_; probably to
Hermippus of Smyrna, a lettered man and a pupil of Kallimachus at
Alexandria, between 240-210 B.C.. Diogenes does not indeed tell us
from whom he borrowed the Catalogue; but in his life of Aristotle, he
more than once cites Hermippus, as having treated of Aristotle and
his biography in a work of some extent; and we know from other sources
that Hermippus had devoted much attention to Aristotle as well as to
other philosophers. If Hermippus be the author of this Catalogue, it
must have been drawn up about the same time that the Byzantine
Aristophanes arranged the dialogues of Plato. Probably, indeed,
Kallimachus the chief librarian, had prepared the way for both of them.
We know that he had drawn up comprehensive tables, including, not only
the principal orators and dramatists, with an enumeration of their
discourses and dramas, but also various miscellaneous authors, with the
titles of their works. We know, farther, that he noticed Demokritus and
Eudoxus, and we may feel assured that, in a scheme thus large, he
would not omit Plato or Aristotle, the two great founders of the
first philosophical schools, nor the specification of the works of
each contained in the Alexandrine library.[18] Heitz supposes that