PERIOSTRACUM

(Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) The layer of animal substance, or cuticle, which covers the outer surface of shells, and which the French conchologists term drap mar in. PERIPATETiCS. That school of ancient philosophers which derived its origin from Aristotle. The name was given from the Gr. ntptTcuTci or walks in the Lyceum, the scene of Aristotle's instruction. (For the doctrines of the Peripatetics, see Aristo tel i an Philosophy.) The imine diate succe ors of Aristotle in the peripatetic doctrine were Theophrastus, Eudemus the Rhodian (from whom is derived the title of the Eudemian Ethics), Dicuarchus of Me an a, Aristoxenus of Tarentum, and Strato of Lampsacus; among the later Peripatetics are preserved the names of Glycon of Troas, Hieronymus of Rhodes, Stc. It would be unreasonable to expect that so elaborate a system aa that of Aristotle should have received any important addition to its leading doctrines at the hands of his followers. They contented themselves either with defending and interpreting their master's doctrines, or with applying his method to the explanation of natural philosophy. Under their bands his system seems to have degenerated into a species of empirical materialism, a scheme as widely at variance with his genuine doctrines, as was the dry scholastic formalism which in the dark ages pa ed for the philosophy of Aristotle. (For notices of the later Peripatetics, see Cicero, Acad. Quo-it., and De Finibus, c. 5; Lactant. De Ira Dei, c. 10; Plutarch, De Solcrtid, .) The Peripatetic school produced no men of note after its great founder, which is attributable to the current of free speculation being shackled by the authority of Aristotle, whose dogmas it was content to illustrate without daring ever to Impugn; and in this respect its spirit was remarkably contrasted with the scepticism of the new Academy. (See Hitter's Hist, of Anc. Philosophy, book ix., ch. i.) PERIPETEl'A, or [s. 932]