Note 1 — Chapter II · GENERAL REMARKS ON THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHERS — GROWTH OF DIALECTIC — ZENO AND GORGIAS.

Bacon ascribes the extinction of these early Greek philosophers to Aristotle, who thought that he could not assure his own philosophical empire, except by putting to death all his brothers, like the Turkish Sultan. This remark occurs more than once in Bacon (Nov. Org. Aph. 67; Redargutio Philosoph. vol. xi. p. 450, ed. Montagu). In so far as it is a reproach, I think it is not deserved. Aristotle’s works, indeed, have been preserved, and those of his predecessors have not: but Aristotle, far from seeking to destroy their works, has been the chief medium for preserving to us the little which we know about them. His attention to the works of his predecessors is something very unusual among the theorists of the ancient world. His friends Eudêmus and Theophrastus followed his example, in embodying the history of the earlier theories in distinct works of their own, now unfortunately lost.

It is much to be regretted that no scholar has yet employed himself in collecting and editing the fragments of the lost scientific histories of Eudêmus (the Rhodian) and Theophrastus. A new edition of the Commentaries of Simplikius is also greatly wanted: those which exist are both rare and unreadable.

Zeller remarks that several of the statements contained in Proklus’s commentary on Euclid, respecting the earliest Grecian mathematicians, are borrowed from the γεωμετρικαὶ ἱστορίαι of the Rhodian Eudêmus (Zeller — De Hermodoro Ephesio et Hermodoro Platonico, p. 12).