376 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE as Theophrastus ; but both men were obviously con- cerned in both. In the Ethics there are clear traces of three separate teachers — the master himself, Eudemus, and another. The Metaphysics and Logic must have had their main speculative lines laid by Aristotle's original speculations. The Poetics seem to give his personal reply to the challenge which Plato had thrown to " some one not a poet, but a friend of poetry, to give in plain prose" some justification of the senseless thing.^ But in all of these works there are additions and comments by other teachers. In political science the school collected and analysed 158 different existing constitutions. Aris- totle himself did Athens and Sparta ; but he published his great theoretic treatise on Politics before his collectors had nearly finished their work. Fifty years after Aristotle's death the ' Peripatos ' had become an insignificant institution, and the master's writings were but little read till the taste for them revived in the Roman period. For one thing, much of his work was of the pioneer order, the kind that is quickly super- seded, because it has paved the way by which others may advance. Again, organised research requires money, and the various 'diadochi,' or successors of Alexander, kept their endowments for their own capitals. Above all, the aim of universal knowledge was seen — nay, was proved by Aristotle's own experience — to be beyond human powers. The great organisations of Alexandria were glad to spend upon one isolated subject, such as ancient literature or mechanics, more labour and money than the Lyceum could command in its search for Encyclopaedic wisdom. Even a great ' polymath ' like Eratosthenes is far from Aristotle. 1 Rep. 607.
