It will be seen from the foregoing observations how much more difficult it is to settle a genuine Canon for Aristotle than for Plato. I do not assent to either of the two conclusions just indicated; but I contend that, if we applied to this question the same principles of judgment as those which modern Platonic critics often apply, when they allow or disallow dialogues of Plato, we should be obliged to embrace one or other of them, or at least something nearly approaching thereto. If a critic, after attentively studying the principal compositions now extant of _our_ Aristotle, thinks himself entitled, on the faith of his acquired "_Aristotelisches Gefühl_," to declare that no works differing materially from them (either in subject handled, or in manner of handling, or in degree of excellence), can have been composed by Aristotle--he will assuredly be forced to include in such rejection a large proportion of those indicated in the Catalogue of Diogenes. Especially he will be forced to reject the Dialogues--the very compositions by which Aristotle was best known to Cicero and his contemporaries. For the difference between them and the known compositions of Aristotle, not merely in form but in style (the style being known from the epithets applied to them by Cicero), must have been more marked and decisive than that between the Alkibiades, Hippias, Theages, Erastæ, Leges, &c.--which most Platonic critics now set aside as spurious--and the Republic, Protagoras, Gorgias, Philêbus, &c., which they treat as indisputably genuine.[16] [Footnote 16: Thus (for example) in Bernays, who has displayed great acuteness and learning in investigating the Aristotelian Canon, and in collecting what can be known respecting the lost dialogues of Aristotle, we read the following observations:--"In der That mangelt es auch nicht an den bestimmtesten Nachrichten über die vormalige Existenz einer grossen aristotelischen Schriftenreihe, die von der jetzt erhaltenen _durch die tiefste formale Verschiedenheit_ getrennt war. Das Verzeichniss aristotelischer Werke führt an seiner Spitze sieben und zwanzig Bände jetzt verlorener Schriften auf, die alle in der künstlerischen Gesprächsform abgefasst waren," &c. (Bernays, Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, p. 2; compare ibid. p. 30). If, as Bernays justly contends, we are to admit these various writings, notwithstanding "the profound difference of form," as having emanated from the same philosopher Aristotle, how are we to trust the Platonic critics when they reject about one-third of the preserved dialogues of Plato, though there is no difference of form to proceed upon, but only a difference of style, merit, and, to a certain extent, doctrine? Zeller (Die Phil. der Griechen, ii. 2, pp. 45, 46, 2nd ed.) remarks that the dialogues composed by Aristotle are probably to be ascribed to the earlier part of his literary life, when he was still (or had recently been) Plato's scholar.]