But success in life is sure to produce envy and hostility, and Aristoteles was no exception to this rule. A charge was made against him of impiety, and that he had made a god of his friend Hermeias. Such charges were not uncommon in those days. Socrates, one of the greatest and purest of men, had been accused of impiety a few years before, and that teacher of the immortality of the soul, and the master and friend of Plato, had been condemned and poisoned. The charges were absurd enough, but the judges were ignorant, and sunk in paganism, and almost invariably took the side of the accuser. Indeed, all through the history of the progress of the rise of civilization there were men who teaching a false religion, accused the bright lights of genius, science, and wit, of irreligion. The false priest and the fighting class, with rare exceptions, have always persecuted the leaders in science, and have antagonized progress, except in their own interests. When the charge was made against Aristoteles, Alexander the Great was dead, and the great teacher, knowing full well what would be the result of the trial, quitted Athens and took refuge in Chalcis, in Eubœa, saying that he wished to prevent the Athenians _twice running against philosophy_, alluding to the judicial murder of Socrates. But Aristoteles’ work was nearly ended, and the slightly made, delicate, and sensitive man sank during the first year of his exile, in the sixty-third year of his age. A great writer on moral philosophy, the man whose career has just been noticed will always remain a master in natural history subjects also. He was really a greater student of animal life than of plants; but it appears that his method of study of botany, and much of his knowledge, have descended to us, in consequence of his careful teaching, through his pupil Theophrastus. A great writer remarks that “everywhere Aristoteles observes _the facts_ with attention; he compares them with sagacity, and endeavours to rise to the qualities they have in common.” He found the study of plants in its very infancy and loaded with child-like and wonderful stories, and he rejected the nonsense and studied what was to be observed by any one in nature. In fact, he took the first step which a well-educated boy of the present century does in trying to learn nature unaided. He observed as correctly as possible, took notes of his observations, compared the observations made on one plant with those recorded about another, and tried to explain or discover the things which were common to both. It must not be imagined that the botanical work of Aristoteles exists as part of the systems of botany of the present day; but he clearly gave the method of how to study, by insisting on the superior value of observed facts, over notions and preconceived ideas about things. The childhood of the science passed with him.