I.

CHAP. Greeks, and of all Greeks the Athe
obtained the greatest share of rega
cited the deepest interest; and this
tionably deserved, as being, of all
ancient world, those who approache
to the actual state of modern civili
it appeared to me, that in the d
their character, the learned wer
swayed by unfair testimony; such
gate buffoonery of Aristophanes,
whispers of Athenæus: and I pres
out a purer source of information
remains of the Greek orators, w
of unrivalled excellence, were,
much neglected in the ordina
learned education. Under t
nearly half a century ago, I
speeches of Lysias and Isocrat
accompanied with a discourse
and character of the Greeks, from
of the Peloponnesian war to the
ronæa. In this discourse, my p
trations were taken chiefly, or
from the Greek orators: and
scribed to it comprehended al
lifetime of Aristotle. His trea
eloquence may be considered,
new and valuable kind of history
of battles, sieges, and seditions
movements, or of civil commoti
tory of opinions, of judgments,
forming, as it were, the concent
of all the most noted speeches

only he

he has more

igno Ladictory,

nal causes

division

of the

y at the present subject.

pened, that the

Come ages, were

r times, and par
d with contempt.
the following por-
partly historical,
critical, the diffi-
be obviated; the
it accounted for;
clearly answered,
e times, and which
in the last and
ussion will prepare
st part of the pre-
show the connec-
toric and his exact

ism in the

age of Cicero and

CHAP. and darkened by the kindred sect of PlatoI. nicians." But between these periods of obscuration, there was an interval of distinguished Aristotel brightness. The writings of Aristotle, having been carried to Rome, by Sylla, the Dictator, Augustus, acquired in the age of Cicero, and maintained through that of Augustus, a similar regard from Romans qualified to appreciate them, which they had enjoyed among Greeks in the reign of Alexander. By the study of them at Rome, men of the finest genius, and the soundest judgment, enlarged their views, improved their taste, and sharpened their natural acuteness. From the corrupt state in which they were edited, part of those works, indeed, could not be understood without more painful contention of mind than men of the world, and in the higher ranks of society, are usually willing to exert on matters of mere speculation. But much also, remained, clear, copious, and easily accessible, concerning the affairs of human life, and the practical business of the world. This failed not to make its due impression on congenial minds, and established a sort of perennial philosophy, altered, however, considerably from the original, by transmission from one tongue to another, and from one writer to another, on the subjects of morals, politics, jurisprudence, and criticism.

Communicated through the medi

The great corrupters of Greek philosophy, as I have shown in another work, were the Platonicians, or Eclectics, who began with the third

11 See Supplement to the New Analysis of Aristotle's Works, pp. 132, et seq. 3d edit.

I.

to Con

dad, and

other cities

of the East.

century in Alexandria, and who flourished in CHAP. that city, in Athens, and in Rome, for three hundred and fifty years, till their schools were um of the silenced by the Emperor Justinian, in the middle Eclectics of the sixth century. The abolition of their stantinoschools did not destroy the credit of many emi- ple, Bagnent members of the sect itself, whose wildest visions were eagerly adopted by the credulous. Greeks of Constantinople, and by them frequently combined with the spurious Christianity1 long prevalent in that licentious yet gloomy capital. From Constantinople, they passed to Bagdad 13, where, in the ninth century, under the Caliph Almanon and his successors, many Greek books of science were translated into Arabic, chiefly by Greeks themselves, particularly the physician Honain, with the assistance of his sons and disciples.14.

sics and

among the

Every thing relative to morals or to taste, was The Phyequally abhorrent from the religion and from Metaphythe policy of the Moslems. But from the ninth sics commented by century to the thirteenth, the abstract sciences the learned of the Greeks were cultivated in the great cities Moslems. professing the Mahometan faith, both in Asia and in Europe. The physics and metaphysics of Aristotle attracted their especial regard, and were interpreted and commented by Alpharabius, Avicenna, and Averroes, the three successive luminaries of the three learned ages of

12 Michael Psellus affords a striking example of this mixture in his book, Περι ενεργειας δαιμόνων.

19 Giannone Historia del Regno de Napoli, vol. ii. p. 93. Edit. Venet.

14 D'Herbelot Biblioth. Orientale. Article, Honain.

I.

CHAP. the Saracens. These Arabic versions, fraught with many follies, speedily found their way into Europe, where they met and mixed with the ence com- monkish learning of the West, with which they bined with were well calculated to amalgamate, since both,

The sci

monkish

learning.

The Scho

lastics to

Aristotle

as far as concerns philosophy, were derived from the same polluted eclectic source.

In the thirteenth century, the heavy heterotally devi- geneous mass, brightened by occasional sparks of ated from false subtilty, assumed a Latin dress in the ponin specula- derous tomes of Albertus Magnus the German, Thomas Aquinas the Italian, and Duns Scotus, whose name was once deemed an ornament to

tion and

practice.

his country. These, and other distinguished scholastics, had the name of the Stagirite perpetually in their mouths, while they greatly mistook his speculative tenets, and equally neglected his practical admonitions. It was his counsel, with which his example conformed, never to intermix the concerns of philosophy with those of the Theywere popular religion. 15 But the scholastics unilong the bulwark of versally regarded philosophy as a mere handmaid the Roman to vulgar superstition; and their main drift was

Catholic

church.

Their authority

to uphold the dominion of the Pope, and the belief of those erroneous doctrines, on which it had been erected. For the space of nearly four centuries, a mistaken Aristotelism was thus rendered the bulwark of the Roman Catholic faith, and the Stagirite's name was preposterously employed in defence of the two things which he most abominated, superstition and tyranny.

The first general assault made on the scholas

15 Metaph. ii. 4. et passim.