Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) was Plato’s brightest pupil, who went on to develop his own system of philosophy and science.
In a book addressed to Alexander of Macedonia, Aristotle gives a comprehensive explanation of his own philosophy, and he clearly and manifestly overthrows the opinion of Plato. Justin Martyr (c. 160, E), 1.275.
To speak generally [of Aristotle’s teachings], in everything the accidents are to be distinguished from the essence. Clement of Alexandria (c. 195, E), 2.515.
Aristotle, who was a pupil of this Plato, reduced philosophy to an art. He was distinguished more for his proficiency in logical science, supposing “substance” and “accident” to be the elements of all things. He says that there is one substance underlying all things, but that there are nine accidents. Hippolytus (c. 225, W), 5.19.
Was it an indictment against Plato that Aristotle, after being his pupil for twenty years, went away and attacked his doctrine of the immortality of the soul and called the ideas of Plato the merest trifling? Origen (c. 248, E), 4.436.
Aristotle thought that all philosophy consisted of theory and practice. He divided the practical into ethical and political. . . . He very clearly and skillfully showed that mathematics is part of philosophy. Anatolius (c. 270, E), 6.152.
Although he is at variance with himself, . . . Aristotle, upon the whole, bears witness that one Mind presides over the universe. Lactantius (c. 304–313, W), 7.14.\