Having retired to Mitylene, he soon afterward received an invi-
tation from Philip of Macedonia to undertake the education of his
son Alexander, then thirteen years old.
tation from Philip of Macedonia to undertake the education of his
son Alexander, then thirteen years old.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v02 - Aqu to Bag
779 (#193) ############################################
ARISTOPHANES
THE CALL TO THE NIGHTINGALE
From The Birds': Frere's Translation
Α
-
WAKE! awake!
Sleep no more, my gentle mate!
With your tiny tawny bill,
Wake the tuneful echo shrill,
On vale or hill;
Or in her airy rocky seat,
Let her listen and repeat
The tender ditty that you tell,
The sad lament,
The dire event,
To luckless Itys that befell.
Thence the strain
Shall rise again,
And soar amain,
Up to the lofty palace gate
Where mighty Apollo sits in state
In Jove's abode, with his ivory lyre,
Hymning aloud to the heavenly choir,
While all the gods shall join with thee
In a celestial symphony.
THE BUILDING OF CLOUD-CUCKOO-TOWN
From The Birds Frere's Translation
[Enter Messenger, quite out of breath, and speaking in short snatches. ]
Messenger-Where is he? Where? Where is he? Where? Where
is he? —The president Peisthetairus ?
Peisthetairus [coolly]-
Here am I.
Mess. [in a gasp of breath] - Your fortification's finished.
Peis. -
Mess.
779
Well! that's well.
A most amazing, astonishing work it is!
So that Theagenes and Proxenides
Might flourish and gasconade and prance away
Quite at their ease, both of them four-in-hand,
Driving abreast upon the breadth of wall,
Each in his own new chariot.
Peis. -
You surprise me.
Mess. And the height (for I made the measurement myself)
Is exactly a hundred fathoms.
## p. 780 (#194) ############################################
780
ARISTOPHANES
Peis. -
Heaven and earth!
How could it be? such a mass! who could have built it?
Mess. -The Birds; no creature else, no foreigners,
Egyptian bricklayers, workmen or masons.
But they themselves, alone, by their own efforts,—
(Even to my surprise, as an eye-witness)
The Birds, I say, completed everything:
There came a body of thirty thousand cranes,
(I won't be positive, there might be more)
With stones from Africa in their craws and gizzards,
Which the stone-curlews and stone-chatterers
Worked into shape and finished. The sand-martens
And mud-larks, too, were busy in their department,
Mixing the mortar, while the water-birds,
As fast as it was wanted, brought the water
To temper and work it.
Peis. [in a fidget]—
Mess. --
Mess. -
To carry it?
Of course, the carrion crows and carrying pigeons.
Peis. [in a fuss, which he endeavors to conceal ]—
Yes! yes! but after all, to load your hods,
How did you manage that ?
But who served the masons
Who did you get to carry it?
-
Oh, capitally,
I promise you. There were the geese, all barefoot
Trampling the mortar, and when all was ready
They handed it into the hods, so cleverly,
With their flat feet!
Peis. [a bad joke, as a vent for irritation]—
They footed it, you mean
Come; it was handily done though, I confess.
Mess. Indeed, I assure you, it was a sight to see them;
And trains of ducks there were, clambering the ladders
With their duck legs, like bricklayers' 'prentices,
All dapper and handy, with their little trowels.
Peis. In fact, then, it's no use engaging foreigners;
Mere folly and waste, we've all within ourselves.
Ah, well now, come! But about the woodwork? Heh!
Who were the carpenters? Answer me that!
Mess. The woodpeckers, of course: and there they were,
Laboring upon the gates, driving and banging,
With their hard hatchet-beaks, and such a din,
Such a clatter, as they made, hammering and hacking,
In a perpetual peal, pelting away
## p. 781 (#195) ############################################
ARISTOPHANES
781
Like shipwrights, hard at work in the arsenal.
And now their work is finished, gates and all,
Staples and bolts, and bars and everything;
The sentries at their posts; patrols appointed;
The watchman in the barbican; the beacons
Ready prepared for lighting; all their signals
Arranged - but I'll step out, just for a moment,
To wash my hands. You'll settle all the rest.
CHORUS OF WOMEN
From the Thesmophoriazusæ': Collins's Translation
THE
HEY'RE always abusing the women,
As a terrible plague to men:
They say we're the root of all evil,
And repeat it again and again;
Of war, and quarrels, and bloodshed,
All mischief, be what it may!
And pray, then, why do you marry us,
If we're all the plagues you say?
And why do you take such care of us,
And keep us so safe at home,
And are never easy a moment
If ever we chance to roam ?
When you ought to be thanking heaven
That your Plague is out of the way,
You all keep fussing and fretting-
"Where is my Plague to-day? "
――
If a Plague peeps out of the window,
Up go the eyes of men;
If she hides, then they all keep staring
Until she looks out again.
CHORUS OF MYSTÆ IN HADES
From The Frogs': Frere's Translation
CHORUS [shouting and singing]
ACCHUS! Iacchus! Ho!
Iacchus! Iacchus! Ho!
Xanthias-There, master, there they are, the initiated
All sporting about as he told us we should find 'em.
They're singing in praise of Bacchus like Diagoras.
## p. 782 (#196) ############################################
782
ARISTOPHANES
Bacchus
Bac.
-
Indeed, and so they are; but we'll keep quiet
Till we make them out a little more distinctly.
CHORUS [Song]
Mighty Bacchus! Holy Power!
Hither at the wonted hour
Come away,
Come away,
With the wanton holiday,
Where the revel uproar leads
To the mystic holy meads,
Where the frolic votaries fly,
With a tipsy shout and cry;
Flourishing the Thyrsus high,
Flinging forth, alert and airy,
To the sacred old vagary,
The tumultuous dance and song,
Sacred from the vulgar throng;
Mystic orgies that are known
To the votaries alone -
To the mystic chorus solely—
Secret-unrevealed- and holy.
Xan. O glorious virgin, daughter of the Goddess!
―――
--
What a scent of roasted griskin reached my senses!
Keep quiet and watch for a chance of a piece of the has-
lets.
CHORUS [Song]
Raise the fiery torches high!
Bacchus is approaching nigh,
Like the planet of the morn
Breaking with the hoary dawn
On the dark solemnity—
There they flash upon the sight;
All the plain is blazing bright,
Flushed and overflown with light:
Age has cast his years away,
And the cares of many a day,
Sporting to the lively lay-
Mighty Bacchus! march and lead
(Torch in hand toward the mead)
Thy devoted humble Chorus;
Mighty Bacchus - move before us!
---
## p. 783 (#197) ############################################
ARISTOPHANES
783
Keep silence - keep peace
and let all the profane
From our holy solemnity duly refrain;
Whose souls, unenlightened by taste, are obscure;
Whose poetical notions are dark and impure;
Whose theatrical conscience
Is sullied by nonsense;
Who never were trained by the mighty Cratinus
In mystical orgies, poetic and vinous;
Who delight in buffooning and jests out of season;
Who promote the designs of oppression and treason;
Who foster sedition and strife and debate;
All traitors, in short, to the Stage and the State:
Who surrender a fort, or in private export
To places and harbors of hostile resort
Clandestine consignments of cables and pitch, -
In the way that Thorycion grew to be rich
From a scoundrelly dirty collector of tribute:
All such we reject and severely prohibit;
All statesmen retrenching the fees and the salaries
Of theatrical bards, in revenge for the railleries
And jests and lampoons of this holy solemnity,
Profanely pursuing their personal enmity,
For having been flouted and scoffed and scorned-
All such are admonished and heartily warned;
We warn them once,
We warn them twice,
we warn them thrice,
To conform to the law,
To retire and withdraw;
We warn and admonish
―
While the Chorus again with the formal saw,
(Fixt and assign'd to the festive day)
Move to the measure and march away.
SEMI-CHORUS
March! march! lead forth,
Lead forth manfully,
March in order all;
Bustling, hustling, justling,
As it may befall;
Flocking, shouting, laughing,
Mocking, flouting, quaffing,
One and all;
All have had a belly-full
Of breakfast brave and plentiful;
## p. 784 (#198) ############################################
784
ARISTOPHANES
Therefore
Evermore
With your voices and your bodies
Serve the goddess,
And raise
Songs of praise;
She shall save the country still,
And save it against the traitor's will;
So she says.
SEMI-CHORUS
Now let us raise in a different strain
The praise of the goddess, the giver of grain;
Imploring her favor
With other behavior,
In measures more sober, submissive, and graver.
SEMI-CHORUS
Ceres, holy patroness,
Condescend to mark and bless,
With benevolent regard,
Both the Chorus and the Bard;
Grant them for the present day
Many things to sing and say,
Follies intermixed with sense;
Folly, but without offense.
Grant them with the present play
To bear the prize of verse away.
SEMI-CHORUS
Now call again, and with a different measure,
The power of mirth and pleasure;
The florid, active Bacchus, bright and gay,
To journey forth and join us on the way.
SEMI-CHORUS
O Bacchus, attend! the customary patron of every lively lay;
Go forth without delay
Thy wonted annual way,
To meet the ceremonious holy matron:
Her grave procession gracing,
Thine airy footsteps tracing
With unlaborious, light, celestial motion;
## p. 785 (#199) ############################################
ARISTOPHANES
785
And here at thy devotion
Behold thy faithful choir
In pitiful attire:
All overworn and ragged,
This jerkin old and jagged,
These buskins torn and burst,
Though sufferers in the fray,
May serve us at the worst
To sport throughout the day;
And then within the shades
I spy some lovely maids
With whom we romped and reveled,
Dismantled and disheveled,
With their bosoms open,-
With whom we might be coping.
Xan. -Well, I was always hearty,
Disposed to mirth and ease:
I'm ready to join the party.
And I will if you please.
Bac. -
A PARODY OF EURIPIDES'S LYRIC VERSE
From The Frogs
H
ALCYONS ye by the flowing sea
Waves that warble twitteringly,
Circling over the tumbling blue,
Dipping your down in its briny dew,
Spi-i-iders in corners dim
Spi-spi-spinning your fairy film,
Shuttles echoing round the room
Silver notes of the whistling loom,
Where the light-footed dolphin skips
Down the wake of the dark-prowed ships,
Over the course of the racing steed
Where the clustering tendrils breed
Grapes to drown dull care in delight,
Oh! mother make me a child again just for to-night!
I don't exactly see how that last line is to scan,
But that's a consideration I leave to our musical man.
II-50
## p. 786 (#200) ############################################
786
ARISTOPHANES
[The point of the following selection lies in the monotony of both narra-
tive style and metre in Euripides's prologues, and especially his regular
cæsura after the fifth syllable of a line. The burlesque tag used by Aris-
tophanes to demonstrate this effect could not be applied in the same way
to any of the fourteen extant plays of Sophocles and Æschylus. ]
Eschylus-And by Jove, I'll not stop to cut up your verses
word by word, but if the gods are propitious I'll spoil
all your prologues with a little flask of smelling-
salts.
Euripides-With a flask of smelling-salts?
Esch. With a single one. For you build your verses so that
anything will fit into the metre, a leathern sack,
or eider-down, or smelling-salts. I'll show you.
Eur. So, you'll show me, will you?
Esch. I will that.
Dionysus-Pronounce.
Eur. [declaiming]—
-
-
Eur. -
THE PROLOGUES OF EURIPIDES
From The Frogs'
-
Esch-
- lost his smelling-salts.
Dion. What the mischief have the smelling-salts got to do with.
it? Recite another prologue to him and let me see.
Esch-
―
Ægyptus, as broad-bruited fame reports,
With fifty children voyaging the main
To Argos came, and
Dionysus, thyrsus-armed and faun-skin-clad,
Amid the torchlights on Parnassus's slope
Dancing and prancing
Esch. -
- lost his smelling-salts.
Dion. - Caught out again by the smelling-salts.
Eur. - No matter. Here's a prologue that he can't fit 'em to.
No lot of mortal man is wholly blest:
}
The high-born youth hath lacked the means of life,
The lowly lout hath
-lost his smelling-salts.
## p. 787 (#201) ############################################
ARISTOPHANES
787
Dion. - Euripides-
Eur. -
Dion. -
Best take in sail.
These smelling-salts, methinks, will blow a gale.
I'll fix him next time.
Eur. - What do I care?
Dion. - Well, recite another, and steer clear of the smelling-salts.
Eur. -
—
―
Esch. -
-lost his smelling-salts.
Dion. My dear fellow, buy those smelling-salts, or there won't
be a rag left of all your prologues.
Eur. - What? I buy 'em of him?
Dion. If you'll be advised by me.
Eur. Not a bit of it. I've lots of prologues where he can't
work 'em in.
-
Well, what?
Cadmus departing from the town of Tyre,
Son of Agenor
――――――
Esch. -
-lost his smelling-salts.
Dion. There they are again, you see. Do let him have 'em,
my good Eschylus. You can replace 'em for a
nickel.
I've not run out yet.
Never.
-
Pelops the Tantalid to Pisa coming
With speedy coursers
Eneus from broad fields
Esch. -
Eur. - Let me say the whole verse, won't you?
-lost his smelling-salts.
Esch. -
-lost his smelling-salts.
Dion. While sacrificing? Who filched them?
Eur. -Oh, never mind him. Let him try it on this verse:
Zeus, as the word of sooth declared of old-
Eneus from broad fields reaped a mighty crop
And offering first-fruits
Dion. It's no use, he'll say Zeus lost his smelling-salts. For
those smelling-salts fit your prologues like a kid
glove. But go on and turn your attention to his
lyrics.
## p. 788 (#202) ############################################
DGX
788
HE
ARISTOTLE
(B. C. 384-322)
BY THOMAS DAVIDSON
"Stagirite," called by Eusebius "Nature's private secre-
tary," and by Dante "the master of those that know,"-
the greatest thinker of the ancient world, and the most
influential of all time, was born of Greek parents at Stagira, in
the mountains of Macedonia, in B. C. 384. Of his mother, Phæstis,
almost nothing is known. His father, Nicomachus, belonged to a
medical family, and acted as private physician to Amyntas, grand-
father of Alexander the Great; whence it is probable that Aristotle's
boyhood was passed at or near the Macedonian court. Losing both
his parents while a mere boy, he was taken charge of by a relative,
Proxenus Atarneus, and sent, at the age of seventeen, to Athens to
study. Here he entered the school of Plato, where he remained
twenty years, as pupil and as teacher. During this time he made
the acquaintance of the leading contemporary thinkers, read omnivo-
rously, amassed an amount of knowledge that seems almost fabu-
lous, schooled himself in systematic thought, and (being well off)
collected a library, perhaps the first considerable private library in
the world. Having toward the end felt obliged to assume an inde-
pendent attitude in thought, he was not at the death of Plato (347)
appointed his successor in the Academy, as might have been ex-
pected. Not wishing at that time to set up a rival school, he
retired to the court of a former fellow-pupil, Hermias, then king of
Assos and Atarneus, whom he greatly respected, and whose adopted
daughter, Pythias, he later married. Here he remained, pursuing
his studies, for three years; and left only when his patron was
treacherously murdered by the Persians.
Having retired to Mitylene, he soon afterward received an invi-
tation from Philip of Macedonia to undertake the education of his
son Alexander, then thirteen years old. Aristotle willingly obeyed
this summons; and retiring with his royal pupil to Mieza, a town
southwest of Pella, imparted his instruction in the Nymphæum,
which he had arranged in imitation of Plato's garden school. Alex-
ander remained with him three years, and was then called by his
father to assume important State duties. Whether Aristotle's in-
struction continued after that is uncertain; but the two men remained
fast friends, and there can be no doubt that much of the nobility,
self-control, largeness of purpose, and enthusiasm for culture, which
## p. 788 (#203) ############################################
ARISTOTLE.
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## p. 788 (#204) ############################################
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## p. 788 (#205) ############################################
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ARISTOTELES
ARISTOTLE.
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## p. 788 (#206) ############################################
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ARISTOTLE
789
characterized Alexander's subsequent career, were due to the teach-
ing of the philosopher. What Aristotle was in the world of thought,
Alexander became in the world of action.
Aristotle remained in Macedonia ten years, giving instruction
to young Macedonians and continuing his own studies. He then
returned to Athens, and opened a school in the peripatos, or prom-
enade, of the Lyceum, the gymnasium of the foreign residents, a
school which from its location was called the Peripatetic. Here he
developed a manifold activity. He pursued all kinds of studies,
logical, rhetorical, physical, metaphysical, ethical, political, and æs-
thetic, gave public (exoteric) and private (esoteric) instruction, and
composed the bulk of the treatises which have made his name
famous. These treatises were composed slowly, in connection with
his lectures, and subjected to frequent revision. He likewise en-
deavored to lead an ideal social life with his friends and pupils,
whom he gathered under a common roof to share meals and elevated
converse in common.
Thus affairs went on for twelve fruitful years, and might have
gone on longer, but for the sudden death of Alexander, his friend
and patron.
Then the hatred of the Athenians to the conqueror
showed itself in hostility to his old master, and sought for means to
put him out of the way. How hard it was to find a pretext for so
doing is shown by the fact that they had to fix upon the poem
which he had written on the death of his friend Hermias many
years before, and base upon it—as having the form of the pæan,
sacred to Apollo-a charge of impiety. Aristotle, recognizing the
utter flimsiness of the charge, and being unwilling, as he said, to
allow the Athenians to sin a second time against philosophy, retired
beyond their reach to his villa at Chalcis in Euboea, where he died
of stomach disease the year after (322). In the later years of his life,
the friendship between him and his illustrious pupil had, owing to
certain outward circumstances, become somewhat cooled; but there
never was any serious breach. His body was carried to Stagira,
which he had induced Philip to restore after it had been destroyed,
and whose inhabitants therefore looked upon him as the founder of
the city. As such he received the religious honors accorded to
heroes: an altar was erected to him, at which an annual festival was
celebrated in the month named after him.
As a
We may sum up the character of Aristotle by saying that he was
one of the sanest and most rounded men that ever lived.
philosopher, he stands in the front rank. "No time," says Hegel,
"has a man to place by his side. " Nor was his moral character in-
ferior to his intellect. No one can read his 'Ethics,' or his will (the
text of which is extant), without feeling the nobleness, simplicity,
## p. 790 (#208) ############################################
790
ARISTOTLE
purity, and modernness of his nature. In his family relations, espe-
cially, he seems to have stood far above his contemporaries. The
depth of his æsthetic perception is attested by his poems and his
'Poetics. '
The unsatisfactory and fragmentary condition in which Aristotle's
works have come down to us makes it difficult to judge of his style.
Many of them seem mere collections of notes and jottings for lec-
tures, without any attempt at style. The rest are distinguished by
brevity, terseness, and scientific precision. No other man ever en-
riched philosophic language with so many original expressions. We
know, from the testimony of most competent judges, such as Cicero,
that his popular writings, dialogues, etc. , were written in an elegant
style, casting even that of Plato into the shade; and this is borne
fully out by some extant fragments.
Greek philosophy culminates in Aristotle. Setting out with a
naïve acceptance of the world as being what it seemed, and trying to
reduce this Being to some material principle, such as water, air, etc. ,
it was gradually driven, by force of logic, to distinguish Being from
Seeming, and to see that while the latter was dependent on the
thinking subject, the former could not be anything material. This
result was reached by both the materialistic and spiritualistic schools,
and was only carried one step further by the Sophists, who main-
tained that even the being of things depended on the thinker. This
necessarily led to skepticism, individualism, and disruption of the old
social and religious order.
Then arose Socrates, greatest of the Sophists, who, seeing that the
outer world had been shown to depend on the inner, adopted as his
motto, "Know Thyself," and devoted himself to the study of mind.
By his dialectic method he showed that skepticism and individualism,
so far as anarchic, can be overcome by carrying out thought to its
implications; when it proves to be the same for all, and to bring
with it an authority binding on all, and replacing that of the old
external gods. Thus Socrates discovered the principle of human lib-
erty, a principle necessarily hostile to the ancient State, which
absorbed the man in the citizen. Socrates was accordingly put to
death as an atheist; and then Plato, with good intentions but preju-
diced insight, set to work to restore the old tyranny of the State.
This he did by placing truth, or reality (which Socrates had found in
complete thought, internal to the mind), outside of both thought and
nature, and making it consist of a group of eternal schemes, or
forms, of which natural things are merely transient phantoms, and
which can be reached by only a few aristocratic souls, born to rule
the rest. On the basis of this distortion he constructed his Repub-
lic, in which complete despotism is exercised by the philosophers
## p. 791 (#209) ############################################
ARISTOTLE
791
through the military; man is reduced to a machine, his affections and
will being disregarded; community of women and of property is the
law; and science is scouted.
Aristotle's philosophy may be said to be a protest against this
view, and an attempt to show that reality is embodied in nature,
which depends on a supreme intelligence, and may be realized in
other intelligences, or thought-centres, such as the human mind. In
other words, according to Aristotle, truth is actual in the world and
potential in all minds, which may by experience put on its forms.
Thus the individualism of the Sophists and the despotism of Plato
are overcome, while an important place is made for experience, or
science.
Aristotle, accepting the world of common-sense, tried to ration-
alize it; that is, to realize it in himself. First among the Greeks
he believed it to be unique, uncreated, and eternal, and gave his
reasons. Recognizing that the phenomenal world exists in change,
he investigated the principle and method of this. Change he con-
ceives as a transition from potentiality to actuality, and as always
due to something actualized, communicating its form to something
potential. Looking at the "world" as a whole, and picturing it as
limited, globular, and constructed like an onion, with the earth in
the centre, and round about it nine concentric spheres carrying the
planets and stars, he concludes that there must be at one end some-
thing purely actual and therefore unchanging,— that is, pure form
or energy; and at the other, something purely potential and there-
fore changing,- that is, pure matter or latency. The pure actuality
is at the circumference, pure matter at the centre. Matter, however,
never exists without some form. Thus, nature is an eternal circular
process between the actual and the potential. The supreme Intel-
ligence, God, being pure energy, changelessly thinks himself, and
through the love inspired by his perfection moves the outmost sphere;
which would move all the rest were it not for inferior intelligences,
fifty-six in number, who, by giving them different directions, diver-
sify the divine action and produce the variety of the world. The
celestial world is composed of eternal matter, or æther, whose only
change is circular motion; the sublunary world is composed of chan-
ging matter, in four different but mutually transmutable forms-fire,
air, water, earth-movable in two opposite directions, in straight
lines, under the ever-varying influence of the celestial spheres.
Thus the world is an organism, making no progress as a whole,
but continually changing in its various parts. In it all real things
are individuals, not universals, as Plato thought. And forms pass
from individual to individual only. Peleus, not humanity, is the par-
ent of Achilles; the learned man only can teach the ignorant. In ·
## p. 792 (#210) ############################################
ARISTOTLE
792
the world-process there are several distinct stages, to each of which
Aristotle devotes a special work, or series of works. Beginning with
the "four elements" and their changes, he works up through the
mineral, vegetable, and animal worlds, to man, and thence through
the spheral intelligences to the supreme, divine intelligence, on which
the Whole depends. Man stands on the dividing line between the
temporal and the eternal; belonging with his animal part to the for-
mer, with his intelligence (which "enters from without") to the
latter. He is an intelligence, of the same nature as the sphere-
movers, but individuated by mutable matter in the form of a body,
matter being in all cases the principle of individuation. As intelli-
gence, he becomes free; takes the guidance of his life into his own
hand; and, first through ethics, politics, and æsthetics, the forms of
his sensible or practical activity, and second through logic, science,
and philosophy, the forms of his intellectual activity, he rises to
divine heights and "plays the immortal. » His supreme activity is
contemplation. This, the eternal energy of God, is possible for man
only at rare intervals.
Aristotle, by placing his eternal forms in sensible things as their
meaning, made science possible and necessary. Not only is he the
father of scientific method, inductive and deductive, but his actual
contributions to science place him in the front rank of scientists.
His Zoology, Psychology, Logic, Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics, and
Esthetics, are still highly esteemed and extensively studied. At the
same time, by failing to overcome the dualism and supernaturalism
of Plato, by adopting the popular notions about spheres and sphere-
movers, by separating intelligence from sense, by conceiving matter
as independent and the principle of individuation, and by making
science relate only to the universal, he paved the way for astrology,
alchemy, magic, and all the forms of superstition, retarding the
advance of several sciences, as for example astronomy and chemistry,
for many hundred years.
After Aristotle's death, his school was continued by a succession of
studious and learned men, but did not for many centuries deeply
affect contemporary life. At last, in the fifth century A. D. , his
thought found its way into the Christian schools, giving birth to
rationalism and historical criticism. At various times its adherents
were condemned as heretics and banished, mostly to Syria. Here, at
Edessa and Nisibis, they established schools of learning which for
several centuries were the most famous in the world. The entire
works of Aristotle were turned into Syriac; among them several spuri-
ous ones of Neo-Platonic origin, notably the famous 'Liber de Causis'
and the Theology of Aristotle. ' Thus a Neo-Platonic Aristotle came
to rule Eastern learning. On the rise of Islâm, this Aristotle was
## p. 793 (#211) ############################################
ARISTOTLE
793
borrowed by the Muslims, and became ruler of their schools at Bag-
dad, Basra, and other places,-schools which produced many remarka-
ble men. On the decay of these, he passed in the twelfth century
into the schools of Spain, and here ruled supreme until Arab phi-
losophy was suppressed, shortly before 1200. From the Arabs he
passed into the Christian Church about this date; and though at first
resisted, was finally accepted, and became "the philosopher" of the
schools, and the inspirer of Dante. The Reformers, though decrying
him, were forced to have recourse to him; but his credit was not
re-established until the present century, when, thanks to Hegel, Tren-
delenburg, Brandis, and the Berlin Academy, his true value was rec-
ognized and his permanent influence insured.
The extant works of Aristotle, covering the whole field of science,
may be classified as follows:
A. Logical or Formal, dealing with the form rather than the mat-
ter of science:-'Categories,' treating of Being and its determination,
which, being regarded ontologically, bring the work into the meta-
physical sphere; On Interpretation,' dealing with the proposition;
'Former Analytics,' theory of the syllogism; 'Later Analytics,' the-
ory of proof; Topics,' probable proofs; Sophistical proofs,' fallacies.
These works were later united by the Stoics under the title Orga-
non,' or Instrument (of science).
B. Scientific or Philosophical, dealing with the matter of science.
These may be subdivided into three classes: (a) Theoretical, (b) Prac-
tical, (c) Creative.
(a) The Theoretical has further subdivisions: (a) Metaphysical, (b)
Physical, (c) Mathematical. (a) The Metaphysical works include the
incomplete collection under the name 'Metaphysics. '— (b) The Physi-
cal works include 'Physics,' 'On the Heavens,' 'On Generation and
Decay,' 'On the Soul,' with eight supplementary tracts on actions
of the soul as combined with the body; viz. , 'On Sense and Sensi-
bles,' 'On Memory and Reminiscence,' 'On Sleep and Waking,' 'On
Dreams,' 'On Divination from Dreams,' 'On Length and Shortness
of Life,' On Life and Death,' On Respiration, Meteorologics,'
'Histories of Animals' (Zoögraphy), 'On the Parts of Animals,' 'On
the Generation of Animals,' 'On the Motion of Animals,' 'Problems'
(largely spurious), On the Cosmos,' 'Physiognomics,' 'On Wonderful
Auditions,' 'On Colors. '- The Mathematical works include On Indi-
visible Lines,' 'Mechanics. '
――――
(b) The Practical works are 'Nicomachean Ethics,' 'Endemean
Ethics,' 'Great Ethics' (Magna Moralia'), really different forms of
the same work; 'Politics,' 'Constitutions' (originally one hundred
and fifty-eight in number; now represented only by the recently
## p. 794 (#212) ############################################
ARISTOTLE
794
discovered 'Constitution of Athens'), 'On Virtues and Vices,' 'Rhet-
oric to Alexander,' 'Economics. '
(c) Of Creative works we have only the fragmentary 'Poetics. '
To these may be added a few poems, one of which is given here.
Besides the extant works of Aristotle, we have titles, fragments,
and some knowledge of the contents of a large number more.
Among these are the whole of the "exoteric" works, including nine-
teen Dialogues. A list of his works, as arranged in the Alexandrian
Library (apparently), is given by Diogenes Laërtius in his 'Life of
Aristotle' (printed in the Berlin and Paris editions of 'Aristotle'); a
list in which it is not easy to identify the whole of the extant works.
The 'Fragments' appear in both the editions just named. Some
of the works named above are almost certainly spurious; e. g. , the
'Rhetoric to Alexander,' the Economics, etc.
The chief editions of Aristotle's works, exclusive of the 'Constitu-
tion of Athens,' are that of the Berlin Academy (Im. Bekker), con-
taining text, scholia, Latin translation, and Index in Greek (5 vols. ,
square 4to); and the Paris or Didot (Dübner, Bussemaker, Heitz),
containing text, Latin translation, and very complete Index in Latin
(5 vols. , 4to). Of the chief works the best editions are:- 'Organon,'
Waitz; 'Metaphysics,' Schwegler, Bonitz; 'Physics,' Prantl; 'Meteor-
ologics,' Ideler; 'On the Generation of Animals,' Aubert and Wim-
mer; 'Psychology,' Trendelenburg, Torstrik, Wallace (with English
translation); 'Nicomachean Ethics,' Grant, Ramsauer, Susemihl; 'Poli-
tics, Stahr, Susemihl; 'Constitution of Athens,' Kenyon, Sandys;
'Poetics,' Susemihl, Vahlen, Butcher (with English translation). There
are few good English translations of Aristotle's works; but among
these may be mentioned Peter's 'Nicomachean Ethics,' Jowett's and
Welldon's 'Politics,' and Poste's 'Constitution of Athens. ' There is
a fair French translation of the principal works by Barthélemy
St. -Hilaire. The Berlin Academy is now (1896) publishing the ancient
Greek commentaries on Aristotle in thirty-five quarto volumes. The
best work on Aristotle is that by E. Zeller, in Vol. iii. of his 'Philoso-
phie der Griechen. ' The English works by Lewes and Grote are
inferior. For Bibliography, the student may consult Ueberweg,
'Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie,' Vol. i. , pages 196 seq.
Shavar David
## p. 795 (#213) ############################################
ARISTOTLE
795
THE NATURE OF THE SOUL
From On the Soul,' Book iii. , Chapter 6
C
ONCERNING that part of the soul, however, by which the soul
knows (and is prudentially wise) whether it is separable or
not separable, according to magnitude, but according to rea-
son, it must be considered what difference it possesses, and how
intellectual perception is produced. If, therefore, to perceive in-
tellectually is the same thing as to perceive sensibly, it will either
be to suffer something from the intelligible, or something else of
this kind. It is necessary, however, that it should be impassive,
but capable of receiving form; and in capacity a thing of this
kind, but not this; and also, that as the sensitive power is to
sensibles, so should intellect be to intelligibles. It is necessary,
therefore, since it understands all things, that it should be un-
mingled, as Anaxagoras says, that it may predominate: but this
is that it may know; for that which is foreign at the same time
presenting itself to the view, impedes and obstructs.
Hence, neither is there any other nature of it than this, that
it is possible. That, therefore, which is called the intellect of
soul (I mean the intellect by which the soul energizes dianoeti-
cally and hypoleptically), is nothing in energy of beings before
it intellectually perceives them. Hence, neither is it reasonable
that it should be mingled with body; for thus it would become a
thing with certain quality, would be hot or cold, and would have
a certain organ in the same manner as
the sensitive power.
Now, however, there is no organ of it. In a proper manner,
therefore, do they speak, who say that the soul is the place of
forms; except that this is not true of the whole soul, but of that
which is intellective; nor is it forms in entelecheia, but in ca-
pacity. But that the impassivity of the sensitive and intellective
power is not similar, is evident in the sensoria and in sense.
For sense cannot perceive from a vehement sensible object (as
for instance, sounds from very loud sounds; nor from strong
odors and colors can it either see or smell): but intellect, when
it understands anything very intelligible, does not less under-
stand inferior concerns, but even understands them in a greater
degree; for the sensitive power is not without body, but intellect
is separate from body].
When however it becomes particulars, in such a manner as he
is said to possess scientific knowledge who scientifically knows
## p. 796 (#214) ############################################
796
ARISTOTLE
in energy (and this happens when it is able to energize through
itself), then also it is similarly in a certain respect in capacity,
yet not after the same manner as before it learnt or discovered;
and it is then itself able to understand itself. By the sensitive
power, therefore, it distinguishes the hot and the cold, and those
things of which flesh is a certain reason; but by another power,
either separate, or as an inflected line subsists with reference to
itself when it is extended, it distinguishes the essence of flesh.
Further still, in those things which consist in ablation, the
straight is as the flat nose; for it subsists with the continued.
Some one, however, may question, if intellect is simple and
impassive and has nothing in common with anything, as Anax-
agoras says, how it can perceive intellectually, if to perceive in-
tellectually is to suffer something; for so far as something is
common to both, the one appears to act, but the other to suffer.
Again, it may also be doubted whether intellect is itself intel-
ligible. For either intellect will also be present with other
things, if it is not intelligible according to another thing, but the
intelligible is one certain thing in species; or it will have some-
thing mingled, which will make it to be intelligible in the same
manner as other things. Or shall we say that to suffer subsists
according to something common? On which account, it was
before observed that intellect is in capacity, in a certain respect,
intelligibles, but is no one of them in entelecheia, before it under-
stands or perceives intellectually. But it is necessary to conceive
of it as of a table in which nothing is written in entelecheia;
which happens to be the case in intellect. But in those things
which have matter, each of the intelligibles is in capacity only.
Hence, intellect will not be present with them; for the intellect
of such things is capacity without matter. But with intellect the
intelligible will be present.
Since, however, in every nature there is something which is
matter to each genus (and this because it is all those in capacity),
and something which is the cause and affective, because it pro-
duces all things (in such a manner as art is affected with respect
to matter), it is necessary that these differences should also be
inherent in the soul. And the one is an intellect of this kind
because it becomes all things; but the other because it produces
all things as a certain habit, such for instance as light. For in a
certain respect, light also causes colors which are in capacity to
## p. 797 (#215) ############################################
ARISTOTLE
797
be colors in energy. And this intellect is separate, unmingled,
and impassive, since it is in its essence energy; for the efficient
is always more honorable than the patient, and the principle than
matter. Science, also, in energy is the same as the thing [which
is scientifically known]. But science which is in capacity is prior
in time in the one [to science in energy]; though, in short, neither
[is capacity prior to energy] in time. It does not, however, per-
ceive intellectually at one time and at another time not, but sepa-
rate intellect is alone this very thing which it is; and this alone
is immortal and eternal. We do not, however, remember because
this is impassive; but the passive intellect is corruptible, and
without this the separate intellect understands nothing.
ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HISTORY AND POETRY, AND
HOW HISTORICAL MATTER SHOULD BE USED IN POETRY
From the Poetics,' Chapter 9
Β'
UT it is evident from what has been said that it is not the
province of a poet to relate things which have happened,
but such as might have happened, and such things as are
possible according to probability, or which would necessarily have
happened. For a historian and a poet do not differ from each
other because the one writes in verse and the other in prose; for
the history of Herodotus might be written in verse, and yet it
would be no less a history with metre than without metre. But
they differ in this, that the one speaks of things which have hap-
pened, and the other of such as might have happened. Hence,
poetry is more philosophic, and more deserving of attention, than
history. For poetry speaks more of universals, but history of
particulars. But universal consists, indeed, in relating or perform-
ing certain things which happen to a man of a certain descrip-
tion, either probably or necessarily [to which the aim of poetry
is directed in giving names]; but particular consists in narrating
what [for example] Alcibiades did, or what he suffered. In
comedy, therefore, this is now become evident.
For comic poets
having composed a fable through things of a probable nature,
they thus give whatever names they please to their characters,
and do not, like iambic poets, write poems about particular per-
sons. But in tragedy they cling to real names.
ever, of this is, that the possible is credible.
which have not yet been done, we do not
The cause, how-
Things therefore
yet believe to be
## p. 798 (#216) ############################################
798
ARISTOTLE
possible: but it is evident that things which have been done are
possible, for they would not have been done if they were impos-
sible.
Not indeed but that in some tragedies there are one or two
known names, and the rest are feigned; but in others there is
no known name, as for instance in 'The Flower of Agatho. '
For in this tragedy the things and the names are alike feigned,
and yet it delights no less. Hence, one must not seek to adhere
entirely to traditional fables, which are the subjects of tragedy.
For it is ridiculous to make this the object of search, because
even known subjects are known but to a few, though at the
same time they delight all men. From these things, therefore,
it is evident that a poet ought rather to be the author of fables
than of metres, inasmuch as he is a poet from imitation, and he
imitates actions. Hence, though it should happen that he relates
things which have happened, he is no less a poet. For nothing
hinders but that some actions which have happened are such as
might both probably and possibly have happened, and by [the
narration of] such he is a poet.
But of simple plots and actions, the episodic are the worst.
But I call the plot episodic, in which it is neither probable nor
necessary that the episodes follow each other. Such plots, how-
ever, are composed by bad poets, indeed, through their own
want of ability; but by good poets, on account of the players.
For, introducing [dramatic] contests, and extending the plot
beyond its capabilities, they are frequently compelled to distort
the connection of the parts. But tragedy is not only an imi-
tation of a perfect action, but also of actions which are terri-
ble and piteous, and actions principally become such (and in
a greater degree when they happen contrary to opinion) on
account of each other. For thus they will possess more of the
marvelous than if they happened from chance and fortune; since
also of things which are from fortune, those appear to be most
admirable which seem to happen as it were by design. Thus
the statue of Mityus at Argos killed him who was the cause of
the death of Mityus by falling as he was surveying it. For such
events as these seem not to take place casually. Hence it is
necessary that fables of this kind should be more beautiful.
## p. 799 (#217) ############################################
ARISTOTLE
ON PHILOSOPHY
Quoted in Cicero's Nature of the Gods>
799
F THERE were men whose habitations had been always under
ground, in great and commodious houses, adorned with stat-
ues and pictures, furnished with everything which they who
are reputed happy abound with: and if, without stirring from
thence, they should be informed of a certain divine power and
majesty, and after some time the earth should open and they
should quit their dark abode to come to us, where they should
immediately behold the earth, the seas, the heavens; should con-
sider the vast extent of the clouds and force of the winds; should
see the sun and observe his grandeur and beauty, and perceive
that day is occasioned by the diffusion of his light through the
sky; and when night has obscured the earth they should contem-
plate the heavens, bespangled and adorned with stars, the sur-
prising variety of the moon in her increase and wane, the rising
and setting of all the stars and the inviolable regularity of their
courses, when, says he, "they should see these things, they
would undoubtedly conclude that there are gods, and that these
are their mighty works. "
ON ESSENCES
From The Metaphysics,' Book xi. , Chapter 1
HE
of speculative science) is essence.
are investigated the principles and causes of essences.
truth is, if the All be regarded as a whole, essence is its
first (or highest) part.
ARISTOPHANES
THE CALL TO THE NIGHTINGALE
From The Birds': Frere's Translation
Α
-
WAKE! awake!
Sleep no more, my gentle mate!
With your tiny tawny bill,
Wake the tuneful echo shrill,
On vale or hill;
Or in her airy rocky seat,
Let her listen and repeat
The tender ditty that you tell,
The sad lament,
The dire event,
To luckless Itys that befell.
Thence the strain
Shall rise again,
And soar amain,
Up to the lofty palace gate
Where mighty Apollo sits in state
In Jove's abode, with his ivory lyre,
Hymning aloud to the heavenly choir,
While all the gods shall join with thee
In a celestial symphony.
THE BUILDING OF CLOUD-CUCKOO-TOWN
From The Birds Frere's Translation
[Enter Messenger, quite out of breath, and speaking in short snatches. ]
Messenger-Where is he? Where? Where is he? Where? Where
is he? —The president Peisthetairus ?
Peisthetairus [coolly]-
Here am I.
Mess. [in a gasp of breath] - Your fortification's finished.
Peis. -
Mess.
779
Well! that's well.
A most amazing, astonishing work it is!
So that Theagenes and Proxenides
Might flourish and gasconade and prance away
Quite at their ease, both of them four-in-hand,
Driving abreast upon the breadth of wall,
Each in his own new chariot.
Peis. -
You surprise me.
Mess. And the height (for I made the measurement myself)
Is exactly a hundred fathoms.
## p. 780 (#194) ############################################
780
ARISTOPHANES
Peis. -
Heaven and earth!
How could it be? such a mass! who could have built it?
Mess. -The Birds; no creature else, no foreigners,
Egyptian bricklayers, workmen or masons.
But they themselves, alone, by their own efforts,—
(Even to my surprise, as an eye-witness)
The Birds, I say, completed everything:
There came a body of thirty thousand cranes,
(I won't be positive, there might be more)
With stones from Africa in their craws and gizzards,
Which the stone-curlews and stone-chatterers
Worked into shape and finished. The sand-martens
And mud-larks, too, were busy in their department,
Mixing the mortar, while the water-birds,
As fast as it was wanted, brought the water
To temper and work it.
Peis. [in a fidget]—
Mess. --
Mess. -
To carry it?
Of course, the carrion crows and carrying pigeons.
Peis. [in a fuss, which he endeavors to conceal ]—
Yes! yes! but after all, to load your hods,
How did you manage that ?
But who served the masons
Who did you get to carry it?
-
Oh, capitally,
I promise you. There were the geese, all barefoot
Trampling the mortar, and when all was ready
They handed it into the hods, so cleverly,
With their flat feet!
Peis. [a bad joke, as a vent for irritation]—
They footed it, you mean
Come; it was handily done though, I confess.
Mess. Indeed, I assure you, it was a sight to see them;
And trains of ducks there were, clambering the ladders
With their duck legs, like bricklayers' 'prentices,
All dapper and handy, with their little trowels.
Peis. In fact, then, it's no use engaging foreigners;
Mere folly and waste, we've all within ourselves.
Ah, well now, come! But about the woodwork? Heh!
Who were the carpenters? Answer me that!
Mess. The woodpeckers, of course: and there they were,
Laboring upon the gates, driving and banging,
With their hard hatchet-beaks, and such a din,
Such a clatter, as they made, hammering and hacking,
In a perpetual peal, pelting away
## p. 781 (#195) ############################################
ARISTOPHANES
781
Like shipwrights, hard at work in the arsenal.
And now their work is finished, gates and all,
Staples and bolts, and bars and everything;
The sentries at their posts; patrols appointed;
The watchman in the barbican; the beacons
Ready prepared for lighting; all their signals
Arranged - but I'll step out, just for a moment,
To wash my hands. You'll settle all the rest.
CHORUS OF WOMEN
From the Thesmophoriazusæ': Collins's Translation
THE
HEY'RE always abusing the women,
As a terrible plague to men:
They say we're the root of all evil,
And repeat it again and again;
Of war, and quarrels, and bloodshed,
All mischief, be what it may!
And pray, then, why do you marry us,
If we're all the plagues you say?
And why do you take such care of us,
And keep us so safe at home,
And are never easy a moment
If ever we chance to roam ?
When you ought to be thanking heaven
That your Plague is out of the way,
You all keep fussing and fretting-
"Where is my Plague to-day? "
――
If a Plague peeps out of the window,
Up go the eyes of men;
If she hides, then they all keep staring
Until she looks out again.
CHORUS OF MYSTÆ IN HADES
From The Frogs': Frere's Translation
CHORUS [shouting and singing]
ACCHUS! Iacchus! Ho!
Iacchus! Iacchus! Ho!
Xanthias-There, master, there they are, the initiated
All sporting about as he told us we should find 'em.
They're singing in praise of Bacchus like Diagoras.
## p. 782 (#196) ############################################
782
ARISTOPHANES
Bacchus
Bac.
-
Indeed, and so they are; but we'll keep quiet
Till we make them out a little more distinctly.
CHORUS [Song]
Mighty Bacchus! Holy Power!
Hither at the wonted hour
Come away,
Come away,
With the wanton holiday,
Where the revel uproar leads
To the mystic holy meads,
Where the frolic votaries fly,
With a tipsy shout and cry;
Flourishing the Thyrsus high,
Flinging forth, alert and airy,
To the sacred old vagary,
The tumultuous dance and song,
Sacred from the vulgar throng;
Mystic orgies that are known
To the votaries alone -
To the mystic chorus solely—
Secret-unrevealed- and holy.
Xan. O glorious virgin, daughter of the Goddess!
―――
--
What a scent of roasted griskin reached my senses!
Keep quiet and watch for a chance of a piece of the has-
lets.
CHORUS [Song]
Raise the fiery torches high!
Bacchus is approaching nigh,
Like the planet of the morn
Breaking with the hoary dawn
On the dark solemnity—
There they flash upon the sight;
All the plain is blazing bright,
Flushed and overflown with light:
Age has cast his years away,
And the cares of many a day,
Sporting to the lively lay-
Mighty Bacchus! march and lead
(Torch in hand toward the mead)
Thy devoted humble Chorus;
Mighty Bacchus - move before us!
---
## p. 783 (#197) ############################################
ARISTOPHANES
783
Keep silence - keep peace
and let all the profane
From our holy solemnity duly refrain;
Whose souls, unenlightened by taste, are obscure;
Whose poetical notions are dark and impure;
Whose theatrical conscience
Is sullied by nonsense;
Who never were trained by the mighty Cratinus
In mystical orgies, poetic and vinous;
Who delight in buffooning and jests out of season;
Who promote the designs of oppression and treason;
Who foster sedition and strife and debate;
All traitors, in short, to the Stage and the State:
Who surrender a fort, or in private export
To places and harbors of hostile resort
Clandestine consignments of cables and pitch, -
In the way that Thorycion grew to be rich
From a scoundrelly dirty collector of tribute:
All such we reject and severely prohibit;
All statesmen retrenching the fees and the salaries
Of theatrical bards, in revenge for the railleries
And jests and lampoons of this holy solemnity,
Profanely pursuing their personal enmity,
For having been flouted and scoffed and scorned-
All such are admonished and heartily warned;
We warn them once,
We warn them twice,
we warn them thrice,
To conform to the law,
To retire and withdraw;
We warn and admonish
―
While the Chorus again with the formal saw,
(Fixt and assign'd to the festive day)
Move to the measure and march away.
SEMI-CHORUS
March! march! lead forth,
Lead forth manfully,
March in order all;
Bustling, hustling, justling,
As it may befall;
Flocking, shouting, laughing,
Mocking, flouting, quaffing,
One and all;
All have had a belly-full
Of breakfast brave and plentiful;
## p. 784 (#198) ############################################
784
ARISTOPHANES
Therefore
Evermore
With your voices and your bodies
Serve the goddess,
And raise
Songs of praise;
She shall save the country still,
And save it against the traitor's will;
So she says.
SEMI-CHORUS
Now let us raise in a different strain
The praise of the goddess, the giver of grain;
Imploring her favor
With other behavior,
In measures more sober, submissive, and graver.
SEMI-CHORUS
Ceres, holy patroness,
Condescend to mark and bless,
With benevolent regard,
Both the Chorus and the Bard;
Grant them for the present day
Many things to sing and say,
Follies intermixed with sense;
Folly, but without offense.
Grant them with the present play
To bear the prize of verse away.
SEMI-CHORUS
Now call again, and with a different measure,
The power of mirth and pleasure;
The florid, active Bacchus, bright and gay,
To journey forth and join us on the way.
SEMI-CHORUS
O Bacchus, attend! the customary patron of every lively lay;
Go forth without delay
Thy wonted annual way,
To meet the ceremonious holy matron:
Her grave procession gracing,
Thine airy footsteps tracing
With unlaborious, light, celestial motion;
## p. 785 (#199) ############################################
ARISTOPHANES
785
And here at thy devotion
Behold thy faithful choir
In pitiful attire:
All overworn and ragged,
This jerkin old and jagged,
These buskins torn and burst,
Though sufferers in the fray,
May serve us at the worst
To sport throughout the day;
And then within the shades
I spy some lovely maids
With whom we romped and reveled,
Dismantled and disheveled,
With their bosoms open,-
With whom we might be coping.
Xan. -Well, I was always hearty,
Disposed to mirth and ease:
I'm ready to join the party.
And I will if you please.
Bac. -
A PARODY OF EURIPIDES'S LYRIC VERSE
From The Frogs
H
ALCYONS ye by the flowing sea
Waves that warble twitteringly,
Circling over the tumbling blue,
Dipping your down in its briny dew,
Spi-i-iders in corners dim
Spi-spi-spinning your fairy film,
Shuttles echoing round the room
Silver notes of the whistling loom,
Where the light-footed dolphin skips
Down the wake of the dark-prowed ships,
Over the course of the racing steed
Where the clustering tendrils breed
Grapes to drown dull care in delight,
Oh! mother make me a child again just for to-night!
I don't exactly see how that last line is to scan,
But that's a consideration I leave to our musical man.
II-50
## p. 786 (#200) ############################################
786
ARISTOPHANES
[The point of the following selection lies in the monotony of both narra-
tive style and metre in Euripides's prologues, and especially his regular
cæsura after the fifth syllable of a line. The burlesque tag used by Aris-
tophanes to demonstrate this effect could not be applied in the same way
to any of the fourteen extant plays of Sophocles and Æschylus. ]
Eschylus-And by Jove, I'll not stop to cut up your verses
word by word, but if the gods are propitious I'll spoil
all your prologues with a little flask of smelling-
salts.
Euripides-With a flask of smelling-salts?
Esch. With a single one. For you build your verses so that
anything will fit into the metre, a leathern sack,
or eider-down, or smelling-salts. I'll show you.
Eur. So, you'll show me, will you?
Esch. I will that.
Dionysus-Pronounce.
Eur. [declaiming]—
-
-
Eur. -
THE PROLOGUES OF EURIPIDES
From The Frogs'
-
Esch-
- lost his smelling-salts.
Dion. What the mischief have the smelling-salts got to do with.
it? Recite another prologue to him and let me see.
Esch-
―
Ægyptus, as broad-bruited fame reports,
With fifty children voyaging the main
To Argos came, and
Dionysus, thyrsus-armed and faun-skin-clad,
Amid the torchlights on Parnassus's slope
Dancing and prancing
Esch. -
- lost his smelling-salts.
Dion. - Caught out again by the smelling-salts.
Eur. - No matter. Here's a prologue that he can't fit 'em to.
No lot of mortal man is wholly blest:
}
The high-born youth hath lacked the means of life,
The lowly lout hath
-lost his smelling-salts.
## p. 787 (#201) ############################################
ARISTOPHANES
787
Dion. - Euripides-
Eur. -
Dion. -
Best take in sail.
These smelling-salts, methinks, will blow a gale.
I'll fix him next time.
Eur. - What do I care?
Dion. - Well, recite another, and steer clear of the smelling-salts.
Eur. -
—
―
Esch. -
-lost his smelling-salts.
Dion. My dear fellow, buy those smelling-salts, or there won't
be a rag left of all your prologues.
Eur. - What? I buy 'em of him?
Dion. If you'll be advised by me.
Eur. Not a bit of it. I've lots of prologues where he can't
work 'em in.
-
Well, what?
Cadmus departing from the town of Tyre,
Son of Agenor
――――――
Esch. -
-lost his smelling-salts.
Dion. There they are again, you see. Do let him have 'em,
my good Eschylus. You can replace 'em for a
nickel.
I've not run out yet.
Never.
-
Pelops the Tantalid to Pisa coming
With speedy coursers
Eneus from broad fields
Esch. -
Eur. - Let me say the whole verse, won't you?
-lost his smelling-salts.
Esch. -
-lost his smelling-salts.
Dion. While sacrificing? Who filched them?
Eur. -Oh, never mind him. Let him try it on this verse:
Zeus, as the word of sooth declared of old-
Eneus from broad fields reaped a mighty crop
And offering first-fruits
Dion. It's no use, he'll say Zeus lost his smelling-salts. For
those smelling-salts fit your prologues like a kid
glove. But go on and turn your attention to his
lyrics.
## p. 788 (#202) ############################################
DGX
788
HE
ARISTOTLE
(B. C. 384-322)
BY THOMAS DAVIDSON
"Stagirite," called by Eusebius "Nature's private secre-
tary," and by Dante "the master of those that know,"-
the greatest thinker of the ancient world, and the most
influential of all time, was born of Greek parents at Stagira, in
the mountains of Macedonia, in B. C. 384. Of his mother, Phæstis,
almost nothing is known. His father, Nicomachus, belonged to a
medical family, and acted as private physician to Amyntas, grand-
father of Alexander the Great; whence it is probable that Aristotle's
boyhood was passed at or near the Macedonian court. Losing both
his parents while a mere boy, he was taken charge of by a relative,
Proxenus Atarneus, and sent, at the age of seventeen, to Athens to
study. Here he entered the school of Plato, where he remained
twenty years, as pupil and as teacher. During this time he made
the acquaintance of the leading contemporary thinkers, read omnivo-
rously, amassed an amount of knowledge that seems almost fabu-
lous, schooled himself in systematic thought, and (being well off)
collected a library, perhaps the first considerable private library in
the world. Having toward the end felt obliged to assume an inde-
pendent attitude in thought, he was not at the death of Plato (347)
appointed his successor in the Academy, as might have been ex-
pected. Not wishing at that time to set up a rival school, he
retired to the court of a former fellow-pupil, Hermias, then king of
Assos and Atarneus, whom he greatly respected, and whose adopted
daughter, Pythias, he later married. Here he remained, pursuing
his studies, for three years; and left only when his patron was
treacherously murdered by the Persians.
Having retired to Mitylene, he soon afterward received an invi-
tation from Philip of Macedonia to undertake the education of his
son Alexander, then thirteen years old. Aristotle willingly obeyed
this summons; and retiring with his royal pupil to Mieza, a town
southwest of Pella, imparted his instruction in the Nymphæum,
which he had arranged in imitation of Plato's garden school. Alex-
ander remained with him three years, and was then called by his
father to assume important State duties. Whether Aristotle's in-
struction continued after that is uncertain; but the two men remained
fast friends, and there can be no doubt that much of the nobility,
self-control, largeness of purpose, and enthusiasm for culture, which
## p. 788 (#203) ############################################
ARISTOTLE.
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## p. 788 (#205) ############################################
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ARISTOTELES
ARISTOTLE.
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## p. 789 (#207) ############################################
ARISTOTLE
789
characterized Alexander's subsequent career, were due to the teach-
ing of the philosopher. What Aristotle was in the world of thought,
Alexander became in the world of action.
Aristotle remained in Macedonia ten years, giving instruction
to young Macedonians and continuing his own studies. He then
returned to Athens, and opened a school in the peripatos, or prom-
enade, of the Lyceum, the gymnasium of the foreign residents, a
school which from its location was called the Peripatetic. Here he
developed a manifold activity. He pursued all kinds of studies,
logical, rhetorical, physical, metaphysical, ethical, political, and æs-
thetic, gave public (exoteric) and private (esoteric) instruction, and
composed the bulk of the treatises which have made his name
famous. These treatises were composed slowly, in connection with
his lectures, and subjected to frequent revision. He likewise en-
deavored to lead an ideal social life with his friends and pupils,
whom he gathered under a common roof to share meals and elevated
converse in common.
Thus affairs went on for twelve fruitful years, and might have
gone on longer, but for the sudden death of Alexander, his friend
and patron.
Then the hatred of the Athenians to the conqueror
showed itself in hostility to his old master, and sought for means to
put him out of the way. How hard it was to find a pretext for so
doing is shown by the fact that they had to fix upon the poem
which he had written on the death of his friend Hermias many
years before, and base upon it—as having the form of the pæan,
sacred to Apollo-a charge of impiety. Aristotle, recognizing the
utter flimsiness of the charge, and being unwilling, as he said, to
allow the Athenians to sin a second time against philosophy, retired
beyond their reach to his villa at Chalcis in Euboea, where he died
of stomach disease the year after (322). In the later years of his life,
the friendship between him and his illustrious pupil had, owing to
certain outward circumstances, become somewhat cooled; but there
never was any serious breach. His body was carried to Stagira,
which he had induced Philip to restore after it had been destroyed,
and whose inhabitants therefore looked upon him as the founder of
the city. As such he received the religious honors accorded to
heroes: an altar was erected to him, at which an annual festival was
celebrated in the month named after him.
As a
We may sum up the character of Aristotle by saying that he was
one of the sanest and most rounded men that ever lived.
philosopher, he stands in the front rank. "No time," says Hegel,
"has a man to place by his side. " Nor was his moral character in-
ferior to his intellect. No one can read his 'Ethics,' or his will (the
text of which is extant), without feeling the nobleness, simplicity,
## p. 790 (#208) ############################################
790
ARISTOTLE
purity, and modernness of his nature. In his family relations, espe-
cially, he seems to have stood far above his contemporaries. The
depth of his æsthetic perception is attested by his poems and his
'Poetics. '
The unsatisfactory and fragmentary condition in which Aristotle's
works have come down to us makes it difficult to judge of his style.
Many of them seem mere collections of notes and jottings for lec-
tures, without any attempt at style. The rest are distinguished by
brevity, terseness, and scientific precision. No other man ever en-
riched philosophic language with so many original expressions. We
know, from the testimony of most competent judges, such as Cicero,
that his popular writings, dialogues, etc. , were written in an elegant
style, casting even that of Plato into the shade; and this is borne
fully out by some extant fragments.
Greek philosophy culminates in Aristotle. Setting out with a
naïve acceptance of the world as being what it seemed, and trying to
reduce this Being to some material principle, such as water, air, etc. ,
it was gradually driven, by force of logic, to distinguish Being from
Seeming, and to see that while the latter was dependent on the
thinking subject, the former could not be anything material. This
result was reached by both the materialistic and spiritualistic schools,
and was only carried one step further by the Sophists, who main-
tained that even the being of things depended on the thinker. This
necessarily led to skepticism, individualism, and disruption of the old
social and religious order.
Then arose Socrates, greatest of the Sophists, who, seeing that the
outer world had been shown to depend on the inner, adopted as his
motto, "Know Thyself," and devoted himself to the study of mind.
By his dialectic method he showed that skepticism and individualism,
so far as anarchic, can be overcome by carrying out thought to its
implications; when it proves to be the same for all, and to bring
with it an authority binding on all, and replacing that of the old
external gods. Thus Socrates discovered the principle of human lib-
erty, a principle necessarily hostile to the ancient State, which
absorbed the man in the citizen. Socrates was accordingly put to
death as an atheist; and then Plato, with good intentions but preju-
diced insight, set to work to restore the old tyranny of the State.
This he did by placing truth, or reality (which Socrates had found in
complete thought, internal to the mind), outside of both thought and
nature, and making it consist of a group of eternal schemes, or
forms, of which natural things are merely transient phantoms, and
which can be reached by only a few aristocratic souls, born to rule
the rest. On the basis of this distortion he constructed his Repub-
lic, in which complete despotism is exercised by the philosophers
## p. 791 (#209) ############################################
ARISTOTLE
791
through the military; man is reduced to a machine, his affections and
will being disregarded; community of women and of property is the
law; and science is scouted.
Aristotle's philosophy may be said to be a protest against this
view, and an attempt to show that reality is embodied in nature,
which depends on a supreme intelligence, and may be realized in
other intelligences, or thought-centres, such as the human mind. In
other words, according to Aristotle, truth is actual in the world and
potential in all minds, which may by experience put on its forms.
Thus the individualism of the Sophists and the despotism of Plato
are overcome, while an important place is made for experience, or
science.
Aristotle, accepting the world of common-sense, tried to ration-
alize it; that is, to realize it in himself. First among the Greeks
he believed it to be unique, uncreated, and eternal, and gave his
reasons. Recognizing that the phenomenal world exists in change,
he investigated the principle and method of this. Change he con-
ceives as a transition from potentiality to actuality, and as always
due to something actualized, communicating its form to something
potential. Looking at the "world" as a whole, and picturing it as
limited, globular, and constructed like an onion, with the earth in
the centre, and round about it nine concentric spheres carrying the
planets and stars, he concludes that there must be at one end some-
thing purely actual and therefore unchanging,— that is, pure form
or energy; and at the other, something purely potential and there-
fore changing,- that is, pure matter or latency. The pure actuality
is at the circumference, pure matter at the centre. Matter, however,
never exists without some form. Thus, nature is an eternal circular
process between the actual and the potential. The supreme Intel-
ligence, God, being pure energy, changelessly thinks himself, and
through the love inspired by his perfection moves the outmost sphere;
which would move all the rest were it not for inferior intelligences,
fifty-six in number, who, by giving them different directions, diver-
sify the divine action and produce the variety of the world. The
celestial world is composed of eternal matter, or æther, whose only
change is circular motion; the sublunary world is composed of chan-
ging matter, in four different but mutually transmutable forms-fire,
air, water, earth-movable in two opposite directions, in straight
lines, under the ever-varying influence of the celestial spheres.
Thus the world is an organism, making no progress as a whole,
but continually changing in its various parts. In it all real things
are individuals, not universals, as Plato thought. And forms pass
from individual to individual only. Peleus, not humanity, is the par-
ent of Achilles; the learned man only can teach the ignorant. In ·
## p. 792 (#210) ############################################
ARISTOTLE
792
the world-process there are several distinct stages, to each of which
Aristotle devotes a special work, or series of works. Beginning with
the "four elements" and their changes, he works up through the
mineral, vegetable, and animal worlds, to man, and thence through
the spheral intelligences to the supreme, divine intelligence, on which
the Whole depends. Man stands on the dividing line between the
temporal and the eternal; belonging with his animal part to the for-
mer, with his intelligence (which "enters from without") to the
latter. He is an intelligence, of the same nature as the sphere-
movers, but individuated by mutable matter in the form of a body,
matter being in all cases the principle of individuation. As intelli-
gence, he becomes free; takes the guidance of his life into his own
hand; and, first through ethics, politics, and æsthetics, the forms of
his sensible or practical activity, and second through logic, science,
and philosophy, the forms of his intellectual activity, he rises to
divine heights and "plays the immortal. » His supreme activity is
contemplation. This, the eternal energy of God, is possible for man
only at rare intervals.
Aristotle, by placing his eternal forms in sensible things as their
meaning, made science possible and necessary. Not only is he the
father of scientific method, inductive and deductive, but his actual
contributions to science place him in the front rank of scientists.
His Zoology, Psychology, Logic, Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics, and
Esthetics, are still highly esteemed and extensively studied. At the
same time, by failing to overcome the dualism and supernaturalism
of Plato, by adopting the popular notions about spheres and sphere-
movers, by separating intelligence from sense, by conceiving matter
as independent and the principle of individuation, and by making
science relate only to the universal, he paved the way for astrology,
alchemy, magic, and all the forms of superstition, retarding the
advance of several sciences, as for example astronomy and chemistry,
for many hundred years.
After Aristotle's death, his school was continued by a succession of
studious and learned men, but did not for many centuries deeply
affect contemporary life. At last, in the fifth century A. D. , his
thought found its way into the Christian schools, giving birth to
rationalism and historical criticism. At various times its adherents
were condemned as heretics and banished, mostly to Syria. Here, at
Edessa and Nisibis, they established schools of learning which for
several centuries were the most famous in the world. The entire
works of Aristotle were turned into Syriac; among them several spuri-
ous ones of Neo-Platonic origin, notably the famous 'Liber de Causis'
and the Theology of Aristotle. ' Thus a Neo-Platonic Aristotle came
to rule Eastern learning. On the rise of Islâm, this Aristotle was
## p. 793 (#211) ############################################
ARISTOTLE
793
borrowed by the Muslims, and became ruler of their schools at Bag-
dad, Basra, and other places,-schools which produced many remarka-
ble men. On the decay of these, he passed in the twelfth century
into the schools of Spain, and here ruled supreme until Arab phi-
losophy was suppressed, shortly before 1200. From the Arabs he
passed into the Christian Church about this date; and though at first
resisted, was finally accepted, and became "the philosopher" of the
schools, and the inspirer of Dante. The Reformers, though decrying
him, were forced to have recourse to him; but his credit was not
re-established until the present century, when, thanks to Hegel, Tren-
delenburg, Brandis, and the Berlin Academy, his true value was rec-
ognized and his permanent influence insured.
The extant works of Aristotle, covering the whole field of science,
may be classified as follows:
A. Logical or Formal, dealing with the form rather than the mat-
ter of science:-'Categories,' treating of Being and its determination,
which, being regarded ontologically, bring the work into the meta-
physical sphere; On Interpretation,' dealing with the proposition;
'Former Analytics,' theory of the syllogism; 'Later Analytics,' the-
ory of proof; Topics,' probable proofs; Sophistical proofs,' fallacies.
These works were later united by the Stoics under the title Orga-
non,' or Instrument (of science).
B. Scientific or Philosophical, dealing with the matter of science.
These may be subdivided into three classes: (a) Theoretical, (b) Prac-
tical, (c) Creative.
(a) The Theoretical has further subdivisions: (a) Metaphysical, (b)
Physical, (c) Mathematical. (a) The Metaphysical works include the
incomplete collection under the name 'Metaphysics. '— (b) The Physi-
cal works include 'Physics,' 'On the Heavens,' 'On Generation and
Decay,' 'On the Soul,' with eight supplementary tracts on actions
of the soul as combined with the body; viz. , 'On Sense and Sensi-
bles,' 'On Memory and Reminiscence,' 'On Sleep and Waking,' 'On
Dreams,' 'On Divination from Dreams,' 'On Length and Shortness
of Life,' On Life and Death,' On Respiration, Meteorologics,'
'Histories of Animals' (Zoögraphy), 'On the Parts of Animals,' 'On
the Generation of Animals,' 'On the Motion of Animals,' 'Problems'
(largely spurious), On the Cosmos,' 'Physiognomics,' 'On Wonderful
Auditions,' 'On Colors. '- The Mathematical works include On Indi-
visible Lines,' 'Mechanics. '
――――
(b) The Practical works are 'Nicomachean Ethics,' 'Endemean
Ethics,' 'Great Ethics' (Magna Moralia'), really different forms of
the same work; 'Politics,' 'Constitutions' (originally one hundred
and fifty-eight in number; now represented only by the recently
## p. 794 (#212) ############################################
ARISTOTLE
794
discovered 'Constitution of Athens'), 'On Virtues and Vices,' 'Rhet-
oric to Alexander,' 'Economics. '
(c) Of Creative works we have only the fragmentary 'Poetics. '
To these may be added a few poems, one of which is given here.
Besides the extant works of Aristotle, we have titles, fragments,
and some knowledge of the contents of a large number more.
Among these are the whole of the "exoteric" works, including nine-
teen Dialogues. A list of his works, as arranged in the Alexandrian
Library (apparently), is given by Diogenes Laërtius in his 'Life of
Aristotle' (printed in the Berlin and Paris editions of 'Aristotle'); a
list in which it is not easy to identify the whole of the extant works.
The 'Fragments' appear in both the editions just named. Some
of the works named above are almost certainly spurious; e. g. , the
'Rhetoric to Alexander,' the Economics, etc.
The chief editions of Aristotle's works, exclusive of the 'Constitu-
tion of Athens,' are that of the Berlin Academy (Im. Bekker), con-
taining text, scholia, Latin translation, and Index in Greek (5 vols. ,
square 4to); and the Paris or Didot (Dübner, Bussemaker, Heitz),
containing text, Latin translation, and very complete Index in Latin
(5 vols. , 4to). Of the chief works the best editions are:- 'Organon,'
Waitz; 'Metaphysics,' Schwegler, Bonitz; 'Physics,' Prantl; 'Meteor-
ologics,' Ideler; 'On the Generation of Animals,' Aubert and Wim-
mer; 'Psychology,' Trendelenburg, Torstrik, Wallace (with English
translation); 'Nicomachean Ethics,' Grant, Ramsauer, Susemihl; 'Poli-
tics, Stahr, Susemihl; 'Constitution of Athens,' Kenyon, Sandys;
'Poetics,' Susemihl, Vahlen, Butcher (with English translation). There
are few good English translations of Aristotle's works; but among
these may be mentioned Peter's 'Nicomachean Ethics,' Jowett's and
Welldon's 'Politics,' and Poste's 'Constitution of Athens. ' There is
a fair French translation of the principal works by Barthélemy
St. -Hilaire. The Berlin Academy is now (1896) publishing the ancient
Greek commentaries on Aristotle in thirty-five quarto volumes. The
best work on Aristotle is that by E. Zeller, in Vol. iii. of his 'Philoso-
phie der Griechen. ' The English works by Lewes and Grote are
inferior. For Bibliography, the student may consult Ueberweg,
'Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie,' Vol. i. , pages 196 seq.
Shavar David
## p. 795 (#213) ############################################
ARISTOTLE
795
THE NATURE OF THE SOUL
From On the Soul,' Book iii. , Chapter 6
C
ONCERNING that part of the soul, however, by which the soul
knows (and is prudentially wise) whether it is separable or
not separable, according to magnitude, but according to rea-
son, it must be considered what difference it possesses, and how
intellectual perception is produced. If, therefore, to perceive in-
tellectually is the same thing as to perceive sensibly, it will either
be to suffer something from the intelligible, or something else of
this kind. It is necessary, however, that it should be impassive,
but capable of receiving form; and in capacity a thing of this
kind, but not this; and also, that as the sensitive power is to
sensibles, so should intellect be to intelligibles. It is necessary,
therefore, since it understands all things, that it should be un-
mingled, as Anaxagoras says, that it may predominate: but this
is that it may know; for that which is foreign at the same time
presenting itself to the view, impedes and obstructs.
Hence, neither is there any other nature of it than this, that
it is possible. That, therefore, which is called the intellect of
soul (I mean the intellect by which the soul energizes dianoeti-
cally and hypoleptically), is nothing in energy of beings before
it intellectually perceives them. Hence, neither is it reasonable
that it should be mingled with body; for thus it would become a
thing with certain quality, would be hot or cold, and would have
a certain organ in the same manner as
the sensitive power.
Now, however, there is no organ of it. In a proper manner,
therefore, do they speak, who say that the soul is the place of
forms; except that this is not true of the whole soul, but of that
which is intellective; nor is it forms in entelecheia, but in ca-
pacity. But that the impassivity of the sensitive and intellective
power is not similar, is evident in the sensoria and in sense.
For sense cannot perceive from a vehement sensible object (as
for instance, sounds from very loud sounds; nor from strong
odors and colors can it either see or smell): but intellect, when
it understands anything very intelligible, does not less under-
stand inferior concerns, but even understands them in a greater
degree; for the sensitive power is not without body, but intellect
is separate from body].
When however it becomes particulars, in such a manner as he
is said to possess scientific knowledge who scientifically knows
## p. 796 (#214) ############################################
796
ARISTOTLE
in energy (and this happens when it is able to energize through
itself), then also it is similarly in a certain respect in capacity,
yet not after the same manner as before it learnt or discovered;
and it is then itself able to understand itself. By the sensitive
power, therefore, it distinguishes the hot and the cold, and those
things of which flesh is a certain reason; but by another power,
either separate, or as an inflected line subsists with reference to
itself when it is extended, it distinguishes the essence of flesh.
Further still, in those things which consist in ablation, the
straight is as the flat nose; for it subsists with the continued.
Some one, however, may question, if intellect is simple and
impassive and has nothing in common with anything, as Anax-
agoras says, how it can perceive intellectually, if to perceive in-
tellectually is to suffer something; for so far as something is
common to both, the one appears to act, but the other to suffer.
Again, it may also be doubted whether intellect is itself intel-
ligible. For either intellect will also be present with other
things, if it is not intelligible according to another thing, but the
intelligible is one certain thing in species; or it will have some-
thing mingled, which will make it to be intelligible in the same
manner as other things. Or shall we say that to suffer subsists
according to something common? On which account, it was
before observed that intellect is in capacity, in a certain respect,
intelligibles, but is no one of them in entelecheia, before it under-
stands or perceives intellectually. But it is necessary to conceive
of it as of a table in which nothing is written in entelecheia;
which happens to be the case in intellect. But in those things
which have matter, each of the intelligibles is in capacity only.
Hence, intellect will not be present with them; for the intellect
of such things is capacity without matter. But with intellect the
intelligible will be present.
Since, however, in every nature there is something which is
matter to each genus (and this because it is all those in capacity),
and something which is the cause and affective, because it pro-
duces all things (in such a manner as art is affected with respect
to matter), it is necessary that these differences should also be
inherent in the soul. And the one is an intellect of this kind
because it becomes all things; but the other because it produces
all things as a certain habit, such for instance as light. For in a
certain respect, light also causes colors which are in capacity to
## p. 797 (#215) ############################################
ARISTOTLE
797
be colors in energy. And this intellect is separate, unmingled,
and impassive, since it is in its essence energy; for the efficient
is always more honorable than the patient, and the principle than
matter. Science, also, in energy is the same as the thing [which
is scientifically known]. But science which is in capacity is prior
in time in the one [to science in energy]; though, in short, neither
[is capacity prior to energy] in time. It does not, however, per-
ceive intellectually at one time and at another time not, but sepa-
rate intellect is alone this very thing which it is; and this alone
is immortal and eternal. We do not, however, remember because
this is impassive; but the passive intellect is corruptible, and
without this the separate intellect understands nothing.
ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HISTORY AND POETRY, AND
HOW HISTORICAL MATTER SHOULD BE USED IN POETRY
From the Poetics,' Chapter 9
Β'
UT it is evident from what has been said that it is not the
province of a poet to relate things which have happened,
but such as might have happened, and such things as are
possible according to probability, or which would necessarily have
happened. For a historian and a poet do not differ from each
other because the one writes in verse and the other in prose; for
the history of Herodotus might be written in verse, and yet it
would be no less a history with metre than without metre. But
they differ in this, that the one speaks of things which have hap-
pened, and the other of such as might have happened. Hence,
poetry is more philosophic, and more deserving of attention, than
history. For poetry speaks more of universals, but history of
particulars. But universal consists, indeed, in relating or perform-
ing certain things which happen to a man of a certain descrip-
tion, either probably or necessarily [to which the aim of poetry
is directed in giving names]; but particular consists in narrating
what [for example] Alcibiades did, or what he suffered. In
comedy, therefore, this is now become evident.
For comic poets
having composed a fable through things of a probable nature,
they thus give whatever names they please to their characters,
and do not, like iambic poets, write poems about particular per-
sons. But in tragedy they cling to real names.
ever, of this is, that the possible is credible.
which have not yet been done, we do not
The cause, how-
Things therefore
yet believe to be
## p. 798 (#216) ############################################
798
ARISTOTLE
possible: but it is evident that things which have been done are
possible, for they would not have been done if they were impos-
sible.
Not indeed but that in some tragedies there are one or two
known names, and the rest are feigned; but in others there is
no known name, as for instance in 'The Flower of Agatho. '
For in this tragedy the things and the names are alike feigned,
and yet it delights no less. Hence, one must not seek to adhere
entirely to traditional fables, which are the subjects of tragedy.
For it is ridiculous to make this the object of search, because
even known subjects are known but to a few, though at the
same time they delight all men. From these things, therefore,
it is evident that a poet ought rather to be the author of fables
than of metres, inasmuch as he is a poet from imitation, and he
imitates actions. Hence, though it should happen that he relates
things which have happened, he is no less a poet. For nothing
hinders but that some actions which have happened are such as
might both probably and possibly have happened, and by [the
narration of] such he is a poet.
But of simple plots and actions, the episodic are the worst.
But I call the plot episodic, in which it is neither probable nor
necessary that the episodes follow each other. Such plots, how-
ever, are composed by bad poets, indeed, through their own
want of ability; but by good poets, on account of the players.
For, introducing [dramatic] contests, and extending the plot
beyond its capabilities, they are frequently compelled to distort
the connection of the parts. But tragedy is not only an imi-
tation of a perfect action, but also of actions which are terri-
ble and piteous, and actions principally become such (and in
a greater degree when they happen contrary to opinion) on
account of each other. For thus they will possess more of the
marvelous than if they happened from chance and fortune; since
also of things which are from fortune, those appear to be most
admirable which seem to happen as it were by design. Thus
the statue of Mityus at Argos killed him who was the cause of
the death of Mityus by falling as he was surveying it. For such
events as these seem not to take place casually. Hence it is
necessary that fables of this kind should be more beautiful.
## p. 799 (#217) ############################################
ARISTOTLE
ON PHILOSOPHY
Quoted in Cicero's Nature of the Gods>
799
F THERE were men whose habitations had been always under
ground, in great and commodious houses, adorned with stat-
ues and pictures, furnished with everything which they who
are reputed happy abound with: and if, without stirring from
thence, they should be informed of a certain divine power and
majesty, and after some time the earth should open and they
should quit their dark abode to come to us, where they should
immediately behold the earth, the seas, the heavens; should con-
sider the vast extent of the clouds and force of the winds; should
see the sun and observe his grandeur and beauty, and perceive
that day is occasioned by the diffusion of his light through the
sky; and when night has obscured the earth they should contem-
plate the heavens, bespangled and adorned with stars, the sur-
prising variety of the moon in her increase and wane, the rising
and setting of all the stars and the inviolable regularity of their
courses, when, says he, "they should see these things, they
would undoubtedly conclude that there are gods, and that these
are their mighty works. "
ON ESSENCES
From The Metaphysics,' Book xi. , Chapter 1
HE
of speculative science) is essence.
are investigated the principles and causes of essences.
truth is, if the All be regarded as a whole, essence is its
first (or highest) part.
