Aristotle

[Verse 1] He walked into the Academy at seventeen years old The brightest mind that Athens had would never be controlled Twenty years beside the master learning every Form Then Aristotle turned and walked directly through the storm Plato said the real was in the perfect world above Aristotle knelt to earth and found the real in what he loved The substance is the thing itself not floating in the air The Form is in the matter, it is right there [Pre-Chorus] He catalogued the animals and measured every wing He asked what makes a tragedy a necessary thing From logic to the cosmos to the ethics of the good Aristotle built a system vaster than he should [Chorus] Aristotle, the philosopher who came back down to earth Cataloguing everything from death to moment of birth Empirical and rational, the synthesis of two Aristotle, the world is real and real is what is true The four causes asking why a thing exists at all Material and formal, efficient and the final call Teleology the purpose hidden in the seed Aristotle, Aristotle, giving nature what it needs [Verse 2] The syllogism born from his analytics deep All men are mortal, Socrates must also sleep Deductive logic cutting through the fog of thought The most precise and powerful reasoning ever wrought The Categories sorting everything that is Substance quality relation quantity all his Ten ways of saying something true about the world Aristotle's logic like a flag forever furled [Pre-Chorus] The soul for Aristotle was the form of living things Not imprisoned in the body but the life that living brings Vegetative nutritive and rational in degree The soul is what it means to be alive and free [Chorus] Aristotle, the philosopher who came back down to earth Cataloguing everything from death to moment of birth Empirical and rational, the synthesis of two Aristotle, the world is real and real is what is true The four causes asking why a thing exists at all Material and formal, efficient and the final call Teleology the purpose hidden in the seed Aristotle, Aristotle, giving nature what it needs [Bridge] The Nicomachean Ethics asked what living well could mean Eudaimonia the flourishing the good life in between Virtue is the golden mean between two failing poles Courage sits between the coward and the reckless souls Justice generosity and prudence on the scale The virtuous life a practice not a theory without fail Habit builds the character and character the man Act virtuously until the virtue is your plan The Politics declared the human is a social beast The city state the natural home from greatest to the least The Poetics analyzed the tragedy's design Catharsis purging pity and the fear along the line Mimesis art as imitation of the world we share The best art showing not just what is but what could be there [Final Chorus] Aristotle, the tutor of a young Macedonian king Alexander carried logic to the ends of everything The Lyceum the Peripatetics walking as they thought Aristotle, all the knowledge of the world he sought From meteorology to rhetoric to what the cosmos brought The unmoved mover at the center of his thought A thousand years of thinking everything he taught Aristotle, Aristotle, the world inside his thought [Outro] What is the cause? What is the purpose? What is the good life? Look down. Look at the world. The answer is here. In the matter. In the form. In the living thing. Flourishing