t was to find a pretext for so doing is shown by the fact
that they had to fix upon the poem which he had written on the death of
his friend Hermias many years before, and base upon it--as having the
form of the paean, sacred to Apollo--a charge of impiety. Aristotle,
recognizing the utter flimsiness of the charge, and being unwilling, as
he said, to allow the Athenians to sin a second time against philosophy,
retired beyond their reach to his villa at Chalcis in Euboea, where he
died of stomach disease the year after (322). In the later years of his
life, the friendship between him and his illustrious pupil had, owing to
certain outward circumstances, become somewhat cooled; but there never
was any serious breach. His body was carried to Stagira, which he had
induced Philip to restore after it had been destroyed, and whose
inhabitants therefore looked upon him as the founder of the city. As
such he received the religious honors accorded to heroes: an altar was
erected to him, at which an annual festival was celebrated in the month
named after him.

We may sum up the character of Aristotle by saying that he was one of
the sanest and most rounded men that ever lived. As a philosopher, he
stands in the front rank. "No time," says Hegel, "has a man to place by
his side." Nor was his moral character inferior to his intellect. No one
can read his 'Ethics,' or his will (the text of which is extant),
without feeling the nobleness, simplicity, purity, and modernness of
his nature. In his family relations, especially, he seems to have stood
far above his contemporaries. The depth of his aesthetic perception is
attested by his poems and his 'Poetics.'

The unsatisfactory and fragmentary condition in which Aristotle's works
have come down to us makes it difficult to judge of his style. Many of
them seem mere collections of notes and jottings for lectures, without
any attempt at style. The rest are distinguished by brevity, terseness,
and scientific precision. No other man ever enriched philosophic
language with so many original expressions. We know, from the testimony
of most competent judges, such as Cicero, that his popular writings,
dialogues, etc., were written in an elegant style, casting even that of
Plato into the shade; and this is borne fully out by some extant
fragments.

Greek philosophy culminates in Aristotle. Setting out with a naive
acceptance of the world as being what it seemed, and trying to reduce
this Being