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to defend the privileges of the rich, by treachery, assassination, illegal despotism, and other such not very gentlemanly methods. After the death of Socrates, the bigotry of the Athenian democracy diminished, and Athens remained the centre of ancient culture, but political power went elsewhere. Throughout later antiquity, power and culture were usually separate: power was in the hands of rough soldiers, culture belonged to powerless Greeks, often slaves. This is only partially true of Rome in its great days, but it is emphatically true before Cicero and after Marcus Aurelius. After the barbarian invasion, the 'gentlemen' were northern barbarians, the men of culture subtle southern ecclesiastics. This state of affairs continued, more or less, until the Renaissance, when the laity began to acquire culture. From the Renaissance onwards, the Greek conception of government by cultured gentlemen gradually prevailed more and more, reaching its acme in the eighteenth century.

Various forces have put an end to this state of affairs. First, democracy, as embodied in the French Revolution and its aftermath. The cultured gentlemen, as after the age of Pericles, had to defend their privileges against the populace, and in the process ceased to be either gentlemen or cultured. A second cause was the rise of industrialism, with a scientific technique very different from traditional culture. A third cause was popular education, which conferred the power to read and write, but did not confer culture; this enabled a new type of demagogue to practise a new type of propaganda, as seen in the dictatorships.

Both for good and evil, therefore, the day of the cultured gentleman is past.

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22

ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC

Aristotle's influence, which was very great in many different fields, was greatest of all in logic. In late antiquity, when Plato was still supreme in metaphysics, Aristotle was the recognized authority in logic, and he retained this position throughout the Middle Ages. It was not till the thirteenth century that Christian philosophers accorded him supremacy in the field of metaphysics. This supremacy was largely lost after the Renaissance, but his supremacy in logic survived. Even at the present day, all Catholic teachers of philosophy and many others still obstinately reject the discoveries of modern logic, and adhere with a strange tenacity to a system which is as definitely antiquated as Ptolemaic astronomy. This makes it difficult to do historical justice to Aristotle. His present-day influence is so inimical to clear thinking that it is hard to remember how great an advance he made upon all his predecessors (including Plato), or how admirable his logical work would still seem if it had been a stage in a continual progress, instead of being (as in fact it was) a dead end, followed by over two thousand years of stagnation. In dealing with the predecessors of Aristotle, it is not necessary to remind the reader that they are not verbally inspired; one can therefore praise them for their ability without being supposed to subscribe to all their doctrines. Aristotle, on the contrary, is still, especially in logic, a battle-ground, and cannot be treated in a purely historical spirit.

Aristotle's most important work in logic is the doctrine of the syllogism. A syllogism is an argument consisting of three parts, a major premiss, a minor premiss, and a conclusion. Syllogisms are of a number of different kinds, each of which has a name, given by the scholastics. The most familiar is the kind called 'Barbara':

All men are mortal (Major premiss).

Socrates is a man (Minor premiss).

Therefore: Socrates is mortal (Conclusion).

Or: all men are mortal.

All Greeks are men.

Therefore: All Greeks are mortal.

(Aristotle does not distinguish between these two forms; this, as we shall see later, is a mistake.)

Other forms are: No fishes are rational, all sharks are fishes, therefore no sharks are rational. (This is called 'Celarent'.)

All men are rational, some animals are men, therefore some animals are rational. (This is called