No philosopher has been so much praised and censured as Aristotle: but
he had this advantage, of which some of the most eminent scholars have
been deprived, that he enjoyed during his life a splendid reputation.
Philip of Macedon must have felt a strong conviction of his merit, when
he wrote to him, on the birth of Alexander:--"I receive from the gods
this day a son; but I thank them not so much for the favour of his
birth, as his having come into the world at a time when you can have the
care of his education; and that through you he will be rendered worthy
of being my son."
Diogenes Laertius describes the person of the Stagyrite.--His eyes were
small, his voice hoarse, and his legs lank. He stammered, was fond of a
magnificent dress, and wore costly rings. He had a mistress whom he
loved passionately, and for whom he frequently acted inconsistently with
the philosophic character; a thing as common with philosophers as with
other men. Aristotle had nothing of the austerity of the philosopher,
though his works are so austere: he was open, pleasant, and even
charming in his conversation; fiery and volatile in his pleasures;
magnificent in his dress. He is described as fierce, disdainful, and
sarcastic. He joined to a taste for profound erudition, that of an
elegant dissipation. His passion for luxury occasioned him such expenses
when he was young, that he consumed all his property. Laertius has
preserved the will of Aristotle, which is curious. The chief part turns
on the future welfare and marriage of his daughter. "If, after my death,
she chooses to marry, the executors will be careful she marries no
person of an inferior rank. If she resides at Chalcis, she shall occupy
the apartment contiguous to the garden; if she chooses Stagyra, she
shall reside in the house of my father, and my executors shall furnish
either of those places she fixes on."
Aristotle had studied under the divine Plato; but the disciple and the
master could not possibly agree in their doctrines: they were of
opposite tastes and talents. Plato was the chief of the academic sect,
and Aristotle of the peripatetic. Plato was simple, modest, frugal, and
of austere manners; a good friend and a zealous citizen, but a
theoretical politician: a lover indeed of benevolence, and desirous of
diffusing it amongst men, but knowing little of them as we find them;
his "Republic" is as chimerical as Rousseau's ideas, or Sir Thomas
More's Utopia.
Rapin, the critic, has sketched an ingenious parallel of these two
celebrated philosophers:--
"The genius of Plato is more polished, and that of Aristotle more vast
and profound. Plato has a lively and teeming imagination; fertile in
invention, in ideas, in expressions, and in figures; displaying a
thousand turns, a thousand new colours, all agreeable to their subject;
but after all it is nothing more than imagination. Aristotle is hard and
dry in all he says, but what he says is all reason, though it is
expressed drily: his diction, pure as it is, has something uncommonly
austere; and his obscurities, natural or affected, disgust and fatigue
his readers. Plato is equally delicate in his thoughts and in his
expressions. Aristotle, though he may be more natural, has not any
delicacy: his style is simple and equal, but close and nervous; that of
Plato is grand and elevated, but loose and diffuse. Plato always says
more than he should say: Aristotle never says enough, and leaves the
reader always to think more than he says. The one surprises the mind,
and charms it by a flowery and sparkling character: the other
illuminates and instructs it by a just and solid method. Plato
communicates something of genius, by the fecundity of his own; and
Aristotle something of judgment and reason, by that impression of good
sense which appears in all he says. In a word, Plato frequently only
thinks to express himself well: and Aristotle only thinks to think
justly."
An interesting anecdote is related of these philosophers--Aristotle
became the rival of Plato. Literary disputes long subsisted betwixt
them. The disciple ridiculed his master, and the master treated
contemptuously his disciple. To make his superiority manifest, Aristotle
wished for a regular disputation before an audience, where erudition and
reason might prevail; but this satisfaction was denied.
Plato was always surrounded by his scholars, who took a lively interest
in his glory. Three of these he taught to rival Aristotle, and it became
their mutual interest to depreciate his merits. Unfortunately one day
Plato found himself in his school without these three favourite
scholars. Aristotle flies to him--a crowd gathers and enters with him.
The idol whose oracles they wished to overturn was presented to them. He
was then a respectable old man, the weight of whose years had enfeebled
his memory. The combat was not long. Some rapid sophisms embarrassed
Plato. He saw himself surrounded by the inevitable traps of the subtlest
logician. Vanquished, he reproached his ancient scholar by a beautiful
figure:--"He has kicked against us as a colt against its mother."
Soon after this humiliating adventure he ceased to give public lectures.
Aristotle remained master in the field of battle. He raised a school,
and devoted himself to render it the most famous in Greece. But the
three favourite scholars of Plato, zealous to avenge the cause of their
master, and to make amends for their imprudence in having quitted him,
armed themselves against the usurper.--Xenocrates, the most ardent of
the three, attacked Aristotle, confounded the logician, and
re-established Plato in all his rights. Since that time the academic and
peripatetic sects, animated by the spirits of their several chiefs,
avowed an eternal hostility. In what manner his works have descended to
us has been told in a preceding article, on _Destruction of Books_.
Aristotle having declaimed irreverently of the gods, and dreading the
fate of Socrates, wished to retire from Athens. In a beautiful manner he
pointed out his successor. There were two rivals in his schools:
Menedemus the Rhodian, and Theophrastus the Lesbian. Alluding delicately
to his own critical situation, he told his assembled scholars that the
wine he was accustomed to drink was injurious to him, and he desired
them to bring the wines of Rhodes and Lesbos. He tasted both, and
declared they both did honour to their soil, each being excellent,
though differing in their quality;--the Rhodian wine is the strongest,
but the Lesbian is the sweetest, and that he himself preferred it. Thus
his ingenuity designated his favourite Theophrastus, the author of the
"Characters," for his successor.