In Physics, Aristotle scarcely deserves the name of a Philosopher.—As to his metaphysical opinions, in the common acceptation of the term,—it is impossible to ascertain, with certainty, what they really were. It was not until eighteen centuries after his death, that his philosophy—such as it was then promulgated, anew—began to be generally known and studied. After the sacking of Constantinople by the Turks, in the year 1453, some fugitive Greeks, who had escaped the fury of the Ottoman arms, brought from that city into the west of Europe many of the writings of the Stagyritish philosopher: But, although some of his treatises were previously known, they were such as had passed through the hands of the Arabs, in translations into their tongue; done by men who, it may be fairly presumed, very imperfectly understood the author’s language; consequently not capable, even if they were disposed, to do justice to the sense of the original. Subsequent translations of those writings, from the Arabic, probably occasioned, in the same way, further departures from the meaning of the original Greek. Thus varying, as may be supposed, from the opinions taught by Aristotle himself,—the philosophy of the schoolmen, engrafted upon his systems, was neither entirely that of the Stagyrite, nor altogether different. His writings, nevertheless, gave birth to what is termed the Scholastic Philosophy,—“that motley offspring of error and ingenuity,” as it is called by Mr. Mallet.[5d] “To trace at length,” says this writer, “the rise, progress, and variations of _this philosophy_, would be an undertaking not only curious, but instructive; as it would unfold to us all the mazes in which the force, the subtlety, the extravagance of human wit, can lose themselves: till not only profane learning, but Divinity itself, was at last, by the refined frenzy of those who taught both, subtilized into mere notion and air.”[5e] Footnote 5a: Aristot. de Rep.—lib, 3. cap. 6. Footnote 5b: Id. Rhet.—lib. 1. cap. 8. Footnote 5c: Id. de Rep.—lib. 3. cap. 7. Footnote 5d: In his _Life of Lord Chancellor Bacon_. Footnote 5e: Ibid. Footnote 6: Baron Bielfeld (in his _Elements of Universal Erudition_) observes, that the fondness for Aristotle’s reveries began about the twelfth century. It was then, that the _scholastic_ philosophy was formed. This was partly borrowed from the writings of the Arabs, who were always attached to the theories of Aristotle: they were initiated into a subtile, ambiguous, abstract and capricious mode of reasoning; by which they never hit the truth, but constantly went on the one side, or beyond the truth. Toward the end of the fourteenth century, continues the learned Baron, this absurd system arrived to a great height. It became a mere jargon, a confused heap of unintelligible ideas.