This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
Wrong acts are
greater in proportion to the injustice from which they spring. For this reason
the most trifling are sometimes the greatest, as in the charge brought by
Callistratus1 against Melanopus that he had fraudulently kept back three
consecrated half-obols from the temple-builders2; whereas, in the case of just actions, it is quite the
contrary. The reason is that the greater potentially inheres in the less; for he
who has stolen three consecrated half-obols will commit any wrong whatever.
Wrong acts are judged greater sometimes in this way, sometimes by the extent of
the injury done.
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 22, translated by J. H. Freese. Aristotle. Cambridge and London. Harvard University Press; William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.