In their attitudes to philosophy, Shakespeare and Bacon are as the
poles asunder. Shakespeare practically ignores the existence of
philosophy as a formal science. He betrays no knowledge of its Greek
origin and developments.
There are two short, slight, conventional mentions of Aristotle's name
in Shakespeare's works. One is a very slight allusion to Aristotle's
"checks" or "moral discipline" in _The Taming of the Shrew_. That
passage is probably from a coadjutor's pen. In any case, it is merely
a playful questioning of the title of "sweet philosophy" to monopolize
a young man's education.[25]
[Footnote 25: Tranio, the attendant on the young Pisan, Lucentio, who
has come to Padua to study at the university, counsels his master to
widen the field of his studies:--
Only, good master, while we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let's be no Stoics, nor no stocks, I pray,
Or so devote to _Aristotle's checks_,
As Ovid be an outcast quite adjured.
(_The Taming of the Shrew_, I., ii., 29-33.)]
The other mention of Aristotle is in _Troilus and Cressida_, and
raises points of greater interest. Hector scornfully likens his
brothers Troilus and Paris, when they urge persistence in the strife
with Greece, to "young men whom Aristotle thought unfit to hear
_moral_ philosophy" (II.
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