Page:The ethics of Aristotle.djvu/298

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Aristotle's Ethics

P. 34, l. 14. This refers to the division of quantity πόσον in the Categories. Those Quantities are called by Aristotle Continuous, whose parts have position relatively to one another, as a line, surface, or solid; those discrete, whose parts have no such relation, as numbers themselves, or any string of words grammatically unconnected.

P. 34, l. 27. Numbers are in arithmetical proportion (more usually called progression), when they increase or decrease by a common difference: thus, 2, 6, 10 are so, because 2 + 4 = 6; 6 + 4= 10; or vice versa, 10 - 4 = 6; 6 - 4 = 2.

P. 36, l. 3. The two are necessary, because since the reason itself may be perverted, a man must have recourse to an external standard: we may suppose his λόγος originally to have been a sufficient guide, but when he has injured his moral perceptions in any degree, he must go out of himself for direction.

P. 37, l. 8. This is one of the many expressions which seem to imply that this treatise is rather a collection of notes of a viva voce lecture than a set formal treatise. “The table” of virtues and vices probably was sketched out and exhibited to the audience.

P. 37, l. 23. Afterwards defined as

“All things whose value is measured by money”

P. 38, l. 8. We have no term exactly equivalent: it may be illustrated by Horace's use of the term hiatus,

"Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?" A. P. 138.

Opening the mouth wide gives a promise of something great to come; if nothing great does come, this is a case of Χαυνότης or fruitless and unmeaning hiatus; the transference to the present subject is easy.

P. 38, l. 22. In like manner we talk of laudable ambition, implying of course there may be that which is not laudable.

P. 40, l. 3. An expression of Bishop Butler's, which corresponds exactly to the definition of νέμεσις in the Rhetoric.

P. 41, l. 9. That is, in the same genus: to be contraries, things must be generically connected. τὰ πλειστον ᾀλλήλων διεστηκότα των ἐν τψ αύτψ γένει ἐναντία ὁρίζονται. Categories, iv. 15.

P. 42, l. 22. “Δεύτερος πλους is a proverb,” says the Scholiast on the Phædo, “used of those who do anything safely and cautiously, inasmuch as they who have miscarried in their first voyage, set about their preparations for the second cautiously;” and he then alludes to this passage.

P. 42, l. 31. That is, you must allow for the recoil.

“Naturam expellas furca tamen usque recurret.”