e until the revival of learning. Hegel says:--

"Aristotle penetrated into the whole mass, into every department of the
universe of things, and subjected to the comprehension its scattered
wealth; and the greater number of the philosophical sciences owe to him
their separation and commencement."

He is also the father of the history of philosophy, since he gives an
historical review of the way in which the subject has been hitherto
treated by the earlier philosophers. Says Adolph Stahr:--

"Plato made the external world the region of the incomplete and bad, of
the contradictory and the false, and recognized absolute truth only in
the eternal immutable ideas. Aristotle laid down the proposition that
the idea, which cannot of itself fashion itself into reality, is
powerless, and has only a potential existence; and that it becomes a
living reality only by realizing itself in a creative manner by means of
its own energy."

There can be no doubt as to Aristotle's marvellous power of
systematizing. Collecting together all the results of ancient
speculation, he so combined them into a co-ordinate system that for a
thousand years he reigned supreme in the schools. From a literary point
of view, Plato was doubtless his superior; but Plato was a poet, making
philosophy divine and musical, while Aristotle's investigations spread
over a far wider range. He differed from Plato chiefly in relation to
the doctrine of ideas, without however resolving the difficulty which
divided them. As he made matter to be the eternal ground of phenomena,
he reduced the notion of it to a precision it never before enjoyed, and
established thereby a necessary element in human science. But being
bound to matter, he did not soar, as Plato did, into the higher regions
of speculation; nor did he entertain as lofty views of God or of
immortality. Neither did he have as high an ideal of human life; his
definition of the highest good was a perfect practical activity in a
perfect life.

With Aristotle closed the great Socratic movement in the history of
speculation. When Socrates appeared there was a general prevalence of
scepticism, arising from the unsatisfactory speculations respecting
Nature. He removed this scepticism by inventing a new method of
investigation, and by withdrawing the mind from the contemplation of
Nature to the study of man himself. He bade men to look inward. Plato
accepted his method, but applied it more universally. Like Socrates,