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The Life and Works of Aristotle
Birth and Parentage
Aristotle was a philosopher, psychologist, logician, and moralist, political
thinker, biologist, and the founder of literary criticism. He was born at
Stagira, a Greek colonial town on the north-western shores of the Aegean, in
384 B.C. His father was Nicomachus, who had acted as court physician to Amyntas
II, the father of Philip of Macedon. Stagira (because of which Pope gave
Aristotle the nickname Stagirite) had been largely colonised from the Ionic
district of Chalcis in Euboea. Aristotle’s mother was a native of that
district, and to it he retired near the end of his life. Since Aristotle was
the son of a physician, we may perhaps attribute to this fact the interest
which he showed in physiological and zoological studies. Again, his ionic
origin has been called into evidence. Explain his interest in the facts of
nature.
Three Marked Stages in Aristotle's Life
The life of Aristotle can be divided into three stages. Firstly, Aristotle worked in the philosophic school of Plato, the Academy at Athens, for twenty years from the age of 17 to that of 37 (367-347 B.C.).This period comes to an end with the death of Plato. Secondly, there is the period which covers the dozen years from the age of 37 to that of(347-335 B.C.). During this period he remained at Assus, in the south of the Troad, and at the Macedonian court in Pella, about 80 miles to the west of Stagira. This period comes to an end with the accession of his pupil Alexander to the throne of Macedonia. Finally, there is a second period of work in Athens, when he had been running the Peripatetic school in the Lyceum. This period covers, roughly, another dozen years of his life, from the age of 49 to that of 62 (335-322 B.C.), and ends with his retirement to Chalcis and his death.
At Plato's Academy in Athens
Aristotle worked for about twenty years by the side of Plato, an this
must have left the greatest and the profoundest impression his life. He came to
Plato as a young disciple of 17 to sit at the feet of a master who had attained
the age of G0, but in the course of time he must have become a fellow worker in
the studies of the academy. His sketch of an ideal state in the last two books
of Politics shows a study of, and in partly based on, Plato's Laws. He hardly shared,
indeed, in Plato's passion for mathematics. He was perhaps more interested than
Plato in biological study. But what seems certain is that there is no proof of
any serious division of opinion between Aristotle and Plato during the 20 years
of their intercourse. The master and the pupil were undivided when Plato died
in 347; and the noble words which Aristotle wrote for an altar of friendship in
memory of Plato attest the depth of the pupil's feelings even after the master’s
death.
Leaves Athens and Reaches Assus
On Plato's death his nephew Speusippus became the head of the academy.
Aristotle and another of Plato's pupils, Xenocrates, thereupon left Athens,
because they were not satisfied with Speusippus becoming the- head of the
academy, since he was the heir not of the spirit, but only of the office of the
master. It appears, he was not a very intelligent person. They choose Assus for
interesting reasons. The two old pupils of Plato, Erastus and Coriscus, who had
taken to teaching on the slopes of Mount Ida, had come in contact with Hermias,
a eunuch. Hermias had perhaps been a banker's clerk and thrived sufficiently to
buy mining property near Mt. Ida and eventually to acquire the title of Price
from the Persians. He had established himself as tyrant in Atarneus. The two Platonists
and Hermias had studied together. So Aristotle came to join the Platonic
circle, and there Aristotle set up a school in which he taught for the next three
years. Hermias was among his pupils and Theophrastus came from the neighbouring
island of Lesbos to join the company. Two consequences followed. Hermias gave
his adopted daughter (who was also his niece) in marriage to Aristotle. In the
second place, perhaps on the suggestion of Theophrastus, he moved, about 344 B.C.,
to the island of Lesbos, and there he spent two years.
Reaches Macedonia
Hermias seems to have been negotiating with Philip of Macedon, who
was already thinking of the expedition against Persia. It may have been in
consequence of these negotiations that Aristotle, the son-in-law of Hermias,
was invited by Philip to come to Pella and continue his teaching there for the
benefit of young Alexander. In 342 he accepted the invitation, and the next
seven years of his life were spend in Macedonia. He had scarcely settled in Pella
when he heard the news that Hermias had been seized by the Persians, taken to
Susa, tortured and crucified, with the in final words on his lips, "Tell
my friends and companions that I have done nothing unworthy of
philosophy." This news may have inspired Aristotle to write an ode celebrating
Hermias.
There is no evidence of Aristotle's work and teaching in Macedonia.
Possibly he had a little circle of friends, including Theophrastus, with whom he
continued his general studies and teaching. It is known that he formed a friendship
with Antipar, and his friendship was one of the chief factors in the last phase
of his life.
Sets up his own School in Lyceum
Even before the death of Philip in 336 B.C. Alexander was more and
more concerned in affairs, and Aristotle must have seen less of his pupil. After
the accession of Alexander there was nothing to keep him in Macedonia, and hc
naturally returned to Athens, the intellectual centre of Greece, where he could
hope to work quietly under the protection of Antipar, now acting as regent in Macedonia
and Greece after the departure of Alexander on his caster campaign. His
relations with Alexander now were practically at an end. His nephew
Callisthenes accompanied Alexander to the cast, and was done to death by him (Alexander)
in 327 B.C. By this time Alexander had widely departed from Aristotle's
teachings. However, Aristotle of the last thirteen years (335-322 B.C.) is an
Aristotle immersed in pure science and investigation.
Side by side with the Academy (now under Xenocrates, the fellow
pupil of Plato) Aristotle set up his school in the Lyceum--a school which came
to be known as the Peripatetic, from the "perpatos" or walk in its
garden in which he walked and talked with his pupils. The school was a definite
organization, somewhat like a college, which formed a society devoted to the
cult of the Muses. Like a college, it had its regular dinners, was furnished
with maps and library, it had something of a staff, and Theophrastus was among its
lecturers.
The Last Period of his Life
The work of Aristotle last years is an cyclopaedia. In the field of
human history, he produced lists of the victors in the Pythian and Olympic
games and a chronology of the Athenian drama (which supplemented the Poetics).
Again, he produced a record 158 constitutions (which equally supplemented the
Politics), and account of the "customs of barbarians" and a treatise
on cases of constitutional law. In the field of natural history, psychology,
physics, mathematics and medicine his work was greater still.
In 323, in the midst of all these activities. Aristotle received
the news of the death of Alexander. Antipar had been summoned to the presence
of Alexander and was absent From (Greece. A nationalist party raised its head
in Athens, and Aristotle led to his mother's home in Chalcis, where he died at
the age of 62 in 322 B.C. By his marriage with the adopted daughter of Hermias
he had a daughter, called Pythias; by a later union he had a son, called
according to Greek custom by the name of his grandfather Nicomachus.
Aristotle's Personality
Aristotle's personality is hidden behind his works. Tradition makes
him speak with a lips and pay attention to dress. His busts, which seem to be
authentic, show firm lips and intent eyes. He was a man of affairs, versed in
the way of courts: and he had the curiosity of the Greek mind, But there was
something more in him. The study of his life conveys the impression of his
being a generous human being. His will shows him concerned for every relative and
dependent, not least for the and emancipation of his slaves. There is a phrase
in an Aristotelian fragment: "The more I find myself by myself and alone,
the more I have become a lover of myth." Myth may have meant to Aristotle
a little of what revelation has meant to millions in later centuries ; and for
all his scientific labours he may yet have felt that there was a supreme consolation
in the life of contemplation which might lead, at its highest moments, to visions
of the divine.