This interesting narrative — delivered by Strabo, the junior contemporary of Andronikus, and probably derived by him either from Tyrannion his preceptor or from the Sidonian Boêthus29 and other philosophical companions jointly, with whom he had prosecuted the study of Aristotle — appears fully worthy of trust. The proceedings both of Apellikon and of Sylla prove, what indeed we might have presumed without proof, that the recovery of these long-lost original manuscripts of Aristotle and Theophrastus excited great sensation in the philosophical world of Athens and of Rome. With such newly-acquired materials, a new epoch began for the study of these authors. The more abstruse philosophical works of Aristotle now came into the foreground under the auspices of a new Scholarch; whereas Aristotle had hitherto been chiefly known by his more popular and readable compositions. Of these last, probably, copies may have been acquired to a certain extent by the previous Peripatetic Scholarchs or School at Athens; but the School had been irreparably impoverished, so far as regarded the deeper speculations of philosophy, by the loss of those original manuscripts which had been transported from Athens to Skêpsis. What Aristotelian Scholarchs, prior to Andronikus, chiefly possessed and studied, of the productions of their illustrious founder, were chiefly the exoteric or extra-philosophical and comparatively popular:— such as the dialogues; the legendary and historical collections; the facts respecting constitutional history of various Hellenic cities; the variety of miscellaneous problems respecting Homer and a number of diverse matters; the treatises on animals and on anatomy, &c.30 In the Alexandrine library (as we see by the Catalogue of Diogenes) there existed all these and several philosophical works also; but that library was not easily available for the use of the Scholarchs at Athens, who worked upon their own stock, confining themselves mainly to smooth and elegant discourses on particular questions, and especially to discussions, with the Platonists, Stoics, and Epikureans, on the principia of Ethics, without any attempt either to follow up or to elucidate the more profound speculations (logical, physical, metaphysical, cosmical) of Aristotle himself. A material change took place when the library of Apellikon came to be laid open and studied, not merely by lecturers in the professorial chair at Athens, but also by critics like Tyrannion and Andronikus at Rome. These critics found therein the most profound and difficult philosophical works of Aristotle in the handwriting of the philosopher himself; some probably, of which copies may have already existed in the Alexandrine library, but some also as yet unpublished. The purpose of Andronikus, who is described as Peripatetic Scholarch, eleventh in succession from Aristotle, was not simply to make a Catalogue (as Hermippus had made at Alexandria), but to render a much greater service, which no critic could render without having access to original MSS., namely, to obtain a correct text of the books actually before him, to arrange these books in proper order, and then to publish and explain them,31 but to take no account of other Aristotelian works in the Alexandrine library or elsewhere. The Aristotelian philosophy thus passed into a new phase. Our editions of Aristotle may be considered as taking their date from this critical effort of Andronikus, with or without subsequent modifications by others, as the case may be.

The explanation just given, coinciding on many points with Brandis and Heitz, affords the most probable elucidation of that obscurity which arises about the Aristotelian Canon, when we compare our Aristotle with the Catalogue of Diogenes — the partial likeness, but still greater discrepancy, between the two. It is certain that neither Cicero32 nor the great Alexandrine literati, anterior to and contemporary with him, knew Aristotle from most of the works which we now possess. They knew him chiefly from the dialogues, the matters of history and legend, some zoological books, and the problems; the dialogues, and the historical collections respecting the constitutions of Hellenic cities,33 being more popular and better known than any other works. While the Republic of Plato is familiar to them, they exhibit no knowledge of our Aristotelian Politica, in which treatise the criticism upon the Platonic Republic is among the most interesting parts. When we look through the contents of our editions of Aristotle the style and manner of handling is indeed pretty much the same throughout, but the subjects will appear extremely diverse and multifarious; and the encyclopedical character of the author, as to science and its applications, will strike us forcibly. The entire and real Aristotle, however, was not only more encyclopedical as to subjects handled, but also more variable as to style and manner of handling; passing from the smooth, sweet, and flowing style — which Cicero extols as characterizing the Aristotelian dialogues — to the elliptical brevity and obscurity which we now find so puzzling in the De Animâ and the Metaphysica.34

I shall assume this variety, both of subject and of handling, as a feature to be admitted and allowed for in Aristotle, when I come to discuss the objections of some critics against the authenticity of certain treatises among the forty-six which now pass under his name. But in canvassing the Aristotelian Canon I am unable to take the same ground as I took in my former work, when reviewing the Platonic Canon. In regard to Plato, I pointed out a strong antecedent presumption in favour of the Canon of Thrasyllus — a canon derived originally from the Alexandrine librarians, and sustained by the unanimous adhesion of antiquity. In regard to Aristotle, there are no similar grounds of presumption to stand upon. We have good reason for believing that the works both of Plato and Aristotle — if not all the works, at least many of them, and those the most generally interesting — were copied and transmitted early to the Alexandrine library. Now our Plato represents that which was possessed and accredited as Platonic by the Byzantine Aristophanes and the other Alexandrine librarians; but our Aristotle does not, in my judgment, represent what these librarians possessed and accredited as Aristotelian. That which they thus accredited stands recorded in the Catalogue given by Diogenes, probably the work of Hermippus, as I have already stated; while our Aristotle is traceable to the collection at Athens, including that of Apellikon, with that which he bought from the heirs of Neleus, and to the sifting, correction, and classification, applied thereto by able critics of the first century B.C. and subsequently; among whom Andronikus is best known. We may easily believe that the library of Apellikon contained various compositions of Aristotle, which had never been copied for the Alexandrine library — perhaps never prepared for publication at all, so that the task of arranging detached sections or morsels into a whole, with one separate title, still remained to be performed. This was most likely to be the case with abstruser speculations, like the component books of the Metaphysica, which Theophrastus may not have been forward to tender, and which the library might not be very eager to acquire, having already near four hundred other volumes by the same author. These reserved works would therefore remain in the library of Theophrastus, not copied and circulated (or at least circulated only to a few private philosophical brethren, such as Eudêmus), so that they never became fully published until the days of Apellikon.35

But though the edition published by Andronikus would thus contain many genuine works of Aristotle not previously known or edited, we cannot be sure that it would not also include some which were spurious. Reflect what the library of Apellikon, transported to Rome by Sylla, really was. There was in it the entire library of Theophrastus; probably, also, that of Neleus, who must have had some books of his own, besides what he inherited from Theophrastus. It included all the numerous manuscript works composed by Aristotle and Theophrastus, and many other manuscript works purchased or acquired by them, but composed by others — the whole in very bad order and condition; and, moreover, the books which Apellikon possessed before, doubtless as many Aristotelian books as he could purchase. To distinguish, among this heterogeneous mass of manuscripts, which of them were the manuscripts composed by Aristotle; to separate these from the writings of Theophrastus, Eudêmus, or other authors, who composed various works of their own upon the same subjects and with the same titles as those of Aristotle — required extreme critical discernment and caution; the rather, since there was no living companion of Aristotle or Theophrastus to guide or advise, more than a century and a half having elapsed since the death of Theophrastus, and two centuries since that of Aristotle. Such were the difficulties amidst which Apellikon, Tyrannion, and Andronikus had to decide, when they singled out the manuscripts of Aristotle to be published. I will not say that they decided wrongly; yet neither can I contend (as I argued in the case of the Platonic dialogues) that the presumption is very powerful in favour of that Canon which their decision made legal. The case is much more open to argument, if any grounds against the decision can be urged.

Andronikus put in, arranged, and published the treatises of Aristotle (or those which he regarded as composed by Aristotle) included in the library conveyed by Sylla to Rome. I have already observed, that among these treatises there were some, of which copies existed in the Alexandrine library (as represented by the Catalogue of Diogenes), but a still greater number which cannot be identified with the titles remaining of works there preserved. As to the works common to both libraries, we must remember that Andronikus introduced a classification of his own, analogous to the Enneads applied by Porphyry to the works of Plotinus, and to the Tetralogies adopted by Thrasyllus in regard to the Dialogues of Plato; so that even these works might not be distributed in the same partitions under each of the two arrangements. And this is what we actually see when we compare the Catalogue of Diogenes with our Aristotle. Rhetoric, Ethics, Physics, Problems, &c., appear in both as titles or subjects, but distributed into a different number of books or sections in one and in the other; perhaps, indeed, the compositions are not always the same.

Before I proceed to deal with the preserved works of Aristotle — those by which alone he is known to us, and was known to mediæval readers, I shall say a few words respecting the import of a distinction which has been much canvassed, conveyed in the word exoteric and its opposite. This term, used on various occasions by Aristotle himself, has been also employed by many ancient critics, from Cicero downwards; while by mediæval and modern critics, it has not merely been employed, but also analysed and elucidated. According to Cicero (the earliest writer subsequent to Aristotle in whom we find the term), it designates one among two classes of works composed by Aristotle: exoteric works were those composed in a popular style and intended for a large, indiscriminate circle of readers: being contrasted with other works of elaborated philosophical reasoning, which were not prepared for the public taste, but left in the condition of memorials for the instruction of a more select class of studious men. Two points are to be observed respecting Cicero’s declaration. First, he applies it to the writings not of Aristotle exclusively, but also to those of Theophrastus, and even of succeeding Peripatetics; secondly, he applies it directly to such of their writings only as related to the discussion of the Summum Bonum.36 Furthermore, Cicero describes the works which Aristotle called exoteric, as having proems or introductory prefaces.37

In the main, the distinction here drawn by Cicero, understood in a very general sense, has been accepted by most following critics as intended by the term exoteric: something addressed to a wide, indiscriminate circle of general readers or hearers, and intelligible or interesting to them without any special study or training — as contrasted with that which is reserved for a smaller circle of students assumed to be specially qualified. But among those who agree in this general admission, many differences have prevailed. Some have thought that the term was not used by Aristotle to designate any writings either of his own or of others, but only in allusion to informal oral dialogues or debates. Others again, feeling assured that Aristotle intended by the term to signify some writings of his own, have searched among the works preserved, as well as among the titles of the works lost, to discriminate such as the author considered to be exoteric: though this search has certainly not ended in unanimity; nor do I think it has been successful. Again, there have not been wanting critics (among them, Thomas Aquinas and Sepulveda), who assign to the term a meaning still more vague and undefined; contending that when Aristotle alludes to “exoteric discourses,” he indicates simply some other treatise of his own, distinct from that in which the allusion occurs, without meaning to imply anything respecting its character.38

To me it appears that this last explanation is untenable, and that the term exoteric designates matter of a certain character, assignable to some extent by positive marks, but still more by negative; matter, in part, analogous to that defined by Cicero and other critics. But to conceive clearly or fully what its character is, we must turn to Aristotle himself, who is of course the final authority, wherever he can be found to speak in a decisive manner. His preserved works afford altogether eight passages (two of them indeed in the Eudemian Ethics, which, for the present at least, I shall assume to be his work), wherein the phrase “exoteric discourses” (ἐξωτερικοὶ λόγοι) occurs. Out of these eight passages, there are seven which present the phrase as designating some unknown matter, not farther specified, but distinct from the work in which the phrase occurs: “Enough has been said (or is said, Aristotle intimates) about this subject, even in the exoteric discourses.” To what it is that he here alludes — whether to other writings of his own or oral discussions of his own, or writing and speech of a particular sort by others — we are left to interpret as we best may, by probable reason or conjecture. But there is one among the eight passages, in which Aristotle uses the term exoteric as describing, not what is to be looked for elsewhere, but what he is himself about to give in the treatise in hand. In the fourth book of the Physica, he discusses the three high abstractions, Place, Vacuum, Time. After making an end of the first two, he enters upon the third, beginning with the following words:— “It follows naturally on what has been said, that we should treat respecting Time. But first it is convenient to advert to the difficulties involved in it, by exoteric discourse also — whether Time be included among entities or among non-entities; then afterwards, what is its nature. Now a man might suspect, from the following reasons, that Time either absolutely does not exist, or exists scarcely and dimly,” &c. Aristotle then gives a string of dialectic reasons, lasting through one of the columns of the Berlin edition, for doubting whether Time really exists. He afterwards proceeds thus, through two farther columns:— “Let these be enumerated as the difficulties accompanying the attributes of Time. What Time is, and what is its nature, is obscure, as well from what has been handed down to us by others, as from what we ourselves have just gone through;”39 and this question also he first discusses dialectically, and then brings to a solution.

Now what is it that Aristotle here means by “exoteric discourse?” We may discover by reading the matter comprised between the two foregoing citations. We find a string of perplexing difficulties connected with the supposition that Time exists: such as, “That all Time is either past or future, of which the former no longer exists, and the latter does not yet exist; that the Now is no part of Time, for every Whole is composed of its Parts, and Time is not composed of Nows,” &c. I do not go farther here into these subtle suggestions, because my present purpose is only to illustrate what Aristotle calls “exoteric discourse,” by exhibiting what he himself announces to be a specimen thereof. It is the process of noticing and tracing out all the doubts and difficulties (ἀπορίας) which beset the enquiry in hand, along with the different opinions entertained about it either by the vulgar, or by individual philosophers, and the various reasons whereby such opinions may be sustained or impugned. It is in fact the same process as that which, when performed (as it was habitually and actively in his age) between two disputants, he calls dialectic debate; and which he seeks to encourage as well as to regulate in his treatise entitled Topica. He contrasts it with philosophy, or with the strictly didactic and demonstrative procedure: wherein the teacher lays down principles which he requires the learner to admit, and then deduces from them, by syllogisms constructed in regular form, consequences indisputably binding on all who have admitted the principles. But though Aristotle thus distinguishes Dialectic from Philosophy, he at the same time declares it to be valuable as an auxiliary towards the purpose of philosophy, and as an introductory exercise before the didactic stage begins. The philosopher ought to show his competence as a dialectician, by indicating and handling those various difficulties and controversies bearing on his subject, which have already been made known, either in writings or in oral debate.40