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 popular view of the topics of religion. Yet in his extant works Aristotle is always tender and reverent in dealing with popular beliefs; indeed, in modern times, these works have been regarded as a bulwark of ecclesiastical feeling. The whole charge, if taken on its real merits, must be considered utterly frivolous; yet those who would have to try the case—a large jury taken from the general mass of the citizens—could not be depended on for discrimination in such a question. They would be too subject to the currents of envy, political, personal, and anti-philosophical, setting in from various quarters; they would be too readily imbued with the odium theologicum. Nothing but a very general popularity would have been an effectual protection at such a moment, and this it is not likely that Aristotle ever possessed in Athens. While capable of devoted and generous friendship, he may easily have been cold and reserved towards general society. He was absorbed in study, and probably lived confined within the narrow scientific circle of his own school. He may even have exhibited some of those proud characteristics which he attributes in his ‘Ethics’ to the “great-souled” man, “who claims great things for himself because he is worthy of them,” and “who cannot bear to associate with any one except a friend.” However this may have been, he was probably right on the present occasion to decline submitting his life and opinions to the judgment of the populace of Athens. He availed himself of the law which gave to any accused person the option of quitting the city before the day of trial, and he retired to Chalcis in Eubœa,