The New Student's Reference Work/Aristotle

Aristotle (är′ is-tŏt-l), the greatest of all the Greek philosophers, was born at Stageira in Thrace, 384 B. C. His father was a physician, and his own early education was in that direction. In his eighteenth year he went to and became the pupil of, who called him the “Intellect of the School.”  He stayed at Athens twenty years, until the death of Plato, 347 B. C., when he went to Atarneas in Mysia and afterward to Mitylene. In the year 342 B. C., he was invited by Philip, king of Macedon, to educate his son Alexander in Macedonia. When Alexander set out on his expedition to Asia, 334 B. C., Aristotle returned to Athens, where at the age of fifty, he opened a school called the Lyceum, from its nearness to the temple of Apollo Lyceius. His school and pupils were called the Peripatetics, from his habit of walking up and down in the garden while giving his lectures. After the death of Alexander, he was accused of impiety by the party in power. With the fate of before his eyes, he chose a timely escape and fled to Chalcis in Eubœa, where he died 322 B. C.  Many of his writings are lost; of those that remain, his Logic, Rhetoric, Poetics and Meteorologies are the most important. He almost created the science of logic and also that of natural science. In philosophy no one can be named whose influence has been greater or more lasting.