sagacity, and endeavors to rise to the qualities which they have in common.” Among the sciences which he found partly cultivated, but which he greatly advanced, the most prominent are those of rhetoric, ethics, and politics. Of rhetoric he defined the province, and analyzed all the parts with admirable skill and sagacity. His treatise on the passions, in this short but comprehensive work, has never been surpassed, if it has ever been equalled, by writers on what may be termed descriptive moral philosophy. His ethical writings contain an excellent practical code of morality, chiefly founded on the maxim that virtues are in the middle, between two opposite vices; as courage between cowardice and fool-hardiness, liberality between niggardliness and prodigality, &c. His remarks on friendship are also deserving of special notice; a subject much discussed by the ancients, but which has less occupied the attention of philosophers, since love has played a more prominent part, in consequence of the influence of the Germans, and the introduction of the manners of chivalry in western Europe. His treatise on politics is not, like Plato’s Republic, and the works of many later speculators on government, a mere inquiry after a perfect state, but contains an account of the nature of government, of the various forms of which it is susceptible, and the institutions best adapted to the societies in which these forms are established; with an essay, though unhappily an imperfect one, on education. This treatise is valuable, not only for its theoretical results, but also for the large amount of information which it contains, on the governments of Greece and other neighboring countries. Throughout these last-mentioned works, the knowledge of the world and of human nature displayed by Aristotle, is very observable; and, although his mind appears to have preferred the investigations of physical and metaphysical science, yet he holds a very high place in the highest rank of moral and political philosophers. Aristotle, it will be remembered, did not lead the life of a recluse; but, as the friend of Hermeias, the teacher of Alexander, and the head of a philosophical school, he was brought into contact with a great variety of persons, and learned by practice to know life under many different forms, and in many different relations.