read the ‘Ethics’ we find the same ethical questions repeated and treated with far greater depth and precision; and we may reasonably conclude that the ‘Ethics’ was the later-written treatise of the two.
Following out indications of this kind, we arrive at the conclusion that Aristotle first took in hand the, science of method, and that, of all his extant works, the ‘Topics’ (or Logic of Probability), were first written, all but the eighth book; next the ‘Analytics’ (or Logic of Demonstration); next the eighth book of the ‘Topics;’ next Books I. and II. of the ‘Rhetoric’ (which has to do with the setting forth of truth); and then the ‘Sophistical Refutations’ (or treatise on Fallacies), which belongs to logic, yet still has a connection with the art of rhetoric. After thus far treating of the method of knowledge and expression, Aristotle appears to have gone on to treat of the matter of knowledge, and to have commenced with the practical sciences. First he wrote his ‘Ethics,’ though these were not quite finished, and afterwards his ‘Politics,’ and then he was led on to take up constructive science, and to write his small work ‘On Poetry,’ after which he reverted to his ‘Rhetoric,’ which was a cognate subject, and added a third book to that treatise. He now proceeded, though leaving much that was unfinished behind him, to the composition of his great series of physical treatises. The first of these to be written was probably the ‘Physical Discourse,’ which unfolded the general notions of natural philosophy, and gave an account of what Aristotle conceived under the terms “Nature,” “Motion,” “Time,” “Space,”
