Page 95 - STOLEN LEGACY By George G. M. James

(ii) The truth of how he got such a large number of books is misrepresented:

He is said to have received financial aid from Alexander the Great, and was able to purchase a
large number of books in order to advance his studies. (Zeller's Hist. of Phil., p. 171; Wm.
Turner's History of Phil. p. 127).

But this sounds more like a fable than the truth, for up to the time of Aristotle, Greek education
was represented by the Sophists who taught Rhetoric and dialectics; while the study of
elementary science was confined to a few unknown philosophers. This was the standard of Greek
education, for the Sophists were the only authorized teachers.

Yet Aristotle is credited with producing a thousand different books dealing with all branches of
the scientific knowledge of antiquity. Certainly he could not have obtained them from the
Greeks, for that vast body of knowledge, which bears his name and which was presented as new,
would really have been the traditional common possession of all who were members of the
Greek schools of philosophy for they would have been the only persons inside Greece permitted
to own such books; for knowledge was protected as secret.

Under these circumstances it is evident that the vast body of scientific knowledge ascribed to
Aristotle, was neither in the possession of the Greeks of his time, nor was there any one in
Greece competent to teach him Science and, least of all, on so vast a scale.

(iii) He got the books by looting the Library of Alexandria:

The question must now be asked: how did Aristotle, a single individual, come to possess such a
vast number of scientific works, a body of knowledge which took the ancient world five
thousand years or more to accumulate? It is evident that Aristotle's fame as a scholar has been
grossly exaggerated: for such an accomplishment would have been both a physical and mental
impossibility. Throughout the intellectual advancement of man, the world has witnessed many a
genius; but those have always been specialists in particular fields, not specialists in every branch
of science.

And the modern world is no exception, for our great men of science are not specialists in every
branch of science, but only in a particular one. That appears to be nature's way.

As a matter of fact, the many discrepancies and doubts in the life and activities of Aristotle lead
us to the only reasonable solution of the problem that instead of the tales (a) that Alexander the
Great gave him money to buy books (b) that he spent 20 years of his life as a pupil with Plato
and (c) that he left the palace of Alexander for Athens, when Alexander started on his Egyptian
invasion, he, on the contrary, must have spent a large part of those 20 years under the tutorship
of the Egyptian priests, and also must have accompanied Alexander on the Egyptian invasion,

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Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy by George G. M. James
The Journal of Pan African Studies 2009 eBook