| Aristotle
Hundreds of years before the time of Christ, wise men in Greece began to think about the reasons for everything that goes on in the world--why fire is hot and, water is wet, how plants and animals grow, why men think and act as they do, and everything else they saw, felt, or thought. These men called themselves philosophers, which meant "lovers of knowledge. Aristotle, who was born in 384 B.C., was one of the greatest of these philosophers. Aristotle was the son of a doctor in the court of the King of Macedon, one of the ancient Greek countries. When Aristotle was 17 years old he went to Athens and for 20 years he was a pupil of Plato, who was then greatest philosopher. Then for two years he taught the Macedonian prince who was to become Alexander the Great. After Alexander became king, Aristotle went back to Athens to teach young philosophers. He died in 322 B.C. Aristotle's "school" of philosophy was called the peripatetic school. The word peripatetic is Greek for "walking about." Aristotle and his pupils did not sit in a classroom, but usually walked about out of doors while they talked. Aristotle wrote several famous books. In his books on Animals, Aristotle invented a system for classifying living creatures, much as scientists do today. His book Physics discusses the elements, motion, astronomy, and God, among a variety of other topics of a scientific and general nature. In his book Politics, Aristotle writes about why people need government and what kind of government is best. The ideas of Aristotle were accepted as true for nearly 2,000 years after his death. |