the chief of the Peripatetic philosophers, born at Stagyra, a small city in Macedon, in the 95th Olympiad, about 384 years before the birth of Christ. He was the son of Nicomachus, physician to Amyntas the grandfather of Alexander the Great. He lost his parents in his infancy; and Proxenus, a friend of his father's, who had the care of his education, taking but little notice of him, he quitted his studies, and gave himself up to the follies of youth. After he had spent most of his patrimony, he entered into the army; but not succeeding in this profession, he went to Delphi to consult the oracle what course of life he should follow; when he was advised to go to Athens, and study philosophy. He accordingly went thither about 18 years of age, and studied under Plato till he was 37. By this time he had spent his whole fortune; and we are told that he got his living by selling powders, and some receipts in pharmacy. He followed his studies with most extraordinary diligence, so that he soon surpassed all in Plato's school. He eat little, and slept less; and, that he might not over-sleep himself, Diogenes Laertius tells us, that he lay always with one hand out of the bed, having a ball of braids in it, which, by its falling into a basin of the same metal, awakened him. We are told, that Aristotle had several conferences with a learned Jew at Athens, and that by this means he instructed himself in the sciences and religion of the Egyptians, and thereby fixed himself himself the trouble of travelling into Egypt. When he had studied about 15 years under Plato, he began to form different tenets from those of his master, who became highly piqued at his behaviour. Upon the death of Plato, he quitted Athens; and retired to Atarneus, a little city of Mytilene, where his old friend Hermias reigned. Here he married Pythias, the sister of this prince, whom he is said to have loved so passionately, that he offered sacrifice to her. Some time after, Hermias having been taken prisoner by Memnon, the king of Persia's general, Aristotle went to Mitylene the capital of Lesbos, where he remained till Philip king of Macedon, having heard of his great reputation, sent for him to be tutor to his son Alexander, then about 14 years of age: Aristotle accepted the offer; and in eight years taught him rhetoric, natural philosophy, ethics, politics, and a certain sort of philosophy, according to Plutarch, which he taught nobody else. Philip erected statues in honour of Aristotle; and for his sake rebuilt Stagira, which had been almost ruined by the wars.

Aristotle having lost the favour of Alexander by adhering to Callisthenes his kinsman, who was accused of a conspiracy against Alexander's life, he removed to Athens, where he set up his new school. The magistrates received him very kindly; and gave him the Lyceum, so famous afterwards for the concourse of his disciples: here he taught, according to the custom long established, a public and a secret doctrine; and as he gave his lectures walking along among his auditors, his feet assumed the name of Peripatetic. Here also it was, according to some authors, that he composed his principal works. Plutarch, however, tells us, that he had already wrote his books of physic, morals, metaphysics, and rhetoric. The same author says, that Aristotle being piqued at Alexander, because of the presents he had sent to Xenocrates, was moved with so much resentment, that he entered into Antipator's conspiracy against this prince. The advocates for Aristotle, however, maintain this charge to have been without foundation; that at least it made no impression on Alexander, since about the same time he ordered him to apply himself to the study of animals; and sent him, in order to defray his expenses, eight hundred talents, which amounts to four hundred and eighty thousand crowns, besides a great number of fishers and huntmen to bring him all sorts of animals.—When Aristotle was accused of impiety by one Eurymedon, a priest of Ceres, he wrote a large apology for himself, addressed to the magistrates: but knowing the Athenians to be extremely jealous in regard to their religion, and remembering the fate of Socrates, he was so much alarmed, that he retired to Chalcis, a city of Euboea, where he ended his days. Some say he poisoned himself, to avoid falling into the hands of his enemies; others affirm, that he threw himself into the Euripus, because he could not comprehend the reason of its ebbing and flowing; and there are some who tell us he died of a colic, in the 63rd year of his age, being the third of the 114th Olympiad, two years after Alexander. The Stagyrites carried away his body, and erected altars to his memory.

Besides his treatises on philosophy, he wrote also on poetry, rhetoric, law, &c. to the number of 400 treatises, according to Diogenes Laertius; or more, according to Francis Patricius of Venice. An account of such as are extant, and of those said to be lost, may be seen in Fabricius's Bibliotheca Graeca. He left his writings with Theophrastus, his beloved disciple and successor in the Lyceum; and forbade that they should ever be published. Theophrastus, at his death, trusted them to Neleus, his good friend and disciple; whose heirs buried them in the ground at Scoplis, a town of Troas, to secure them from the king of Pergamus, who made great search everywhere for books to adorn his library. Here they lay concealed 160 years, until, being almost spoiled, they were sold to one Apollicon, a rich citizen of Athens. Sylla found them at this man's house, and ordered them to be carried to Rome. They were some time after purchased by Tyrannion a grammarian: and Andronicus of Rhodes having bought them of his heirs, was in a manner the first restorer of the works of this great philosopher; for he not only repaired what had been decayed by time and ill-keeping, but also put them in a better order, and got them copied. There were many who followed the doctrine of Aristotle in the reigns of the twelve Caesars, and their numbers increased much under Adrian and Antoninus: Alexander Aphrodisius was the first professor of the Peripatetic philosophy at Rome, being appointed by the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus; and in succeeding ages the doctrine of Aristotle prevailed among almost all men of letters, and many commentaries were written upon his works.

The first doctors of the church disapproved of the doctrine of Aristotle, as allowing too much to reason and sense; but Anatolius bishop of Laodicea, Didymus of Alexandria, St Jerome, St Augustin, and several others, at length wrote and spoke in favour of it. In the fifth age, Boethius made him known in the west, and translated some of his pieces into Latin. But from the time of Boethius to the eighth age, Joannes Damascenus was the only man who made an abridgment of his philosophy, or wrote any thing concerning him. The Grecians, who took great pains to restore learning in the 11th and following ages, applied much to the works of this philosopher, and many learned men wrote commentaries on his writings: amongst these were Alfarabius, Algazel, Avicenna, and Averroes. They taught his doctrine in Africa, and afterwards at Cordova in Spain. The Spaniards introduced his doctrine into France, with the commentaries of Averroes and Avicenna; and it was taught in the university of Paris, until Amauri, having supported some particular tenets on the principles of this philosopher, was condemned of heresy, in a council held there in 1210, when all the works of Aristotle that could be found were burnt, and the reading of them forbidden under pain of excommunication. This prohibition was confirmed, as to the physics and metaphysics, in 1215, by the Pope's legate; though at the same time he gave leave for his logic to be read, instead of St Augustin's used at that time in the university. In the year 1265, Simon, cardinal of St Cecil, and legate from the holy see, prohibited the reading of the physics and metaphysics of Aristotle. All these prohibitions, however, were taken off in 1366; for the cardinals of St Mark and St Martin, who were deputed by Pope Urban V. to reform the university of Paris, permitted the reading of those books, which had been prohibited: and in the year year 1448, Pope Stephen approved of all his works, and took care to have a new translation of them into Latin.

Pailing from hand to hand, in the manner above-mentioned, the works of Aristotle have greatly suffered from the ignorance or the inaccuracy of transcribers. This has given birth to much obscurity, and to omissions that are now irreparable: it is this which has rendered the sense of Aristotle so doubtful, and opened such a wide field for the combats of scholastic philosophy. Besides, our philosopher was not himself very much inclined to be perfectly plain and familiar. His style was difficult and concise. He has employed a mathematical manner of communication; often uses terms which have no determinate meaning; and, with many of his doctrines, he mixes ancient opinions as taken for granted, which are altogether false or uncertain. In a word, the Peripatetic philosophy is very obscure in itself, and commentators have rather contributed to increase the obscurity.