ARISTOTLE.

It will be an everlasting subject of wonder to persons who know what philosophy is, to find that Aristotle’s authority had been so much respected in the schools for several ages, that when a disputant quoted a passage from that philosopher, he who maintained the thesis, durst not say “ Transeat,” but must either deny the passage, or explain it in his

own way—just as we treat the Holy Scriptures in the divinity schools. The parliaments In the year 1624, the Parliament of Paris banished out of its jurisdiction persons who attempted to maintain theses publicly against the doctrine of Aristotle, and forbade all persons to publish, sell or vend the propositions contained in these theses, on pain of corporal punishment; or to teach any maxims contrary to the ancient approved authors, on pain of death.—Mercure Fronçait, t. 10, p. 504. ⁴⁴, which have proscribed all other philosophy but that of Aristotle, are more excusable than the doctors; for whether the members of the parliaments were really persuaded that that philosophy was the best of any, or whether they were not, the public good might have induced them to prohibit the new opinions, for fear the academical divisions should spread their malignant influences on the tranquillity of the state. That which ought most to amaze wise men is, that the professors should be so furiously prepossessed in favour of Aristotle’s philosophical hypotheses. Had the prevention been limited to his poetry and rhetoric, there had been less cause of wonder; but they have been fond of the weakest of his works, I mean his logic, and natural philosophy; in which no one pretends to deny that many things are found which discover the elevation and profoundness of his genius; but nothing can exceed the hyperboles in the praises of Casaubon, and in the following passage of father Rapin:—“ Nothing appeared regular or fixed in logic before Aristotle. That genius so fraught with reason and knowledge, searches so deeply into the abyss of human wit, that he penetrates all the secrets of it, by the exact distinction which he has made of its operations. This vast source of the thoughts of men had not yet been sounded to the Bottom: Aristotle was the first who discovered that new way to attain to science, by the evidence of demonstration, and by proceeding geometrically to that demonstration in the way of syllogism, the most accomplished work, and the greatest effort of human wit. This is in miniature the whole art and method of Aristotle’s logic, which is so very sure a one, that there can be no perfect certainty in reasoning but by this method, which is a certain rule for thinking aright on what we ought to think of.” That philosopher’s treatise of syllogisms may be praised to its desert, without using any such extravagant expressions. There are several most sublime questions in his natural philosophy, which he discusses and clears like a great master; but the main part of that work is good for nothing,infelix operis summa. The chief reason of the defect is that Aristotle forsook the way which the most excellent naturalists took who had philosophized before him. They believed that all the alterations which happen in nature are only a new disposition of the particles of matter; they admitted no generation, properly speaking. This doctrine he rejected, and by so doing committed himself; for being thus obliged to teach that new beings are produced, and that others are destroyed, he distinguished them from matter, gave them unheard-of names, and affirmed or supposed things whereof he had no distinct idea. Now it is as impossible to philosophize well without the evidence of clear ideas, as to sail well without the polar star or the compass. To be void of that perspicuity is to mislead ourselves; it is to imitate a traveller in a strange country without a guide, or to grope in a strange house by night without a candle. Every one knows the many forms and faculties distinct from substance, which Aristotle’s followers have introduced. He led them into that maze; and if in the seventeenth century natural philosophy began to appear again with a new lustre, it was by restoring the ancient principles which had been forsaken, and by insisting on sufficient evidence. In short, it was by excluding the great number of entities of which our mind has no manner of idea, out of the doctrine of generation, and adhering to the figure, motion, and situation of the particles of matter; of all which we have a clear and distinct conception.—Art,Aristotle,