1. The logical treatises.
2. The _Physics, De Coelo, De Generatione et Corruptione,
Meteorologica_.
3. _Historia Animalium, De Anima, Parva Naturalia, De Partibus
Animalium, De Animalium Incessu, De Generatione Animalium_.
4. _Ethics_ and _Politics_.
5. _Poetics_ and _Rhetoric_.
6. _Metaphysics_ (unfinished).
But Zeller does not give enough weight either to the evidence of early
composition contained in the _Politics_ and _Meteorology_, or to the
evidence of subsequent contemporaneous composition contained in the
cross-references, e.g. between the _Physics_ and the _Metaphysics_. On
the other hand he gives too much weight to the references from one
book to another, which Aristotle could have entered into his
manuscripts at any time before his death. Moreover, the arrangement
sometimes breaks down: for example, though on the whole the logical
books are quoted without quoting the rest, the _De Interpretatione_
(chap. 1) quotes the _De Anima_, and therefore is falsely taken by
Zeller against its own internal evidence to be subsequent to it and
consequently to the other logical books. Again, the _Meteorologica_
(iii. 2, 372 b 9) quotes the _De Sensu_ (c. 3), and therefore, on
Zeller's arguments, ought to follow one of the _Parva Naturalia_.
Lastly, though the _Metaphysics_ often quotes the _Physics_, and is
therefore regarded as being subsequent, it is itself quoted in the
_Physics_ (i. 8, 191 b 29), and therefore ought to be regarded as
antecedent. Zeller tries to get over this difficulty of
cross-reference by detaching _Metaphysics_, Book [Delta], from the
rest and placing it before the _Physics_. But this violent and
arbitrary remedy is only partial. The truth is that the _Metaphysics_
both precedes and follows the _Physics_, because it had been all along
occupying Aristotle ever since he began to differ from Plato's
metaphysical views and indeed forms a kind of presupposed basis of his
whole system. So generally, the references backwards and forwards, and
the cross-references, are really evidences that Aristotle mainly wrote
his works not successively but simultaneously, and entered references
as and when he pleased, because he had not published them.
There are two kinds of quotations in Aristotle's extant works, the
quotation of another book, and the quotation of a historical fact.
While the former is useless to determine the sequence of books written
simultaneously, the latter is insufficient to determine a complete
chronological order. When Aristotle, e.g. in the _Politics_, quotes an
event as now ([Greek: nun]), he was writing about it at that time; and
when he quotes another event as lately ([Greek: neosti]) he was
writing about it shortly after that time; but he might have been
writing the rest of the _Politics_ both before and after either event.
When he quotes the last event mentioned in the book, e.g. in the
_Rhetoric_ (ii. 23, 1399 b 12) the "common peace" of Greece under
Alexander in 336, he was writing as late as that date, but he might
also have been writing the _Rhetoric_ both before it and after it.
When he quotes what persons used to say in the past, e.g. Plato and
Speusippus in the _Ethics_, Eudoxus and Callippus in the
_Metaphysics_, he was writing these passages after the deaths of these
persons; but he might have been also writing the _Ethics_ and the
_Metaphysics_ both beforehand and afterwards. Lastly, when he is
silent about a historical fact, the argument from silence is evidence
only when he could not have failed to mention it; as, for example, in
the _Constitution of Athens_, when he could not have failed to mention
quinqueremes and other facts after 325-324. But this is in a
historical work; whereas the argument from silence about historical
facts in a philosophical work can seldom apply.
The chronological order therefore is not sufficiently detailed to be
the real order of Aristotelian writings. Secondly, the traditional
order, which for nearly 2000 years has descended from the edition of
Andronicus to the Berlin edition, is satisfactory in details, but
unsatisfactory in system. It gives too much weight to Aristotle's
logic, and too little to his metaphysics, on account of two prejudices
of the commentators which led them to place both logic and physics
before metaphysics. Aristotle rightly used all the sciences of his
day, and especially his own physics, as a basis of his metaphysics.
For example, at the very outset he refers to the _Physics_ (ii. 2)for
his use of the four causes, material, efficient, formal and final, in
the _Metaphysics_ ([Alpha] 2). This and other applications of the
science of nature to the science of all being induced the commentators
to adopt this order, and entitle the science of being the _Sequel to
the Physics_ ([Greek: ta meta ta physica]). But Aristotle knew nothing
of this title, the first known use of which was by Nicolaus
Damascenus, a younger contemporary of Andronicus, the editor of the
Aristotelian writings, and Andronicus was probably the originator of
the title, and of the order. On the other hand, Aristotle entitles the
science of all being "Primary Philosophy" ([Greek: protae
philosophia]), and the science of physical being "Secondary
Philosophy" ([Greek: deutera philosophia]), which suggests that his
order is from Metaphysics to Physics, the reverse of his editor's
order from Physics to Metaphysics. Thus the traditional order puts
Physics before Metaphysics without Aristotle's authority. With some
more show of authority it puts Logic before Metaphysics. Aristotle, on
introducing the principle of contradiction (_Met._ [Gamma] 3), which
belongs to Metaphysics as an axiom of being, says that those who
attempt to discuss the question of accepting this axiom, do so on
account of their ignorance of _Analytics_, which they ought to know
beforehand ([Greek: proepistamenous]). He means that the logical
analysis of demonstration in the _Analytics_ would teach them
beforehand that there cannot be demonstration, though there must be
induction, of an axiom, or any other principle; whereas, if they are
not logically prepared for metaphysics, they will expect a
demonstration of the axiom, as Heraclitus, the Heraclitean Cratylus
and the Sophist Protagoras actually did,--and in vain. Acting on this
hint, not Aristotle but the Peripatetics inferred that all logic is an
instrument ([Greek: organon]) of all sciences; and by the time of
Andronicus, who was one of them and sometimes called "the eleventh
from Aristotle," the order, Logic-Physics-Metaphysics, had become
established pretty much as we have it now. It is, however, not the
real order for studying the philosophy of Aristotle, because there is
more Metaphysics in his Physics than Physics in his Metaphysics, and
more Metaphysics in his Logic than Logic in his Metaphysics. The
commentators themselves were doubtful about the order: Boethus
proposed to begin with Physics, and some of the Platonists with Ethics
or Mathematics; while Andronicus preferred to put Logic first as
Organon (_Scholia_, 25 b 34 seq.). None of the parties to the dispute
had the authority of Aristotle. What do we find in his works? Primary
philosophy, Metaphysics, the science of being, is the solid foundation
of all parts of his philosophical system; not only in the _Physics_,
but also in the _De Coelo_ (i. 8, 277 b 10), in the _De Generatione_
(i. 3, 318 a 6; ii. 10, 336 b 29), in the _De Anima_ (i. 1, 403 a 28,
cf. b 16), in the _De Partibus Animalium_ (i. 1, 641 a 35), in the
_Nicomachean Ethics_ (i. 6, 1096 b 30), in the _De Interpretatione_
(5, 17 a 14); and in short throughout his extant works. The reason is
that Aristotle was primarily a metaphysician half for and half against
Plato, occupied himself with metaphysics all his philosophical life,
made the science of things the universal basis of all sciences without
destroying their independence, and so gradually brought round
philosophy from universal forms to individual substances. The
traditional order of the Aristotelian writings, still continued in the
Berlin edition, beginning with the logical writings on page 1,
proceeding to the physical writings on page 184, and postponing the
Metaphysics to page 980, is not the real order of Aristotle's
philosophy.
The real order of Aristotle's philosophy is that of Aristotle's mind,
revealed in his writings, and by the general view of thinking, science,
philosophy and all learning therein contained. He classified thinking
(_Met._ [Epsilon] 1) and science (_Topics_, vi. 6) by the three
operations of speculation ([Greek: theoria]), practice ([Greek: praxis])
and production ([Greek: poiaesis]), and made the following
subdivisions:--
I. Speculative: about things; subdivided (_Met._ [Epsilon] 1; _De An._
i. 1) into:--
i. Primary Philosophy, Theology, also called Wisdom, about things
as things.
ii. Mathematical Philosophy, about quantitative things in the
abstract.
iii. Physical Philosophy, about things as changing, and therefore
about natural substances or bodies, composed of matter and
essence.
II. Practical or Political Philosophy, or philosophy of things human
(cf. E.N. x. 9-fin.): about human good; subdivided (E.N. vi.
8, cf. E.E. [Alpha] 8, 1218 b 13) into:--
i. Ethics, about the good of the individual.
ii. Economics, about the good of the family.
iii. Politics, about the general good of the state.
III. Productive, or Art ([Greek: technae]): about works produced;
subdivided (_Met._ A. 1, 981 b 17-20) into:--
i. Necessary ([Greek: pros tanagkaia]), e.g. medicine.
ii. Fine ([Greek: pros diagogaen]), e.g. poetry.
Aristotle calls all these investigations sciences ([Greek: epistaemai]):
but he also uses the term "sciences" in a narrower sense in consequence
of a classification of their objects, which pervades his writings, into
things necessary and things contingent, as follows.--
(A) The necessary ([Greek: to mae endechomenon allos echein]), what
must be; subdivided into:--
(1) Absolutely ([Greek: haplos]), e.g. the mathematical.
(2) Hypothetically ([Greek: ex hypotheseus]), e.g. matter necessary
as means to an end.
(B) The contingent ([Greek: to endechomenon allos echein]), what may
be; subdivided into:--
(1) The usual ([Greek: to hos epi to polu]) or natural ([Greek: to
physikon]), e.g. a man grows grey.
(2) The accidental ([Greek: to kata symbebaekos]), e.g. a man sits or
not.
Now, according to Aristotle, science in the narrow sense is concerned
only with the absolutely necessary (E.N. iii. 3), and in the
classification would stop at mathematics, which we still call exact
science: in the wide sense, on the other hand, it extends to the whole
of the necessary and to the usual contingent, but excludes the
accidental (_Met._ [Epsilon] 2), and would in the classification include
not only metaphysics and mathematics, but also physics, ethics,
economics, politics, necessary and fine art; or in short all
speculative, practical and productive thinking of a systematic kind.
Hence the _Posterior Analytics_, which is Aristotle's authoritative
logic of science, is of peculiar interest because, after beginning by
defining science as investigating necessary objects from necessary
principles (i. 4), it proceeds to say that it is either of the necessary
or of the usual though not of the accidental (i. 29), and to admit that
its principles are some necessary and some contingent (i. 32, 88 b 7).
Philosophy ([Greek: philosophia]) also is used by him in a similar
manner. Though occasionally he means by it primary philosophy (_Met._
[Gamma] 2-3, [Kappa] 3), more frequently he extends it to all three
speculative philosophies ([Epsilon] 1, 1026 a 18, [Greek: treis an eien
philosophiai theoraetikai, mathaematikae, physikae, theologikae]), and
to all three practical philosophies, as we see from the constant use of
the phrase "political philosopher" in the _Ethics_; and in short applies
it to all sciences except productive science or art. With him, as with
the Greeks generally, the problems of philosophy are the nature and
origin of being and of good: it is not as with too many of us a mere
science of mind.
Aristotle's view of thinking in science and philosophy is essentially
comprehensive; but it is not so wide as to become indefinite. According
to him, science at its widest selects a special subject, e.g. number in
arithmetic, magnitude in geometry, stars in astronomy, a man's good in
ethics; concentrates itself on the causes and appropriate principles of
its subject, especially the definition of the subject and its species by
their essences or formal causes; and after an inductive intelligence of
those principles proceeds by a deductive demonstration from definitions
to consequences: philosophy is simply a desire of this definite
knowledge of causes and effects. Beyond philosophy, not beyond science,
there is art; and beyond philosophy and science there is history, the
description of facts preparatory to philosophy, the investigation of
causes (cf. _Pr. An._ i. 30); and this may be natural history,
preparatory to natural philosophy, as in the _History of Animals_
preparatory to the _De Partibus Animalium_, or what we call civil
history, preparatory to political philosophy, as in the 158
Constitutions more or less preparatory to the _Politics_.
Wide as is all his knowledge of facts and causes, it does not appear to
Aristotle to be the whole of learning and the show of it. Beyond
knowledge lies opinion, beyond discovery disputation, beyond philosophy
and science dialectic between man and man, which was much practised by
the Greeks in the dialogues of Socrates, Plato, the Megarians and
Aristotle himself in his early manhood. With Plato, who thought that the
interrogation of man is the best instrument of truth, dialectic was
exaggerated into a universal science of everything that is. Aristotle,
on the other hand, learnt to distinguish dialectic ([Greek:
dialektikae]) from science ([Greek: epotaemae]); in that it has no
definite subject, else it would not ask questions (_Post. An._ i. 11, 77
a 31-33); in that for appropriate principles it substitutes the
probabilities of authority ([Greek: ta hendoxa]) which are the opinions
of all, or of the majority, or of the wise (_Top._ i. 1, 100 b 21-23);
and in that it is not like science a deduction from true and primary
principles of a definite subject to true consequences, but a deduction
from opinion to opinion, which may be true or false. Sophistry appeared
to him to be like it, except that it is a fallacious deduction either
from merely apparent probabilities in its matter or itself merely
apparently syllogistic in its form (cf. _Topics_, i. 1). Moreover, he
compared dialectic and sophistry, on account of their generality, with
primary philosophy in the _Metaphysics_ ([Gamma] 2, 1004 b 17-26); to
the effect that all three concern themselves with all things, but that
about everything metaphysics is scientific, dialectic tentative,
sophistry apparent, not real. He means that a sophist like Protagoras
will teach superficially anything as wisdom for money; and that even a
dialectician like Plato will write a dialogue, such as the _Republic_,
nominally about justice, but really about all things from the generality
of the form of good, instead of from appropriate moral principles; but
that a primary philosopher selects as a definite subject all things as
such without interfering with the special sciences of different things
each in its kind (_Met._ [Gamma] 1), and investigates the axioms or
common principles of things as things (_ib._ 3), without pretending,
like Plato, to deduce from any common principle the special principles
of each science (_Post. An._ i. 9, 32). Aristotle at once maintains the
primacy of metaphysics and vindicates the independence of the special
sciences. He is at the same time the only Greek philosopher who clearly
discriminated discovery and disputation, science and dialectic, the
knowledge of a definite subject from its appropriate principles and the
discussion of anything whatever from opinions and authority. On one side
he places science and philosophy, on the other dialectic and sophistry.
Such is the great mind of Aristotle manifested in the large map of
learning, by which we have now to determine the order of his extant
philosophical writings, with a view to studying them in their real
order, which is neither chronological nor traditional, but philosophical
and scientific. Turning over the pages of the Berlin edition, but
passing over works which are perhaps spurious, we should put first and
foremost speculative philosophy, and therein the primary philosophy of
his _Metaphysics_ (980 a 21-1093 b 29); then the secondary philosophy of
his _Physics_, followed by his other physical works, general and
biological, including among the latter the _Historia Animalium_ as
preparatory to the _De Partibus Animalium_, and the _De Anima_ and
_Parva Naturalia_, which he called "physical" but we call
"psychological" (184 a 10-967 b 27); next, the practical philosophy of
the _Ethics_, including the _Eudemian Ethics_ and the _Magna Moralia_ as
earlier and the _Nicomachean Ethics_ as later (1094-1249 b 25), and of
the _Politics_ (1252-1342), with the addition of the newly discovered
_Athenian Constitution_ as ancillary to it; finally, the productive
science, or art, of the _Rhetoric_, including the earlier _Rhetoric to
Alexander_ and the later _Rhetorical Art_, and of the _Poetics_, which
was unfinished (1354-end). This is the real order of Aristotle's system,
based on his own theory and classification of sciences.
But what has become of Logic, with which the traditional order of
Andronicus begins Aristotle's works (1-148 b 8)? So far from coming
first, Logic comes nowhere in his classification of science. Aristotle
was the founder of Logic; because, though others, and especially Plato,
had made occasional remarks about reason ([Greek: logos]), Aristotle was
the first to conceive it as a definite subject of investigation. As he
says at the end of the _Sophistical Elenchi_ on the syllogism, he had no
predecessor, but took pains and laboured a long time in investigating
it. Nobody, not even Plato, had discovered that the process of deduction
is a combination of premisses ([Greek: syllogomos]) to produce a new
conclusion. Aristotle, who made this great discovery, must have had
great difficulty in developing the new investigation of reasoning
processes out of dialectic, rhetoric, poetics, grammar, metaphysics,
mathematics, physics and ethics; and in disengaging it from other kinds
of learning. He got so far as gradually to write short discourses and
long treatises, which we, not he, now arrange in the order of the
_Categories_ or names; the _De Interpretatione_ on propositions; the
_Analytics_, _Prior_ on syllogism, _Posterior_ on scientific syllogism;
the _Topics_ on dialectical syllogism; the _Sophistici Elenchi_ on
eristical or sophistical syllogism; and, except that he had hardly a
logic of induction, he covered the ground. But after all this original
research he got no further. First, he did not combine all these works
into a system. He may have laid out the sequence of syllogisms from the
_Analytics_ onwards; but how about the _Categories_ and the _De
Interpretatione_? Secondly, he made no division of logic. In the
_Categories_ he distinguished names and propositions for the sake of the
classification of names; in the _De Interpretatione_ he distinguished
nouns and verbs from sentences with a view to the enunciative sentence:
in the _Analytics_ he analysed the syllogism into premisses and
premisses into terms and copula, for the purpose of syllogism. But he
never called any of these a division of all logic. Thirdly, he had no
one name for logic. In the _Posterior Analytics_ (i. 22, 84 a 7-8) he
distinguishes two modes of investigation, analytically ([Greek:
analytikos]) and logically ([Greek: logikos]). But "analytical" means
scientific inference from appropriate principles, and "logical" means
dialectical inference from general considerations; and the former gives
its name to the _Analytics_, the latter suits the _Topics_, while
neither analytic nor logic is a name for all the works afterwards called
logic. Fourthly, and consequently, he gave no place to any science
embracing the whole of those works in his classification of science, but
merely threw out the hint that we should know analytics before
questioning the acceptance of the axioms of being (_Met._ [Gamma] 3).
It is a commentator's blunder to suppose that the founder of logic
elaborated it into a system, and then applied it to the sciences. He
really left the Peripatetics to combine his scattered discourses and
treatises into a system, to call it logic, and logic _Organon_, and to
put it first as the instrument of sciences; and it was the Stoics who
first called logic a science, and assigned it the first place in their
triple classification of science into logic, physics, ethics. Would
Aristotle have consented? Would he not rather have given the first place
to primary philosophy?
Dialectic was distinguished from science by Aristotle. Is logic, then,
according to him, not science but dialectic? The word logically
([Greek: logikos]) means the same as dialectically ([Greek:
dialektikos]). But the general discussion of opinions, signified by
both words, is only a subordinate part of Aristotle's profound
investigation of the whole process of reasoning. The _Analytics_, the
most important part, so far from being dialectic or logic in that
narrow sense, is called by him not logic but analytic science ([Greek:
analytickae elistaemae], _Rhet._ i. 4, 1359 b 10; cf, 1356 b 9, 1357 a
30, b 25); and in the _Metaphysics_ he evidently refers to it as "the
science which considers demonstration and science," which he
distinguishes from the three speculative sciences, mathematics,
physics and primary philosophy (Met. [Kappa] 1, 1059 b 9-21). The
_Analytics_ then, which from the beginning claims to deal with
science, is a science of sciences, without however forming any part of
the classification. On the other hand, it does not follow that
Aristotle would have regarded the _Topics_, which he calls "the
investigation" and "the investigation of dialectic" ([Greek: hae
pralmateia], _Top_, i. 1, [Greek: hae pralmateia hae peri taen
dialektikaen], Pr. _An._ i. 30, 46 a 30), or the _De Interpretatione_,
which he calls "the present theory" ([Greek: taes nun theorias], _De
Int._ 6, 17 a 7), as science. In fact, as to the _Categories_ as well
as the _De Interpretatione_, we are at a complete loss. But about the
_Topics_ we may venture to make the suggestion that, as in describing
consciousness Aristotle says we perceive that we perceive, and
understand that we understand, and as he calls _Analytics_ a science
of sciences, so he might have called the _Topics_ a dialectical
investigation of dialectic. Now, this suggestion derives support from
his own description of the allied art of Rhetoric. "Rhetoric is
counterpart to dialectic" is the first sentence of the _Rhetoric_; and
the reason is that both are concerned with common objects of no
definite science. Afterwards dialectic and rhetoric are said to differ
from other arts in taking either side of a question (i. 1, 1355 a
33-35); rhetoric, since its artificial evidences involve characters,
passions and reasoning, is called a kind of offshoot of dialectic and
morals, and a copy of dialectic, because neither is a science of
anything definite, but both faculties ([Greek: dynameis]) of providing
arguments (i. 2, 1356 a 33); and, since rhetorical arguments are
examples and enthymemes analysed in the _Analytics_, rhetoric is
finally regarded as a compound of analytic science and of morals,
while it is like dialectical and sophistic arguments (i. 4, 1359 b
2-17).
As then Aristotle himself regarded rhetoric as partly science and
partly dialectic, perhaps he would have said that his works on
reasoning are some science and others not, and that, while the
investigation of syllogism with a view to scientific syllogism in the
_Analytics_ is analytic science, the investigation of dialectical
syllogism, in the _Topics_, with its abuse, eristical syllogism, in
the _Sophistici Elenchi_, is dialectic. At any rate, these
miscellaneous works on reasoning have no right to stand first in
Aristotle's writings under any one name, logic or _Organon_. As he
neither put them together, nor on any one definite plan, we are left
to convenience; and the most convenient place is with the psychology
of the _De Anima_.
As for dialectic itself, it would have been represented by Aristotle's
early dialogues, had they not been lost except a few fragments. But
none of his extant writings is so much dialectic, like a Platonic
dialogue. They contain however many relics of dialectic. The
_Rhetoric_ is declared by him to be partly dialectic. The _Topics_ is
at least an investigation of dialectic, which has had an immense
influence on the method of argument. The _Magna Moralia_ almost runs
into dialogue. Besides, all the extant works, though apparently
didactic, are full of dialectical matter in the way of opinions
[Greek: legomena], difficulties and doubts ([Greek:
aporaemata],[Greek: aporiai]), solutions ([Greek: luseis]), and of
dialectical style in the way of conversational expressions. It is
probable also that the "extraneous discourses" ([Greek: oi exoterikoi
logoi]) sometimes mentioned in them here mean dialectical discussions
of a subject from opinions extraneous to its nature, as opposed to
scientific deduction from its appropriate principles. From the eight
passages, which refer to the extraneous discourses, we find (1) that
Platonic forms were made by them matters of common talk ([Greek:
tethrulaetai], _Met._ [Mu] 1, 1076a 28); (2) that time was made by
them matter of doubts, which in this case are Aristotle's own doubts
(_Phys._ iv. 10, 217 b 31-218 a 30); (3) that the discussions of
Platonic forms in them and in philosophical discourses were different
(E.E. i. 8, 1217 b 22); (4) that the ordinary distinction between
goods of mind, body and estate is one which we make ([Greek:
diaironmetha]) in them (E.E. ii. 1, 1218 b 34); (5) that in them
appeared the division of soul into irrational and rational, used by
Aristotle (E.N. i. 13, 1102 a 26), and attributed to Plato; (6) that
the distinction between action and production accepted by Aristotle
appeared in them (E.N. vi. 4, 1140 a 3); (7) that a distinction
between certain kinds of rule is one which we make often ([Greek:
diorizometha] ... [Greek: pollakis]) in them (_Pol._ 16, 1278 b 31);
(8) that a discussion about the best life, used by Aristotle, was made
in them (_Pol._ [Eta] 1, 1323 a 22). On the whole, the interpretation
which best suits all the passages is that extraneous discourses mean
any extra-scientific dialectical discussions, oral or written,
occurring in dialogues by Plato, or by Aristotle, or by anybody else,
or in ordinary conversation, on any subject under the sun.
Among all the eight passages mentioned above, the most valuable is
that from the _Eudemian Ethics_ ([Alpha] 8), which discriminates
extraneous discourses and philosophical ([Greek: kai en tois
ezoterikois logois kai en tois kata philosophian], 1217 b 22-23); and
it is preceded ([Alpha] 6, 1216 b 35-37 a 17), by a similar
distinction between foreign discourses ([Greek: allotrioi logoi]) and
discourses appropriate to the thing ([Greek: oikeioi logoi tou
pragmatos]), which marks even better the opposition intended between
dialectic and philosophy. Now, as in all eight passages Aristotle
speaks, somewhat disparagingly, of "even ([Greek: kai]) extraneous
discourses," and as these include his own early dialogues, they must
be taken to mean that though he might quote them, he no longer wished
to be judged by his early views, and therefore drew a strong line of
demarcation between his early dialogues and the mature treatises of
his later philosophical system. Now, both were in the hands of his
readers in the time of Andronicus. Therefore his contemporary, Cicero,
who knew the early dialogues on _Philosophy_, the _Eudemus_ and the
_Protrepticus_, and also among the mature scientific writings the
_Topics_, _Rhetoric_, _Politics_, _Physics_ and _De Coelo_, to some
extent, was justified by Aristotle's example and precept in drawing
the line between two kinds of books, one written popularly, called
exoteric, the other more accurately (Cic. _De Finibus_, v. 5). But
there was no doubt a tendency to extend the term "exoteric" from the
dialectical to the more popular of the scientific writings of
Aristotle, to make a new distinction between exoteric and acroamatic
or esoteric, and even to make out that Aristotle was in the habit of
teaching both exoterically and acroamatically day by day as head of
the Peripatetic school at Athens. Aulus Gellius in the 2nd century
A.D. supplies the best proof of this growth of tradition in his
_Noctes Atticae_ (xx. 5). He says that Aristotle (1) divided his
_commentationes_ and arts taught to his pupils into [Greek: exoterika]
and [Greek: akroatika]; (2) taught the latter in the morning walk
([Greek: eothinon peripaton]), the former in the evening walk ([Greek:
deilinon peripaton]); (3) divided his books in the same manner; (4)
defended himself against Alexander's letter, complaining that it was
not right to his pupils to have published his acroamatic works, by
replying in a letter that they were published and not published,
because they are intelligible only to those who heard them. Gellius
then quotes this correspondence, also given by Plutarch, and quotes it
_ex Andronici philosophi libro_. The answer to the first three points
is that Aristotle did not make any distinction between exoteric and
acroamatic, and was not likely to have any longer taught his exoteric
dialogues when he was teaching his mature philosophy at Athens, but
may have alternated the teaching of the latter between the more
abstruse and the more popular parts which had gradually come to be
called "exoteric." As regards the last point, the authority of
Andronicus proves that he at all events did not exaggerate his own
share in publishing Aristotle's works; but it does not prove either
that this correspondence between Alexander and Aristotle took place,
or that Aristotle called his philosophical writings acroamatic, or
that he had published them wholesale to the world.
The literary career of Aristotle falls into three periods, (1) The early
period; when he was writing and publishing exoteric dialogues, but also
tending to write didactic works, and beginning his scientific writings,
e.g. the _Politics_ in 357, the _Meteorologica_ in 356. (2) The immature
period; when he was continuing his didactic and scientific works, and
composing first drafts, e.g. the _Categories_, the _Eudemian Ethics_,
the _Magna Moralia_, the _Rhetoric to Alexander_. (3) The mature period;
when he was finishing his scientific works, completing his system, and
not publishing it but teaching it in the Peripatetic school; when he
would teach not his early dialogues, nor his immature writings and first
drafts, but mature works, e.g. the _Metaphysics_, the _Nicomachean
Ethics_, the _Rhetoric_; and above all teach his whole system as far as
possible in the real order of his classification of science.