Aristotle's quotations of his other books and of historical facts only
inform us at best of the dates of isolated passages, and cannot decide
the dates and sequences of whole philosophical books which occupied him
for many years. Is there then any way of discriminating between early
and late works? There is the evidence of the influences under which the
books were written. This evidence applies to the whole Aristotelian
literature including the fragments. As to the fragments, we are safe in
saying that the early dialogues in the manner of Plato were written
under the influence of Plato, and that the subsequent didactic writings
connected with Alexander were written more under the influence of Philip
and Alexander. Turning to the extant writings, we find that some are
more under the influence of Plato, while others are more original and
Aristotelian. Also some writings are more rudimentary than others on the
same subject; and some have the appearance of being first drafts of
others. By these differences we can do something to distinguish between
earlier and later philosophical works; and also vindicate as genuine
some works, which have been considered spurious because they do not
agree in style or in matter with his most mature philosophy. In
thirty-five years of literary composition, Aristotle had plenty of time
to change, because any man can differ from himself at different times.
On these principles, we regard as early genuine philosophical works of
Aristotle, (1) the _Categories_, (2) the _De Interpretatione_;(3) the
_Eudemian Ethics_ and _Magna Moralia_; (4) the _Rhetoric to Alexander_.
1. The Categories ([Greek: kataegoriai]).--This short discourse turns on
Aristotle's fundamental doctrine of individual substances, without which
there is nothing. He arrives at it from a classification of categories,
by which he here means "things stated in no combination" ([Greek: ta
kata maedemian symplokaen legomena]) or what we should call "names,"
capable of becoming predicates ([Greek: kataegoroumena, kataegoriai]).
"Every name," says he (chap. 4), "signifies either substance or
something quantitative, or qualitative, or relative, or somewhere, or
sometimes, or that it is in a position, or in a condition, or active or
passive." He immediately adds that, by the combination of these names
with one another, affirmation or negation arises. The categories then
are names signifying things capable of becoming predicates in a
proposition. Next he proceeds to substances ([Greek: ousiai]), which he
divides into primary ([Greek: protai]) and secondary ([Greek:
deuterai]). "Substance", says he (chap. 5), "which is properly,
primarily and especially so called, is that which is neither a predicate
of a subject nor inherent in a subject; for example, a particular man,
or a particular horse. Secondary substances so called are the species in
which are the primarily called substances, and the genera of these
species: for example, a particular man is in a species, man, the genus
of which is animal: these then are called secondary substances, man and
animal." Having made these subdivisions of substance, he thereupon
reduces secondary substances and all the rest of the categories to
belongings of individual or primary substances. "All other things", says
he, "are either predicates of primary substances as subjects" ([Greek:
kath' hypokeimenon ton proton ousion]) "or inherent in them as subjects"
([Greek: en hypokeimenais autais]). He explains that species and genus
are predicates of, and that other categories (e.g. the quality of
colour) are inherent in, some individual substance such as a particular
man. Then follows his conclusion: "without primary substances it is
impossible for anything to be" ([Greek: mae ouson oun ton proton ousion
adunaton ton hallon ti einai]. _Cat._ 5, 2 b 5-6).
Things are individual substances, without which there is nothing--this
is the fundamental point of Aristotelianism, as against Platonism, of
which the fundamental point is that things are universal forms without
which there becomes nothing. The world, according to Aristotle, consists
of substances, each of which is a separate individual, this man, this
horse, this animal, this plant, this earth, this water, this air, this
fire; in the heavens that moon, that sun, those stars; above all, God.
On the other hand, a universal species or genus of substances is a
predicate which, as well as everything else in all the other categories,
always belongs to some individual substance or other as subject, and has
no separate being. In full, then, a substance is a separate individual,
having universals, and things in all other categories, inseparably
belonging to it. The individual substance Socrates, for example, is a
man and an animal ([Greek: ousia]), tall, ([Greek: poson]), white
([Greek: poion]), a husband ([Greek: pros ti]), in the market ([Greek:
pou]), yesterday ([Greek: pote]), sitting ([Greek: keisthai]), armed
([Greek: hechein]), talking ([Greek: poiein]), listening ([Greek:
paschein]). Aristotelianism is this philosophy of substantial things.
The doctrine that all things are substances which are separate
individuals, stated in the _Categories_, is expanded in the
_Metaphysics_. Both works arrive at it from the classification of
categories, which is the same in both; except that in the former the
categories are treated rather as a logical classification of names
signifying things, in the latter rather as a metaphysical
classification of things. In neither, however, are they a grammatical
classification of words by their structure; and in neither are they a
psychological classification of notions or general conceptions
([Greek: noaemata]), such as they afterwards became in Kant's
_Critique_ and the post-Kantian idealism. Moreover, even in the
_Categories_ as names signifying distinct things they imply distinct
things; and hence the _Categories_, as well as the _Metaphysics_,
draws the metaphysical conclusion that individual substances are the
things without which there is nothing else, and thereby lays the
positive foundation of the philosophy running through all the extant
Aristotelian writings.
Again, according to both works, an individual substance is a subject,
a universal its predicate; and they have in common the Aristotelian
metaphysics, which differs greatly from the modern logic of subject
and predicate. Subject ([Greek: upokeimenon]) originally meant a real
thing which is the basis of something, and was used by Aristotle both
for a thing to which something belongs and for a name of which another
is asserted: accordingly "predicate" ([Greek: kataegoroymenon]) came
with him to mean something really belonging ([Greek: uparchon]) to a
substance as real subject, as well as a name capable of being asserted
of a name as a nominal subject. In other words, to him subject meant
real as well as nominal subject, and predicate meant real as well as
nominal predicate; whereas modern logic has gradually reduced both to
the nominal terms of a proposition. Accordingly, when he said that a
substance is a subject, he meant a real subject; and when he said that
a universal species or genus is a predicate, he meant that it is a
real predicate belonging to a real subject, which is always some
individual substance of the kind. It follows that Aristotelianism in
the _Categories_ and in the _Metaphysics_ is a realism both of
individuals and of universals; of individual substances as real
subjects, and of universals as real predicates.
Lastly, the two works agree in reducing the _Categories_ to substance
and its belongings ([Greek: uparchonta]). According to both, it is
always some substance, such as Socrates, which is quantitative,
qualitative, relative, somewhere, some time, placed, conditioned,
active, passive; so that all things in all other categories are
attributes which are belongings of substances. There are therefore two
kinds of belongings, universals and attributes; and in both cases
belonging in the sense of having no being but the being of the
substance.
In brief then the common ground of the _Categories_ and the
_Metaphysics_ is the fundamental position that all things are
substances having belonging to them universals and attributes, which
have no separate being as Plato falsely supposed.
This essential agreement suffices to show that the _Categories_ and
the _Metaphysics_ are the result of one mind. Nevertheless, there is a
deep difference between them in detail, which may be expressed by
saying that the _Categories_ is nearer to Platonism. We have seen how
anxious Aristotle was to be considered one of the Platonists, how
reluctant he was to depart from Plato's hypothesis of forms, and how,
in denying the separability, he retained the Platonic belief in the
reality and even in the unity of the universal. We have now to see
that, in writing the _Categories_, on the one hand he carried his
differences from his master further than he had done in his early
criticisms by insisting that individual substances are not only real,
but are the very things which sustain the universal; but on the other
hand, he clung to further relics of the Platonic theory, and it is
those which differentiate the _Categories_ and the _Metaphysics_.
In the first place, in the _Categories_ the belonging of things in
other categories to individual substances in the first category is not
so well developed. A distinction (chap. 2) is drawn between things
which are predicates of a subject ([Greek: kath upokeimenon]) and
things which inhere in a subject ([Greek: en ipokeimeno]); and, while
universals are called predicates of a subject, things in a subordinate
category, i.e. attributes such as colour ([Greek: chroma]) in the
qualitative, are said to inhere in a subject. It is true that the work
gives only a negative definition of the inherent, namely, that it does
not inhere as a part and cannot exist apart from that in which it
inheres (1 a 24-25), and it admits that what is inherent may sometimes
also be a predicate (chap. 5, 2 a 27-34). The commentators explain
this to mean that an attribute as individual is inherent, as universal
is a predicate. But even so the _Categories_ concludes that everything
is either a predicate of, or inherent in, a substance; and the view
that this colour belongs to this substance only in the sense of being
in it, not of it, leaves the impression that, like a Platonic form, it
is an entity rather in than of an individual substance, though even in
the _Categories_ Aristotle is careful to deny its separability. The
hypothesis of inherence gives an inadequate account of the dependence
of an attribute on a substance, and is a kind of half-way house
between separation and predication.
On the other hand, in the _Metaphysics_, the distinction between
inherence and predication disappears; and what is more, the relation
of an attribute to a substance is regarded as so close that an
attribute is merely the substance modified. "The thing itself and the
thing affected," says Aristotle, "are in a way the same; e.g. Socrates
and Socrates musical" (_Met._ [Delta] 29, 1024 b 30-31). Consequently,
all attributes, as well as universals, belong as predicates of
individual substances as subjects, according to the _Metaphysics_, and
also according to the most authoritative works of Aristotle, such as
the _Posterior Analytics_, where (cf. i. 4, 22) an attribute ([Greek:
symbebaekos]) is said to be only by being the substance possessing it,
and any separation of an attribute from a substance is held to be
entirely a work of human abstraction ([Greek: aphairesis]). At this
point, Plato and Aristotle have become very far apart: to the master
beauty appears to be an independent thing, and really separate, to the
pupil at his best only something beautiful, an attribute which is only
mentally separable from an individual substance. The first difference
then between the _Categories_ and the _Metaphysics_ is in the nature
of an attribute; and the theory of inherence in the _Categories_ is
nearer to Plato and more rudimentary than the theory of predication in
the _Metaphysics_. The second difference is still nearer to Plato and
more rudimentary, and is in the nature of substance. For though both
works rest on the reality of individual substances, the _Categories_
(chap. 5) admits that universal species and genera can be called
substances, whereas the _Metaphysics_ ([Zeta] 13) denies that a
universal can be a substance at all.
It is evident that in the category of substance, as Aristotle
perceived, substance is predicate of substance, e.g. Socrates ([Greek:
ousia]) is a man ([Greek: ousia]), and an animal ([Greek: ousia]). The
question then arises, what sort of substance can be predicate; and in
the _Categories_ Aristotle gave an answer, which would have been
impossible, if he had not, under Plato's influence, accepted both the
unity and the substantiality of the universal. What he said in
consequence was that the substance in the predicate is not an
individual substance, e.g. this man or this animal, because such a
primary substance is not a predicate; but that the species man or the
genus animal is the substance which is the predicate of Socrates the
subject (_Cat._ 5, 3 a 36 seq.). Finding then that substances are real
predicates, and supposing that in that case they must be species or
genera, he could not avoid the conclusion that some substances are
species or genera, which were therefore called by him "secondary
substances," and by his Latin followers _substantiae universales_. It
is true that this conclusion gave him some misgivings, because he
recognized that it is a characteristic of a substance to signify an
individual ([Greek: tose ti]), which a species or a genus does not
signify (_ib._ 5, 3 b 10-21). Nevertheless, in the _Categories_, he
did not venture to deny that in the category of substance a universal
species (e.g. man), or genus (e.g. animal), is itself a substance. On
the other hand, in the _Metaphysics_ ([Zeta] 13), he distinctly denies
that any universal can be a substance, on the ground that a substance
is a subject, whereas a universal is a predicate and a belonging of a
subject, from which it follows as he says that no universal is a
substance, and no substance universal. Here again the _Categories_
forms a kind of transition from Platonism to the _Metaphysics_ which
is the reverse: to call universals "secondary substances" is half way
between Plato's calling them the only substances and Aristotle's
denial in the _Metaphysics_ that they are substances at all.
What conclusion are we to draw from these differences between the
_Categories_ and the _Metaphysics_? The only logical conclusion is
that the _Categories_, being nearer to Plato on the nature of
attributes, and still nearer on the relation of universals to
substances, is earlier than the _Metaphysics_. There are difficulties
no doubt in drawing this conclusion; because the _Metaphysics_, though
it denies that universals can be substances, and does not allow
species and genera to be called "secondary substances," nevertheless
falls itself into calling a universal essence ([Greek: to ti aen
einai]) a substance---and that too in the very book where it is proved
that no universal can be a substance. But this lapse only shows how
powerful a dominion Plato exercised over Aristotle's soul to the last;
for it arises out of the pupil still accepting from his master the
unity of the universal though now applying it, not to classes, but to
essences. The argument about essences in the _Metaphysics_ is as
follows:--Since a separate individual, e.g. Socrates, is a substance,
and he is essentially a rational animal, then his essence, being what
he is, is a substance; for we cannot affirm that Socrates is a
substance and then deny that this rational animal is a substance
(_Met._ [Zeta] 3). Now, according to the unity of a universal asserted
by Plato and accepted by Aristotle, the universal essence of species,
being one and the same for all individuals of the kind, is the same as
the essence of each individual: e.g. the rational animal in the human
species and in Socrates is one and the same; "for the essence is
indivisible" ([Greek: atomon gar to eisos], _Met._ [Zeta] 8, 1034 a
8). It follows that we must call this selfsame essence, at once
individual and universal, substance--a conclusion, however, which
Aristotle never drew in so many words, though he continued always to
call essence substance, and definition a knowledge of substance.
There is therefore a history of Aristotle's metaphysical views,
corresponding to his gradual method of composition. It is as
follows:--
(1) Negative rejection of Plato's hypothesis of forms and formal
numbers, and reduction of forms to the common in the early dialogue
[Greek: peri philosophias] and in the early work [Greek: peri iseon].
(2) Positive assertion of the doctrine that things are individual
substances in the _Categories_, but with the admission that attributes
sometimes inhere in substance without being predicates of it, and that
universal species and genera are "secondary substances."
(3) Expansion of the doctrine that things are individual substances in
the _Metaphysics_, coupled with the reduction of all attributes to
predicates, and the direct denial of universal substances; but
nevertheless calling the universal essence of a species of substances
substance, because the individual essence of an individual substance
really is that substance, and the universal essence of the whole
species is supposed to be indivisible and therefore identical with the
individual essence of any individual of the species.
2. The _De Interpretatione._--Another example of Aristotle's gradual
desertion of Plato is exhibited by the _De Interpretatione_ as compared
with the _Prior Analytics_, and it shows another gradual history in
Aristotle's philosophy, namely, the development of subject, predicate
and copula, in his logic.
The short discourse on the expression of thought by language ([Greek:
peri Ermaeneias], _De Interpretatione_) is based on the Platonic
division of the sentence ([Greek: logos]) into noun and verb ([Greek:
onoma] and [Greek: rema].) Its point is to separate the enunciative
sentence, or that in which there is truth or falsity, from other
sentences; and then, dismissing the rest to rhetoric or poetry (where we
should say grammar), to discuss the enunciative sentence ([Greek:
apophantikos logos]), or enunciation ([apophansis]), or what we should
call the proposition (_De Int._ chap. 4). Here Aristotle, starting from
the previous grammar of sentences in general, proceeded, for the first
time in philosophical literature, to disengage the logic of the
proposition, or that sentence which can alone be true or false, whereby
it alone enters into reasoning. But in spite of this great logical
achievement, he continued throughout the discourse to accept Plato's
grammatical analysis of all sentences into noun and verb, which indeed
applies to the proposition as a sentence but does not give its
particular elements. The first part of the work confines itself strictly
to noun and verb, or the form of proposition called _secundi
adjacentis_. Afterwards (chap. 10) proceeding to the opposition of
propositions, he adds the form called _tertii adjacentis_, in a passage
which is the first appearance, or rather adumbration, of the verb of
being as a copula. In the form _secundi adjacentis_ we only get
oppositions, such as the following:--
man is--man is not
not-man is--not-man is not
In the form _tertii adjacentis_ the oppositions, becoming more complex,
are doubled, as follows:--
man is just--man is not just
man is non-just--man is not non-just
not-man is just--not-man is not just
not-man is non-just--not-man is not non-just.
The words introducing this form ([Greek: dtan de to esti triton
proskategoretai], chap. 10, 19 b 19), which are the origin of the phrase
_tertii adjacentis_, disengage the verb of being ([Greek: esti])
partially but not entirely, because they still treat it as an extra part
of the predicate, and not as a distinct copula. Nor does the work get
further than the analysis of some propositions into noun and verb with
"is" added to the predicated verb; an analysis, however, which was a
great logical discovery and led Aristotle further to the remark that
"is" does not mean "exists"; e.g. "Homer is a poet" does not mean "Homer
exists" (_De Int._ chap. 11).
How then did Aristotle get further in the logical analysis of the
proposition? Not in the _De Interpretatione_, but in the _Prior
Analytics_. The first adumbration was forced upon him in the former work
by his theory of opposition; the complete appearance in the latter work
by his theory of syllogism. In analysing the syllogism, he first says
that a premiss is an affirmative or negative sentence, and then that a
term is that into which a premiss is dissolved, i.e. predicate and
subject, combined or divided by being and not being (_Pr. An._ i. 1).
Here, for the first time in logical literature, subject and predicate
suddenly appear as terms, or extremes, with the verb of being ([Greek:
to einai]) or not being ([Greek: to me einai]) completely disengaged
from both, but connecting them as a copula. Why here? Because the
crossing of terms in a syllogism requires it. In the syllogism "Every
man is mortal and Socrates is a man," if in the minor premiss the copula
"is" were not disengaged from the predicate "man," there would not be
one middle term "man" in the two premisses. It is not necessary in every
proposition, but it is necessary in the arrangement of a syllogism, to
extricate the terms of its propositions from the copula; e.g.
mortal--man--Socrates.
This important difference between the _De Interpretatione_ and the
_Prior Analytics_ can only be explained by supposing that the former is
the earlier treatise. It is nearer to Plato's analysis of the sentence,
and no logician would have gone back to it, after the Prior Analytics.
It is not spurious, as some have supposed, nor later than the _De
Anima_, as Zeller thought, but Aristotle in an earlier frame of mind.
Moreover we can make a history of Aristotle's thought and gradual
composition thus:
(1) Earlier acceptance in the _De Interpretatione_ of Plato's
grammatical analysis of the sentence into noun and verb (_secundi
adjacentis_) but gradually disengaging the proposition, and afterwards
introducing the verb of being as a third thing added (_tertium
adjacens_) to the predicated verb, for the purpose of opposition.
(2) Later logical analysis in the _Prior Analytics_ of the proposition
as premiss into subject, predicate and copula, for the purpose of
syllogism; but without insisting that the original form is illogical.
3. The _Eudemian Ethics_ and _Magna Moralia_ in relation to the
_Nicomachean Ethics._--Under the name of Aristotle, three treatises on
the good of man have come down to us, [Greek: Ethika Nikomacheia]
([Greek: pros Nikomachon], Porphyry), [Greek: Ethika Eudemia] ([Greek:
pros Eudemon], Porphyry), and [Greek: Ethika Megala]; so like one
another that there seems no tenable hypothesis except that they are the
manuscript writings of one man. Nevertheless, the most usual hypothesis
is that, while the _Nicomachean Ethics_ (E.N.) was written by Aristotle
to Nicomachus, the _Eudemian_ (E.E.) was written, not to, but by,
Eudemus, and the _Magna Moralia_ (M.M.) was written by some early
disciple before the introduction of Stoic and Academic elements into the
Peripatetic school. The question is further complicated by the fact that
three Nicomachean books (E.N. v.-vii.) and three Eudemian (E.E.
[Delta]-[Zeta]) are common to the two treatises, and by the consequent
question whether, on the hypothesis of different authorship, the common
books, as we may style them, were written for the _Nicomachean_ by
Aristotle, or for the _Eudemian Ethics_ by Eudemus, or some by one and
some by the other author. Against the "Chorizontes," who have advanced
various hypotheses on all these points without convincing one another,
it may be objected that they have not considered Aristotle's method of
gradual and simultaneous composition of manuscripts within the
Peripatetic school. We have to remember the traces of his separate
discourses, and his own double versions; and that, as in ancient times
Simplicius, who had two versions of the _Physics_, Book vii., suggested
that both were early versions of Book viii. on the same subject, so in
modern times Torstrik, having discovered that there were two versions of
the _De Anima_, Book ii., suggested that both were by Aristotle. Above
all, we must consider our present point that Platonic influence is a
sign of earliness in an Aristotelian work; and generally, the same man
may both think and write differently at different times, especially if,
like Aristotle, he has been a prolific author.
These considerations make it probable that the author of all three
treatises was Aristotle himself; while the analysis of the treatises
favours the hypothesis that he wrote the _Eudemian Ethics_ and the
_Magna Moralia_ more or less together as the rudimentary first drafts of
the mature _Nicomachean Ethics_.
As the Platonic philosophy was primarily moral, and its metaphysics a
theory of the moral order of the universe, Aristotle from the first must
have mastered the Platonic ethics. At first he adopted the somewhat
ascetic views of his master about soul and body, and about goods of body
and estate; but before Plato's death he had rejected the hypothesis of
forms, formal numbers and the form of the good identified with the one,
by which Plato tried to explain moral phenomena; while his studies and
teaching on rhetoric and poetry soon began to make him take a more
tolerant view than Plato did of men's passions. Throughout his whole
subsequent life, however, he retained the fundamental doctrine, which he
had learnt from Plato, and Plato from Socrates, that virtue is essential
to happiness. Twice over this tenet, which makes Socrates, Plato and
Aristotle one ethical school, inspired Aristotle to attempt poetry:
first, in the Elegy to Eudemus of Cyprus, in which, referring to either
Socrates or Plato, he praises the man who first showed clearly that a
good and happy man are the same (_Fragm._ 673); and secondly, in the
Hymn in memory of Hermias, beginning "Virtue, difficult to the human
race, noblest pursuit in life" (_ib._ 675). Moreover, the successors of
Plato in the Academy, Speusippus and Xenocrates, showed the same belief
in the essentiality of virtue. The question which divided them was what
the good is. Speusippus took the ascetic view that the good is a perfect
condition of neutrality between two contrary evils, pain and pleasure.
Xenocrates took the tolerant view that it is the possession of
appropriate virtue and noble actions, requiring as conditions bodily
and external goods. Aristotle was opposed to Speusippus, and nearly
agreed with Xenocrates. According to him, the good is activity of soul
in accordance with virtue in a mature life, requiring as conditions
bodily and external goods of fortune; and virtue is a mean state of the
passions. It is probable that when, after Plato's death and the
accession of Speusippus in 347, Aristotle with Xenocrates left Athens to
visit his former pupil Hermias, the three discussed this moderate system
of Ethics in which the two philosophers nearly agreed. At any rate, it
was adopted in each of the three moral treatises which pass under the
name of Aristotle.
The three treatises are in very close agreement throughout, and in the
following details. The good of Ethics is human good; and human good is
happiness, not the universal good or form of the good to which Plato
subordinated human happiness. Happiness is activity of soul according
to virtue in a mature life: it requires other goods only as
conditions. The soul is partly irrational, partly rational; and
therefore there are two kinds of virtue. Moral virtue, which is that
of the irrational desires so far as they are obedient to reason, is a
purposive habit in the mean. The motive of the moral virtues is the
honourable ([Greek: to kalon], _honestum_). As the rational is either
deliberative or scientific, either practical or speculative intellect,
there are two virtues of the intellect--prudence of the deliberative
or practical, and wisdom of the scientific or speculative, intellect.
The right reason by which moral virtue is determined is prudence,
which is determined in its turn by wisdom. Pleasure is a psychical
state, and is not a generation in the body supplying a defect and
establishing a natural condition, but an activity of a natural
condition of the soul. It should be specially noted that this doctrine
like the rest is common to the three treatises: in Book vii. of the
_Nicomachean_, which is [Zeta] of the _Eudemian_, pleasure is defined
as [Greek: energeia taes kata thusin exeos anempodistos] (chap. 12,
1153 a 14-15); and in the _Magna Moralia_ as [Greek: hae kinaesis
autou kai hae energeia] (ii. 7, 1204 b 28; cf. 1205 b 20-28). It is
plain from the context that in the former definition "the natural
condition" ([Greek: hae kata thusin exis]) refers to the soul which,
while the body is regenerated, remains unimpaired (cf. 1152 b 35 seq.,
1154 b 15 seq.); and in the latter definition the thing ([Greek:
autou]), whose "motion, that is activity" is spoken of, is the part of
the soul with which we feel pleased.
Down then to their common definition of pleasure as activity the three
treatises present a harmonious system of morals, consistently with one
another, and with the general philosophy of Aristotle. In particular,
the theory that pleasure is activity ([Greek: energeia]) is the theory
of two of his most authoritative works. In the _De Anima_ (iii. 7, 431
a 10-12), being pleased and pained are defined by him as acting
[Greek: to] ([Greek: energein]) by a sensitive mean in relation to
good or evil as such. In the _Metaphysics_ ([lambda] 7, 1072 b 16), in
discussing the occupation of God, he says "his pleasure is activity,"
or "his activity is pleasure," according to a difference of readings
which makes no difference to the identification of pleasure and
activity ([Greek: energeia]). As then we find this identification of
pleasure with activity in the _Metaphysics_ and in the _De Anima_, as
well as in the _Nicomachean Ethics_, the _Eudemian Ethics_ and the
_Magna Moralia_, the only logical conclusion, from which there is no
escape, is that, so far as the treatment of pleasure goes, any
Aristotelian treatise which defines it as activity is genuine. There
is no reason for doubting that the _Nicomachean Ethics_ to the end of
Book vii., the _Eudemian Ethics_ to the end of Book [Zeta], and the
_Magna Moralia_ as far as Book ii. chap. 7, were all three written by
Aristotle.
Why then doubt at all? It is because the _Nicomachean Ethics_ contains
a second discourse on pleasure (x. 1-5), in which the author, while
agreeing with the previous treatment of the subject that pleasure is
not a bodily generation, even when accompanied by it, but something
psychical, nevertheless defines it (x. 4, 1174 b 31-33) not as an
activity, but as a supervening end ([Greek: epigignomenon ti telos])
perfecting an activity ([Greek: teleioi taen energeian]). He allows
indeed that activity and pleasure are very closely related; that a
pleasure of sense or thought perfects an act of sensation or of
thinking, depends on it, and is so inseparably conjoined with it as to
raise a doubt whether pleasure is end of life or life end of pleasure,
and even whether the activity is the same as the pleasure. But he
disposes of this doubt in a very emphatic and significant manner.
"Pleasure," says he, "does not seem to be thinking or perceiving; for
it is absurd: but on account of not being separated from them, it
appears to some persons to be the same." Now it is not likely that
Aristotle either, after having so often identified pleasure with
activity, would say that the identification is absurd though it
appears true to some persons, of whom he would in that case be one,
or, having once disengaged the pleasure of perceiving and thinking
from the acts of perceiving and thinking, would go backwards and
confuse them. It is more likely that Aristotle identified pleasure
with activity in the _De Anima_, the _Metaphysics_ and the three moral
treatises, as we have seen; but that afterwards some subsequent
Peripatetic, considering that the pleasure of perceiving or thinking
is not the same as perceiving or thinking, declared the previous
identification of pleasure with activity absurd. At any rate, if we
are to choose, it is the identification that is Aristotle's, and the
distinction not Aristotle's. Moreover, the distinction between
activity and pleasure in the tenth book is really fatal to the
consistency of the whole _Nicomachean Ethics_, which started in the
first book with the identification of happiness and virtuous activity.
For if the pleasure of virtuous activity is a supervening end beyond
the activity, it becomes a supervening end beyond the happiness of
virtuous activity, which thus ceases to be the final end.
Nevertheless, the distinction between activity and pleasure is true.
Some unknown Peripatetic detected a flaw in the _Nicomachean Ethics_
when he said that pleasure is a supervening end beyond activity, and,
if he had gone on to add that happiness is also a supervening end
beyond the virtuous activities which are necessary to produce it, he
would have destroyed the foundation of his own founder's Ethics.
It is further remarkable that the _Nicomachean Ethics_ proceeds to a
different conclusion. After the intrusion of this second discourse on
pleasure, it goes on (E.N. x. 6-fin.) to the famous theory that the
highest happiness is the speculative life of intellect or wisdom as
divine, but that happiness as human also includes the practical life
of combining prudence and moral virtue; and that, while both lives
need external goods as necessaries, the practical life also requires
them as instruments of moral action. The treatise concludes with the
means of making men virtuous; contending that virtue requires
habituation, habituation law, law legislative art, and legislative art
politics: Ethics thus passes into Politics. The _Eudemian Ethics_
proceeds to its conclusion (E.E. [Eta] 13-15) differently, with the
consideration of (1) good fortune ([Greek: eutuchia]), and (2)
gentlemanliness ([Greek: kalokagathia]). Good fortune it divides into
two kinds, both irrational; one divine, according to impulse, and more
continuous; the other contrary to impulse and not continuous.
Gentlemanliness it regards as perfect virtue, containing all
particular virtues, and all goods for the sake of the honourable.
Finally, it concludes with the limit ([Greek: horos]) of goods. First
it finds the limit of goods of fortune in that desire and possession
of them which will conduce to the contemplation of God, whereas that
which prevents the service and contemplation of God is bad. Then it
adds that the best limit of the soul is as little as possible to
perceive the other part of the soul (i.e. desire). Finally, the
treatise concludes with saying that the limit of gentlemanliness has
thus been stated, meaning that its limit is the service and
contemplation of God and the control of desire by reason. The _Magna
Moralia_ (M.M. ii. 8-10) on these points is unlike the _Nicomachean_,
and like the _Eudemian Ethics_ in discussing good fortune and
gentlemanliness, but it discusses them in a more worldly way. On good
fortune (ii. 8), after recognizing the necessity of external goods to
happiness, it denies that fortune is due to divine grace, and simply
defines it as irrational nature ([Greek: alogos thusis]).
Gentlemanliness (ii. 9) it regards as perfect virtue, and defines the
gentleman as the man to whom really good things are good and really
honourable things honourable. It then adds (ii. 10) that acting
according to right reason is when the irrational part of the soul does
not hinder the rational part of intellect from doing its work.
Thereupon it proceeds to a discourse on friendship, which in the
_Nicomachean_ and _Eudemian Ethics_ is discussed in an earlier
position, but breaks off unfinished.
On the whole, the three moral treatises proceed on very similar lines
down to the common identification of pleasure with activity, and then
diverge. From this point the _Eudemian Ethics_ and the _Magna Moralia_
become more like one another than like the _Nicomachean Ethics_. They
also become less like one another than before: for the treatment of
good fortune, gentlemanliness, and their limit is more theological in
the _Eudemian Ethics_ than in the _Magna Moralia_.
How are the resemblances and differences of the three to be explained?
By Aristotle's gradual method of composition. All three are great
works, contributing to the origin of the independent science of
Ethics. But the _Eudemian Ethics_ and the _Magna Moralia_ are more
rudimentary than the _Nicomachean Ethics_, which as it were seems to
absorb them except in the conclusion. They are, in short, neither
independent works, nor mere commentaries, but Aristotle's first drafts
of his Ethics.
In the _Ethics to Eudemus_, as Porphyry properly called the _Eudemian
Ethics_, Aristotle in the first four books successively investigates
happiness, virtue, the voluntary and the particular moral virtues, in
the same order and in the same letter and spirit as in his _Ethics to
Nicomachus_. But the investigations are never so good. They are all
such rudiments as Aristotle might well polish into the more developed
expositions in the first four books of the _Nicomachean Ethics_. On
the other hand, nobody would have gone back afterwards on his masterly
treatment of happiness, in the first book, or of virtue in the second,
or of the voluntary in the third, or of the particular virtues in the
third and fourth, to write the sketchy accounts of the _Eudemian
Ethics_.
Again, these sketches are rough preparations for the subsequent books
common to the two treatises. It is true, as Dr Henry Jackson has
pointed out, though with some exaggeration, that the Eudemian agrees
in detail rather better than the Nicomachean treatment of the
voluntary with the subsequent discussion of injury (E.E. [Delta] =
E.N. v. 8); and, as Th. H. Fritzsche remarks, the distinction between
politics, and economics, and prudence in the _Eudemian Ethics_
([Alpha] 8) is a closer anticipation of the subsequent triple
distinction of practical science (E.E. [Epsilon] = E.N. vi 8). On the
other hand, there are still more fundamental points in which the first
three books of the _Eudemian Ethics_ are a very inadequate preparation
for the common books. Notably its treatment of prudence ([Greek:
phronaesis]) is a chaos. At first, prudence appears as the operation
of the philosophical life and connected with the speculative
philosophy of Anaxagoras (E.E. [Alpha] 1-5): then it is brought into
connexion with the practical philosophy of Socrates (_ib_. 5) and
co-ordinated with politics and economics (_ib_. 8); then it is
intruded into the diagram of moral virtues as a mean between villainy
([Greek: panourgia]) and simplicity (([Greek: euhaetheia]) (E.E.
[Beta] 33, 1221 a 12); finally, a distinction between virtue by nature
and virtue with prudence ([Greek: metha phronhaeseos]) is promised
(E.E. [Tau] 7, 1234 a 4). In addition to all this confusion of
speculative and practical knowledge, prudence is absent when it ought
to be present; e.g. from the division of virtues into moral and
intellectual (E.E. [Beta] 1, 1220 a 4-13), and from the definition of
moral virtue (_ib_. 5, 10); while, in a passage ([Beta] 11)
anticipating the subsequent discussion of the relation between
prudence and moral virtue (E.E. [Epsilon] = E.N. vi. 12-13), it is
stated that in purpose the end is made right by moral virtue, the
means by another power, reason, without this right reason being stated
to be prudence. After this, it can never be said that the earlier
books of the _Eudemian Ethics_ are so good a preparation as those of
the _Nicomachean Ethics_ for the distinction between prudence ([Greek:
phrhoraesis]) and wisdom ([Greek: sophia]), which is the main point of
the common books, and one of Aristotle's main points against Plato's
philosophy.
Curiously enough, although little is made of it, this distinction,
absent from the earlier books, is present in the final book II of the
_Eudemian Ethics_ (cf. 1246 b 4 seq., 1248 a 35, 1249 b 14); and
probably therefore this part was a separate discourse. Meanwhile,
however, the truth about the _Eudemian Ethics_ in general is that it
was an earlier rudimentary sketch written by Aristotle, when he was
still struggling, without quite succeeding, to get over Plato's view
that there is one philosophical knowledge of universal good, by which
not only the dialectician and mathematician must explain the being and
becoming of the world, but also the individual and the statesman guide
the life of man. Indeed, the final proof that the _Eudemian Ethics_ is
earlier than the _Nicomachean_ is the very fact that it is more under
Platonic influence. In the first place, the reason why the account of
prudence begins by confusing the speculative with the practical is
that the _Eudemian Ethics_ starts from Plato's _Philebus_, where,
without differentiating speculative and practical knowledge, Plato
asks how far good is prudence ([Greek: phronaesis]), how far pleasure
([Greek: haedorhae]); and in the _Eudemian Ethics_ Aristotle asks the
same question, adding virtue ([Greek: harethae]) in order to correct
the Socratic confusion of virtue with prudence. Secondly, the
_Eudemian Ethics_, while not agreeing with Plato's _Republic_ that the
just can be happy by justice alone, does not assign to the external
goods of good fortune ([Greek: ehutuchia]) the prominence accorded to
them in the _Nicomachean Ethics_ as the necessary conditions of all
virtue, and the instruments of moral virtue. Thirdly, the emphasis of
the _Eudemian Ethics_ on the perfect virtue of gentlemanliness
([Greek: kalokhagathia]) is a decidedly old-fashioned trait, which
descended to Aristotle from the Greek notion of a gentleman who does
his duty to his state (cf. Herodotus i. 30, Thucydides iv. 40) and to
his God (Xenophon, _Symp_. iv. 49) through Plato, who in the _Gorgias_
(470 [Epsilon]) says that the gentleman is happy, and in the
_Republic_ (489 [Epsilon]) imputes to him the love of truth essential
to philosophy. Moreover, when Plato goes on (_ib._ 505 [Beta]) to
identify the form of good, without which nothing is good, with the
gentlemanly thing ([Greek: kalhon kai agathon]), without which any
possession is worthless, he inspired into the author of the _Eudemian
Ethics_ the very limit ([Greek: opos]) of good fortune and
gentlemanliness with which it concludes, only without Plato's
elevation of the good into the form of the good. In the _Nicomachean
Ethics_ the old notion, we gladly see, survives (cf. i. 8): virtuous
actions are gentlemanly actions, and happiness accordingly is being at
our best and noblest and pleasantest ([Greek: ariston kai kalliston
kai aediston]). But gentlemanliness is no longer called perfect
virtue, as in the _Eudemian Ethics_: its place has been taken by
justice, which is perfect virtue to one's neighbour, by prudence which
unites all the moral virtues, and by wisdom which is the highest
virtue. Accordingly, in the end the old ideal of gentlemanliness is
displaced by the new ideal of the speculative and practical life.
Lastly, the _Eudemian Ethics_ derives from Platonism a strong
theological bias, especially in its conclusion ([Eta] 14-15). The
opposition of divine good fortune according to impulse to that which
is contrary to impulse reminds us of Plato's point in the _Phaedrus_
that there is a divine as well as a diseased madness. The
determination of the limit of good fortune and of gentlemanliness by
looking to the ruler, God, who governs as the end for which prudence
gives its orders, and the conclusion that the best limit is the most
conducive to the service and contemplation of God, presents the Deity
and man's relation to him as a final and objective standard more
definitely in the _Eudemian_ than in the _Nicomachean Ethics_, which
only goes so far as to say that man's highest end is the speculative
wisdom which is divine, like God, dearest to God.
Because, then, it is very like, but more rudimentary and more
Platonic, we conclude that the _Eudemian_ is an earlier draft of the
_Nicomachean Ethics_, written by Aristotle when he was still in
process of transition from Plato's ethics to his own.
The _Magna Moralia_ contains similar evidence of being earlier than
the _Nicomachean Ethics_. It treats the same subjects, but always in a
more rudimentary manner; and its remarks are always such as would
precede rather than follow the masterly expositions of the
_Nicomachean Ethics_. This inferiority applies also to its treatment
not only of the early part (i. 1-33 corresponding to E.N. i.-iv.), but
also of the middle part (i. 34-11. 7 corresponding to E.N. v.-vii. =
E.E. [Delta]-[Zeta]). In dealing with justice, it does not make it
clear, as the _Nicomachean Ethics_ (Book v.) does, that even universal
justice is virtue towards another (M.M. i. 34, 1193 b 1-15), and it
omits altogether the division into distributive and corrective
justice. In dealing with what the _Nicomachean Ethics_ (Book vi.)
calls intellectual virtues, but the _Magna Moralia_ (i. 5, 35) virtues
of the rational part of the soul, and right reason, it distinguishes
(i. 35, 1196 b 34-36) science, prudence, intelligence, wisdom,
apprehension ([Greek: upolaepsis]), in a rough manner very inferior to
the classification of science, art, prudence, intelligence, wisdom,
all of which are coordinate states of attaining truth, in the
_Nicomachean Ethics_ (vi. 3). It distinguishes prudence ([Greek:
phronaesis]) and wisdom ([Greek: sophia]) as the respective virtues of
deliberative and scientific reason; and on the whole its account of
prudence (cf. M.M. i. 5) is more consistent than that of the _Eudemian
Ethics_. In these points it is a better preparation for the
_Nicomachean Ethics_. But it falls into the confusion of first saying
that praise is for moral virtues, and not for virtues of the reason,
whether prudence or wisdom (M.M. i. 5, 1185 b 8-12), and afterwards
arguing that prudence is a virtue, precisely because it is praised (i.
35, 1197 a 16-18). In dealing with continence and incontinence, the
same doubts and solutions occur as in the _Nicomachean Ethics_ (Book
vii. = E.E. [Zeta]), but sometimes confusing doubts and solutions
together, instead of first proposing all the doubts and then supplying
the solutions as in the _Nicomachean Ethics_. Such rudimentary and
imperfect sketches would be quite excusable in a first draft, but
inexcusable and incredible after the _Nicomachean Ethics_ had been
written.
It has another characteristic which points to its being an early work
of Aristotle, when he was still under the influence of Plato's style;
namely its approximation to dialogue. It asks direct questions (e.g.
[Greek: dia ti]; M.M. i. 1 repeatedly, 12; ii. 6, 7), incorporates
direct statements of others (e.g. [Greek: phaesi], i. 12, 13; ii. 3,
6, 7), alternates direct objections and answers (i. 34), and
introduces conversations between the author and others, expressed
interrogatively, indicatively and even imperatively ([Greek: all erei
moi, ta poia diasaphaeson hygieina estin]. i. 35, 1196 b 10; cf. ii.
10, 1208 a 20-22). The whole treatise inclines to run into dialogue.
It is also Platonic, like the _Endemian Ethics_, in making little of
external goods in the account of good fortune (ii. 8), and in
emphasizing the perfect virtue of gentlemanliness (ii. 9). Indeed, in
some respects it is more like the _Eudemian_, though in the main more
like the _Nicomachean Ethics_. In the first book, it has the Eudemian
distinction between prudence, virtue and pleasure (i. 3, 1184 b 5-6);
but does not make so much of it as the distinction between prudence
and wisdom blurred in the _Eudemian_ but defined in the _Nicomachean
Ethics_. In the second book, it runs parallel to the _Eudemian Ethics_
in placing good fortune and gentlemanliness (ii. 8-9), where the
_Nicomachean Ethics_ places the speculative and the practical life;
but it omits the theological element by denying that good fortune is
divine grace, and by submitting gentlemanliness to no standard but
that of right reason, when the irrational part of the soul does not
hinder the rational part, or intellect ([Greek: nous]), from doing its
work.
Because, then, the _Magna Moralia_ is very like the _Nicomachean
Ethics_, but more rudimentary, nearer to the Platonic dialogues in
style and. to a less degree in matter, and also like the _Eudemian
Ethics_, we conclude that it is also like that treatise in having been
written as an earlier draft of the _Nicomachean Ethics_ by Aristotle
himself.
The hypothesis that the _Eudemian Ethics_, and by consequence the
_Magna Moralia_, are later than Aristotle has arisen from a simple
misconception, continued in a Scholium attributed to Aspasius, who
lived in the 2nd century A.D. Nicomachean means "addressed to
Nicomachus," and Eudemian "addressed to Eudemus"; but, as Cicero
thought that the _Nicomachean Ethics_ was written by Nicomachus, so
the author of the Scholium thought that the _Eudemian Ethics_, at
least so far as the first account of pleasure goes, was written by
Eudemus. He only thought so, however, because Aristotle could not have
written both accounts of pleasure; and, taking for granted that
Aristotle had written the second account of pleasure in the
_Nicomachean Ethics_ (Book x.), he concluded that the first account
(Book vii.) was not the work of Aristotle, but of Eudemus (_Comm. in
Ar._ (Berlin) xix. p. 151). We have seen reason to reverse this
argument: Aristotle did write the first account in Book vii., because
it contains his usual theory; and, if we must choose, he did not write
the second account in Book x. In this way, too, we get a historical
development of the theory of pleasure: Plato and Speusippus said it is
generation (cf. Plato's _Philebus_): Aristotle said it is psychical
activity sometimes requiring bodily generation, sometimes not (E.N.
vii. = E.E. [zeta]): Aristotle, or some Aristotelian, afterwards said
that it is a supervening end completing an activity (E.N. x.).
Secondly, some modern commentators, starting from the false conclusion
that the definition of pleasure as activity (E.N. vii. = E.E. [zeta])
is by Eudemus, and supposing without proof that he was also author of
the first three books of the _Eudemian Ethics_, have further asserted
that these are a better introduction than the first four books of the
_Nicomachean Ethics_ to the books common to both treatises (E.N. Books
v.-vii.= E.E. Books [Delta]-[Zeta]), and have concluded that Eudemus
wrote these common books. But we have seen that Aristotle wrote the
first three books of the _Eudemian_ as an earlier draft of the
_Nicomachean Ethics_; so that, even so far as they form a better
introduction, this will not prove the common books to be by Eudemus.
Again, those first three books are a better introduction only in
details; whereas in regard to the all-important subject of prudence as
distinct from wisdom, they are so bad an introduction that the common
book which discusses that subject at large (E.N. Book vi. = E.E. Book
[Epsilon]) must be rather founded on the first four books of
Aristotle's _Nicomachean Ethics_. Further, as Aristotle wrote both the
first three Eudemian and the first four Nicomachean books, there is no
reason why sometimes one, sometimes the other, should not be the best
introduction to the common books by the same author. Finally, the
common books are so integral a part of the Aristotelian system of
philosophy that they cannot be disengaged from it: the book on justice
(E.N. v.) quotes and is quoted in the _Politics_ (cf. 1130 b 28, 1280
a 16, 1261 a 30); the book on intellectual virtues (E.N. vi.) quotes
(vi. 3) the _Posterior Analytics_, i. 2, and is quoted in the
_Metaphysics_ ([Alpha] 1); and we have seen that the book (E.N. vii.)
which defines pleasure as activity is simply stating an Aristotelian
commonplace. Thirdly, in order to prove that the _Eudemian Ethics_ was
by Eudemus, it is said that in its first part it contemplates that
there must be a limit ([Greek: oros]) for virtue as a mean (E.E.
[Beta] 5, 1222 b 7-8), in its middle part it criticizes the
_Nicomackean Ethics_ for not being clear about this limit (E.E.
[Epsilon] 1), and in the end it alone assigns this limit, in the
service and contemplation of God (E.E. [Eta] 15, 1249 b 16 seq.). This
argument is subtle, but over-subtle. The _Eudemian_ and the
_Nicomachean_ treatments of this subject do not really differ. In the
_Nicomachean_ as in the _Eudemian Ethics_ the limit above moral virtue
is right reason, or prudence, which is right reason on such matters;
and above prudence wisdom, for which prudence gives its orders; while
wisdom is the intelligence and science of the most venerable objects,
of the most divine, and of God. After this agreement, there is a shade
of difference. While the _Eudemian Ethics_ in a more theological vein
emphasizes God, the object of wisdom as the end for which prudence
gives its orders, the Nicomachean Ethics in a more humanizing spirit
emphasizes wisdom itself, the speculative activity, as that end, and
afterwards as the highest happiness, because activity of the divine
power of intellect, because an imitation of the activity of God,
because most dear to God. This is too fine a distinction to found a
difference of authorship. Beneath it, and behind the curious
hesitation which in dealing with mysteries Aristotle shows between the
divine and the human, his three moral treatises agree that wisdom is a
science of things divine, which the _Nicomachean Ethics_ (vi. 7)
defines as science and intelligence of the most venerable things, the
_Magna Moralia_ (i. 35) regards as that which is concerned with the
eternal and the divine, and the _Eudemian Ethics_ ([Eta] 15) elevates
into the service and contemplation of God.
Aristotle then wrote three moral treatises, which agree in the
fundamental doctrines that happiness requires external fortune, but is
activity of soul according to virtue, rising from morality through
prudence to wisdom, or that science of the divine which constitutes the
theology of his _Metaphysics_. Surely, the harmony of these three moral
gospels proves that Aristotle wrote them, and wrote the _Eudemian
Ethics_ and the _Magna Moralia_ as preludes to the Nicomachean Ethics.
When did he begin? We do not know; but there is a pathetic
suggestiveness in a passage in the _Magna Moralia_ (i. 35), where he
says, "Clever even a bad man is called; as Mentor was thought clever,
but prudent he was not." Mentor was the treacherous contriver of the
death of Hermias (345-344 B.C.). Was this passage written when Aristotle
was mourning for his friend?
4. _The Rhetoric to Alexander._--This is one of a series of works
emanating from Aristotle's early studies in rhetoric, beginning with the
_Gryllus_, continuing in the _Theodectea_ and the _Collection of Arts_,
all of which are lost except some fragments; while among the extant
Aristotelian writings as they stand we still possess the _Rhetoric to
Alexander_ ([Greek: Rhaetorikae pros Alexandron]) and the _Rhetoric_
([Greek: Techyn Rhaetorikae]). But the _Rhetoric to Alexander_ was
considered spurious by Erasmus, for the inadequate reasons that it has a
preface and is not mentioned in the list of Diogenes Laertius, and was
assigned by Petrus Victorius, in his preface to the _Rhetoric_, to
Anaximenes. It remained for Spengel to entitle the work _Anaximenis Ars
Rhetorica_ in his edition of 1847, and thus substitute for the name of
the philosopher Aristotle that of the sophist Anaximenes on his
title-page. We have therefore to ask, first who was the author, and
secondly what is the relation of the _Rhetoric to Alexander_ to the
_Rhetoric_, which nowadays alone passes for genuine.
After a dedicatory epistle to Alexander (chap, 1) the opening of the
treatise itself (chap. 2) is as follows:--"There are three genera of
political speeches; one deliberative, one declamatory, one forensic:
their species are seven; hortative, dissuasive, laudatory, vituperative,
accusatory, defensive, critical." This brief sentence is enough to prove
the work genuine, because it was Aristotle who first distinguished the
three genera (cf. _Rhet_. i. 3; Quintilian iii. 4, 1. 7, 1), by
separating the declamatory ([Greek: epideiktikon]) from the deliberative
([Greek: daempaegorikon, symbouleutikon]) and judicial ([Greek:
dikanikon]); whereas his rival Isocrates had considered that laudation
and vituperation, which Aristotle elevated into species of declamation,
run through every kind (Quintilian iv. 4), and Anaximenes recognized
only the deliberative and the judicial (Dionys. H. _de Isaeo_, 19). In
order, however, to impute the whole work to Anaximenes, Spengel took one
of the most inexcusable steps ever taken in the history of scholarship.
Without any manuscript authority he altered the very first words "three
genera" ([Greek: tria genae]) into "two genera" ([Greek: duo genae]),
and omitted the words "one declamatory" ([Greek: to de epideiktikon]).
Quintilian (iii. 4) imputes to Anaximenes two genera, deliberative and
judicial, and seven species, "hortandi, dehortandi, laudandi,
vituperandi, accusandi, defendendi, exquirendi, quod [Greek:
exetastikon] dicit." But the author of this rhetoric most certainly
recognized three genera ([Greek: tria genae]), since, besides the
deliberative and judicial, the declamatory genus constantly appears in
the work (chaps. 2 _init._, 4, 7, 18, 36, cf. [Greek: oyk agonos all
epideixeos eneka] 1440 b 13); and, if the terms for it are not always
the same, this is just what one would expect in a new discovery.
Moreover, he could recognize seven species in the _Rhetoric to
Alexander_, though he recognized only six in the _Rhetoric_, provided
the two works were not written at the same time; and as a matter of fact
even in the _Rhetoric to Alexander_ the seventh or critical species
([Greek: exetastikon]) is in process of disappearing (cf. chap. 37). As
then Anaximenes did not, but Aristotle did, recognize three genera, and
as Aristotle could as well as Anaximenes recognize seven species, the
evidence is overwhelming that the _Rhetoric to Alexander_ is the work
not of Anaximenes, but of Aristotle; on the condition that its date is
not that of Aristotle's confessedly genuine _Rhetoric_.
There is a second and even stronger evidence that the _Rhetoric to
Alexander_ is a genuine work of Aristotle. It divides (chap. 8)
evidences ([Greek: pisteis]) into two kinds (1) evidence from arguments,
actions and men ([Greek: ai men ex auton ton logon kai ton praxeon kai
ton anthropon]); (2) adventitious evidences ([Greek: ai d' epithetoi
tois legomenois kai tois prattomenois]). The former are immediately
enumerated as probabilities ([Greek: eikota]), examples ([Greek:
paradeigmara]), proofs ([Greek: tekmaeria]), considerations ([Greek:
enthomaemata]), maxims ([Greek: gnomai]), signs ([Greek: saemeia]),
refutations ([Greek: elenchoi]); the latter as opinion of the speaker
([Greek: doxa ton legontos]), witnesses ([Greek: martyriai]), tortures
([Greek: basanoi]), oaths ([Greek: orkoi]). It is confessed by Spengel
himself that these two kinds of evidences are the two kinds recognized
in Aristotle's _Rhetoric_ as (1) artificial ([Greek: entechnoi pisteis])
and (2) inartificial ([Greek: atechnoi pisteis]). Now, from the outset
of his _Rhetoric_ Aristotle himself claims to be the first to
distinguish between artificial evidences from arguments and other
evidences which he regards as mere additions; and he complains that the
composers of arts of speaking had neglected the former for the latter.
In particular, rhetoricians appeared to him to have neglected argument
in comparison with passion. No doubt, rational evidences had appeared in
books of rhetoric, as we see from Plato's _Phaedrus_, 266-267, where we
find proofs, probabilities, refutation and maxim, but mixed up with
other evidences. The point of Aristotle was to draw a line between
rational and other evidences, to insist on the former, and in fact to
found a logic of rhetoric. But if in the _Rhetoric to Alexander_, not
he, but Anaximenes, had already performed this great achievement,
Aristotle would have been the meanest of mankind; for the logic of
rhetoric would have been really the work of Anaximenes the sophist, but
falsely claimed by Aristotle the philosopher. As we cannot without a
tittle of evidence accept such a consequence, we conclude that
Aristotle formulated the distinction between argumentative and
adventitious, artificial and inartificial evidences, both in the
_Rhetoric to Alexander_ and in the _Rhetoric_; and that the former as
well as the latter is a genuine work of Aristotle, the founder of the
logic of rhetoric.
What is the relation between these two genuine Rhetorics? The last
event mentioned in the _Rhetoric to Alexander_ occurred in 340, the
last in the _Rhetoric_ is the common peace ([Greek: koinae eiraenae])
made between Alexander and the Greeks in 336 (_Rhet_. ii. 23, 1399 b
12). The former treatise (chap. 9), under the head of examples
([Greek: paradeigmata]), gives historical examples of the unexpected
in war for the years 403, 371, 358, concluding with the year 340, in
which the Corinthians, coming with nine triremes to the assistance of
the Syracusans, defeated the Carthaginians who were blockading
Syracuse with 150 ships. Spengel, indeed, tries to bring the latest
date in the book down to 330; but it is by absurdly supposing that the
author could not have got the commonplace, "one ought to criticize not
bitterly but gently," except from Demosthenes, _De Corona_ (S 265). We
may take it then that the last date in the _Rhetoric to Alexander_ is
340; and by a curious coincidence 340 was the year when, on Philip's
marching against Byzantium, Alexander was left behind as regent and
keeper of the seal, and distinguished himself so greatly that Philip
was only too glad that the Macedonians called Alexander king
(Plutarch, _Alexander_, 9). It is possible then that Aristotle may
have written the dedication to Alexander about 340 and treated him as
if he were king in the dedicatory epistle. At the same time, as such
prefaces are often forgeries, not prejudicing the body of the
treatise, it does not really matter whether Aristotle actually
dedicated his work to Alexander in that epistle about that year or
not. If he did, then the _Rhetoric to Alexander_ in 340 was at least
four years prior to the _Rhetoric_, which was as late as 336. If he
did not, the question still remains, what is the internal relation
between these two genuine Rhetorics? It will turn out most important.
The relation between the two Rhetorics turns on their treatment of
rational, argumentative, artificial evidences. Each of them, the
probability (chap. 8), the example (chap. 9), the proof (chap. 10),
the consideration (chap, 11), the maxim (chap. 12), the sign (chap.
13), the refutation (chap. 14), though very like what it is in the
_Rhetoric_, receives in the _Rhetoric to Alexander_ a definition
slightly different from the definition in the _Rhetoric_, which it
must be remembered is also the definition in the _Prior Analytics_.
Strange as this point is, it is still stranger that not one of these
internal evidences is brought into relation with induction and
deduction. Example ([Greek: paradeigma]) is not called rhetorical
induction, and consideration ([Greek: enthymaema]) is not called
rhetorical syllogism, as they are in the _Rhetoric_, and in the
_Analytics_. Induction ([Greek: epagogae]) and syllogism ([Greek:
syllogismos]), the general forms of inference, do not occur in the
_Rhetoric to Alexander_. In fact, this interesting treatise contains a
rudimentary treatment of rational evidences in rhetoric and is
therefore earlier than the _Rhetoric_, which exhibits a developed
analysis of these rational evidences as special logical forms.
Together, the earlier and the later _Rhetoric_ show us the logic of
rhetoric in the making, going on about 340, the last date of the
_Rhetoric to Alexander_, and more developed in or after 336 B.C., the
last date of the _Rhetoric_.
Nor is this all: the earlier _Rhetoric to Alexander_ and the later
_Rhetoric_ show us logic itself in the making. We have already said
that Aristotle was primarily a metaphysician. He gradually became a
logician out of his previous studies: out of metaphysics, for with him
being is always the basis of thinking, and common principles, such as
that of contradiction, are axioms of things before axioms of thought,
while categories are primarily things signified by names; out of the
mathematics of the Pythagoreans and the Platonists, which taught him
the nature of demonstration; out of the physics, of which he imbibed
the first draughts from his father, which taught him induction from
sense and the modification of strict demonstration to suit facts; out
of the dialectic between man and man which provided him with beautiful
examples of inference in the Socratic dialogues of Xenophon and Plato;
out of the rhetoric addressed to large audiences, which with dialectic
called his attention to probable inferences; out of the grammar taught
with rhetoric and poetics which led him to the logic of the
proposition. We cannot write a history of the varied origin of logic,
beyond putting the rudimentary logic of the proposition in the _De
Interpretatione_ before the less rudimentary theory of categories as
significant names capable of becoming predicates in the _Categories_,
and before the maturer analysis of the syllogism in the _Analytics_.
But at any rate the process was gradual; and Aristotle was advanced in
metaphysics, mathematics, physics, dialectics, rhetoric and poetics,
before he became the founder of logic.