This text is part of:
If pleasure is what it has been described to be, a return from a temporary disturbance or unnatural state into a state of nature (φύσις being here understood in one of the ordinary Aristotelian significations, the normal nature, nature in its best and completest condition), then all ‘passing into a natural state’ must be pleasant, ‘and especially whenever what takes place in accordance with it has reached its own proper nature’, i.e. its acme or maximum, the highest attainable point of its development, for instance, drinking, quenching the thirst is a pleasure, learning is a pleasure, but the acme or highest point they reach is still more pleasant in both. Schrader, who suggests these examples, expresses the later of the two stages in each, by sitim restinxisse, didicisse, which not only does not give Aristotle's meaning correctly, but also, as I think, is not true as a matter of fact. ἀπειληφότα ᾖ] has attained to, acquired as its due, the opp. of ἀποδιδόναι, see note on I 1. 7. Gaisford cites in exemplification of this application of ἀπολαμβάνειν, Plutarch, de tuenda sanitate, II 130 E, τὸ γὰρ οἰκεῖον ἡ φύσις ἀπείληφεν (Nature has recovered, regained her own). καὶ τὰ ἔθη κ.τ.λ.] ‘and all habits, for in fact that which has become habitual now (by this time, now that it has reached this point) takes the form (γίγνεται) of something just like what is natural: for habit is a thing (τί) closely resembling nature; because frequent repetition makes a near approach to the constant and uniform, and nature belongs to the constant and uniform, and habit is a case of frequent repetition’. With this statement about habit, comp. de Memoria 2. 16, p. 452 a 27, ὥσπερ γὰρ φύσις ἤὸη τὸ ἔθος, and line 30, τὸ δὲ πολλάκις φύσιν ποιεῖ. Gaisford refers to Plutarch, de tuenda sanit. 132 A, τὸ ἔθος τρόπον τινὰ φύσις τοῦ παρὰ φύσιν γέγονεν. Consuetudo altera natura. Prov. ap. Erasm. (Adagia) p. 994. Eth. N. VII 11, 1152 a 30, ῥᾷον γὰρ ἔθος μετακινῆσαι φύσεως: διὰ γὰρ τοῦτο καὶ τὸ ἔθος χαλεπὸν, ὅτι τῇ φύσει ἔοικεν, ὥσπερ καὶ Εὔηνος λέγει, φημὶ πολυχρόνιον μελέτην ἔμεναι φίλε, καὶ δὴ | ταύτην ἀνθρώποισι τελευτῶσαν φύσιν εἶναι.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This text was converted to electronic form by professional data entry and has been proofread to a medium level of accuracy.
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.