Page:The Story of Philosophy.pdf/80



RISTOTLE was born at Stagira, a Macedonian city some two hundred miles to the north of Athens, in the year 384 B. c. His father was friend and physi- cian to Amyntas, King of Macedon and grandfather of Alex- ander. Aristotle himself seems to have become a member of the great medical fraternity of Asclepiads. He was brought up in the odor of medicine as many later philosophers were brought up in the odor of sanctity; he had every opportunity and encouragement to develop a scientific bent of mind; he was prepared from the beginning to become the founder of science.

We have a choice of stories for his youth. One narrative represents him as squandering his patrimony in riotous liv- ing, joining the army to avoid starvation, returning to Sta- gira to practice medicine, and going to Athens at the age of thirty to study philosophy under Plato. A more dignified story takes him to Athens at the age of eighteen, and puts him at once under the tutelage of the great Master; but even in this likelier account there is sufficient echo of a reckless and irregular youth, living rapidly. The scandalized reader may console himself by observing that in either story our philos- opher anchors at last in the quiet groves of the Academy.

Under Plato he studied eight-or twenty-years; and in- deed the pervasive Platonism of Aristotle's speculations--even of those most anti-Platonic-suggests the longer period. One