"Do you not say that death is the opposite of life? Yes. And that they spring from one another? Yes. What then is it that springs from the living? The dead. And what from the dead? The living. It is, then, from the dead that all living things arise. Consequently, souls exist after death in the infernal regions." Sure and unerring rules were wanted to unravel this extraordinary nonsense, which through Plato's reputation, fascinated the minds of men. It was necessary to show that Plato gave a loose meaning to all his words. Death does not spring from life; but the living man ceases to live. The living springs not from the dead, but from a living man who subsequently dies. The master retorted the argument, saying-If you lose, you must pay; if you gain, you must also pay; for our bargain is, that you shall pay me after the first cause that you have gained. It is evident that all this turns on an ambiguity. Aristotle teaches how to remove it, by putting the necessary terms in the argument— A sum is not due until the day appointed for its payment: The day appointed is that when a cause shall have been gained : : No cause has yet been gained :Therefore the day appointed has not yet arrived : Therefore the disciple does not yet owe anything. So But not yet does not mean never. that the disciple instituted a ridiculous action. Consequently, the conclusion that all living things spring from dead ones, is The master, too, had no right to demand ridiculous. From this conclusion you anything, since the day appointed had not draw another, which is no way included arrived. He must wait until the disciple in the premises that souls are in the in-had pleaded some other cause. fernal regions after death. and that the souls It should first have been proved that dead bodies are in the infernal regions, accompany them. There is not a correct word in your argument. You should have said-That has no parts is indestructible: therefore, parts; that which the thinking faculty in us, having no parts, which thinks has no is indestructible. Suppose a conquering people were to stipulate that they would restore to the conquered only one half of their ships; then to have them sawed in two, and hav ing thus given back the exact half, were Aristotle did, then, render a great service to mankind, by preventing all ambiOr-the body dies because it is divisi-guity; for this it is which causes all misble; the soul is indivisible; therefore it understandings in philosophy, in theology, does not die. Then you would at least and in public affairs. sonings of the Greeks. A master taught Acadia. It is the same with all the captious rea- 1756 was rhetoric to his disciple, on condition that he should have been understood. gained. The pretext for the unfortunate war of an equivocation respecting bined with the habit of reasoning, may It is true that natural good sense, com The disciple intended never to pay him. { who has a good ear and voice may sing He commenced an action against his well without musical rules; but it is better master, saying-I will never pay you any to know them. thing; for, if I lose my cause, I was not to pay you until I had gained it; and if { dispense with Aristotle's rules. A man I gain it, my demand is, that I may not pay you. 17 His Physics. They are but little understood; but it is more than probable that Aristotle un S because here Aristotle made use of his derstood himself, and was understood in, his own time. We are strangers to the eyes. Alexander furnished him with all language of the Greeks; we do not attach to the same words the same ideas. For instance, when he says, in his seventh chapter, that the principles of bodies are matter, privation, and form, he seems to talk egregious nonsense; but such is not the case. Matter, with him, is the first principle of everything-the subject of everything-indifferent to every thing. Form is essential to its becoming any certain thing. Privation is that which distinguishes any being from all those things which are not in it. Matter may, indifferently, become a rose or an apple; but, when it is an apple or a rose, it is deprived of all that would make it silver or lead. Perhaps this truth was not worth the trouble of repeating; but we have nothing here but what is quite intelligible, and nothing at all impertinent. The "act of that which is in power," also appears a ridiculous phrase, though it is no more so than the one just noticed. Matter may become whatever you willfire, earth, water, vapour, metal, mineral, animal, tree, flower. This is all that is meant by the expression, act in power. So that there was nothing ridiculous to the Greeks, in saying that motion was an act of power, since matter may be moved; and it is very likely that Aristotle understood thereby that motion was not essential to matter. Aristotle's physics must necessarily have been very bad in detail. This was common to all philosophers, until the time when the Galileos, the Torricellis, the Guerickes, the Drebels, and the Academy del Cimento, began to make experiments. Natural philosophy is a mine which cannot be explored without instruments which were unknown to the ancients.They remained on the brink of the abyss, and reasoned upon without seeing its con tents. Aristotle's Treatise on Animals. His researches relative to animals were, on the contrary, the best book of antiquity, { the rare animals of Europe, Asia, and Africa. This was one fruit of his conquests. That hero spent in this way immense sums, which at this day would terrify all the guardians of the royal treasury, and which should immortalise Alexander's glory, of which we have already spoken. At the present day, a hero, when he has the misfortune to make war, can scarcely give any encouragement to the sciences; he must borrow money of a Jew, and consult other Jews, in order to make the substance of his subjects flow into his coffer of the Danaïdes, whence it escapes through a thousand openings. Alexander sent to Aristotle elephants, rhinoceroses, tigers, lions, crocodiles, gazelles, eagles, ostriches, &c.; and we, when by chance a rare animal is brought to our fairs, go and admire it for sixpence, and it dies before we know anything about it. Of the Eternal World. Aristotle expressly maintains, in his book on heaven, chap. xi., that the world is eternal: this was the opinion of all an{tiquity, excepting the Epicureans. He admitted a God-a first mover; and defined him to be "one, eternal, immoveable, indivisible, without qualities." He must, therefore, have regarded the world as emanating from God, as the light emanates from the sun and is co-existent with it. About the celestial spheres, he was as ignorant as all the rest of the philosophers. Copernicus was not yet come. His Metaphysics. God being the first mover, he gives motion to the soul. But what is God, and what is the soul, according to him? The soul is an entelechia. It is, says he, a principle and an act-a nourishing, feeling, and reasoning power. This can only mean that we have the faculties of nourishing ourselves, of feeling, and of reasoning. The Greeks no more knew what an entelechia was than the South Sea islanders ; nor have our doctors any more knowledge had in view. Cicero, in his Orator, says, of what a soul is. His Morals. that "no one had more science, sagacity, invention, or judgment." Quintilian goes so far as to praise, not only the extent of his knowledge, but also the suavity of his elocution-suavitatem eloquendi. Aristotle would have an orator wellinformed respecting laws, finances, treaties, fortresses, garrisons, provisions, and merchandise. The orators in the parlia Aristotle's morals, like all others, are very good; for there are not two systems of morality. Those of Confucius, of Zoroaster, of Pythagoras, of Aristotle, of Epictetus, of Antoninus, are absolutely the same. God has placed in every breast the knowledge of good, with some incli-ments of England, the diets of Poland, nation for evil. the states of Sweeden, the pregadi of Aristotle says, that to be virtuous, three Venice, &c. would not find these lessons things are necessary-nature, reason, and of Aristotle unprofitable; to other nahabit; and nothing is more true. With-tions, perhaps, they would be so. out a good disposition, virtue is too difficult: reason strengthens it; and habit renders good actions as familiar as a daily exercise to which one is accustomed. He would have his orator know the passions and manners of men, and the humours of every condition. I do not think there is a single nicety of the art which has escaped him. He particularly recommends the citing of instances where public affairs are spoken of; nothing has so great an effect on the minds of men. He enumerates all the virtues, and does not fail to place friendship among them. He distinguishes friendship between equals, between relatives, between guests, and between lovers. Friendship springing from the rights of hospitality is no What he says on this subject proves longer known amongst us. That which that he wrote his Rhetoric long before among the ancients was the sacred bond Alexander was appointed captain-general of society, is, with us, nothing but an inn-of the Greeks against the Great King. keeper's reckoning; and as for lovers, it is very rarely now-a-days that virtue has anything to do with love. We think we owe nothing to a woman to whom we have a thousand times promised everyter of Egypt, he should first remind thing. If, says he, any one had to prove to the Greeks that it is their interest to oppose the enterprises of the King of Persia, and to prevent him from making himself mas them, that Darius Ochus would not attack Greece until Egypt was in his power; he should remark that Xerxes had pursued the same course; he should add, that it was not to be doubted that Darius Codomannus would do the same; and It is a melancholy reflection, that our first doctors have never ranked friendship among the virtues have scarcely ever recommended friendship; but, on the contrary, have often seemed to breathe Enmity, like tyrants, who dread all asso-that, therefore, they must not suffer him to take possession of Egypt. ciations. It is, moreover, with very good reason that Aristotle fixes all the virtues between the two extremes. He was, perhaps, the first who assigned them this place. He expressly says, that piety is the medium between atheism and superstition. His Rhetoric. He even permits, in speeches delivered to great assemblies, the introduction of parables and fables they always strike the multitude. He relates some very ingenious ones, which are of the highest antiquity, as the horse that implored the assistance of man to revenge himself on the stag, and became a slave through hav It was probably, his rules for rhetoricing sought a protector. and poetry that Cicero and Quintilian It may be remarked that, in the second book, where he treats of arguing from the make verses, and still more in consideragreater to the less, he gives an exampletion of his morality, in which he infinitely which plainly shows what was the opin- surpasses Homer, who has none at all. ion of Greece, and probably of Asia, But he owed his popularity chiefly to the respecting the extent of the power of the criticism on the pride of Louis XIV. and gods. the harshness of Louvois, which, it was thought, were discoverable in Telema Be this as it may, nothing can be a better proof of Aristotle's good sense and good taste, than his having assigned to everything its proper place. "If," says he, "it be true that the gods themselves, enlightened as they are, can-chus. not know every thing, much less can men." This passage clearly proves, that omniscience was not then attributed to the Divinity. It was conceived that the gods could not know what was not; the future was not; therefore, it seemed impossible that they should know it. This is the opinion of the Socinians at the present { day. But to return to Aristotle's Rhetoric.What I shall chiefly remark on in his book on Elocution and Diction is, the good sense with which he condemns those who would be poets in prose. He would have pathos; but he banishes bombast, and proscribes useless epithets. Indeed, Demosthenes and Cicero, who followed his precepts, never affected the poetic style in their speeches. The style, says Aristotle, must always be conformable to the subject. Nothing can be more misplaced than to speak of physics poetically, and lavish figure and ornament where there should be only method, clearness, and truth: it is the guackery of a man who would pass off false systems under cover of an empty noise of words. Weak minds are caught by the bait, and strong minds disdain it. Amongst us, the funeral oration has taken possession of the poetic style in prose; but this branch of oratory consisting almost entirely of exaggeration, it seems privileged to borrow the ornaments of poetry. Aristotle on Poetry. Where, in our modern nations, shall we find a natural philosopher, a geometrician, a metaphysician, or even a moralist, who has spoken well on the subject of poetry? They teem with the names of Homer, Virgil, Sophocles, Ariosto, Tasso, and so many others, who have charmed the world by the harmonious productions of their genius, but they feel not their beauties; or if they feel them they would annihilate them. How ridiculous is it in Pascal, to say "As we say poetical beauty, we should likewise say geometrical beauty, and medicinal beauty. Yet we do not say so ; and the reason is, that we well know what is the object of geometry, and what is the object of medicine, but we do not know in what the peculiar charm, which is the object of poetry, consists. We know not what that natural model is, which must be imitated; and for want of this knowledge we have invented certain fantastic terms, as age of gold, wonder of the age, fatal wreath, fair star, &c. And this jargon we call poetic beauty." The pitifulness of this passage is sufficiently obvious. We know that there is nothing beautiful in a medicine nor in The writers of romances have some-the properties of a triangle; and that we times taken this licence. La Calprenède apply the term beautiful only to that was, I think, the first who thus transposed which raises admiration in our minds and the limits of the arts, and abused this faci- gives pleasure to our senses. Thus reality. The author of Telemachus was par-sons Aristotle; and Pascal here reasons doned through consideration for Homer, whom he imitated, though he could not very ill. Fatal wreath, fair star, have never been poetic beauties. If he wished Nicole wrote against the stage, about which he had not a single idea; and was seconded by one Dubois, who was as ignorant of the belles-lettres as himself. Even Montesquieu, in his amusing Persian Letters, has the petty vanity to think that Homer and Virgil are nothing in comparison with one who imitates with spirit and success Dufréni's Siamois, and ills his book with bold assertions, without which it would not have been read. "What," says he, “are epic poems? I know them not. I despise the lyric as much as I esteem the tragic poets." He should not, however, have despised Pindar and Horace quite so much. Aristotle did not despise Pindar. Descartes did, it is true, write for Queen Christina a little divertissement in verse, which was quite worthy of his matière cannelée. Mailebranche could not distinguish Corneille's "Qu'il mourût," from a line of Jodèle's or Garnier's. What a man, then, was Aristotle, who traced the rules of tragedy with the same hand with which he had laid down those of dialectics, of morals, of politics, and Efted, as far as he found it possible, the great veil of nature! To his fourth chapter on poetry, Boilean is indebted for these fine lines Il n'est poest de serpent, ni de monstre odieux Each bord shape, each object of aflright, His This fourth chapter of Aristotle's reappears almost entire in Horace and Boileau. The laws which he gives in the following chapters are at this day those of our good writers, excepting only what relates to the choruses and music. idea that tragedy was instituted to purify the passions, has been warmly combated; but if he meant, as I believe he did, that an incestuous love might be subdued by witnessing the misfortune of Phædra, or anger be repressed by beholding the melancholy example of Ajax, there is no longer any difficulty. This philosopher expressly commands that there be always the heroic in tragedy, and the ridiculous in comedy. This is a rule from which it is, perhaps, now becoming too customary to depart. ARMS-ARMIES. It is worthy of consideration that there have been, and still are upon the earth, societies without armies. The Brahmins, who long governed nearly all the great Indian Chersonesus; the primitives called Quakers, who governed Pennsylvania ; some American tribes, some in the centre of Africa, the Samoyeds, the Laplanders, the Kamschadales, have never marched with colours flying to destroy their neighbours. The Brahmins were the most considerable of all these pacific nations; their caste, which is so ancient, which is still existing, and compared with which all other institutions are quite recent, is a prodigy which cannot be sufficiently admired. Their religion and their policy always concurred in abstaining from the shedding of blood, even of that of the meanest animal. Where such is the regime, subjugation is easy: they have been subjugated, but have not changed. The Pennsylvanians never had an army; they always held war in abhorrence. Aristotle says "Imitation and harmony have produced poetry. We see terrible animals, dead or dying men, in a picture, with pleasure-objects, which in nature would inspire us only with fear Several of the American tribes did not and sorrow. The better they are imi- know what an army was, until the Spatated, the more complete is our satis-niards came to exterminate them all. The fiction." people on the borders of the Icy Sea are |