but to render a much greater service, which no critic could render without having access to original MSS., namely, to obtain a correct text of the books actually before him, to arrange these books in proper order, and then to publish and explain them,[31] but to take no account of other Aristotelian works in the Alexandrine library or elsewhere. The Aristotelian philosophy thus passed into a new phase. Our editions of Aristotle may be considered as taking their date from this critical effort of Andronikus, with or without subsequent modifications by others, as the case may be. [Footnote 29: Strabo, xvi. 757. Stahr, in his minor work, Aristoteles unter den Römern, p. 32, considers that this circumstance lessens the credibility of Strabo. I think the contrary. No one was so likely to have studied the previous history of the MSS. as the editors of a new edition.] [Footnote 30: Strabo, xiii. 609: [Greek: sune/bê de\ toi=s e)k tô=n peripa/tôn toi=s me\n pa/lai toi=s meta\ Theo/phraston, o(/lôs ou)k e)/chousi ta\ bi/blia plê\n o)li/gôn kai\ ma/lista tô=n e)xôterikô=n, mêde\n e)/chein philosophei=n pragmatikô=s, a)lla\ the/seis lêkuthi/zein; toi=s d' u(/steron, a)ph' ou)= ta\ bi/blia tau=ta proê=lthen, a)/meinon me\n e)kei/nôn philosophei=n kai\ a)ristoteli/zein, a)nagka/zesthai me/ntoi ta\ polla\ ei)ko/ta le/gein dia\ to\ plê=thos tô=n a(martiô=n.] Also Plutarch, Sylla, c. xxvi. The passage of Strabo is so perspicuous and detailed, that it has all the air of having been derived from the best critics who frequented the library at Rome, where Strabo was when he wrote ([Greek: kai\ _e)/nthade_ kai\ e)n A)lexandrei/a|], xiii. 609). The Peripatetic Andronikus, whom he names among the celebrated Rhodians (xiv. 655), may have been among his informants. His statements about the bad state of the manuscripts; the unskilful emendations of Apellikon; the contrast between the vein of Peripatetic study, as it had stood before the revelation of the manuscripts, and as it came to stand afterwards; the uncertain evidences upon which careful students, even with the manuscripts before them, were compelled to proceed; the tone of depreciation in which he speaks of the carelessness of booksellers who sought only for profit,--all these points of information appear to me to indicate that Strabo's informants were acute and diligent critics, familiar with the library, and anxious both for the real understanding of these documents, and for philosophy as an end.]