THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

44
THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY
Macedonian group, and took no pains to conceal his approval of Alex-
ander's unifying rule. As we study the remarkable succession of works, in
speculation and research, which Aristotle proceeded to unfold in the last
twelve years of his life; and as we watch him in his multifold tasks of
organizing his school, and of coordinating such a wealth of knowledge as
probably never before had passed through the mind of one man; let us
occasionally remember that this was no quiet and secure pursuit of
truth; that at any minute the political sky might change, and precipitate
a storm in this life. peaceful philosophic Only with this situation in mind
shall we understand Aristotle's political philosophy, and his tragic end.
II. THE WORK OF ARISTOTLE
It was not hard for the instructor of the king of kings to find pupils
even in so hostile a city as Athens. When, in the fifty-third year of his
age, Aristotle, established his school, the Lyceum, so many students flocked
to him that it became necessary to make complicated regulations for the
maintenance of order. The students themselves determined the rules,
and elected, every ten days, one of their numbr to supervise the School.
But we must not think of it as a place of rigid discipline; rather the
picture which comes down to us is of scholars eating their meals in com-
mon with the master, and learning from him as he and they strolled up
and down the Walk along the athletic field from which the Lyceum took
its name. 4
The new School was no mere replica of that which Plato had left
behind him. The Academy was devoted above all to mathematics and
to speculative and political philosophy; the Lyceum had rather a-tendency
to biology and the natural sciences. If we may believe Pliny, 5 Alexander
instructed his hunters, gamekeepers, gardeners and fishermen to furnish
Aristotle with all the zoological and botanical material he might desire;
other ancient writers tell us that at one time he had at his disposal a
thousand men scattered throughout Greece and Asia, collecting for him
specimens of the fauna and flora of every
land. With this wealth of
material he was enabled to establish the first great zoological garden that
the world Jiad^seen. We can hardly exaggerate the influence oFtBIFcollec-
tion upon his science and his philosophy.
Where did Aristotle derive the funds to finance these undertakings? He
was himself, by this time, a man of spacious income; and he had married
into the fortune of one of the most powerful public men in Greece.
Athenseus (no doubt with some exaggeration) relates that Alexander
4 The Walk was called Peripatos; hence the later name, Peripatetic School. The
athletic field was part of the grounds of the temple of Apollo Lyceus the protector
of the flock against the wolf (lycos).
*Hist. Nat. f viii, 16; in Lewes, Aristotle, a Chapter from the History of Science,
London, 1864, p. 15.