they singled out the manuscripts of Aristotle to be published. I will
not say that they decided wrongly; yet neither can I contend (as I
argued in the case of the Platonic dialogues) that the presumption is
very powerful in favour of that Canon which their decision made
legal. The case is much more open to argument, if any grounds against
the decision can be urged.
Andronikus put in, arranged, and published the treatises of Aristotle
(or those which he regarded as composed by Aristotle) included in the
library conveyed by Sylla to Rome. I have already observed, that
among these treatises there were some, of which copies existed in the
Alexandrine library (as represented by the Catalogue of Diogenes),
but a still greater number which cannot be identified with the titles
remaining of works there preserved. As to the works common to both
libraries, we must remember that Andronikus introduced a
classification of his own, analogous to the Enneads applied by
Porphyry to the works of Plotinus, and to the Tetralogies adopted by
Thrasyllus in regard to the Dialogues of Plato; so that even these
works might not be distributed in the same partitions under each of
the two arrangements. And this is what we actually see when we
compare the Catalogue of Diogenes with _our_ Aristotle. Rhetoric,
Ethics, Physics, Problems, &c., appear in both as titles or subjects,
but distributed into a different number of books or sections in one
and in the other; perhaps, indeed, the compositions are not always
the same.
Before I proceed to deal with the preserved works of Aristotle--those
by which alone he is known to us, and was known to mediæval readers,
I shall say a few words respecting the import of a distinction which
has been much canvassed, conveyed in the word _exoteric_ and its
opposite. This term, used on various occasions by Aristotle himself,
has been also employed by many ancient critics, from Cicero
downwards; while by mediæval and modern critics, it has not merely
been employed, but also analysed and elucidated. According to Cicero
(the earliest writer subsequent to Aristotle in whom we find the
term), it designates one among two classes of works composed by
Aristotle: _exoteric_ works were those composed in a popular style
and intended for a large, indiscriminate circle of readers: being
contrasted with other works of elaborated philosophical reasoning,
which were not prepared for the public taste, but left in the
condition of memorials for the instruction of a more select class of
studious men. Two points are to be observed respecting Cicero's
declaration. First, he applies it to the writings not of Aristotle
exclusively, but also to those of Theophrastus, and even of
succeeding Peripatetics; secondly, he applies it directly to such of
their writings only as related to the discussion of the _Summum
Bonum_.[36] Furthermore, Cicero describes the works which Aristotle
called exoteric, as having _proems_ or introductory prefaces.[37]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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