Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/399

 ARISTOTLE 375 time (335) that Aristotle founded his school of philosophy in a building with a ' peripatos ' or covered walk, near the grove of Apollo Lykeios, just outside Athens. It was an institution in some respects less near to the Academy than to the Alexandrian libraries, and, like them, was probably helped by royal generosity. Aristotle's omnivorous learn- ing and genius for organisation had their full scope. He surrounded himself with fellow - students — avfM<f)io(To^- ovvT€<; — directed them to various special collections and researches ; admitted differences of opinion in them, and exercised the right of free criticism himself ; and so built that gigantic structure of organised and reasoned know- ledge which has been the marvel of succeeding ages. Aristotle's writings were divided by the later Peripa- tetics into e^carepiKol and aKpoafiariKol Xoyoc — works for publication and lecture materials. His reputation in antiquity was based entirely on the former class, espe- cially on the semi-popular dialogues; and it is a curious freak of history that, with the possible exception of the Constitution of Athens, not one work of this whole class is now preserved. In our Aristotle we have no finished and personal works of art like the dialogues of Plato. We have only viroiJLvrjfjbaTa — the notes and memoranda of the school. That explains the allusive and elliptical style, the anecdotes and examples, which are suggested but not stated ; it also explains the repetitions and overlappings and occasional contradictions. Divers of the avfji(f)Loao^ovvT€<; have contributed matter, and the lectures have been repeated and worked over by various ' scholarchs.' Aristotle's Rhetoric, for instance, was based on the collections of his disciple Theodectes, and ex- panded again by his successor Theophrastus. The Physics count as Aristotle; the Botany and Mineralogy^