represented or explained Aristotle, and might advantageously be preserved as part of his system. However it came about, we find included within the Aristotelian canon a treatise ‘On the Universe,’ neatly epitomising his views, but quite later than his time; one ‘On the Motion of Animals’ of which the same may be said; two treatises on morals, the ‘Eudemian Ethics,’ and the ‘Great Ethics,’ which are mere paraphrases of the ‘Ethics’ of Aristotle; a large book of ‘Problems,’ with their solutions, evidently of mixed authorship; a set of ‘Opuscula,’ or minor works, which belong to the class of Peripatetic monographs, — e.g. ‘On Colom’s,’ ‘On Indivisible Lines,’ ‘On Strange Stories,’ ‘Physiognomies,’ &c.; a treatise on ‘Rhetoric,’ quite different in principles from that of Aristotle’s, and only suggested to be his by a fictitious dedication to Alexander, which has been stuck on to it. One or two other suspicious books might be mentioned, but even if everything were deducted against which the most sceptical criticism can make objection, less than one-fourth would be taken away from the entire mass which is in use to be labelled “Aristotle.” The whole works in Bekker’s octavo edition fill 3786 pages, and out of these the books, about whose genuineness any question has been raised, occupy only 925 pages. A solid residue remains, which may now be briefly characterised, merely in regard to its external form, a few remarks being added as to the chronological order in which it seems probable that Aristotle composed the various parts.
The remains of Aristotle come before us as a torso,—an incomplete and somewhat mutilated group from
