mysteries of sex, he anticipates some of the most fruitful investigations
of modern research, and in all questions of pure science, within the
limits of his own experience, he is almost infallible. It is unfortunate
that his experience of women was misleading, and that the problems of
feminism do not always fall within the confines of science. That he was
wrong in this matter is chiefly the fault of his times and their social
conditions, and those who live in other days and amid other surroundings
should remember his own significant words, spoken indeed about bees, but
equally applicable to other social animals:
Such appears to me to be the truth, judging from theory and
what I believe to be the facts. But up to the present the facts
have not been sufficiently comprehended; if ever they are, then
credit must be given to observation rather than to theories,
and to theories only if what they affirm agrees with observed
facts.
And with that quotation we may well leave him: _Amicus Aristoteles; magis
amica veritas_. If the facts of modern existence show women to be the
inferior sex, then, and then only, are we moderns justified in holding
that opinion. But every man should judge for himself on the evidence that
his own observation gives, and not be influenced by the theories of other
men or by the literature of the past.
In Aristotle’s time, for reasons which this brief survey of Greek
literature has, perhaps, made plain, the facts of women’s nature were
certainly not sufficiently comprehended. Euripides and Plato are almost
the only authors who show any true appreciation of a woman’s real
qualities, and to Euripides and Plato, Aristotle, by the whole trend of
his prejudices, was opposed. His mistake was that he failed to realise
the moral aspects of feminism. A nation that degrades its women will
inevitably suffer degradation itself. Aristotle lent the weight of his
name to a profound error, and helped to perpetuate the malady which had
already been the chief cause of the destruction of Greece.
FOOTNOTES
[1] _Ethics_, vii. 7.
[2] _Ibid._ vii. 6.
[3] _Ethics_, iv. 15.
[4] _Ibid._ iv. 9.
[5] _Rhet._ A. v. 6.
[6] _Ethics_, viii. 8.
[7] _Ibid_, viii. 12.
[8] _Ethics_, viii. 8.
[9] _Politics_, 2, 9.
[10] _De Generatione_, 716, a, 18.
[11] _Ibid._ 716, b. 10.
[12] _Ibid._ 717, a, 20.
[13] _De Generatione_, 728 a.
[14] _Ibid_, 784, a.
[15] _De Generatione_, 787, a.
[16] _Hist. An._, 608, b (trans. Thompson).
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