THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE

Author(s): G. W. F. Hegel
Source: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 5, No. 1 (January, 1871), pp. 61-78
Published by: Penn State University Press
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( 61 )
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.
Translated from the German of G. W. F. Hegel.

[What we had occasion to remark at the beginning of our translation of the

exposition of Plato ? taken from Hegel's History of Philosophy (Jour. Spec.
Phil., Vol. IV., p. 225) ? is especially fitting as an introduction here. In Aris
totle one finds a mind so vast that two thousand years have scarcely done more
than confirm his statements. Aristotle seems to have laid down the principles,
pointed out the methods, and to a great extent made the terminology or tech
nique of the various sciences, so that no one can talk or write science without
using Aristotelian forms. The absurd notion which has gained currency in mod
ern times, that Aristotle used Deduction while Bacon uses Induction, will be dis
pelled (it is hoped) by this article. The true method is certainly no one-sided
one, but an organic union of deduction and induction such as is involved in the
activity of Recognition.
This treatise is divided into five parts: I. General Introduction, containing
an account of the Life and Writings of Aristotle. II. The Metaphysics. III.
Philosophy of Nature. IV. Philosophy of Spirit, subdivided into (a) Psychol
ogy; (b) Practical Philosophy, including (1) Ethics, (2) Politics. V. Logic.
The translation will be published complete in this volume.?Editor.]

I.?Introduction.
Although one is reluctant to leave the consideration of
Plato, yet in taking up Aristotle, his pupil, the danger of
extending one's remarks to an immoderate length is still
greater. For Aristotle is one of the richest and deepest
scientific geniuses that ever lived: a man without equal in
ancient or modern times. By reason of the*, wide compass

embraced by those of his works that have come down to us,

the material before us is so extensive that we shall scarcely
be able to treat it with that completeness which it deserves.
We will, therefore, limit ourselves to a general view of his
Philosophy, and descend into particulars only in those places
where Aristotle has carried out more fully what the Platonic
Principle began,?not merely in the depth of the ideas, but
also in their further application; [and these places will occur
frequently] for Aristotle is comprehensive and speculative
to a degree attained by no other thinker, although he does
not proceed systematically [i. e. by dialectical evolution].
The general character of his Philosophy.

To characterize in brief his labors, one would say : he has

travelled over the whole range of human knowledge, has

5 *

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62 Hegel on the Philosophy of Aristotle.

pushed his investigations on all sides into the real universe,

and has brought into subjection to IDEAS the wealth and

untamed luxuriance of the realms of nature. Almost all of
the philosophical sciences have to thank him for their defini

tion and commencement. Notwithstanding science ? in the

shape he gave it?falls apart into a series of abstract concep

tions, yet there are to be found in the Aristotelian philosophy

the deepest speculative ideas. In the same manner that he

dealt with particular provinces, he dealt also with the whole.
A general view of his Philosophy presents no totality which
is self-systematized, and whose order and connection belong
to the same idea; on the contrary, the parts are pickecl up em

pirically and placed side by side; so that each part is treated

by itself without being subordinated through a scientific treat

ment that shows up its relations and connections. An ex

position of this necessity [by which the whole determines the

parts] cannot be expected from the standpoint Philosophy

assumed in that time. But although Aristotle's system does
not present itself in its parts as a development from its idea,

seeming rather to consist of coordinate members [i. e. not

subordinate to one principle], yet they form one totality, and

that an essentially speculative philosophy.

One reason why we should deal with Aristotle more in de

tail lies in the fact that no philosopher has had more injustice
done him through utterly thoughtless traditions which have
gained currency regarding his system, and still are repeated,
notwithstanding he was for long centuries the teacher of all
philosophical thinkers : these traditions ascribe to him views
which are totally opposite to those found in his philosophy.
And while Plato has had the good fortune to be much read,
the treasure that Aristotle bequeathed to us has remained
for centuries as good as unknown, and the most erroneous
prejudices have prevailed regarding it. His speculative, logi

cal works are known to scarcely any one. To his views in

natural history more justice is done in modern times, but not

to his philosophical views.

To particularize: there is an opinion widely held that the

Aristotelian and Platonic philosophies are opposed to each

other in the sense that the latter is idealism, and the former

realism?realism in the most trivial meaning of that term.

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Hegel on the Philosophy of Aristotlq. 63

Plato, according to this view, set up the Ideal for his princi
ple, holding that the Idea from its internal power created its
determinations; Aristotle, on the contrary, is supposed to
have held that the soul is a tabula rasa, receiving passively
all its determinations from the external world; his philosophy
would thus be empiricism, " the lowest form of Lockeanism,"

&c. How little this is the case we shall see in the sequel. In
truth, Aristotle surpasses even Plato in speculative depth;
inasmuch as he has arrived at the most fundamental specu
lative insights?at Idealism?and standing on these, has ex
plained, by their application, the widest empirical fields of
investigation.
Among the French, too, there still exist quite false views
regarding Aristotle. An example of what tradition attributes
to him, without ever once looking into his works to verify its
dicta, is that doctrine, so highly prized in the old ^Esthetics,
of the three unities of the Drama ? those of Action, of Time,

and of Place ? and called "regies dy Aristote, la saine doc

trine.^ Aristotle, however (Poet. ch. 8 & 5, Becker's ed.),
speaks only of the unity of action, and incidentally mentions
that of time ; of the third unity, that of place, he says noth

ing at all.

His Life.

He was born at Stagira, a Thracian city on the Strymonic

gulf, but a Greek colony: hence, though born in Thrace, he
was a Grecian. In the meantime this Greek colony fell, with
the rest of Greece, under the dominion of Philip of Macedon.

Aristotle's birth was in the first year of the 99th Olympiad

(384 B.C.); and if Plato was born in the third year of the 87th

Olympiad (430 B.C.) it follows that Aristotle was forty-six

years younger. His father Nicomachus was physician to

the Macedonian king Amyntas, the father of Philip. After

the death of his parents, whom he lost at an early age, Aris
totle was brought up by a certain Proxenus, whom he re
quited with continual gratitude, and held his memory so dear
that he erected a statue to him. He also made returns for his
own education by instructing Nicanor, the son of his benefac

tor, and adopting him as his heir. In the seventeenth year

of his age, Aristotle came to Athens and passed twenty years

in the society of Plato. Thus he enjoyed the best opportu

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64

Hegel on the Philosophy of Aristotle.

nities for learning the Platonic Philosophy thoroughly; and

the assertion sometimes made that he did not understand
Plato would seem, as far as external grounds appear, to be an
arbitrary, quite unfounded assumption.
As regards the relation of Plato to Aristotle, especially the
circumstance that Plato chose, not Aristotle for his successor
in the Academy, but Speusippus, a near relative, there are a
number of useless, self-contradictory anecdotes preserved by
Diogenes Laertius. If the continuation of the Platonic school
meant the narrow, strict adherence to philosophy in Plato's
sense of the term, of course Plato could not appoint Aristotle

as his successor; but Speusippus was just the man for the
place. Nevertheless Plato's true successor was Aristotle;

for Aristotle expounded philosophy in Plato's meaning, but

deeper and more comprehensively, so that philosophy made

progress at his hands. His indignation at this slight is al

leged as the cause why Aristotle left Athens after the death
of Plato and went to live with Hermias, the tyrant of Atar

neus in Mysia, who had been his fellow-pupil under Plato

and afterwards had developed a close friendship for Aristotle.

Hermias, an independent prince, among other absolute Greek

princes and republics in Asia Minor, was subjugated by a

Persian satrap; Hermias was taken and sent a prisoner to

Artaxerxes in Persia, who crucified him forthwith. In order

to escape a similar fate, Aristotle fled with his wife Pythias,

the daughter of Hermias, to Mitylene and resided there for

some time. He erected a statue at Delphi in honor of Her

mias, with an inscription that has come down to us; from

this it appears that Hermias was betrayed into the hands of
the Persians through artifice. Aristotle celebrated his name

in a beautiful hymn to Virtue, that is still extant.

From Mitylene,' in the second year of the 109th Olympiad

(343 B.C.), he was called by Philip of Macedon to take charge
of the education of his son Alexander, then fifteen years of
age. Philip had already invited him in that well-known let
ter in which he announced the birth of his son : "Be it known
to you that a son is born to me ; but I thank the gods not so
much that they have given me him, as that they have allowed
him to be born in your time. For 1 hope that your care and
insight will make him worthy of me and of his future king
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Hegel on the Philosophy of Aristotle.

dom." It has the appearance in history of a brilliant career,
to have been the educator of an Alexander. Aristotle enjoyed
also at this court the favor and respect of Philip and Olym
pias in the highest degree. What became of Aristotle's pupil
is well known; and the greatness of Alexander's mind and
deeds, and his enduring friendship for Aristotle, are the high
est testimony of the spirit and efficiency of that education, if

Aristotle needed any such testimony. The culture of Alexan

der ij, a sufficient reply to all the prating about the practical

uselessness of speculative philosophy. Aristotle found in

Alexander another and a worthier pupil than Plato had
found in Dionysius. Plato was occupied with a Republic,

with the ideal of a State. With this subject before his mind
he sought to find means for its realization ; the individual was
for him only the means, and hence indifferent in other respects.

With Aristotle, on the other hand, no such purpose was in

view; he confined himself strictly to the individual before
him : and his aim was to develop and expand the individual
ity. Aristotle is known as a deep, fundamental, metaphysi

cian, and that he labored earnestly with Alexander is evident

from the result. That he did not pursue the modern superfi
cial course with the education of princes is clear partly from
the earnest character of Aristotle, who knew well what is true
generally, and hence what is true in culture and how to de
veloj) it; the other evidence of this is found in the external
circumstance that Alexander, when he heard, in the midstfc of

his expedition for the conquest of Asia, that Aristotle had

published his acroamatic doctrines in his speculative (meta
physical) writings, wrote to him reproving him for it, and
saying that he ought not to communicate to the common folk

what they two had studied together; upon which Aristotle

replied that the doctrines remained as much a secret after
being communicated as before.
It is not the place here to form an estimate of Alexander as

a historical person. That in Alexander's education which

should be ascribed to Aristotle's philosophical instruction is
the elevation of the natural, peculiar greatness of his inborn
talents to internal freedom, and to perfect self-conscious inde

pendence such as we see in his plans and deeds. Alexander

attained that perfect self-possession that alone gives infinite
Vol. 5?5

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66

Hegel on the Philosophy of Aristotle.

keenness of thought, and that independence of particular,

limited plans, as well as their elevation to perfectly universal
aims involving the reduction of the world to a common social

life and intercourse, through the establishment of states in

which individual caprice was to be removed. Alexander car
ried out the plan which his father had already formed, name

ly, to lead Greece against Asia, and to avenge Europe by

subjugating Asia and making it tributary to Greece. Thus

as the Greeks enter history at the beginning united in the
Trojan war, they are also united again only at the close of the

history of Greece proper. Alexander revenged at the same

time the faithlessness and cruelty that the Persians had

shown towards Hermias, the friend of Aristotle'. But more

especially Alexander extended Greek culture over Asia with
the purpose of elevating that wild, merely destructive, self
sundering mass of barbarism ? that land sunk in complete
negligence and spiritual degradation?of elevating this into a

Greek world. And when it is said that he was only a con

queror, and that he knew not how to found a permanent state,

his kingdom being divided after his death, this is correct if

considered in a superficial manner ? namely, his family did
not retain possession of this dominion ; but the rule of Greece

was permanent. Alexander founded a wide kingdom not for

his own family, but for the Grecian people; for after his
time Greek culture and science became indigenous there.
The Greek kingdoms of Asia Minor and of Egypt were for
centuries the seats of science; and their effects may have

extended as far as India and China. We do not know pre

cisely whether the Indians did not obtain the best of their

sciences in this way; but it is probable that the more definite

parts of their astronomy came to India from Greece. The Sy
rian monarchy, which stretched far eastward into Asia to a
Greek kingdom in Bactria, is doubtless (in its Greek colonies
which settled there) the source from which China obtained
the few scraps of scientific information possessed there, and

which have been handed down by tradition, but have not

accumulated interest. For the Chinese are so inexpert as
not to be able to make a calendar, and they seem to lack
the very idea of such a thing. They have preserved old
instruments which serve them no purpose, and the most
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Hegel on the Philosophy of Aristotle.

67

probable conjecture is that they came from Bactria. The

high opinions formed of the sciences of the Chinese and Indi
ans are without foundation.

According to Bitter, (lirdkunde, vol. ii., p. 839, Isted.) Alex

ander was impelled not merely with the idea of conquering,
but with that of becoming himself the ruler. I am not of the
opinion that Aristotle impressed upon his pupil this idea,
nor that other [idea of being deified] connected with the Ori
ental mode of view. In the Orient still flourishes the name

of Alexander as Ispander, and also as Dul-k-ar-nein, i. e. the

man with two horns; as also Jupiter Ammon is an image of
a more ancient hero. It may be a question whether the Ma
cedonian kings did not lay claim to the dominion over that
country on account of their pretended descent from the races

of heroes of Old India. Whence also the expedition of Diony

sius from Thrace to India could be explained; whether the
"knowledge of this was not the real religious conviction which
at bottom inspired the soul of the young hero, inasmuch as he,

before his expedition into Asia, found Indian hierarchies on

the lower Danube (in which the immortality of the soul was

taught); and began his expedition to the Orient certainly

with the advice of Aristotle, who was initiated into the wis
dom of the Indians through Plato and Pythagoras; and he
first visited the oracle of Ammon (now Siva), and then de
stroyed the Persian monarchy and burned Persepolis, which
was the ancient foe of the Indian theology, in order to take
vengeance for all the impiety committed by Darius on the
Buddhists and their followers." This is an ingenious combi

nation based on a thorough study of the connection of Orien

tal and European ideas as well as of the higher points of view
in the treatment of history. But this conjecture is a different

one from the historical view which I have embraced; Alex

ander's expedition has a quite other historical, military and
political character than the one mentioned; and besides this,
it has but little to do with the Indians: it is a conquering
expedition in downright earnest. Aristotle's metaphysics and
philosophy is, in the second place, quite free from any recog
nition of such crazy, sentimental fancies. The later elevation
of Alexander to the rank of a general, hero, and god, by the

Oriental phantasie is, in the third place, nothing strange or

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68

Hegel on the Philosophy of Aristotle.

wonderful; the Dalai-Lama is still an example of the same

thing, and God and Man are not so widely separated after all

Besides, Greece inclined to the adoption of the idea of a god

who had become a man, and not as a statue, cold and distant,
but a present god in the godless world.: as in fact Demetrius
Phalerius and others were honored and celebrated in Athens
soon after this as gods. Moreover, had not the Infinite at
this period entered into the self-consciousness? Fourthly,
the Buddhists do not concern Alexander at all, and in his
Indian expedition nothing is said of them; the destruction
of Persepolis is sufficiently accounted for as an act of Greek

retaliation for the temples that Xerxes had destroyed in

Athens.

While Alexander was performing this great work ? the

greatest individual at the head of Grecian nationality ? he
never forgot the interests of art and science. We, in modern
times, have seen warriors mindful of science and art in their
campaigns ; so Alexander caused preparations to be made for

sending to Aristotle whatever new animals or plants were

found in Asia, either the specimens themselves or else draw
ings and descriptions of them. This respect paid by Alexan
der to Aristotle furnished the latter the fairest opportunity

to collect materials for the knowledge of Nature. Pliny

(Hist. nat. viii. 17 ed. Bip.) relates that Alexander commis

sioned some thousands of men, who lived by hunting, fish
ing, and bird catching, as overseers of the parks, aviaries and

fish-ponds of the Persian kingdom, and instructed them to

furnish Aristotle everything worthy of note from all places.

The effect of Alexander's expedition into Asia upon Aristo

tle's labors was such as to place him in a position to become
the father of Natural History; and Pliny tells us that a work
on Natural History was composed by him in fifty parts.

After Alexander entered on his expedition to Asia, Aris

totle returned to Athens and appeared as a public teacher in
the Lyceum, an enclosure which Pericles had used for a place
to drill his recruits. It consisted of a temple dedicated to the
Lycian Apollo, and walks ornamented by trees, fountains,
and colonnades. From these walks, his school received the
name of " Peripatetic," and not, as sometimes reported, from

Aristotle's walking about while lie delivered his lectures.

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Hegel on tJte Philosophy of Aristotle.

69

He lived as teacher in this way thirteen years in Athens. On

the death of Alexander, there burst forth a storm which, as
it seems, had been for a long time restrained through fear of

Alexander; Aristotle was accused of impiety. The details

are differently given. Among other things, it is related that

his crime was found in his hymn to Hermias and the inscrip

tion on the statue dedicated to him. As he saw the storm

approaching he fled to Chalcis in Euboea, the present Negro

pont, in order, as he said, not to give the Athenians an oppor

tunity to sin against Philosophy again. At that place he

died in his sixty-third year?Olympiad 114, 3 (322 B.C.)

His Writings.

The sources for his philosophy are his writings; but if we

consider their external fate and their external character, the

difficulty of making out his philosophy from them will seem to
be very great. I cannot enter much into details on this point.
Diogenes Laertius (v. 21-27) mentions a very great number of

them by their titles; however, we cannot tell exactly which

of the ones he names are still extant, for his titles are quite
different from those we use. Diogenes gives 445,270 as the
number of lines; if we reckon about ten thousand lines to an
alphabet [or complete work; Homer's Iliad contains twenty
four books, a complete alphabet], there would be forty-four
alphabets; what we still possess amounts to about ten alpha
bets, so that we have about a fourth part of his works. The
fate of the Aristotelian manuscripts is so reported as to leave

us in doubt as to whether we may possibly hope to possess a

single one of his writings in a genuine and uninjured shape.
Doubts regarding their authenticity could not under these
circumstances be prevented; and we must rather express sur
prise that they have come to us in as complete a shape as
they have. Aristotle wrote, as is related, manuscripts little
known during his lifetime, and left them to his successor
Theophrastus, with the rest of his numerous library. This
is, indeed, the first important library; it arose through his
own wealth and the assistance of Alexander; and by it is ex
plained the erudition of Aristotle. Later, it came, partly at
least, or copies of it, to Alexandria, and formed the nucleus
of the Ptolemaic library, which became a prey to the flames
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70

Hegel on the Philosophy of Aristotle.

on the entrance of Julius Caesar into Alexandria. Of the

manuscripts of Aristotle, however, it is related that Theo
phrastus bequeathed them to a certain Neleus, from whom

they passed into the hands of ignorant persons who took no

pains in preserving them; or, as others state it, the heirs of
Neleus, in order to save them from the king of Pergamus,
who was very zealous in collecting a library, buried them in
a cellar, where they lay forgotten a hundred and thirty years

and thus became sadly damaged. Finally, the followers of

Theophrastus discovered them again after much research, and

sold them to one Apellicon of Teios, who again restored what
had been destroyed by worms and rot. But for this labor

he did not possess the requisite learning and skill: where

fore others have applied themselves and filled out the gaps
according to their best j udgment and have restored the de
stroyed portions, so that they by this means have been much

changed. But this was not all. Soon, after Apellicon's death
the Roman Sylla conquered Athens, and among the spoils
which he sent to Rome were the writings of Aristotle. The
Romans, who had but just begun to make the acquaintance of
Greek science and art, and not yet rightly to prize Greek
Philosophy, were not able to extract anything of value from
this booty. A Greek, Tyrannio by name, obtained permis
sion to use the manuscripts of Aristotle and to bring them to
notice, and he prepared an edition of them, which, however,
bears the reproach of being inaccurate; for here they had the
fate of being placed by the booksellers in the hands of igno
rant copyists, who allowed a multitude of corruptions to creep
into the text.

Such the sources of the Aristotelian Philosophy are de

scribed to be. Aristotle, in his lifetime, published much ?
namely, his manuscripts in the Alexandrian library; never
theless, these works do not seem to have circulated much.
Several of them are in the highest degree corrupt, full of
omissions and (the Poetics, for example) incomplete. Several
(e. g. the Metaphysical writings) seem to be n\ade up in part
from several different works; so that the higher species of
criticism has here a field for the exercise of all its acumen,

and while with much show of probability one theory is

presented and defended, on the other side another view is

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Hegel on the Philosophy of Aristotle.

71

defended with equal force. So much is certain, that the writ

ings of Aristotle have been injured, and are disconnected in
individual parts and in important particulars; often, verbal
repetitions of entire passages occur. Since the evil is so old
there is no radical cure to be expected for it; meanwhile the
case is not quite so bad as it looks from such descriptions.
There are many of his chief works which may pass for entire
and uninjured; and others there are which are only here and
there injured, or else not well arranged, but the body of the
works not so much affected as it might seem. What we have
is sufficient to place us in a position to form a definite idea of
the Aristotelian Philosophy, both in its extent and compass,
and also in much of its details.
But there is still a historical distinction to be drawn. It is
an old tradition that Aristotle delivered two kinds of lectures
and wrote two sorts of works: esoteric (or acroamatic) and
exoteric ; ? a distinction which is also made by the Pythago
reans. The esoteric discourses he is said to have held in the
Lyceum during the morning hours, the exoteric in the even
ing; the latter are said to have consisted in the exercise of
rhetoric and disputation, and to have had reference to fitting
for civil employments; the former, however, to have con
cerned the inner and deeper philosophy, the consideration of
Nature, and the dialectic proper. This circumstance is of no
importance; one may see for himself which works are really
speculative and philosophic, and which ones are to a greater
extent of a merely empirical nature; they are not for this
reason, however, to be looked upon as opposite in content, as
though Aristotle wrote some things for the people and other
things for his intimate disciples.
What is included under the name Aristotelian.

a. In the first place, it is to be remarked, that the name

"Aristotelian Philosophy" is very vague, since what one calls
by that name has had in different times very different shapes.

First, it denotes the real Aristotelian Philosophy. Secondly,

in the time of Cicero, particularly under the name of Peripa
tetic, it had assumed the form of a popular philosophy deal

ing chiefly with natural history and morals; this period

seems to have had no interest in cultivating the deep and
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72

Hegel on the Philosophy of Aristotle.

really speculative side of the Aristotelian Philosophy and in

gaining an insight into it. Hence in Cicero we find no trace
of this side. A third form of the same is the Alexandrian
Philosophy, speculative in the highest degree; its writers are
usually known as New-Pythagoreans or Neo-Platonists, but

they have as good a title to the name New-Aristotelians.

The form which they use, and which is considered to be iden

tical with the Platonic, is rather Aristotelian. Another impor

tant sense of the Aristotelian Philosophy may be named as

the fourth one; that in which it is identified, by not over-exact

scholars, with the Scholastic Philosophy of the middle ages.

The scholastics busied themselves a great deal with Aristo
tle ; but the shape which his philosophy assumed under their
hands we cannot hold to be its genuine form. None of the
amplifications nor the entire extent of the formal Metaphysic
[" Yt r^tandes-Metaphysilt'] and logic which we find in scho

lasticism belong to Aristotle. The Scholastic Philosophy

proceeds only from the traditions of Aristotelian teachings.

And first, when the writings of Aristotle became known in

the west ? namely, at the time of the decay of scholasti

cism and the revival of learning ? a fifth form of his philoso

phy took its rise, and in part as opposed to scholasticism;

for only after the Reformation were the sources sought in
Aristotle himself. The sixth sense of the expression Aris
totelian Philosophy includes the recent distorted ideas and
interpretations such as, for example, one finds in Tennemann,

who is endowed with too little philosophical acumen to be

able to seize the Philosophy of Aristotle. At all events, his
is the common idea which now prevails regarding the Aristo
telian Philosophy, to wit: that it sets up for its highest sci
entific principle what is called Experience.
His Style of Exposition.

b. Although to identify Aristotle's method with empiri

cism is to form a false idea of it, yet the occasion for such a
mistake exists in his style of exposition. Some particular
passages are selected for this purpose, and are taken in their
isolated meaning in order to prove this view. We have, there
fore, to speak here of the Aristotelian style. Since, as before
remarked, we are not to seek in Aristotle a System of Philos
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Hegel on the Philosophy of Aristotle.

73

ophy whose parts can be strictly deduced,?since he seems

rather to take an external beginning and an empirical pro
edure, his style is often that of ordinary argumentation.
But Aristotle has the peculiarity in this procedure of being
thoroughly and in the deepest sense speculative. His style
consists, when more closely examined, in this: first, to bring

together and seize the phenomenon as a thinking observer.

He gets the sensuous phenomenon [Anschauung] before him
in its entire completeness, and omits nothing, be it ever so
common. ? All sides of knowing enter his mind, all inter
est him; all are handled by him with depth and exhaustive
ness. Abstraction may easily get confvfsed in the empirical
extent of a phenomenon, and be at a loss how to find its ap
plication and verification, and be obliged at last to take up
with a partial procedure without being able to exhaust all the
phases of the phenomenon. Aristotle, however, in that he
takes into consideration all sides of the Universe, seizes the
whole of each individual sphere, as a speculative philosopher,
and treats it in such a manner as to arrive at the deepest
speculative idea of it. We see [by degrees in his treatment]
thoughts first emerge from the Sensuous phase and pass over
into the sophistry of that stage of thinking which deals with

the Phenomenon. In perception, in conception, the catego

ries make their appearance ; tin* absolute essence, the specu
lative view of these moments is always expressed in the
utterance of perception. This pure essence of perception is
seized upon by Aristotle, tiecoiully, when he, on the other
hand, begins with the universal, the simple, and passes over
to its definition, he has the appearance of one who counts up

the various senses in which the subject is employed ; and in

the*e various senses he goes through all the species, even the
common and sensuous ones. He speaks in this manner, e. g.
of the different significations in which the words ohaia, apyfi%

airia. d/wb, &c, are used. It is sometimes tiresome to fol

low him in this mere enumeration, which proceeds without

[inherent] necessity, and in which the series of meanings
seem to be collected in an external manner, and to be akin
only in a vague or abstract sense and not according to their
determinatenesses. But this mode of procedure presents the
moments in their completeness, and, moreover, it stimulates
6

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74

Hegel on the Philosophy of Aristotle.

one to finding for himself the necessity [that dwells in them].

Thirdly, Aristotle brings up the various thoughts which the

earlier philosophers held, and refutes them, often in an

empirical way, correcting their onesidedness with manifold

reasons and arguments. After this he comes to the true specu

lative definition: fourthly and finally, Aristotle passes to the
speculative consideration of the subject itself of which he is
treating, be it, for example, the soul, feeling, memory, thought,

motion, time, place, heat, cold, &c. &c. Since he takes up all
the moments [elements or phases] that are contained in the
representation of the object, as if bound up together, he does
not omit any determinateness, nor hold fast first to one and
then to another, but holds them all at the same time in one:
the habit of Reflection, or of the understanding, on the con
trary, having the principle of identity for its rule, manages to
get along only by forgetting and abstracting from all other
determinations than the one with which it is immediately
engaged. Aristotle, however, has the patience to investigate
all views and all questions; and from the examination of the
individual determinations comes forth the firm-abiding deter
minateness of the object. Thus Aristotle arrives at the ideal
totality \_Begriff \ and is really philosophical in the highest
degree while he seems to be merely empirical. His empiri
cism is of a total, or entire, order, through the fact that he
always brings it back to the speculative [i. e. shows the in

dwelling necessity of what at first seemed accidental ; it

may be said, therefore, that as a complete [exhaustive, abso
lute] empirical investigator, he is at the same time a specu
lative one. For example, if we should take up empirically
all the determinations of space without omitting any, this
would be a speculative procedure in the highest sense; for
the empirical, comprehended in its synthesis, is tfir specula

tive Idea.

In this faculty of bringing together determinations into one

thought, Aristotle is great and masterly, as well as in the sim

plicity of his procedure, and in giving judgments in a few

words. This is a method of philosophizing which possesses
great effectiveness, and which has been employed in our time,

e. g. by the French. It deserves to come into more frequent

use; for it is an excellent thing to reduce the different aspects

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Hegel on the Philosophy of Aristotle.

75

of ordinary views regarding objects to the unity of thought,

and thus to bring them together into one necessary idea. But,
of course, this method has the appearance of being empirical
in one respect?namely, in this, that it takes up these objects
in the order it finds them in our consciousness of them; and
as there is no necessity in this procedure of taking them up, it
becomes an external affair of style. Still we cannot deny that
sometimes Aristotle does not aim to reduce all to unity, or at
least to a unity of antithetic elements; but, on the contrary,
to hold fast each one in its determinateness, and thus to pre
serve it. That procedure [of reduction to unity] may be some
times a very superficial affair, e.g. when everything is brought

to a single empty determinateness, like that of Irritability

and Sensibility, Sthenic and Asthenic; but, on the other hand,

it is also necessary to apprehend reality in its simple deter

minateness,?of course, without making the latter [i. e. the
simple determinateness] the point of procedure in the way
just mentioned. But Aristotle, on the contrary, abandons a
determination only when he has traced it into another sphere

wherein it retains no longer its former shape; but he shows

what form it now takes, or what change it has undergone.

And he often treats one determination after the other without

explaining their connection. In his own speculative think

ing Aristotle is as deep as Plato, and at the same time more
developed and conscious ; for the antitheses obtain in his
treatment a higher degree of definiteness. There is lacking,
indeed, the beautiful form that Plato gives to his expositions,

that sweetness of language, or ? one might almost say ? of

gossip, that tone of conversation which is at once lively,

cultivated, and humane. But in those places where we find

Plato endeavoring to express the speculative idea thetically,

as for example in the Timams, we see the defective and im
pure mingling with the pure thought, and the latter disappear,
while, on the contrary, Aristotle under similar circumstances

expresses it pure, and comprehends it. We learn the object

in his definition, and the definite concept of it; moreover,

Aristotle penetrates speculatively into the nature of the

object, but in such a manner that it remains in its concrete
determination, and Aristotle seldom reduces it to abstract
categories. The study of Aristotle is consequently inexhaus
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76

Hegel on the Philosophy of Aristotle.

tible ; but the exposition thereof is very difficult for the rea
son mentioned, i. e. that it does not reduce its content to gen

eral principles. Hence in order to present the philosophy of

Aristotle, one must take up the special content of each work.
If the proper earnestness in Philosophy were felt, nothing
would be more worthy of''undertaking than a special course
of lectures on Aristotle, for he is of all the ancients the most
deserving of study.
Definition of the Aristotelian Idea.

c. The next point should be the definition of the Aristo

telian Idea; and here is to be made a general remark to the
effect that Aristotle begins with Philosophy as such, and first
discourses on the icorth of Ph ilosophy in the second chapter

of the first book of Metaphysics: uThe subject-matter of

Philosophjr is the most knowable [i. e. most capable of cer
tainty], to wit, principles and causes," i. e. the rational. "For
through these, and by these, all other things are known;
principles are, however, not to be known through substrates
(uzoxs'fisva)." In this we see hiin take his stand against the
ordinary mode of view. Aristotle, has, moreover, stated the
chief form of investigation, or the most essential form of

knowing {izeazijfxr} apyjxiozdzrj), to be the knowledge of final

causes : and that this is the good of each thing, or in general

the best in nature as a whole. This reminds- one of the

doctrine held by Plato and Socrates; yet Final Cause is

true and concrete, as opposed to the abstract Platonic Idea.

Aristotle says in the next place, speaking of the worth of
philosophy: "Man has come to philosophy through wonder";
for in it there is at least the intimation of a knowledge of a
higher. " Wherefore if men began to philosophize in order
to escape ignorance, it is clear that they pursued scientific
knowledge for the sake of knowing it, and not for any utility

it might possess. This is aisp shown by the entire external

course of events. For first after men have supplied their
necessary wants and those requisite for ease and comfort,
they have begun to seek philosophical knowledge. There

fore we seek it for no ulterior utility : and so as we say that

a free man is such as exists only for his own sake and not for
the sake of another, thus is Philosophy the free science among

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Hegel on the Philosophy of Aristotle.

77

sciences, for it alone exists for itself,?a knowing of knowing

[science of knowledge]. Wherefore this is also with justice
considered to be not a human acquisition"?i. e. man does not

possess philosophy so much as it possesses him. " For in

manifold ways the nature of man is dependent; so that, ac

cording to Simonides, God alone has this prerogative (jspaz),
and yet that it is unworthy of man not to seek that science
which, is adapted to his capacity (rrp xaO" abrbv inter/)fxyv). If,

however, the poet is right and envy belongs to the divine

nature, then all who desire higher things are unfortunate";
STemesis punishes that which elevates itself above the com

monplace, and equalizes all things agam. u But the divine

cannot possess envy," i. e. so as to refuse to reveal itself and

thereby prevent man from knowing it, "and as the prov
erb runs: the poets utter many falsehoods. JsTor ought we
to hold any other science to be more honorable ; for that

which is most divine is the most honorable." That which

possesses and imparts the most excellent is honored; the
gods are thus to be honored because they possess this sci
ence. "God is held to be the cause and principle of all; there
fore God possesses this science alone, or in the most eminent

degree." But precisely on this account it is not unworthy of

man to desire to attain this highest good of which he is capa

ble, this God-pertaining science. "Other sciences may be

more necessary than Philosophy, but none is more excel
lent."

The details of the Aristotelian Philosophy, the general idea

with its particular divisions,?to give these is difficult; for
Aristotle is far more difficult to understand than Plato. The
latter has myths, and one may omit the dialectical portion
and still say that he has read Plato; but Aristotle always

moves in the speculative. But he seems always to be

philosophizing only on {he individual, the special, and not

to arrive at what is absolute, universal, or God; he goes on
from particular to particular. His daily work is to consider
what is, and he goes at his task as a professor does to his
work laid out for the semester; and as he takes his readers
through the whole mass of the world of conceptions, he gives

the impression that he knew Truth only as existing in the

particular?only as a series of special truths. This has noth
5 *

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78

The Venus of Milo.

ing brilliant in it, since lie seems not to have elevated himself

to the Idea (as Plato speaks of the " splendor of ideas"), nor

to have reduced the individual to it. But if Aristotle has

omitted to treat the universal Idea in a logical manner (for

otherwise his so-called logic, which is something entirely dif

ferent, would be recognized as an exposition of the method

in which the one Idea appears in all), yet on the other hand

the one Absolute, the Idea of God, appears in Aristotle's

Philosophy, but as a particular somewhat, side by side with
the others, notwithstanding it represents all truth. It is just
as if one should say: " There are plants, animals, men, and
besides these God, the most excellent."
From the total series of ideas which Aristotle goes over, we

will now select specimens in detail from the special provin

ces. First, I will speak of his Metaphysics and its charac

teristics; secondly, of the special sciences which Aristotle
sketched, giving the fundamental idea of Nature as he de

fined it; thirdly, I will mention some things of spirit [Mind],

and of the soul and its conditions; after this [fourthly], the
logical treatises of Aristotle will form a conclusion to the

whole.

THE VENUS OF MILO.

Translated from the German of Herman Grimm, by Alice S. Millard.

Before me stands the mask of the Venus of Milo. After

years, I look upon it daily, sometimes indifferently, some
times with foreign thoughts, without knowing what I have
before me, and suddenly it is there again as if I saw it for the

first time, more beautiful than I ever beheld it. Whatever

adorns and exalts a woman in our eyes is united for me in
these lineaments. I think upon the reserved dignity of the
Juno and find it repeated here; I think of the rejected ten
derness of Psyche, and her tears appear to roll down these
cheeks; I think of the captivating smiles of Aphrodite, ? it
plays around these lips.

What a curve to these lips! The upper one protruding

gently in the middle, then receding on both sides, then again

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