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Aristotle was the greatest scientist of the ancient world. He believed in using logic
and reason to explain natural events in an era when most people believed storms and good
harvests were a consequence of the anger or the pleasure of the gods.
Aristotle was born in Macedonia, a mountainous land north of the Greek peninsula. At that
time, many Greeks viewed Macedonia as an old fashioned land with no culture. Aristotle
moved to Athens and studied at Plato’s Academy. Plato was a well known philosopher and a student
of Socrates. Aristotle remained at the school for more than twenty years until shortly after
Plato died. Aristotle then returned to Macedonia, where
King Philip hired him to prepare his thirteen-year-old son, Alexander, for his future role as a military
leader. His student would one day be known as Alexander the Great, one of the greatest
military conquerors of all time. Once Alexander became King of Macedonia, Aristotle
returned to Athens and opened a school he called the Lyceum. For the next twelve years,
Aristotle organized his school as a center of research on astronomy, zoology, geography,
geology, physics, anatomy, and many other fields.
Aristotle wrote 170 books, 47 of which still exist more than two thousand years later.
Aristotle was also a philosopher who wrote about ethics (the study of moral principals),
psychology (the study of the mind and its functions), economics (the study of the production,
consumption, and transfer of wealth), theology (the study of religious beliefs), political
science (the study of government), and rhetoric (the art of effective or persuasive speaking
or writing). Later inventions such as the telescope and microscope would prove many
of Aristotle’s theories to be incorrect, but his ideas formed the basis of modern science.