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

188 ARISTOTLE
THE PHILOSOPHY QF ARISTOTLE 187
the moral action of the individual from that which
treats of the State. 1
It is also important to remember that in the above
division, whether we take it
to be twofold or threefold,
there is no place for Logic. The later Peripatetics get
over this difficulty by the theory—which is a point of
controversy between them and the
Stoics—that Logic
is not a part of Philosophy, but only an instrument
for it. 2 Aristotle himself never hints at this distinction,
3 although he does, of course, treat Logic as a
Methodology. 4 Nor will the suggestion help us much ;
for since Aristotle had worked out his Logic with such
scientific care, it must have had some definite place in
his system. 5
The only conclusion is that the scheme of
subdivision, which we deduce from the above-quoted
remarks of Aristotle, seems~to be in part too
wide and
in part too narrow for the matter which his books
contain.
A different subdivision of the system might be built
1
Eth. i. 1 , 1094, b, 7. So also philosophy, is of course beside
in the lengthy disenssion, x. 10. the point.
- Diog. v. 28 ; Alex, in PH. 4
Supra, p. 91 sq.
Anal, init., Schol. 5
141, a, 19, b, 25, No more trustworthy is Rain
Top. 41, m, Ammon. apud vaisson's statement (loe. eit. 252,
Waitz, Arist. Org. i. 44 medf; 264 sq.), that Analytics is no
Simpl. Categ. 1, £, Seliol. 39, b, special science, but the form of
and Philop. in Categ. Sekol. in all science. It is much rather
Ar. 36, a, 6, 12, 37, b, 46. The the knowledge of this form, which
same in Anal. Pri. ibid. 143, a, 3. constitutes a particular branch
Anon. ibid. 140, a, 45 sqq. just as much as Metaphysics,
David, in Categ. Seliol. 25, a, 1, which is the knowledge of the
where there are also further universal grounds of all Being,
fragmentary subdivisions of Logic Mabbach, Geseh. d. Phil. i. 247,
and the logical writings. even thinks that ' t here can be no
' That in Top. i. l&fin., doubt that the "Mathematics"
and
viii. 14, 163, b, 9, he speaks of which forms a part of philosophy
logical readiness as an organ of is what is now called Logic'
on the other remark, that all propositions and problems
are either ethical, physical, or logical. 1 Under the
logical head, however, Aristotle here comprehends both
formal Logic and the First Philosophy or Metaphysics, 2
and this alone would prove that he could not here have
meant to indicate a scheme for the presentation of his
system, in which these two departments are kept so
obviously distinct.
If, then, we are forced to give up the attempt to
find in his own isolated remarks any key to
the plan of
his work which corresponds with the construction
itself, nothing remains but to gather from the actual
work as we have it, the method of the work he designed.
Abstracting from those of his writings which are intended
only as preliminary essays, or devoted to historical
materials or collections concerning natural history,
or taken up with philosophic criticism, we distinguish
among Aristotle's writings four main masses. These
are his investigations of Logic, of Metaphysics, of
Natural History, and of Ethics. A fifth would be the
Top. i. 14, 104, b, 19 : ?.aTa .... Tphs juev oZv