Vitae philosophorum

Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes Laertius. Hicks, R. D., editor. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1925.

and shall dedicate my mother’s statue to Demeter at Nemea or wherever they think best. And wherever they bury me, there the bones of Pythias shall be laid, in accordance with her own instructions. And to commemorate Nicanor’s safe return, as I vowed on his behalf, they shall set up in Stagira stone statues of life size to Zeus and Athena the Saviours.[*](The last clause was curiously misunderstood by three eminent authorities on Aristotle, namely Grant, Grote and Zeller, who took ζῷα τετραπήχη to mean four animal figures, instead of figures four cubits high; see Journ. of Phil. vol. xxxii. 303. The article Verify your quotations, although modestly followed by two asterisks, was written, I believe, by the late Ingram Bywater, then one of the editors of the journal. This concession by Aristotle to the popular faith (for the statues from their size seem those of deities) some critics regard with suspicion, because they see in it a resemblance to the last words of Socrates (Plato, Phaedo, 118). Accordingly they are disposed to doubt the genuineness of the will. But see C. G. Bruns, Kl. Schrift. ii. 192 sqq.; H. Diels, Philos. Aufsätze, 231 sqq.; B. Laum, Stiftungen in der griech. u. röm. Antike.)

Such is the tenor of Aristotle’s will. It is said that a very large number of dishes belonging to him were found, and that Lyco mentioned his bathing in a bath of warm oil and then selling the oil. Some relate that he placed a skin of warm oil on his stomach, and that, when he went to sleep, a bronze ball was placed in his hand with a vessel under it, in order that, when the ball dropped from his hand into the vessel, he might be waked up by the sound.[*](Next come (a) the sayings of Aristotle (§§ 17-21); (b) the catalogue of his writings (§§ 21-27); (c) his tenets (§§ 28-34).)

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Some exceedingly happy sayings are attributed to him, which I proceed to quote. To the question, What do people gain by telling lies? his answer was, Just this, that when they speak the truth they are not believed. Being once reproached for giving alms to a bad man, he rejoined, It was the man and not his character that I pitied. [*](Cf. infra,§ 21.) He used constantly to say to his friends and pupils, whenever or wherever he happened to be lecturing, As sight takes in light from the surrounding air, so does the soul from mathematics. Frequently and at some length he would say that the Athenians were the discoverers of wheat and of laws; but, though they used wheat, they had no use for laws.

The roots of education, he said, are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. Being asked, What is it that soon grows old? he answered, Gratitude. He was asked to define hope, and he replied, It is a waking dream. When Diogenes offered him dried figs, he saw that he had prepared something caustic to say if he did not take them; so he took them and said Diogenes had lost his figs and his jest into the bargain. And on another occasion he took them when they were offered, lifted them up aloft, as you do babies, and returned them with the exclamation, Great is Diogenes. Three things he declared to be indispensable for education: natural endowment, study, and constant practice. On hearing that some one abused him, he rejoined, He may even scourge me so it be in my absence. Beauty he declared to be a greater recommendation than any letter of introduction.

Others attribute this definition to Diogenes; Aristotle, they say, defined good looks as the gift of god, Socrates as a short-lived reign,

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Plato as natural superiority, Theophrastus as a mute deception, Theocritus as an evil in an ivory setting, Carneades as a monarchy that needs no bodyguard. Being asked how the educated differ from the uneducated, As much, he said, as the living from the dead.[*](Cf. supra, i. § 69, ii. § 69.) He used to declare education to be an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity. Teachers who educated children deserved, he said, more honour than parents who merely gave them birth; for bare life is furnished by the one, the other ensures a good life. To one who boasted that he belonged to a great city his reply was, That is not the point to consider, but who it is that is worthy of a great country.

To the query, What is a friend? his reply was, A single soul dwelling in two bodies. Mankind, he used to say, were divided into those who were as thrifty as if they would live for ever, and those who were as extravagant as if they were going to die the next day. When some one inquired why we spend much time with the beautiful, That, he said, is a blind man’s question. When asked what advantage he had ever gained from philosophy, he replied, This, that I do without being ordered what some are constrained to do by their fear of the law.[*](Cicero ascribed a similar reply to Xenocrates: ut id sua sponte facerent, quod cogerentur facere legibus (Cic. De rep. i. § 3).) The question being put, how can students make progress, he replied, By pressing hard on those in front and not waiting for those behind. To the chatterbox who poured out a flood of talk upon him and then inquired, Have I bored you to death with my chatter? he replied, No, indeed; for I was not attending to you.

When some one accused him of having given a subscription to a dishonest man—for the story is also

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told in this form [*](Cf. supra, § 17.)—It was not the man, said he, that I assisted, but humanity. To the question how we should behave to friends, he answered, As we should wish them to behave to us. Justice he defined as a virtue of soul which distributes according to merit. Education he declared to be the best provision for old age. Favorinus in the second book of his Memorabilia mentions as one of his habitual sayings that He who has friends can have no true friend. Further, this is found in the seventh book of the Ethics.[*](E.E. vii. 12, 1245 b 20; N.E. ix. 10. 6, 1171 a 15-17.) These then are the sayings attributed to him.

His writings are very numerous and, considering the man’s all-round excellence, I deemed it incumbent on me to catalogue them[*](This is one of three catalogues which we have of the Aristotelian writings. Hesychius furnishes one, appended to his Life of Aristotle; see V. Rose’s edition of the Fragments, p. 9 seq. Another by Ptolemy the philosopher, of which the Greek original has perished, is preserved in Arabic; see V. Rose, Frag. p. 18 seq.):

  • Of Justice, four books.
  • On Poets, three books.
  • On Philosophy, three books.
  • Of the Statesman, two books.
  • On Rhetoric, or Grylus, one book.
  • Nerinthus, one book.
  • The Sophist, one book.
  • Menexenus, one book.
  • Concerning Love, one book.
  • Symposium, one book.
  • Of Wealth, one book.
  • Exhortation to Philosophy, one book.
  • Of the Soul, one book.
  • Of Prayer, one book.
  • On Noble Birth, one book.
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  • On Pleasure, one book.
  • Alexander, or a Plea for Colonies, one book.
  • On Kingship, one book.
  • On Education, one book.
  • Of the Good, three books.
  • Extracts from Plato’s Laws, three books.
  • Extracts from the Republic, two books.
  • Of Household Management, one book.
  • Of Friendship, one book.
  • On being or having been affected, one book.
  • Of Sciences, one book.
  • On Controversial Questions, two books.
  • Solutions of Controversial Questions, four books.
  • Sophistical Divisions, four books.
  • On Contraries, one book.
  • On Genera and Species, one book.
  • On Essential Attributes, one book.

  • Three note - books on Arguments for Purposes of Refutation.
  • Propositions concerning Virtue, two books.
  • Objections, one book.
  • On the Various Meanings of Terms or Expressions where a Determinant is added, one book.
  • Of Passions or of Anger, one book.
  • Five books of Ethics.
  • On Elements, three books.
  • Of Science, one book.
  • Of Logical Principle, one book.
  • Logical Divisions, seventeen books.
  • Concerning Division, one book.
  • On Dialectical Questioning and Answering, two books.
  • Of Motion, one book.
  • Propositions, one book.
  • Controversial Propositions, one book.
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  • Syllogisms, one book.
  • Eight books of Prior Analytics.
  • Two books of Greater Posterior Analytics.
  • Of Problems, one book.
  • Eight books of Methodics.
  • Of the Greater Good, one book.
  • On the Idea, one book.
  • Definitions prefixed to the Topics, seven books.
  • Two books of Syllogisms.

  • Concerning Syllogism with Definitions, one book.
  • Of the Desirable and the Contingent, one book.
  • Preface to Commonplaces, one book.
  • Two books of Topics criticizing the Definitions.
  • Affections or Qualities, one book.
  • Concerning Logical Division, one book.
  • Concerning Mathematics, one book.
  • Definitions, thirteen books.
  • Two books of Refutations.
  • Of Pleasure, one book.
  • Propositions, one book.
  • On the Voluntary, one book.
  • On the Beautiful, one book.
  • Theses for Refutation, twenty-five books.
  • Theses concerning Love, four books.
  • Theses concerning Friendship, two books.
  • Theses concerning the Soul, one book.
  • Politics, two books.
  • Eight books of a course of lectures on Politics like that of Theophrastus.
  • Of Just Actions, two books.
  • A Collection of Arts [that is, Handbooks], two books.
  • Two books of the Art of Rhetoric.
  • Art, a Handbook, one book.
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  • Another Collection of Handbooks, two books.
  • Concerning Method, one book.
  • Compendium of the Art of Theodectes, one book.
  • A Treatise on the Art of Poetry, two books.
  • Rhetorical Enthymemes, one book.
  • Of Degree,[*](Περὶ μεγέθους, between two books on Enthymemes, must be on Degree, the topic of μᾶλλον καὶ ἧττον(§ 60). Degree is Cope’s term (see his Introduction to Aristotle’s Rhetoric, p. 129, where he cites Aristotle’s own distinctions in Rhetoric, ii. cc. 18, 19).) one book.
  • Divisions of Enthymemes, one book.
  • On Diction, two books.
  • Of Taking Counsel, one book.

  • A Collection or Compendium, two books.
  • On Nature, three books.
  • Concerning Nature, one book.
  • On the Philosophy of Archytas, three books.
  • On the Philosophy of Speusippus and Xenocrates, one book.
  • Extracts from the Timaeus and from the Works of Archytas, one book.
  • A Reply to the Writings of Melissus, one book.
  • A Reply to the Writings of Alcmaeon, one book.
  • A Reply to the Pythagoreans, one book.
  • A Reply to the Writings of Gorgias, one book.
  • A Reply to the Writings of Xenophanes, one book.
  • A Reply to the Writings of Zeno, one book.
  • On the Pythagoreans, one book.
  • On Animals, nine books.
  • Eight books of Dissections.
  • A selection of Dissections, one book.
  • On Composite Animals, one book.
  • On the Animals of Fable, one book.
  • On Sterility, one book.
  • On Plants, two books.
  • Concerning Physiognomy, one book.
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  • Two books concerning Medicine.
  • On the Unit, one book.

  • Prognostics of Storms, one book.
  • Concerning Astronomy, one book.
  • Concerning Optics, one book.
  • On Motion, one book.
  • On Music, one book.
  • Concerning Memory, one book.
  • Six books of Homeric Problems.
  • Poetics, one book.
  • Thirty - eight books of Physics according to the lettering.
  • Two books of Problems which have been examined.
  • Two books of Routine Instruction.
  • Mechanics, one book.
  • Problems taken from the works of Democritus, two books.
  • On the Magnet, one book.
  • Analogies, one book.
  • Miscellaneous Notes, twelve books.
  • Descriptions of Genera, fourteen books.
  • Claims advanced, one book.
  • Victors at Olympia, one book.
  • Victors at the Pythian Games, one book.
  • On Music, one book.
  • Concerning Delphi, one book.
  • Criticism of the List of Pythian Victors, one book.
  • Dramatic Victories at the Dionysia, one book.
  • Of Tragedies, one book.
  • Dramatic Records, one book.
  • Proverbs, one book.
  • Laws of the Mess-table, one book.
  • Four books of Laws.
  • Categories, one book.
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  • De Interpretatione, one book.

  • Constitutions of 158 Cities, in general and in particular, democratic, oligarchic, aristocratic, tyrannical.
  • Letters to Philip.
  • Letters of Selymbrians.
  • Letters to Alexander, four books.
  • Letters to Antipater, nine books.
  • To Mentor, one book.
  • To Ariston, one book.
  • To Olympias, one book.
  • To Hephaestion, one book.
  • To Themistagoras, one book.
  • To Philoxenus, one book.
  • In reply to Democritus, one book.
  • Verses beginning Ἁγνὲ θεῶν πρέσβισθʼ ἑκατηβόλε (Holy One and Chiefest of Gods, far-darting).
  • Elegiac verses beginning Καλλιτέκνου μητρὸς θύγατερ (Daughter of a Mother blessed with fair offspring).

    • In all 445,270 lines.

    Such is the number of the works written by him. And in them he puts forward the following views. There are two divisions of philosophy, the practical and the theoretical. The practical part includes ethics and politics, and in the latter not only the doctrine of the state but also that of the household is sketched. The theoretical part includes physics and logic, although logic is not an independent science, but is elaborated as an instrument to the rest of science. And he clearly laid down that it has a twofold aim, probability and truth. For each of these he employed two faculties, dialectic and rhetoric where probability is aimed at, analytic and

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    philosophy where the end is truth; he neglects nothing which makes either for discovery or for judgement or for utility.

    As making for discovery he left in the Topics and Methodics a number of propositions, whereby the student can be well supplied with probable arguments for the solution of problems. As an aid to judgement he left the Prior and Posterior Analytics. By the Prior Analytics the premisses are judged, by the Posterior the process of inference is tested. For practical use there are the precepts on controversy and the works dealing with question and answer, with sophistical fallacies, syllogisms and the like. The test of truth which he put forward was sensation in the sphere of objects actually presented, but in the sphere of morals dealing with the state, the household and the laws, it was reason.

    The one ethical end he held to be the exercise of virtue in a completed life. And happiness he maintained to be made up of goods of three sorts: goods of the soul, which indeed he designates as of the highest value; in the second place bodily goods, health and strength, beauty and the like; and thirdly external goods, such as wealth, good birth, reputation and the like. And he regarded virtue as not of itself sufficient to ensure happiness; bodily goods and external goods were also necessary, for the wise man would be miserable if he lived in the midst of pains, poverty, and similar circumstances. Vice, however, is sufficient in itself to secure misery, even if it be ever so abundantly furnished with corporeal and external goods.

    He held that the virtues are not mutually interdependent. For a man might be prudent, or again just, and at the same

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    time profligate and unable to control his passions. He said too that the wise man was not exempt from all passions, but indulged them in moderation.

    He defined friendship as an equality of reciprocal good-will, including under the term as one species the friendship of kinsmen, as another that of lovers, and as a third that of host and guest. [*](Cf. supra, iii. 81. and Aristotle, Rhet. ii. 4 § 28, 1381 b 33) The end of love was not merely intercourse but also philosophy. According to him the wise man would fall in love and take part in politics; furthermore he would marry and reside at a king’s court. Of three kinds of life, the contemplative, the practical, and the pleasure-loving life, he gave the preference to the contemplative. He held that the studies which make up the ordinary education are of service for the attainment of virtue.

    In the sphere of natural science he surpassed all other philosophers in the investigation of causes, so that even the most insignificant phenomena were explained by him. Hence the unusual number of scientific notebooks which he compiled. Like Plato he held that God was incorporeal; that his providence extended to the heavenly bodies, that he is unmoved, and that earthly events are regulated by their affinity with them (the heavenly bodies). Besides the four elements he held that there is a fifth, of which the celestial bodies are composed. Its motion is of a different kind from that of the other elements, being circular. Further, he maintained the soul to be incorporeal, defining it as the first entelechy [i.e. realization] of a natural organic body potentially possessed of life.[*](De anima, ii. 1, 412 a 27.)

    By the term realization he means that which has an incorporeal form. This realization, according to him, is twofold.

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    Either it is potential, as that of Hermes in the wax, provided the wax be adapted to receive the proper mouldings, or as that of the statue implicit in the bronze; or again it is determinate, which is the case with the completed figure of Hermes or the finished statue. The soul is the realization of a natural body, since bodies may be divided into (a) artificial bodies made by the hands of craftsmen, as a tower or a ship, and (b) natural bodies which are the work of nature, such as plants and the bodies of animals. And when he said organic he meant constructed as means to an end, as sight is adapted for seeing and the ear for hearing. Of a body potentially possessed of life, that is, in itself.

    There are two senses of potential, one answering to a formed state and the other to its exercise in act. In the latter sense of the term he who is awake is said to have soul, in the former he who is asleep. It was then in order to include the sleeper that Aristotle added the word potential.

    He held many other opinions on a variety of subjects which it would be tedious to enumerate. For altogether his industry and invention were remarkable, as is shown by the catalogue of his writings given above, which come to nearly 400 in number, i.e. counting those only the genuineness of which is not disputed. For many other written works and pointed oral sayings are attributed to him.

    There were in all eight Aristotles: (1) our philosopher himself; (2) an Athenian statesman,[*](Probably this is the Aristotle who appears in Plato’s dialogue Parmenides.) the author of graceful forensic speeches; (3) a scholar who commented on the Iliad; (4) a Sicilian rhetorician, who wrote a reply to the Panegyric of Isocrates; (5) a disciple of Aeschines the Socratic philosopher,

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    surnamed Myth; (6) a native of Cyrene, who wrote upon the art of poetry; (7) a trainer of boys, mentioned by Aristoxenus in his Life of Plato; (8) an obscure grammarian, whose handbook On Redundancy is still extant.

    Aristotle of Stagira had many disciples; the most distinguished was Theophrastus, of whom we have next to speak.