THREE:When we next hear of Aristotle he is at the Macedonian285 Court,174 acting as tutor to Alexander, the future conqueror of Asia, who remained under his charge between the ages of thirteen and sixteen years. The philosopher is more likely to have obtained this appointment by Court interesthis father was Court-physician to Alexanders grandfather, Amyntasthan by his reputation, which could hardly have been made until several years afterwards. Much has been made of a connexion which, although it did not last very long, appeals strongly to the imagination, and opens a large field for surmise. The greatest speculative and the greatest practical genius of that agesome might say of all agescould not, one would think, come into such close contact without leaving a deep impression on each other. Accordingly, the philosopher is supposed to have prepared the hero for his future destinies. Milton has told us how Aristotle bred great Alexander to subdue the world. Hegel tells us that this was done by giving him the consciousness of himself, the full assurance of his own powers; for which purpose, it seems, the infinite daring of thought was required; and he observes that the result is a refutation of the silly talk about the practical inutility of philosophy.175 It would be unfortunate if philosophy had no better testimonial to show for herself than the character of Alexander. It is not the least merit of Grotes History to have brought out in full relief the savage traits by which his conduct was marked from first to last. Arrogant, drunken, cruel, vindictive, and grossly superstitious, he united the vices of a Highland chieftain to the frenzy of an Oriental despot. No man ever stood further from the gravity, the gentleness, the moderationin a word, the S?phrosyn of a true Hellenic hero. The time came when Aristotle himself would have run the most imminent personal risk had he been within the tyrants immediate grasp. His286 nephew, Callisthenes, had incurred deep displeasure by protesting against the servile adulation, or rather idolatry, which Alexander exacted from his attendants. A charge of conspiracy was trumped up against him, and even the exculpatory evidence, taken under torture, of his alleged accomplices did not save him. I will punish the sophist, wrote Alexander, and those who sent him out. It was understood that his old tutor was included in the threat. Fortunately, as Grote observes, Aristotle was not at Ecbatana but at Athens; he therefore escaped the fate of Callisthenes, who suffered death in circumstances, according to some accounts, of great atrocity."'I saw how two to three hundred German soldiers, part of them slightly wounded, who were well able to walk, partly soldiers of the Landen garrison, who crowded about the open doors of one of the last wagons, raging and jeering against three seriously wounded British soldiers, about whom their French fellow-passengers told me that they had had nothing to eat for five days. The wounded were called "swine," were spit at, and some rifles were aimed at them. When I told a sergeant that it was a disgusting scene, he answered: "These British swine, they get paid for their filthy work." He alluded to the pay which the British volunteers receive because they enlist as mercenaries, Britain having no compulsory general military service. Before I witnessed this awful thing at Landen, Germans in the train had already told me that they simply killed any British whom they made prisoners. Others said that such a thing did not happen in their division, but one man contended that by his company already twenty-six had been killed. I did not believe them, and thought that they were better than they pretended to be.
