through the spheral
intelligences to the supreme, divine intelligence, on which the Whole
depends. Man stands on the dividing line between the temporal and the
eternal; belonging with his animal part to the former, with his
intelligence (which "enters from without") to the latter. He is an
intelligence, of the same nature as the sphere-movers, but individuated
by mutable matter in the form of a body, matter being in all cases the
principle of individuation. As intelligence, he becomes free; takes the
guidance of his life into his own hand; and, first through ethics,
politics, and aesthetics, the forms of his sensible or practical
activity, and second through logic, science, and philosophy, the forms
of his intellectual activity, he rises to divine heights and "plays the
immortal." His supreme activity is contemplation. This, the eternal
energy of God, is possible for man only at rare intervals.

Aristotle, by placing his eternal forms in sensible things as their
meaning, made science possible and necessary. Not only is he the father
of scientific method, inductive and deductive, but his actual
contributions to science place him in the front rank of scientists. His
Zooelogy, Psychology, Logic, Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics, and
Aesthetics, are still highly esteemed and extensively studied. At the
same time, by failing to overcome the dualism and supernaturalism of
Plato, by adopting the popular notions about spheres and sphere-movers,
by separating intelligence from sense, by conceiving matter as
independent and the principle of individuation, and by making science
relate only to the universal, he paved the way for astrology, alchemy,
magic, and all the forms of superstition, retarding the advance of
several sciences, as for example astronomy and chemistry, for many
hundred years.

After Aristotle's death, his school was continued by a succession of
studious and learned men, but did not for many centuries deeply affect
contemporary life. At last, in the fifth century A.D., his thought found
its way into the Christian schools, giving birth to rationalism and
historical criticism. At various times its adherents were condemned as
heretics and banished, mostly to Syria. Here, at Edessa and Nisibis,
they established schools of learning which for several centuries were
the most famous in the world. The entire works of Aristotle were turned
into Syriac; among them several spurious ones of Neo-Platonic origin,
notably the famo