Note 38 — Chapter II · ARISTOTELIAN CANON.
Reading edition
Sepulveda, p. 125 (cited by Bernays, Dialoge des Aristoteles, p. 41): “Externos sermones sive exotericos solet Aristoteles libros eos appellare, quicunque sunt extra id opus in quo tunc versatur, ut jure pontificio periti consueverunt: non enim exoterici sermones seu libri certo aliquo genere continentur, ut est publicus error.”
Zeller lends his high authority to an explanation of exoteric very similar to the above. (Gesch. der Philos. ii. 2, p. 100, seq.:— ”dass unter exoterischen Reden nicht eine eigene Klasse populär geschriebener Bücher, sondern nur überhaupt solche Erörterungen verstanden werden, welche nicht in den Bereich der vorliegenden Untersuchung gehören.”) He discusses the point at some length; but the very passages which he cites, especially Physica, iv. 10, appear to me less favourable to his view than to that which I have stated in the text, according to which the word means dialectic as contrasted with didactic.