Before attempting to set forth in its great salient points the ethical system of Aristotle, it will be at once interesting and useful to sketch shortly the leading events of his life, omitting altogether, as a matter of course, those hundred and one points of uncertain report and slippery slander which are wont to attach themselves to the fame of any great man as to a natural nucleus. And when a man like Aristotle is not only a great man according to the common measure of human greatness, but an altogether extraordinary man, it is as natural that he should be spoken against from all sides as that dogs should bark at a stranger. The epiphany of an intellectual giant in any assembly of men of average talent makes those appear dwarfs who had previously, not without reason, accounted themselves of reputable stature; and as no man likes to be dwarfed, the necessary result of such an apparition is to set men’s wits agog to find out cunning devices, whereby the overwhelming stature of the huge intruder may seem to be curtailed. So Aristotle, we are told, had “a whole host of enemies;” and we shall therefore, as just judges, be justified in throwing out of court, as vitiated in its source, the greater part of the merely anecdotal { 134} accretions that cling to the name of the mighty Stagirite.