greatest terminologists that ever lived. He adapted or
invented an enormous number of terms. He may be not unjustly regarded
as the founder of philosophical language, as the inventor of a
vocabulary of technical terms. Many of the terms used to this day to
express man's most abstract thoughts, were invented or introduced by
Aristotle. It must not be supposed that Aristotle wrote in a rigidly
scientific style because he had no aesthetic sense. The very contrary
is the case. His treatise on art shows him by far the best critic of
the ancient world, and in his appreciation and estimation of the
beautiful he far excels Plato. But he saw that art and science have
each their own sphere, and that it is fatal to confuse the two.
Nothing is so damaging to art as to be made the mere vehicle of
reasoning. Nothing is so damaging to philosophy as to allow itself to
be governed by poetry. If we want beauty, we must follow the path of
art. But if we desire truth, we must stick close to reason.

Aristotle's system falls most easily into the fivefold division of
logic, metaphysics, physics, ethics, and aesthetics.

{260}

2. Logic.

Not much need be said under this head, because whoever knows the
common logic of the text-books knows the logic of Aristotle. Of the
two branches of reasoning, deductive and inductive, Aristotle clearly
recognizes the latter. And many of his observations upon induction are
acute and penetrating. But he has not reduced induction to a science.
He has not laid bare the fundamental canons of inductive thought. This
was a work not performed until comparatively modern times. His name
therefore is more especially associated with deductive logic, of which
he was the founder. He not only founded the science, but practically
completed it. What we now know as "formal logic," what is to this day
contained in all text-books, taught in all schools and universities,
is, in all its essentials, nothing more than the logic of Aristotle.
His writings upon the subject include the treatment of the well-known
laws of thought, the doctrine of the ten categories, the five
predicables, the doctrines of terms, of propositions, of syllogisms,
and of the reduction of the other figures to the first figure of the
syllogism. And these heads might well form the list of contents of a
modern work on formal logic. In only two respects has any advance been
made upon Aristotle by subsequent logicians. The fourth figure of the
syllogism is