ARISTOTLE AND THE EARLIER PERIPATETICS vol.I by Eduard Zeller, B.F.C.Costelloe 1897

ARISTOTLE'S WMITINGS 129
as a memorial of the contents of his lectures or as an
auxiliary to them. 1 That this was true of some of his
books, must be inferred from other passages also. The
synopsis of varying meanings of words, which now forms
the fifth book of the Metaphysics, could never have
been published by Aristotle in its present form as a
glossary without beginning or end. It can only have
been placed in the hands of his scholars simply as an
aid to his teaching. Yet he often refers to it, and
that even in texts earlier than the Metaphysics. 2 The
same argument applies to the often-cited anatomical
texts, 3 which must have been limited to a narrow circle
because of the drawings which were an essential part of
them. If it be true, however, that writings which
Aristotle cites were published only to his scholars, it
follows that the same must be true of those in
which
these citations occur ; for no one could in a published
book refer to an unpublished one, or
say that a subject
not gone into was fully explained in an inaccessible
tract.
The same theory by which we explain the group of
peculiarities already noticed, will explain others also.
The trick of carelessness in style which is so often remarked,
the repetitions which surprise us in
an exposition
otherwise compact, the insertions which upset a
naturally well-ordered movement of thought are all
explained most easily if we suppose that the author
never put the finishing touches to the writings in question,
and that various matters were at
the time of the
1
As Stahr, ibid., has sup- 3
About which see p. 89,
posed. n. 1.
2 Cf. pp. 76, n. 3, 124, n. 4.
VOL. I. K
130 ARISTOTLE
posthumous publication added to the original text either
from parallel copies or from the author's notes. 1 This
theory becomes extremely probable when, as in the
books On the Soul, 2 we find throughout considerable
sections clear traces of
a double recension, without any
reason to say that either recension is not Aristotle's. 3
The same kind of argument would apply also to the
Tolitics and Metaphysics, but as to • these we have
independent grounds for
the belief that they remained
unfinished, and were only published after his death. 4
If this be so, a further inference is forced on us ; for we
must conclude that if a certain book was a posthumous
publication only, all which refer to it in such a way as
to show that they follow it in the series cannot have
been issued in Aristotle's life. This line of argument,
even if we could apply it with high probability to
nothing more than the Be Anima, would take us a long
way ; for that work is cited in many of the books on
natural philosophy. 8
The scope and the modifications of this theory as
the way in which the Aristotelian books were produced,
can only be settled by a detailed examination of the indi-
1
A supposition which anumber 2 Cf. p. 89, n. 2. It may be
of scholars have been led to adopt, otherwise with the repetitions
with various particular modifioa- and disarrangements of the contions
: thus Kitteb, iii. 29 {rid. nection in the Ethics, especially
supra, p. 121, n. 2 mid.) ;
Bean- bks. 5-7. Cf. p. 97, n. 1.
3
Dis, ii. b, 113 ;
Uebekweg, Qeseh. As in Bk. vii. of the Physics,
d. Phil. i. 174, eighth ed., Suse- on which Spengel has written in
mihl, Arist. Poet. p. 1 sq., Bee- Abh. d. Munch. Akad. iii. 2, 305
NAYS, Arist. Politik, 212. It is also sqq. Cf. Prantl, Arist. Phys. 337.
4
probable that Aristotle, instead of Cf. p. 76, n. 3, and infra, Ch.
writing, usually dictated: which xiii., init.
would account for many of the ir-
s
Vid. supra, p. 93, n. 2 ; Ind.
regularities of style, such as the Ar. 102, b, 60 sqq.
lengthy and involved anacolutha.
to