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

ARISTOTLE'S WAITINGS 135
writings therefore afford a strong indication that not
only their contents but their language is Aristotle's own.
A like conclusion follows also (as we have seen ') from
the series of cross references ; for in a lecture a man
might allude to one or two past courses, but could
hardly refer to a whole series
of lectures widely distant
in date, as to which he could not assume that the details
were in the memory of his present audience. 2
It seems
moreover that in many cases, as in the Natural Philosophy,
the matter of the various treatises goes too closely
into detail for the purposes of oral teaching. Such
lectures would have taxed the attention and memory of
the most zealous hearer, and it is difficult to see how
they could have been transcribed so perfectly. 3 Yet
these treatises stand on no different footing from the
rest.
We learn that Theophrastus and Eudemus in their
Analytics followed Aristotle, not only in the general
plan, but in details, 4
and we can bring proof that these
followers adopted word for word several passages of the
extant Metaphysics. 6 Eudemus adopted the ^Ethics of
1
See pp. 128, 131. Anima, Be Sensu, Part. An.,
2
Note, in relation to this Gen. An. ; the Metaphysics quote
point, how one and the same the Analytics, Physics, Be Ccelo,
composition is frequently re- Ethics, the eicKoyii rwv havrluv ;.
ferred to in the most remote in the Bhetoric,th.e Topics, Analyplaoes,
and how, on the other tics, Politics, Poetics, and the
hand, the most widely differing ©eoBe/creia are quoted.
texts arecitedinthesametreatise. a
The notion of formal dicta-
Thus the Physics, Be Ccelo, Gen. tion can hardly be suggested,
et Corr., Meteor., Be Anima, Be but if it were, it would imply
Sensu, Part. An., are quoted in that our Aristotelian writings
many passages of the Metaphysics were the work of Aristotle himand
in the Mhics ; the books on self and not his pupils' notes.
Generation, and Corruptionm the * Cf. p. 67.
Meteorology, Metaphysics, Be 5 Cf. p. 78, n. 1.
136 ARISTOTLE
Aristotle, and still more the Physics, 1 often verbally,
into his own corresponding texts. We actually possess
letters in which Eudemus consults Theophrastus as to
the text of a particular passage and receives his answer. 2
These facts clearly justify Brandis' remark, 3 that the
fashion in which Aristotle's followers clung to the
master's writings presupposes that they were dealing
with his actual words. As to the Topics in particular,
it has been already proved that it is not a mere transcript
by another hand, but that on the contrary it
bears to be and must have been the
(see p. 128).
work of Aristotle
If it be true that the philosophical works of Aristotle
had not yet passed at his death beyond the circle
of his personal hearers, this circumstance would make
it also intelligible that they might for a long time,
even after his death, have been withheld from general
publicity, or that they might even by an unlucky accident
have been lost to the Peripatetic School. And,
according to a curious and well-known story, such an
accident was said to have occurred, involving, as was
supposed, the loss for two centuries of the texts of
Aristotle.
1
See the section dealing with Phys. v. 2, 226, b, 14, and are
Eudemus, etc., infra, Ch. xix., found in Simpl. Phys. 216 a,
and notes thereon. Sohol. 404, b, 10.
2 3
These have reference to Gr.-rSm. Phil, ii, b, 114.