the manner as well as the substance of the work: nor do we perceive how a faithful view of the former could be otherwise conveyed at all. The terse energetic language of Aristotle could scarcely be rendered by prolix paraphrase; and his bold precision would be lost in a crowd of words.

We have more than once had occasion to meet some of the works of the Stagirite in an English dress, particularly in the translations of Dr. Gillies and the rival versions of Mr. Twining and Mr. Pye; and have then enlarged on his wonderfully comprehensive talents, the strength and depth of his conceptions, and the almost unbounded extent of his knowledge. Voluminous as his works are, they are rather apophthegms than treatises: they are the texts, which contain in a few lines what may be extended to volumes. Such is also the extent of his knowledge, that the selection of what he has written in natural history and natural philosophy would surprise a modern inquirer, and almost lead him to consider that science, in the early ages, had been supernaturally revealed. Mr. Taylor's character of Aristotle is judicious and comprehensive. We scarcely think the encomium too warm, except perhaps in the conclusion of the first paragraph, where the deluge and conflagration are images somewhat too strong and scarcely applicable.

• Among the prodigies of genius who have largely benefited mankind by disseminating philosophy, Aristotle maintains a very distinguished rank. When we consider that he was not only well acquainted with every science, as his works abundantly evince, but that he wrote on almost every subject which is comprehended in the circle of human knowledge, and this with matchless accuracy and skill, we know not which to admire most, the penetration or extent of his mind. For capacious indeed must that mind have been which embraced the vast orb of existence, and left nothing unexplored in the heavens or the earth, and penetrating that genius which arrived at the luminous boundaries of human knowledge, and rendered them accessible to others. With a bold, yet not impious hand, he appears to have withdrawn the awful veil of nature herself, to have detected her most secret mysteries, and ranged through every part of her variegated dominions. In short, he seems to have possessed and to have exercised the power of reasoning in the greatest perfection possible to man; and such of his works as have escaped the ravages of time will ever be considered by the genuine lovers of science, as treasures which from their singular excellence are destined to perish in no less a catastrophe than that of a deluge or general conflagra

tion.

• But of all his works, the following, which is evidently from the nature of it the most sublime, perhaps no less excels in that accu-. racy of diction, skilfulness of arrangement, and fecundity of conception, for which the Stagirite is every where so remarkable; but, at the same time, it is equally distinguished from the rest by the profound obscurity in which the meaning of the greater part of it is in volved.' P. i.

Mr. Taylor next enumerates the works of Aristotle, dividing them into theoretic, practical, or instrumental. We do not greatly approve of this division, nor of the arrangement of the works under each head. The philosophical parts are by no means theoretic or contemplative; nor is the art of rhetoric, properly speaking, instrumental.

The end of Aristotle's moral philosophy is perfection through the virtues, and the end of his contemplative philosophy an union with the one principle of all things: for he scientifically knew and unfolded this principle, as is evident from the twelfth book of the following work, in which he clearly pronounces that the domination of many is not good. The common end, however, both of his moral and contemplative philosophy, which man ought to pursue, is the last and most perfect felicity of which our nature is capable; and at the end of his Nicomachean Ethics he testifies that he who arrives at this felicity ought not to be called a man but a god. All the works of the philosopher lead us to the attainment of this end: for some of them unfold to us the art of demonstration; others, that we may become virtuous, instruct us in morals; and lastly, others lead us to the knowledge of natural things, and afterwards to those luminous beings which are placed above nature.'

P. iii.

If the notes or the introduction offer a single subject, it is the ONE, centring every thing in the first great cause; for by the 'one' is evidently meant, by the Pythagoreans, the principle and source of all-the Deity; and the sublimity of this conception, the awful reverence with which the subject is introduced, the respect and hesitation with which the One is mentioned, strongly impress us with the idea of the true piety of the earliest philosophic sects. It is the system, we know, of Pythagoras, who brought it from Chaldea, the seat of early and true religion, Of thel anguage of Aristotle we have already spoken. It indeed cannot be praised too highly by the proficient in his philosophy; but it will give no little trouble to the student. Perhaps Mr. Taylor's account of it, though somewhat partaking of the obscurity of his author, is correct and characteristic.

With respect to his diction, it is of that kind that the words may adhere to the sense and the sense to the words; a mode of writing both intellectual and admirably adapted to the profundity of his conceptions: for he either immediately gives a solution to a doubt, or, connecting many doubts, he briefly solves all of them by one and the same solution. He is likewise never willing to deviate from evidence, which being produced either by intellect or sense, he especially adduces and celebrates the latter when he disputes with those who in every thing consider sense as the standard of truth. Hence, there is such an irresistible strength in his demonstrations, that, when he cannot persuade by assumptions not rashly introduced, he at least procures assent by the force of necessity.

This, too, is peculiar to Aristotle, that he was never willing to depart from nature, but even contemplated things which transcend

nature through a natural habit and knowledge; just as, on the con trary, the divine Plato, after the manner of the Pythagoræans, contemplated whatever is natural, so far as it partakes of that which is divine and above nature: so that the former considered theology physically, and the latter physics theologically. He likewise never employs fables and enigmas, and never ascends into the marvellous and the mystic, but adopts obscurity as a substitute for every other veil, and involved mode of writing; the reason of which we proposed to investigate, as the fourth object of inquiry.' P. iii.

The Stagirite, it is remarked, is designedly obscure, instead of veiling science in the garb of fable and enigma; for the latter may admit of some interpretation, which, if false, will mislead and preclude farther inquiry. We have striking instances of this in some of the Pythagorean precepts, particularly the golden thigh, the ridicule of Lucian, and the nut not hitherto cracked, abstine a fabis. We have little doubt that important precepts were couched under each distinct head, though at present unfathomable.

Mr. Taylor next explains the qualifications which are requisite for his reader, strangely called auditor.' These are, a naturally good disposition, a penetrating sagacity, and an ardent love of truth.' Let no others enter the sacred temple!-Penetrating sagacity we allow to be very requisite; and though the other qualities are equally commendable, we do not fully see their application in a student of Aristotle's Metaphysics. It will require peculiar acuteness to perceive that there are objects more real than those of sense, to elevate the mental eye to the principles of things, and gaze on their dazzling splendor.

The design of Aristotle in this work is to lead us from forms merged in, or inseparable from, matter, to those forms which are entirely immaterial, and which, in his own words, are the most luminous of all things. But he considers these forms so far only as they are beings; or, in other words, so far as they are the progeny of one first being, and are characterised by essence. Nothing, therefore, is discussed in this work pertaining to will or appetite, or any thing of this kind, because these are vital powers; nor to sensation, the dianoëtic energy and intelligence, because these are the properties of gnostic natures. Hence, we shall find that the Metaphysics of Aristotle unfold all that is comprehended in the great orb of being, so far as every thing which this orb contains is stamped as it were with the idiom of its source. The same thing is likewise effected by Plato in his Parmenides; but, as we have before observed, more theologically, conformably to the genius of his philosophy, which always considers nature so far as she is suspended from divinity. Metaphysics of Aristotle are, therefore, the same with the most scientific dialectic of Plato, of which the Parmenides of that philosopher is a most beautiful specimen, with this difference only, that in the former the physical, and in the latter the theological, character predominates.' P. v.

The

We shall not follow Mr. Taylor in his explanation of the employment of scientific dialectics and their different energies. Indeed we fear that we could not easily render it intelligible. There is an error in all Mr. Taylor's explanations, that we must point out. Impressed with the idea, not indeed in every instance a clear one, he is often unhappy in his choice of words, and seems studiously to prefer the language of the schools, when he might render the subject much more explicit by adopting common terms. Absorbed also in intellectual energies, he treats experimental philosophy somewhat disrespectfully.

The arrangement of the books is that published by Aldus and Bessarion, adopted by the best of Aristotle's interpreters. To Dr. Gillies, who proposed a different arrangement, Mr. Taylor is not very complaisant, and points out the inconsistencies which would result from the alteration, if adopted; while, in another place, he accuses him of misinterpreting the Stagirite. Indeed Dr. Gillies's translations are occasionally too diffuse, and, in the passages quoted by Mr. Taylor, somewhat in

accurate.

Our critic next analyses the Metaphysics of Aristotle: but this part is too long to be transcribed; and it is not easy to abridge it. The defence of Aristotle, respecting the first mover,' is ingenious, but not very satisfactory. That which is generated introduces, he remarks, a temporal beginning of generation. This may be admitted, with some limitations, as the first, though not the first, cause. If, however, these be demonstrated' to be perpetual,' they can have no cause, because nothing can be antecedent. We shall select the whole passage, without any farther comment

*

It has also been said, though unjustly, that, according to Aristotle, the first mover, whom he calls intellect, eternity, and God, is only the final, but not the effective cause of the world. That the first mover is, however, according to Aristotle, an effective cause, is evident from what he says in the second book of his Physical Auscultations, in the division of causes; for he there denominates an effective cause to be that whence the principle of motion is derived; and again, that whence the first principle of mutation or rest origi nates. Thus, for instance, says he, he who consults is a cause, and a father of his son, and, in short, that which makes of that which is made. In the first also of his books De Cœlo, he says, "that nei. ther God nor Nature produces any thing in vain ;" and in another part of the same book he asserts, "that eternity from always subsisting receives the appellation of immortal and divine, whence also being and life are imparted to other things, to some more accurately,

We have generally thought Aristotle inconsistent on this subject;-whether designedly so, those best acquainted with his writings will decide. The whole is certainly left in great obscurity and we ought to add, that the book principally referred to in the passage here cited, Περι Θαυμασίων Ακισματων, is among the most questionable of those attributed to this great philosopher.

and to others more obscurely." In the first book, likewise, of his Metaphysics, praising Anaxagoras, and prior to him Hermotimus, as not only admitting material causes of the universe, but contemplating intellect as the effective and final cause, he observes as follows: He, therefore, who asserted that as in animals, so also in nature, there is a certain intellect, which is the cause both of the world and of all order, will appear like one sober, when compared with those ancients that spoke rashly." And shortly after he adds, "Those, therefore, who entertained this opinion, together with establishing a principle of things, which is the cause of their subsisting in a beautiful manner, established also a principle which is the cause of motion to things.'

"

• Should it be asked why Aristotle does not so openly call God an effective as he does a final cause, we reply with Simplicius, that since that which makes, makes that which is generated, and that which is generated at the same time introduces a temporal beginning of generation, hence he refuses to call the celestial bodies, which he demonstrates to be perpetual, generated, though he often and clearly denominates the cause of them an effective cause. And, perhaps, if some one should assert that the terms generator and maker are properly adapted to things in generation and corruption, because they introduce a partial time, he will employ different appellations when speaking of things perpetual. Aristotle, indeed, does not refuse to call motion perpetual, though its very being consists (Ev T yeola) in generation, or becoming to be; but he is unwilling to say that it has a perpetual generation, because that which is generated appears not to have had a prior subsistence, and will afterwards be corrupted.' P. XXX.

We shall now turn to what Mr. Taylor says of his own

translation.

In translating the Metaphysics of Aristotle (for it is now time to speak of the following translation) I have endeavoured as much as possible to give the literal meaning of every sentence, without paraphrasing what I conceived to be the sense of my author, or ex panding what might appear to be too concise. The studied obscurity indeed of Aristotle's diction in this work is perhaps without a parallel in any ancient or modern writer. Not daring, therefore, to impose on the reader by presenting him with my conceptions as those of the Stagirite, nor presuming to measure that mighty genius by my own, I have in general, after giving the most faithful translation in my power of dubious passages, either explained them by notes, or left them to the decision of the reader: for as I write, not with any design of procuring the fleeting and contemptible applause of the day, but with an eye to the approbation of more equitable posterity, I have endeavoured by acting the part of a faithful translator to procure for the following copy a duration co-extended with that of the original.' P. xli.

Dr. Gillies asserted, in the introduction to his translation of Aristotle's Ethics and Politics*, that he had miserably

*Noticed in our Review, vol. 24, p. 43, New Arr.