a sect of Philosophers, other- wise called Peripatetics.

The Aristotelians and their dogmata prevailed for a long while in the schools and universities; even in spite of all the efforts of the Cartesians, Newtonians, and other corpucularians. But the systems of the latter have at length gained the pre-eminence; and the New- tonian philosophy in particular is now very generally received. The principles of Aristotle's philosophy, the learned agree, are chiefly laid down in the four books de Caelo; the eight books of Physical Auscultation, φυσικὴ ἀκουστική, belonging rather to logics, or meta- physics, than to physics. Instead of the more ancient systems, he introduced matter, form, and privation, as the principles of all things; but he does not seem to have derived much benefit from them in natural phi- losophy. His doctrines are, for the most part, so ob- scurely expressed, that it has not yet been satisfactorily ascertained what were his sentiments on some of the most important subjects. He attempted to refute the Pythagorean doctrine concerning the twofold motion of the earth; and pretended to demonstrate, that the matter of the heavens is ungenerated, incorruptible, and subject to no alteration: and he supposed that the stars were carried round the earth in solid orbs. The reader will find a distinct account of the logical part of his philosophy, by Dr Reid professor of moral phi- losophy in the university of Glasgow, in the second volume of Lord Kames's Sketches of the History of Man; and Mr Harris has published a sensible com- mentary on his Categories, under the title of Philoso- phical Arrangements.