The doctrine that all things are substances which are separate individuals, stated in theCategories, is expanded in theMetaphysics. 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 (νοήματα), such as they afterwards became in Kant’sCritiqueand the post-Kantian idealism. Moreover, even in theCategoriesas names signifying distinct things they imply distinct things; and hence theCategories, as well as theMetaphysics, 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 asubject, a universal its predicate; and they have in common the Aristotelian metaphysics, which differs greatly from the modern logic of subject and predicate. Subject (ὑποκείμενον) 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” (κατηγορούμενον) came with him to mean something really belonging (ὑπάρχον) 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 theCategoriesand in theMetaphysicsis 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 theCategoriesto substance and its belongings (ὑπάρχοντα). 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 theCategoriesand theMetaphysicsis 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 theCategoriesand theMetaphysicsare the result of one mind. Nevertheless, there is a deep difference between them in detail, which may be expressed by saying that theCategoriesis 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 theCategories, 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 theCategoriesand theMetaphysics.In the first place, in theCategoriesthe 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 (καθ᾽ ὑποκείμενον) and things which inhere in a subject (ἐν ὑποκειμένῳ); and, while universals are called predicates of a subject, things in a subordinate category,i.e.attributes such as colour (χρῶμα) 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 theCategoriesconcludes 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 theCategoriesAristotle 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 theMetaphysics, 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.Δ 29, 1024 b 30-31). Consequently, all attributes, as well as universals, belong as predicates of individual substances as subjects, according to theMetaphysics, and also according to the most authoritative works of Aristotle, such as thePosterior Analytics, where (cf. i. 4, 22) an attribute (συμβεβηκός) 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 (ἀφαίρεσις). 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 theCategoriesand theMetaphysicsis in the nature of an attribute; and the theory of inherence in theCategoriesis nearer to Plato and more rudimentary than the theory of predication in theMetaphysics. 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, theCategories(chap. 5) admits that universal species and genera can be called substances, whereas theMetaphysics(Ζ 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 (οὐσία) is a man (οὐσία), and an animal (οὐσία). The question then arises, what sort of substance can be predicate; and in theCategoriesAristotle 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 followerssubstantiae 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 (τόδε τι), which a species or a genus does not signify (ib.5, 3 b 10-21). Nevertheless, in theCategories, 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 theMetaphysics(Ζ 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 theCategoriesforms a kind of transition from Platonism to theMetaphysicswhich is the reverse: to call universals “secondary substances” is half way between Plato’s calling them the only substances and Aristotle’s denial in theMetaphysicsthat they are substances at all.What conclusion are we to draw from these differences between theCategoriesand theMetaphysics? The only logical conclusion is that theCategories, being nearer to Plato on the nature of attributes, and still nearer on the relation of universals to substances, is earlier than theMetaphysics. There are difficulties no doubt in drawing this conclusion; because theMetaphysics, 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 (τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι) 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 theMetaphysicsis 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.Ζ 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” (ἄτομον γὰρ τὸ εἶδος,Met.Ζ 8, 1034a8). 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 dialogueπερὶ φιλοσοφίαςand in the early workπερὶ ἰδεῶν.(2) Positive assertion of the doctrine that things are individual substances in theCategories, 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 theMetaphysics, 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.
The doctrine that all things are substances which are separate individuals, stated in theCategories, is expanded in theMetaphysics. 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 (νοήματα), such as they afterwards became in Kant’sCritiqueand the post-Kantian idealism. Moreover, even in theCategoriesas names signifying distinct things they imply distinct things; and hence theCategories, as well as theMetaphysics, 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 asubject, a universal its predicate; and they have in common the Aristotelian metaphysics, which differs greatly from the modern logic of subject and predicate. Subject (ὑποκείμενον) 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” (κατηγορούμενον) came with him to mean something really belonging (ὑπάρχον) 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 theCategoriesand in theMetaphysicsis 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 theCategoriesto substance and its belongings (ὑπάρχοντα). 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 theCategoriesand theMetaphysicsis 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 theCategoriesand theMetaphysicsare the result of one mind. Nevertheless, there is a deep difference between them in detail, which may be expressed by saying that theCategoriesis 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 theCategories, 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 theCategoriesand theMetaphysics.
In the first place, in theCategoriesthe 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 (καθ᾽ ὑποκείμενον) and things which inhere in a subject (ἐν ὑποκειμένῳ); and, while universals are called predicates of a subject, things in a subordinate category,i.e.attributes such as colour (χρῶμα) 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 theCategoriesconcludes 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 theCategoriesAristotle 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 theMetaphysics, 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.Δ 29, 1024 b 30-31). Consequently, all attributes, as well as universals, belong as predicates of individual substances as subjects, according to theMetaphysics, and also according to the most authoritative works of Aristotle, such as thePosterior Analytics, where (cf. i. 4, 22) an attribute (συμβεβηκός) 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 (ἀφαίρεσις). 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 theCategoriesand theMetaphysicsis in the nature of an attribute; and the theory of inherence in theCategoriesis nearer to Plato and more rudimentary than the theory of predication in theMetaphysics. 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, theCategories(chap. 5) admits that universal species and genera can be called substances, whereas theMetaphysics(Ζ 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 (οὐσία) is a man (οὐσία), and an animal (οὐσία). The question then arises, what sort of substance can be predicate; and in theCategoriesAristotle 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 followerssubstantiae 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 (τόδε τι), which a species or a genus does not signify (ib.5, 3 b 10-21). Nevertheless, in theCategories, 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 theMetaphysics(Ζ 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 theCategoriesforms a kind of transition from Platonism to theMetaphysicswhich is the reverse: to call universals “secondary substances” is half way between Plato’s calling them the only substances and Aristotle’s denial in theMetaphysicsthat they are substances at all.
What conclusion are we to draw from these differences between theCategoriesand theMetaphysics? The only logical conclusion is that theCategories, being nearer to Plato on the nature of attributes, and still nearer on the relation of universals to substances, is earlier than theMetaphysics. There are difficulties no doubt in drawing this conclusion; because theMetaphysics, 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 (τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι) 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 theMetaphysicsis 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.Ζ 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” (ἄτομον γὰρ τὸ εἶδος,Met.Ζ 8, 1034a8). 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 dialogueπερὶ φιλοσοφίαςand in the early workπερὶ ἰδεῶν.
(2) Positive assertion of the doctrine that things are individual substances in theCategories, 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 theMetaphysics, 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. TheDe Interpretatione.—Another example of Aristotle’s gradual desertion of Plato is exhibited by theDe Interpretationeas compared with thePrior 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 (περὶ Έρμηνείας,De Interpretatione) is based on the Platonicdivision of the sentence (λόγος) into noun and verb (ὄνομαandῥῆμα.) 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 (ἀποφαντικὸς λόγος), or enunciation (ἀποφανσίς), 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 calledsecundi adjacentis. Afterwards (chap. 10) proceeding to the opposition of propositions, he adds the form calledtertii adjacentis, in a passage which is the first appearance, or rather adumbration, of the verb of being as a copula. In the formsecundi adjacentiswe only get oppositions, such as the following:—
man is—man is notnot-man is—not-man is not
man is—man is not
not-man is—not-man is not
In the formtertii adjacentisthe oppositions, becoming more complex, are doubled, as follows:—
man is just—man is not justman is non-just—man is not non-justnot-man is just—not-man is not justnot-man is non-just—not-man is not non-just.
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 (δταν δὲ τὸ ἔστι τρίτον προσκατηγορῆται, chap. 10, 19 b 19), which are the origin of the phrasetertii adjacentis, disengage the verb of being (ἔστι) 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 theDe Interpretatione, but in thePrior 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 (τὸ εἶναι) or not being (τὸ μὴ εἶναι) 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 theDe Interpretationeand thePrior Analyticscan 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 theDe 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 theDe Interpretationeof 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 thePrior Analyticsof the proposition as premiss into subject, predicate and copula, for the purpose of syllogism; but without insisting that the original form is illogical.
3. TheEudemian EthicsandMagna Moraliain relation to theNicomachean Ethics.—Under the name of Aristotle, three treatises on the good of man have come down to us,Ήθικὰ Νικομάχεια(πρὸς Νικόμαχον, Porphyry),Ήθικὰ Εὐδήμια(πρὸς Εὔδημον, Porphyry), andΉθικὰ μεγάλα; 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 theNicomachean Ethics(E.N.) was written by Aristotle to Nicomachus, theEudemian(E.E.) was written, not to, but by, Eudemus, and theMagna 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.Δ-Ζ) 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 theNicomacheanby Aristotle, or for theEudemian Ethicsby 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 thePhysics, 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 theDe 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 theEudemian Ethicsand theMagna Moraliamore or less together as the rudimentary first drafts of the matureNicomachean 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 appropriatevirtue 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 (τὸ καλόν,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 theNicomachean, which is Ζ of theEudemian, pleasure is defined asἐνέργεια τῆς κατὰ φύσιν ἔξεως ἀνεμπόδιστος(chap. 12, 1153 a 14-15); and in theMagna Moraliaasἡ κἰνησις αὐτοῦ καὶ ἡ ἐνέργεια(ii. 7, 1204 b 28; cf. 1205 b 20-28). It is plain from the context that in the former definition “the natural condition” (ἡ κατὰ φύσιν ἔξις) 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 (αὐτοῦ), 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 (ἐνέργεια) is the theory of two of his most authoritative works. In theDe Anima(iii. 7, 431 a 10-12), being pleased and pained are defined by him as actingτὸ(ἐνεργεῖν) by a sensitive mean in relation to good or evil as such. In theMetaphysics(Λ 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 (ἐνέργεια). As then we find this identification of pleasure with activity in theMetaphysicsand in theDe Anima, as well as in theNicomachean Ethics, theEudemian Ethicsand theMagna 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 theNicomachean Ethicsto the end of Book vii., theEudemian Ethicsto the end of Book Ζ, and theMagna Moraliaas far as Book ii. chap. 7, were all three written by Aristotle.Why then doubt at all? It is because theNicomachean Ethicscontains 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 (ἐπιγιγνόμενόν τι τέλος) perfecting an activity (τελειοῖ τὴν ἐνέργειαν). 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 theDe Anima, theMetaphysicsand 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 wholeNicomachean 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 theNicomachean Ethicswhen 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 theNicomachean Ethicsproceeds 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. TheEudemian Ethicsproceeds to its conclusion (E.E.Η 13-15) differently, with the consideration of (1) good fortune (εὐτυχία), and (2) gentlemanliness (καλοκἀγαθία). 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 (ὅρος) 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. TheMagna Moralia(M.M.ii. 8-10) on these points is unlike theNicomachean, and like theEudemian Ethicsin 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 (ἄλογος φύσις). 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 theNicomacheanandEudemian Ethicsis 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 theEudemian Ethicsand theMagna Moraliabecome more like one another than like theNicomachean Ethics. They also become less like one another than before: for the treatment of good fortune, gentlemanliness, and their limit is more theological in theEudemian Ethicsthan in theMagna 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 theEudemian Ethicsand theMagna Moraliaare more rudimentary than theNicomachean 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 theEthics to Eudemus, as Porphyry properly called theEudemian 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 hisEthics 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 theNicomachean 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 theEudemian 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.Δ =E.N.v. 8); and, as Th. H. Fritzsche remarks, the distinction between politics, and economics, and prudence in theEudemian Ethics(Α 8) is a closer anticipation of the subsequent triple distinction ofpractical science (E.E.Ε =E.N.vi 8). On the other hand, there are still more fundamental points in which the first three books of theEudemian Ethicsare a very inadequate preparation for the common books. Notably its treatment of prudence (φρόνησις) is a chaos. At first, prudence appears as the operation of the philosophical life and connected with the speculative philosophy of Anaxagoras (E.E.Α 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 (πανουργία) and simplicity ((εὐήθεια) (E.E. B 33, 1221 a 12); finally, a distinction between virtue by nature and virtue with prudence (μετὰ φρονήσεως) is promised (E.E.Τ 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.Β 1, 1220 a 4-13), and from the definition of moral virtue (ib. 5, 10); while, in a passage (Β 11) anticipating the subsequent discussion of the relation between prudence and moral virtue (E.E.Ε =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 theEudemian Ethicsare so good a preparation as those of theNicomachean Ethicsfor the distinction between prudence (φρόνησις) and wisdom (σοφία), 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 theEudemian 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 theEudemian Ethicsin 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 theEudemian Ethicsis earlier than theNicomacheanis 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 theEudemian Ethicsstarts from Plato’sPhilebus, where, without differentiating speculative and practical knowledge, Plato asks how far good is prudence (φρόνησις), how far pleasure (ἡδονή); and in theEudemian EthicsAristotle asks the same question, adding virtue (ἀρετή) in order to correct the Socratic confusion of virtue with prudence. Secondly, theEudemian Ethics, while not agreeing with Plato’sRepublicthat the just can be happy by justice alone, does not assign to the external goods of good fortune (εὐτυχία) the prominence accorded to them in theNicomachean Ethicsas the necessary conditions of all virtue, and the instruments of moral virtue. Thirdly, the emphasis of theEudemian Ethicson the perfect virtue of gentlemanliness (καλοκἀγαθία) 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 theGorgias(470 E) says that the gentleman is happy, and in theRepublic(489 E) imputes to him the love of truth essential to philosophy. Moreover, when Plato goes on (ib.505B) to identify the form of good, without which nothing is good, with the gentlemanly thing (καλὸν καὶ ἀγαθόν), without which any possession is worthless, he inspired into the author of theEudemian Ethicsthe very limit (ὅρος) of good fortune and gentlemanliness with which it concludes, only without Plato’s elevation of the good into the form of the good. In theNicomachean Ethicsthe 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 (ἄριστον καὶ κάλλιστον καὶ ἤδιστον). But gentlemanliness is no longer called perfect virtue, as in theEudemian 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, theEudemian Ethicsderives from Platonism a strong theological bias, especially in its conclusion (Η 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 thePhaedrusthat 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 theEudemianthan in theNicomachean 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 theEudemianis an earlier draft of theNicomachean Ethics, written by Aristotle when he was still in process of transition from Plato’s ethics to his own.TheMagna Moraliacontains similar evidence of being earlier than theNicomachean 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 theNicomachean Ethics. This inferiority applies also to its treatment not only of the early part (i. 1-33 corresponding toE.N.i.-iv.), but also of the middle part (i. 34-11. 7 corresponding toE.N.v.-vii. =E.E.Δ-Ζ). In dealing with justice, it does not make it clear, as theNicomachean 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 theNicomachean Ethics(Book vi.) calls intellectual virtues, but theMagna 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 (ὑπόληψις), 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 theNicomachean Ethics(vi. 3). It distinguishes prudence (φρόνησις) and wisdom (σοφία) 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 theEudemian Ethics. In these points it is a better preparation for theNicomachean 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 theNicomachean Ethics(Book vii. =E.E.Ζ), but sometimes confusing doubts and solutions together, instead of first proposing all the doubts and then supplying the solutions as in theNicomachean Ethics. Such rudimentary and imperfect sketches would be quite excusable in a first draft, but inexcusable and incredible after theNicomachean Ethicshad 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.διὰ τί;M.M.i. 1 repeatedly, 12; ii. 6, 7), incorporates direct statements of others (e.g.φησί, 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 (ἀλλ᾽ ἐρεῖ μοι, τὰ ποῖα διασάφησον ὑγιεινά ἐστιν. 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 theEndemian 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 theEudemian, though in the main more like theNicomachean 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 theEudemianbut defined in theNicomachean Ethics. In the second book, it runs parallel to theEudemian Ethicsin placing good fortune and gentlemanliness (ii. 8-9), where theNicomachean Ethicsplaces 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 (νοῦς), from doing its work.Because, then, theMagna Moraliais very like theNicomachean Ethics, but more rudimentary, nearer to the Platonic dialogues in style and. to a less degree in matter, and also like theEudemian Ethics, we conclude that it is also like that treatise in having been written as an earlier draft of theNicomachean Ethicsby Aristotle himself.The hypothesis that theEudemian Ethics, and by consequence theMagna Moralia, are later than Aristotle has arisen from a simple misconception, continued in a Scholium attributed to Aspasius, who lived in the 2nd centuryA.D.Nicomachean means “addressed to Nicomachus,” and Eudemian “addressed to Eudemus”; but, as Cicero thought that theNicomachean Ethicswas written by Nicomachus, so the author of the Scholium thought that theEudemian 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 theNicomachean 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’sPhilebus): Aristotle said it is psychical activity sometimes requiring bodily generation, sometimes not (E.N.vii. =E.E.Z): 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.Z) is by Eudemus, and supposing without proof that he was also author ofthe first three books of theEudemian Ethics, have further asserted that these are a better introduction than the first four books of theNicomachean Ethicsto the books common to both treatises (E.N.Books v.-vii. =E.E.Books Δ-Ζ), and have concluded that Eudemus wrote these common books. But we have seen that Aristotle wrote the first three books of theEudemianas an earlier draft of theNicomachean 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 Ε) must be rather founded on the first four books of Aristotle’sNicomachean 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 thePolitics(cf. 1130 b 28, 1280 a 16, 1261 a 30); the book on intellectual virtues (E.N.vi.) quotes (vi. 3) thePosterior Analytics, i. 2, and is quoted in theMetaphysics(Α 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 theEudemian Ethicswas by Eudemus, it is said that in its first part it contemplates that there must be a limit (ὄρος) for virtue as a mean (E.E.Β 5, 1222 b 7-8), in its middle part it criticizes theNicomackean Ethicsfor not being clear about this limit (E.E.Ε 1), and in the end it alone assigns this limit, in the service and contemplation of God (E.E.Η 15, 1249 b 16 seq.). This argument is subtle, but over-subtle. TheEudemianand theNicomacheantreatments of this subject do not really differ. In theNicomacheanas in theEudemian Ethicsthe 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 theEudemian Ethicsin 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 theNicomachean Ethics(vi. 7) defines as science and intelligence of the most venerable things, theMagna Moralia(i. 35) regards as that which is concerned with the eternal and the divine, and theEudemian Ethics(Η 15) elevates into the service and contemplation of God.
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 (τὸ καλόν,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 theNicomachean, which is Ζ of theEudemian, pleasure is defined asἐνέργεια τῆς κατὰ φύσιν ἔξεως ἀνεμπόδιστος(chap. 12, 1153 a 14-15); and in theMagna Moraliaasἡ κἰνησις αὐτοῦ καὶ ἡ ἐνέργεια(ii. 7, 1204 b 28; cf. 1205 b 20-28). It is plain from the context that in the former definition “the natural condition” (ἡ κατὰ φύσιν ἔξις) 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 (αὐτοῦ), 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 (ἐνέργεια) is the theory of two of his most authoritative works. In theDe Anima(iii. 7, 431 a 10-12), being pleased and pained are defined by him as actingτὸ(ἐνεργεῖν) by a sensitive mean in relation to good or evil as such. In theMetaphysics(Λ 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 (ἐνέργεια). As then we find this identification of pleasure with activity in theMetaphysicsand in theDe Anima, as well as in theNicomachean Ethics, theEudemian Ethicsand theMagna 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 theNicomachean Ethicsto the end of Book vii., theEudemian Ethicsto the end of Book Ζ, and theMagna Moraliaas far as Book ii. chap. 7, were all three written by Aristotle.
Why then doubt at all? It is because theNicomachean Ethicscontains 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 (ἐπιγιγνόμενόν τι τέλος) perfecting an activity (τελειοῖ τὴν ἐνέργειαν). 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 theDe Anima, theMetaphysicsand 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 wholeNicomachean 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 theNicomachean Ethicswhen 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 theNicomachean Ethicsproceeds 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. TheEudemian Ethicsproceeds to its conclusion (E.E.Η 13-15) differently, with the consideration of (1) good fortune (εὐτυχία), and (2) gentlemanliness (καλοκἀγαθία). 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 (ὅρος) 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. TheMagna Moralia(M.M.ii. 8-10) on these points is unlike theNicomachean, and like theEudemian Ethicsin 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 (ἄλογος φύσις). 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 theNicomacheanandEudemian Ethicsis 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 theEudemian Ethicsand theMagna Moraliabecome more like one another than like theNicomachean Ethics. They also become less like one another than before: for the treatment of good fortune, gentlemanliness, and their limit is more theological in theEudemian Ethicsthan in theMagna 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 theEudemian Ethicsand theMagna Moraliaare more rudimentary than theNicomachean 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 theEthics to Eudemus, as Porphyry properly called theEudemian 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 hisEthics 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 theNicomachean 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 theEudemian 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.Δ =E.N.v. 8); and, as Th. H. Fritzsche remarks, the distinction between politics, and economics, and prudence in theEudemian Ethics(Α 8) is a closer anticipation of the subsequent triple distinction ofpractical science (E.E.Ε =E.N.vi 8). On the other hand, there are still more fundamental points in which the first three books of theEudemian Ethicsare a very inadequate preparation for the common books. Notably its treatment of prudence (φρόνησις) is a chaos. At first, prudence appears as the operation of the philosophical life and connected with the speculative philosophy of Anaxagoras (E.E.Α 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 (πανουργία) and simplicity ((εὐήθεια) (E.E. B 33, 1221 a 12); finally, a distinction between virtue by nature and virtue with prudence (μετὰ φρονήσεως) is promised (E.E.Τ 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.Β 1, 1220 a 4-13), and from the definition of moral virtue (ib. 5, 10); while, in a passage (Β 11) anticipating the subsequent discussion of the relation between prudence and moral virtue (E.E.Ε =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 theEudemian Ethicsare so good a preparation as those of theNicomachean Ethicsfor the distinction between prudence (φρόνησις) and wisdom (σοφία), 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 theEudemian 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 theEudemian Ethicsin 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 theEudemian Ethicsis earlier than theNicomacheanis 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 theEudemian Ethicsstarts from Plato’sPhilebus, where, without differentiating speculative and practical knowledge, Plato asks how far good is prudence (φρόνησις), how far pleasure (ἡδονή); and in theEudemian EthicsAristotle asks the same question, adding virtue (ἀρετή) in order to correct the Socratic confusion of virtue with prudence. Secondly, theEudemian Ethics, while not agreeing with Plato’sRepublicthat the just can be happy by justice alone, does not assign to the external goods of good fortune (εὐτυχία) the prominence accorded to them in theNicomachean Ethicsas the necessary conditions of all virtue, and the instruments of moral virtue. Thirdly, the emphasis of theEudemian Ethicson the perfect virtue of gentlemanliness (καλοκἀγαθία) 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 theGorgias(470 E) says that the gentleman is happy, and in theRepublic(489 E) imputes to him the love of truth essential to philosophy. Moreover, when Plato goes on (ib.505B) to identify the form of good, without which nothing is good, with the gentlemanly thing (καλὸν καὶ ἀγαθόν), without which any possession is worthless, he inspired into the author of theEudemian Ethicsthe very limit (ὅρος) of good fortune and gentlemanliness with which it concludes, only without Plato’s elevation of the good into the form of the good. In theNicomachean Ethicsthe 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 (ἄριστον καὶ κάλλιστον καὶ ἤδιστον). But gentlemanliness is no longer called perfect virtue, as in theEudemian 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, theEudemian Ethicsderives from Platonism a strong theological bias, especially in its conclusion (Η 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 thePhaedrusthat 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 theEudemianthan in theNicomachean 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 theEudemianis an earlier draft of theNicomachean Ethics, written by Aristotle when he was still in process of transition from Plato’s ethics to his own.
TheMagna Moraliacontains similar evidence of being earlier than theNicomachean 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 theNicomachean Ethics. This inferiority applies also to its treatment not only of the early part (i. 1-33 corresponding toE.N.i.-iv.), but also of the middle part (i. 34-11. 7 corresponding toE.N.v.-vii. =E.E.Δ-Ζ). In dealing with justice, it does not make it clear, as theNicomachean 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 theNicomachean Ethics(Book vi.) calls intellectual virtues, but theMagna 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 (ὑπόληψις), 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 theNicomachean Ethics(vi. 3). It distinguishes prudence (φρόνησις) and wisdom (σοφία) 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 theEudemian Ethics. In these points it is a better preparation for theNicomachean 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 theNicomachean Ethics(Book vii. =E.E.Ζ), but sometimes confusing doubts and solutions together, instead of first proposing all the doubts and then supplying the solutions as in theNicomachean Ethics. Such rudimentary and imperfect sketches would be quite excusable in a first draft, but inexcusable and incredible after theNicomachean Ethicshad 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.διὰ τί;M.M.i. 1 repeatedly, 12; ii. 6, 7), incorporates direct statements of others (e.g.φησί, 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 (ἀλλ᾽ ἐρεῖ μοι, τὰ ποῖα διασάφησον ὑγιεινά ἐστιν. 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 theEndemian 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 theEudemian, though in the main more like theNicomachean 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 theEudemianbut defined in theNicomachean Ethics. In the second book, it runs parallel to theEudemian Ethicsin placing good fortune and gentlemanliness (ii. 8-9), where theNicomachean Ethicsplaces 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 (νοῦς), from doing its work.
Because, then, theMagna Moraliais very like theNicomachean Ethics, but more rudimentary, nearer to the Platonic dialogues in style and. to a less degree in matter, and also like theEudemian Ethics, we conclude that it is also like that treatise in having been written as an earlier draft of theNicomachean Ethicsby Aristotle himself.
The hypothesis that theEudemian Ethics, and by consequence theMagna Moralia, are later than Aristotle has arisen from a simple misconception, continued in a Scholium attributed to Aspasius, who lived in the 2nd centuryA.D.Nicomachean means “addressed to Nicomachus,” and Eudemian “addressed to Eudemus”; but, as Cicero thought that theNicomachean Ethicswas written by Nicomachus, so the author of the Scholium thought that theEudemian 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 theNicomachean 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’sPhilebus): Aristotle said it is psychical activity sometimes requiring bodily generation, sometimes not (E.N.vii. =E.E.Z): 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.Z) is by Eudemus, and supposing without proof that he was also author ofthe first three books of theEudemian Ethics, have further asserted that these are a better introduction than the first four books of theNicomachean Ethicsto the books common to both treatises (E.N.Books v.-vii. =E.E.Books Δ-Ζ), and have concluded that Eudemus wrote these common books. But we have seen that Aristotle wrote the first three books of theEudemianas an earlier draft of theNicomachean 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 Ε) must be rather founded on the first four books of Aristotle’sNicomachean 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 thePolitics(cf. 1130 b 28, 1280 a 16, 1261 a 30); the book on intellectual virtues (E.N.vi.) quotes (vi. 3) thePosterior Analytics, i. 2, and is quoted in theMetaphysics(Α 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 theEudemian Ethicswas by Eudemus, it is said that in its first part it contemplates that there must be a limit (ὄρος) for virtue as a mean (E.E.Β 5, 1222 b 7-8), in its middle part it criticizes theNicomackean Ethicsfor not being clear about this limit (E.E.Ε 1), and in the end it alone assigns this limit, in the service and contemplation of God (E.E.Η 15, 1249 b 16 seq.). This argument is subtle, but over-subtle. TheEudemianand theNicomacheantreatments of this subject do not really differ. In theNicomacheanas in theEudemian Ethicsthe 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 theEudemian Ethicsin 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 theNicomachean Ethics(vi. 7) defines as science and intelligence of the most venerable things, theMagna Moralia(i. 35) regards as that which is concerned with the eternal and the divine, and theEudemian Ethics(Η 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 hisMetaphysics. Surely, the harmony of these three moral gospels proves that Aristotle wrote them, and wrote theEudemian Ethicsand theMagna Moraliaas preludes to the Nicomachean Ethics. When did he begin? We do not know; but there is a pathetic suggestiveness in a passage in theMagna 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 (345-344B.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 theGryllus, continuing in theTheodecteaand theCollection of Arts, all of which are lost except some fragments; while among the extant Aristotelian writings as they stand we still possess theRhetoric to Alexander(Ῥητορικὴ πρὸς Άλέξανδρον) and theRhetoric(Τἐχνη Ῥητορική). But theRhetoric to Alexanderwas 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 theRhetoric, to Anaximenes. It remained for Spengel to entitle the workAnaximenis Ars Rhetoricain 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 theRhetoric to Alexanderto theRhetoric, 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 (ἐπιδεικτικόν) from the deliberative (δημηγορικόν, συμβουλευτικόν) and judicial (δικανικόν); 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” (τρία γένη) into “two genera” (δύο γένη), and omitted the words “one declamatory” (τὸ δὲ ἐπιδεικτικόν). Quintilian (iii. 4) imputes to Anaximenes two genera, deliberative and judicial, and seven species, “hortandi, dehortandi, laudandi, vituperandi, accusandi, defendendi, exquirendi, quodἐξεταστικὸνdicit.” But the author of this rhetoric most certainly recognized three genera (τρία γένη), since, besides the deliberative and judicial, the declamatory genus constantly appears in the work (chaps. 2init., 4, 7, 18, 36, cf.οὐκ ἀγῶνος ἀλλ᾽ ἐπιδείξεως ἓνεκα1440b13); 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 theRhetoric to Alexander, though he recognized only six in theRhetoric, provided the two works were not written at the same time; and as a matter of fact even in theRhetoric to Alexanderthe seventh or critical species (ἐξεταστικόν) 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 theRhetoric to Alexanderis the work not of Anaximenes, but of Aristotle; on the condition that its date is not that of Aristotle’s confessedly genuineRhetoric.
There is a second and even stronger evidence that theRhetoric to Alexanderis a genuine work of Aristotle. It divides (chap. 8) evidences (πίστεις) into two kinds (1) evidence from arguments, actions and men (αἱ μὲν ἐξ αὐτῶν τῶν λόγων καὶ τῶν πράξεων καὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων); (2) adventitious evidences (αἱ δ᾽ ἐπίθετοι τοῖς λεγομένοις καὶ τοῖς πραττομένοις). The former are immediately enumerated as probabilities (εἰκότα), examples (παραδείγματα), proofs (τεκμήρια), considerations (ἐνθυμήματα), maxims (γνῶμαι), signs (σημεῖα), refutations (ἔλεγχοι); the latter as opinion of the speaker (δόξα τοῦ λεγοντος), witnesses (μαρτυρίαι), tortures (βάσανοι), oaths (ὄρκοι). It is confessed by Spengel himself that these two kinds of evidences are the two kinds recognized in Aristotle’sRhetoricas (1) artificial (ἐντέχνοι πίστεις) and (2) inartificial (ἀτέχνοι πίστεις). Now, from the outset of hisRhetoricAristotle 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’sPhaedrus, 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 theRhetoric 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 theRhetoric to Alexanderand in theRhetoric; and that the former as well as the latter is a genuine work of Aristotle, the founder of the logic of rhetoric.