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 must have known what he really wrote, and therefore that in losing the books mentioned in the Alexandrian catalogue we have lost the true works of Aristotle, as they existed 100 years after his death, and that what has come down to us under his name, be it what it may, cannot be the genuine article. Other facts, however, and criticism of the whole question, show that this natural supposition is incorrect, and that something like the contradictory of it is true. It is a curious story, and needs some little explanation.

The life of Aristotle after his boyhood fell, as we have seen, into three broad divisions—namely, his first residence at Athens, from his eighteenth to his thirty-eighth year; his residence away from Athens, at Atarneus, Mitylene, Pella, and Stageira, from his thirty-eighth to his fiftieth year; and his second residence at Athens, from his fiftieth to his sixty-third year. During the first period, after studying under Plato, he commenced authorship by writing dialogues, which appear to have been published at the time. They differed from the Platonic dialogues in not being dramatic, but merely expository, like the dialogues of Bishop Berkeley, the principal rôle in each being assigned to Aristotle himself. They were somewhat rhetorical in style, and quite adapted for popular reading. In them Aristotle attacked Plato’s doctrine of Ideas, and set forth views on philosophy, the chief good, the arts of government, moral virtue, and other topics. Then came the second period of his life, when he had definitely broken with the school of Plato, and was away from all the schools of Athens, enjoying much