ife, Writings, and general character of his Work.

Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. at Stagirus, a Grecian colony and
seaport on the coast of Thrace. His father Nichomachus was court
physician to King Amyntas of Macedonia, and from this began
Aristotle's long association with the Macedonian Court, which
considerably influenced his life and destinies. While he was still a
boy his father died, and he was sent by his guardian, Proxenus, to
Athens, the intellectual centre of the world, to complete his
education. He was then aged seventeen. He joined the Academy and
studied under Plato, attending the latter's lectures for a period of
twenty years. In subsequent times, Aristotle's detractors, anxious to
vilify his character, accused him of "ingratitude" to his master,
Plato. It was said that Plato's old age had been embittered by
dissensions in the school caused by the factious spirit of Aristotle.
That there is no ground for attaching any blame to Aristotle for the
troubles of Plato, which either did not exist or have been grossly
exaggerated, is evident both from the facts within our knowledge and
from the reference to Plato in Aristotle's works. It is not likely
that, had Aristotle rendered himself genuinely objectionable, he could
have remained for twenty years in {250} the Academy, and only left it
upon the death of Plato. Moreover, although Aristotle in his works
attacks the teaching of Plato with unsparing vigour, there is nowhere
to be found in these attacks any suggestion of acrimony or personal
rancour. On the contrary, he refers to himself as the friend of Plato,
but a greater friend of the truth. The fact, in all probability, is
that a man of such independent and original mind as Aristotle did not
accord to Plato the kind of blind adoration and hero-worship which he
may have received from the inferior intellects in the school. As is so
often the case with young men of marked ability, the brilliant student
may have suffered from the impatience and self-assertion of youth.
There was certainly nothing worse.

While at the Academy Aristotle exhibited an unflagging spirit and
unwearied zeal in the pursuit of knowledge in all its forms, a spirit
which gave rise to nick-names and anecdotes, which probably contained
as much truth, or as little, as most of the anecdotes which gather
round remarkable characters. One of these stories was that he used a
mechanical contrivance to wake him up whenever sleep threatened to put
an