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The κοινὸς τόπος of μᾶλλον καὶ ἧττον or degree applied to τὸ συμφέρον, expediency. Most of the special topics of this chapter are derived from, or at all events coincide with, those of the third book of the Dialectical Topics. Brandis, über Ar. Rhet. ap. Schneidewin's Philologus, IV 1. pp. 14, 15, infers from certain slight differences of the mode of treatment, in the case of two or three of these topics in the two works, the later composition of the Rhetoric; but in this latter work the references, tacit or acknowledged, to the Topics, are so numerous and so precise, that we do not need this indirect evidence to establish the point. The passages to be compared are, Top. Γ 2, 117 a 11, with Rhet. I 6. 3, and 7. 5; Top. Γ 3, 118 b 20, with Rhet. I 7. 36; Top. Γ I, 116 a 29, and 6. 8, with Rhet. I 7. 8. Cicero, Topic. XVIII 68—70, in a passage too long to quote here, enumerates the topics of Comparatio, following Aristotle very closely: most of Aristotle's topics of this chapter are found in Cicero's list. The topics of comparison fall under four general heads. Comparantur igitur ea quae aut maiora aut minora aut paria dicuntur: in quibus spectantur haec, numerus, species, vis, quaedam etiam ad res aliquas affectio; which are there severally illustrated at length. First, some general principles are laid down; then we are referred back to c. 6. 2, for the various definitions of good; and then, (from § 3 to the end of the chapter), these general principles and definitions are applied to the determination of cases, special τόποι or εἴδη, of comparison of two good things, so as to shew which of them in each case is the greater.


ἄμφω] ‘both’—of two things, left to be understood.


ἔστω] See note on c. 5. 3, 6. 2, 10. 3.

ὑπερέχονὑπερεχόμενον] ‘Hae definitiones possunt declarari duabus lineis parallelis, quarum una ultra alteram protenditur: item numeris, e. g. 6 et 9. Maior enim sive linea sive numerus et aequat minorem et excurrit: minor vero inest in maiori.’ Schrader. On the passive form ὑπερέχεσθαι, see Appendix (B) On the irregular passive (at the end of the notes to this Book).

τοσοῦτον καὶ ἔτι] ‘so much and something over’.

τὸ ἐνυπάρχον] ‘that which is contained or included in the other’.

καὶ μεῖζον μὲν ἀεὶ κ.τ.λ.] That all ‘quantity’, and all terms that express it, μέγα μικρόν, πολὺ ὀλίγον, are relative, πρός τι, we learn from the Categories, c. 6, 5 b 15—29, of which this passage is a summary repetition. The same thing, as a mountain or a grain of millet, when compared with two different things, is called great or little, greater or less—and so of ‘many’ and ‘few’. None of them is absolute αὐτὸ καθ᾽ αὑτό: all of them are relative to something else, with which they are compared, πρός τι, πρὸς ἕτερον.

“And ‘greater’ and ‘more’ have always reference to a ‘less’, and ‘much’ and ‘little1’ to the average, magnitude (τὸ τῶν πολλῶν μέγεθος, the object to which the term is applied being thereby compared with its congeners, as a mountain or man with the average, τοῖς πολλοῖς, of mountains and men, in order to estimate its size): and that which is called ‘great’ exceeds (this average ordinary size), whilst that which falls short of it is called ‘small’, and ‘much’ and ‘little’ in like manner2’.


The following definitions of good are repeated from c. 6. 2, with a few trifling alterations. This section is translated, and the illogical character of the construction explained, in Introd. pp. 177—8.

αὑτῷ δὲ ἀγαθὸν τὸ πρὸς αὑτὸ ταῦτα πεπονθός] This clause contrasts the notion of good in itself, καθ᾽ αὑτό, here expressed by the dative αὑτῷ ‘to’, or, ‘for and by itself’, with good as the universal τέλος, the object of all men's aims and aspirations. Schrader, Vater, Buhle, and Bonitz (Aristotelische Studien, I p. 89), are in favour of αὐτῷ and αὐτόν, which would thus contrast ‘good to the individual with good in general’. Eth. N. VII 13, init. ἀγαθὸν διχῶς, τὸ μὲν ἁπλῶς, τὸ δέ τινι. Top. Γ I, 116 b 8, τὸ ἁπλῶς ἀγαθὸν τοῦ τινὶ αἱρετώτερον. This use of the pronoun is quite in conformity with ordinary Aristotelian usage, as infra § 35, τὸ αὐτῷ καὶ ἁπλῶς, and frequently elsewhere. Vater says that the Greek Scholiast gives αὐτῷ as well as αὐτό: and Bonitz adds that Muretus' rendering, cuique autem bonum id quod ita est affectum ad ipsum, shews that he followed this reading. Nevertheless it appears that there is no manuscript authority for the change, and Bekker and Spengel have retained αὑτῷ and αὑτό.

ἀνάγκη...μεῖζον ἀγαθὸν εἶναι] Top. Γ 2, 117 a 16, ἔτι τὰ πλείω ἀγαθὰ τῶν ἐλαττόνων (αἱρετώτερα), ἁπλῶς, ὅταν τὰ ἕτερα τοῖς ἑτέροις ἐνυπάρχῃ, τὰ ἐλάττω ἐν τοῖς πλείοσιν. Two ἐνστάσεις (‘reprehensions of the fallax’ Bacon calls them, Colours of Good and Evil), objections, or instances opposed to the universal validity of this rule, are next given: (1) when one thing is done for the sake of another, to attain a certain end, as getting well, healthy practices for the sake of health; in this case the two together are in no way preferable to health alone: (2) and things not good accom panied by a single good (so Waitz), may be preferable to several good things, as happiness, in conjunction with something not good, to justice and courage together, καὶ ταῦτα μεθ᾽ ἡδονῆς μᾶλλον ἄνευ ἡδονῆς (αἱρετώτερά ἐστιν) καὶ ταὐτὰ μετ᾽ ἀλυπίας μετὰ λύπης.

ὑπερέχει γάρ, κ.τ.λ.] On ὑπεροχή as a test of excellence, besides other topics of this chapter, comp. c. 9, 25, 39, Eth. N. IV 8 init. there quoted. The opposition of the active and passive, superiority and inferiority, occurs Eth. N. ib. 1124 b 10, τὸ μὲν γὰρ ὑπερέχοντος, τὸ δ᾽ ὑπερεχομένου.


καὶ ἐὰν τὸ μέγιστον τοῦ μεγίστου ὑπερέχῃ κ.τ.λ.] Top. Γ 2, 117 b 33, ἔτι εἰ ἁπλῶς τοῦτο τούτου βέλτιον, καὶ τὸ βέλτιστον τῶν ἐν τούτῳ βέλτιον τοῦ ἐν τῷ ἑτέρῳ βελτίστου, οἷον εἰ βέλτιον ἄνθρωπος ἵππου, καὶ βέλτιστος ἄνθρωπος τοῦ βελτίστου ἵππου βελτίων. καὶ εἰ τὸ βέλτιστον τοῦ βελτίστου βέλτιον, καὶ ἁπλῶς τοῦτο τούτοι βέλτιον, οἷον εἰ βέλτιστος ἄνθρωπος τοῦ βελτίστου ἵππου βελτίων, καὶ ἁπλῶς ἄνθρωπος ἵππου βελτίων. A practical application of this rule occurs in Pol. IV (VII) 1, 1323 b 13, ὅλως τε δῆλον ὡς ἀκολουθεῖν φήσομεν τὴν διάθεσιν τὴν ἀρίστην ἑκάστου πράγματος πρὸς ἄλληλα κατὰ τὴν ὑπεροχήν, ἥνπερ εἴληχε διάστασιν ὧν φαμὲν αὐτὰς εἶναι διαθέσεις ταύτας. ὥστ᾽ εἴπερ ἐστὶν ψυχὴ καὶ τῆς κτήσεως καὶ τοῦ σώματος τιμιώτερον καὶ ἁπλῶς καὶ ἡμῖν ἀναγκὴ καὶ τὴν διάθεσιν τὴν ἀρίστην ἑκάστου ἀνάλογον τούτων ἔχειν.

ἀνάλογον ἔχουσιν] ‘are proportional to one another’.

In Bacon's Colours of Good and Evil3, (‘a table of colours or appearances of good and evil and their degrees, as places of persuasion and dissuasion, and their several fallaxes, and the elenches of them’,) this topic is given in the form, cuius excellentía vel exuperantia melior id toto genere melius. ‘This appearance, though it seem of strength, and rather logical than rhetorical, yet is very oft a fallax’; and he proceeds accordingly to ‘reprehend’ it. Bacon's works, ed. Ellis and Spedding, vol. VII. p. 78. He certainly proves the non-universality of the rule; but by the theory of Rhetoric all these positions are alike open to question, and can always be argued on either side.


καὶ ὅταν τόδε μὲν τῷδε ἕπηται κ.τ.λ.] ‘and whensoever one thing ‘follows’ (i. e. attends upon, always accompanies it, in one of its five senses) ‘another, but not reciprocally (or conversely, the other does not always follow it)’. Any good A, which is necessarily accompanied by another good B, where the converse does not hold, must be the greater of the two; because the one (A) always implies the presence of B, and includes the use of it, whereas this is not always true of the converse; and when there is no such reciprocal consequence A must be superior to B. Let A and B be health and life; life invariably accompanies health, but health by no means invariably accompanies life: and therefore from this point of view health may be regarded as superior to life.

ἕπεται δὲ τῷ ἅμα κ.τ.λ.] On the various senses of ἕπεσθαι and ἀκολουθεῖν see note on c. 6, 3.

δυνάμει: ἐνυπάρχει γάρ κ.τ.λ.] ‘Potential concomitance or accompaniment’, is explained as ‘the inherence, (i. e. the virtual existence, which may be developed into actual, active, existence, or realized, ἐνεργείᾳ,) of the use or practice of the consequent or concomitant in the other’, that namely which it accompanies. The higher crime of sacrilege or temple robbing, for instance, necessarily implies, virtually contains, the lower crime of simple theft or fraud (cheating4), the lower habit always accompanies, but not necessarily in a state of activity, the higher, and is included in it: omne maius continet in se minus. Or thus, the use of cheating, fraud, resides, is included in, sacrilege, not actually, in a fully developed realized state, ἐνεργείᾳ, but in a dormant state, latent; it is a faculty or capacity, always ready and liable to be developed into actual sacrilege.

The use of the general topic of ‘consequence’ is explained, Top Γ 2, 117 a 5, ἔτι ὅταν δύο τινὰ σφόδρα αὑτοῖς παραπλήσια καὶ μὴ δυνώμεθα ὑπεροχὴν μηδεμίαν συνιδεῖν τοῦ ἑτέρου πρὸς τὸ ἕτερον, ὁρᾷν ἀπὸ τῶν παρεπομένων: γὰρ ἕπεται μεῖζον ἀγαθὸν τοῦθ᾽ αἱρετώτερον. ἂν δ̓ τὰ ἑπόμενα κακά, τὸ ἔλαττον ἀκολουθεῖ κακόν, τοῦθ̓ αἱρετώτερον. ὄντων γὰρ ἀμφοτέρων αἱρετῶν οὐδὲν κωλύει δυσχερές τι παρέπεσθαι. διχῶς δ̓ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἕπεσθαι σκέψις κ.τ.λ. See note, c. 6, 3.


καὶ τὰ ὑπερέχοντα τοῦ αὐτοῦ κ.τ.λ.] ‘anything which (all that, plural) exceeds the same thing by a greater amount (than a third thing) is the greater (of the two); because it must exceed the greater also (i. e. as well as the less)’. This with the mere substitution of μεῖζον for αἱρετώτερον is taken from Top. Γ 3, 118 b 3, ἀλλὰ καὶ εἰ δύο τινὰ τινὸς εἴη αἱρετώτερα, τὸ μᾶλλον αἱρετώτερον τοῦ ἧττον αἱρετωτέρου αἱρετώτερον. Let A be 9, B 6, and C 3. A (9) exceeds C (3) by a greater amount than that by which B (6) exceeds it, A therefore must be greater than B—must be (ἀνάγκη), because, by the hypothesis, it is greater than the greater of the other two. This is certainly not a good argument, though the fact is true, and the application easy: and yet I think it is what Aristotle must have meant. There is no various reading, and no suspicion of corruption. The interpretation is that of Schrader, the most logical of the Commentators on the Rhetoric. And it seems, as the text stands, the only possible explanation. The fact at all events is true; and the only objection to the explanation is that the γάρ, which professes to give the reason, does in fact merely repeat in other words the substance of the preceding proposition. I believe that Aristotle, in framing his topic, meant by the first clause to state the fact, and by the second to give, as he thought, the reason: and that the expression actually adopted is one of the very numerous evidences of haste and carelessness in his writings. On the application of the topic, see Introd. p. 180.


καὶ τὰ μείζονος ἀγαθοῦ ποιητικὰ κ.τ.λ.] ‘Eundem hunc locum commutatis verbis exponit in III Topicorum c. 1 (116 b 26), ἔτι δύο ποιητικῶν ὄντων, οὗ τὸ τέλος βέλτιον καὶ αὐτὸ βέλτιον. Ad haec verba Alex. Aphrod. p. 125, ἀσαφῶς εἴρηται διὰ βραχύτητα: τόπος δ᾽ ἐστι τοιοῦτος: εἰ δύο εἴη τινὰ δύο τελῶν ποιητικά, οὗ τὸ τέλος βέλτιον καὶ αἱρετώτερον καὶ αὐτὸ βέλτιον. οὕτως παιδεία γυμνασίων δεικνύοιτ̓ ἂν ἀμείνων, εἴ γε γυμνάσια μὲν ὑγιείας ἐστὶ ποιητικά, παιδεία δὲ φρονήσεως, καὶ ἔστιν φρόνησις τῆς ὑγιείας αἱρετώτερον: πάλιν τὸ γυμνάζεσθαι τοῦ χρηματίζεσθαι αἱρετώτερον: τὸ μὲν γὰρ πλούτου, τὸ δὲ ὑγιείας ποιητικόν, βέλτιον δ̓ ὑγίεια πλούτου.’ Victorius.

τοῦτο γὰρ ἦν] ‘this is what was meant by’, this is what was (said to be) good; viz. in § 3.

τὸ...ποιητικῷ εἶναι] On this Aristotelian formula which denotes the abstract conception of a thing by the mind, as opposed to its actual existence as an object of sense, see Trendel. de Anima, p. 471 seq. and on I 1, 2; II 1, 8, also in Rheinisches Museum 1828, Vol. II 457 seq., Kategorienlehre, p. 35 with reff. in note, and Waitz, Organ. Vol. II p. 386. The distinction, which is nowhere expressly stated, is, as may be gathered from numerous passages, the following: τὸ μεγέθει εἶναι universam esse notionem, qua res constituitur, a materia avocatam, universa cogitatione conceptam —the λόγος of the thing—τὸ μέγεθος vero ad singula quaeque pertinere quae sub sensus cadant. Metaph. Z 15, 1039 b 25, οὐ γὰρ γίγνεται τὸ οἰκίᾳ εἶναι ἀλλὰ τὸ τῇδε τῇ οἰκίᾳ. Anal. Post. II 4, 91 b 5, ἀληθὲς γὰρ πᾶν τὸ ἀνθρώπῳ εἶναι ζῴῳ εἶναι, ὥσπερ καὶ πάντα ἄνθρωπον ζῷον, ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ οὕτως ὥστε ἓν εἶναι. Phys. I 3, 4, οὔτε γὰρ τῇ συνεχείᾳ ἓν ἔσται τὸ λευκὸν οὔτε τῷ λόγω: ἄλλο γὰρ ἔσται τὸ εἶναι λευκῷ κ.τ.λ. It abounds in the de Anima. Why and when Aristotle employs it, and whether the distinction is always necessary and appropriate, are questions that I will not undertake to answer. [Index Aristotelicus, p. 221 a 34—40; p. 764 a 50—p. 765 a 6. S.]

The Syntax of the phrase, which only Trendelenburg, as far as I know, has attempted to explain5, seems to be this:—The dative is in apposition with a supposed τινί, τό τινι εἶναι μεγόθει, and the construction is analogous to ὥστε συλλαβόντι εἰπεῖν, I 10, 18. Other instances of a similar use of the dative, which lead up to the explanation of this, are such as Thuc. I 24, ἐν δεξίᾳ ἐσπλέοντι τὸν Ἰόνιον κόλπον: and others are to be found in Matth. Gr. Gr. § 388.

καὶ οὗ τὸ ποιητικὸν μεῖζον ὡσαύτως] ‘and that of which the productive agent or producing cause is of a higher order, (superior), follows the same rule’, viz. that the product or result of the superior cause or agent is superior in a comparison between two. If wholesome food and exercise which produce health are more desirable and therefore superior to things which are merely pleasant, then the result of the former, health, is superior to the result of the latter, pleasure.


καὶ τὸ αἱρετώτερον καθ᾽ αὑτὸ τοῦ μὴ καθ̓ αὑτό] Top. Γ I, 116 a 29 καὶ τὸ δἰ αὑτὸ αἱρετὸν τοῦ δἰ ἕτερον αἱρετοῦ αἱρετώτερον, οἷον τὸ ὑγιαίνειν τοῦ γυμνάζεσθαι: τὸ μὲν γὰρ δἰ αὑτὸ αἱρετόν, τὸ δὲ δἰ ἕτερον. And again, Ib. b 8, καὶ τὸ ἁπλῶς ἀγαθὸν τοῦ τινὶ αἱρετώτερον, οἷον τὸ ὑγιάζεσθαι τοῦ τέμνεσθαι: τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἁπλῶς ἀγαθόν, τὸ δὲ τινὶ τῷ δεόμενῳ τῆς τομῆς. These two though differing in expression seem to be reducible to the same head, and, from the examples given, applicable to the same cases: for the absolute good is that which is in itself desirable, and conversely; and τέμνε- σθαι the example in the second case of particular good, is only good as the means to an end, δἰ ἕτερον.

ἰσχὺς ὑγιεινοῦ] strength is more desirable in itself; the ‘wholesome’ only as the means to an end, health. Strength is considered by Aristotle not as absolutely desirable αἱρετὸν καθ᾽ αὑτό, but only relatively to other things— ‘more desirable in itself than many others.’ Brandis, Philologus, IV, i, p. 44.

ὅπερ ἦν τὸ ἀγαθόν] ἦν, § 7. The reference is to 6 § 2 p. 97.


κἂν τὸ μὲν τέλος κ.τ.λ.] Top. Γ I, 116 b 22, καὶ τὸ τέλος τῶν πρὸς τὸ τέλος αἱρετώτερον δοκεῖ εἶναι, καὶ δυοῖν τὸ ἔγγιον τοῦ τέλους. The end, the ultimate object of your aims, must always be more desirable than the means which are only serviceable for the attainment of that end, as health and exercise.


τὸ ἧττον προσδεόμενον θατέρου ἑτέρων] ‘that which less stands in need of any subsidiary aid’ (to make it a good), ‘either of the other’ (when two things are brought into comparison, as wealth and health,) ‘or of other things (in general)’. A topic, which may be brought under this of the Rhetoric, but is not identical with it, occurs in Top. Γ 2, 117 a 37, where justice is preferred to courage on the ground of its comparative αὐτάρκεια, though this word is not there employed. Victorius quotes in illustration Virgil's comparison of the ‘olive’ and ‘vine’. Georg. II 421, 2 and 428. (Victorius has here quoted from memory, and forgotten the original. It is not the ‘vine’ but ‘poma’, of which is said, vi propria nituntur opisque haud indiga nostrae; and the example is hardly in point. The note is cited by Gaisford without remark).

αὐταρκέστερον] ‘it makes a nearer approach to independence, selfsufficiency’: appealing to the definitions of good in c. 6, 2, of which τὸ αὔταρκες is one. On αὐτάρκεια, note on c. 5, 3, δ᾽ αὐτάρκεια τέλος καὶ βέλτιστον. Pol. I 2, 1253 a 1.

ῥᾳόνων] ‘easier’ to do or to get, to effect or procure, πράττειν ποιεῖν κτήσασθαι.


καὶ ὅταν κ.τ.λ.] ‘and any case in which one thing cannot exist or be obtained (by acquisition or production) without some other, but the other can without it’. As agriculture, compared with the other arts, Xen. Oecon. V. 17 (Victorius). Corn. Nep. Thrasyb. I 3, Peloponnesio bello multa Thrasybulus sine Alcibiade gessit, ille nullam rem sine hoc. Schrader. He also quotes from Plutarch, Apothegm. Reg. § 84, a saying of Agesilaus about the superiority of justice to virtue; it is the same example as occurs in the Topics (quoted on § 10) Γ 2, 117 a 39.


κἂν ἀρχή] supply τὸ μέν, and with αἴτιον in the following topic. On the omission, see Matth. Gr. Gr. § 288, Obs. 4.

ἀρχή] in this topic, is used in its most general and popular sense, an ‘origin’, or ‘beginning’, or ‘source’. In this sense it may be regarded as the fountain of all good. ἔοικε δ᾽ οὕτως ἔχειν ( εὐδαιμονία) καὶ διὰ τὸ εἶναι ἀρχή: ταύτης γὰρ χάριν τὰ λοιπὰ πάντα πάντες πράττομεν, τὴν ἀρχὴν δὲ καὶ τὸ αἴτιον τῶν ἀγαθῶν τίμιόν τι καὶ θεῖον ἐτίθεμεν (Eth. N. I. 13 ult.). God himself is an ἀρχή (Metaph. A 2, 983 a 8, γὰρ θεὸς ἀρχή τις). The free will, one of the ὀρέξεις or impulsive faculties, the origin of motion in the human subject, and of moral action, the ἀρχὴ πράξεως, is an ἀρχή: the importance of this, as the origin of human action and the ground of moral responsibility, in moral philosophy and practical life, may be estimated by the perusal of the first seven chapters of the third book of the Nicom. Ethics. It is more comprehensive than αἴτιον; ἀρχαί are not all causes, (see in the following note), and therefore the two may be distinguished, as they are in these two topics. An origin or beginning necessarily implies that something follows, a consequence; it leads to something: in this respect it is ‘greater’, more important, superior to, anything that is not a beginning or origin, which leads to nothing. Plat. Rep. II 377 A, οὐκοῦν οἶσθ̓ ὅτι ἀρχὴ παντὸς ἔργου μέγιστον; μεγάλην γὰρ εχουσιν (αἱ ἀρχαὶ) ῥοπὴν πρὸς τὰ ἑπόμενα, Eth. Nic. I 7, sub fin. And the same applies to αἴτιον in the following topic. These two topics are well illustrated in Rhet. ad Alex. c. 3 (4), 10, 11.

The importance of an ἀρχή for good or for evil is recognized by several proverbs. On the one side we have ἀρχὴ ἥμισυ παντός, (quoted in Demetr. περὶ ἑρμηνείας § 122, ἀρχὴ δέ τοι ἥμισυ παντός,) Arist. Eth. N. I 7 ult. δοκεῖ γὰρ πλ̓εῖον ἥμισυ παντὸς εἶναι ἀρχή, Pol. VIII (V) 4, 1303 b 29, δ᾽ ἀρχὴ λέγεται ἥμισυ εἶναι παντός, de Soph. El. c. 34, 183 b 22, μέγιστον γὰρ ἴσως ἀρχὴ παντὸς ὥσπερ λέγεται. Erasm., Adag. 29, quotes Soph. Fr. Inc. (715, Dind.) ap. Plut. Mor. p. 16 A, ἔργον δὲ παντὸς ἤν τις ἄρχηται καλῶς, καὶ τὰς τελευτὰς εἰκός ἐσθ᾽ οὕτως ἔχειν, Anglice ‘Well begun is half done’. Dimidium facti qui coepit habet, Hor. Ep. I 2, 40. The first step: Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute, see Rhet. II 19, 5, and note. On the other side, the importance of the ἀρχή in respect of the tendency to evil, we have Ovid's well-known line, become proverbial, Rem. Am. 91, Principiis obsta, sero medicina paratur. Fast. I 178, Omina principiis, inquit (Phoebus), inesse solent. (This is indifferent as to the issue.) Herodotus, after mention of the twenty ships which the Athenians on the solicitation of Aristagoras sent in aid of the Ionians, concludes the chapter, V 97, with the emphatic words, αὗται δὲ αἱ νεές, ἀρχὴ κακῶν ἐγένοντο Ἕλλησί τε καὶ βαρβάροισι. This phrase became proverbial, see Rhet. III 11, 7 bis, and Isocr. Paneg. § 119, there quoted.

On the different senses of ἀρχή in the Aristotelian philosophy consult Metaph Δ I, where they are enumerated and distinguished; and Bonitz's Commentary. They are thus summed up; πασῶν μὲν οὖν κοινὸν τῶν ἀρχῶν τὸ πρῶτον εἶναι ὅθεν εστιν γίγνεται γιγνώσκεται: τούτων δὲ αἱ μὲν ἐνυπάρχουσαί εἰσιν αἱ δὲ ἐκτός, 1013 a 17. Ἀρχαί are ‘origins’, heads or starting-points, of a series, of three kinds; (1) of being, οὐσία6, (2) of generation or growth, γένεσις, and (3) of knowledge, γνῶσις. ἄνευ γὰρ αἰτίου καὶ ἀρχῆς ἀδύνατον εἶναι γενέσθαι, Rhet. I 7, 12. The six senses in which ἀρχή may be employed are all reducible to these three. Of these some are inherent (as the στοιχεῖον, the mathematical point, the origin of the line, or the starting-point of anything, that out of which it grows and is developed7; the keel of a vessel, the foundation of a house; in animals the heart or the brain, or any other part which has been assumed to be the original seat of life); some external, the origin of motion or change, (as father and mother, of child; abusive language8, of a fight; or again the human will or deliberate purpose, and intellect, προαίρεσις and διάνοια9, in the case of ‘governments’ [ἀρχαί] and arts, all of which set things in motion and produce change). The origin or starting-point of knowledge is illustrated by the ὑποθέσεις, the assumed first principles of a demonstration, as the major premiss of a syllogism. Another ‘external origin’ is the οὗ ἕνεκα, or τέλος, the final cause, πολλῶν γὰρ καὶ τοῦ γνῶναι καὶ τῆς κινήσεως ἀρχὴ τἀγαθὸν καὶ τὸ καλόν, a 21. Comp. de Anima Γ 10, 433 a 15, καὶ ὄρεξις ἕνεκά του πᾶσα: οὗ γὰρ ὄρεξις, αὕτη ἀρχὴ τοῦ πρακτικοῦ νοῦ: τὸ δ᾽ ἔσχατον ἀρχὴ τῆς πράξεως.

ἀρχή is not identical with αἴτιον, though, as all αἴτια (all the four causes) are ἀρχαί, the two terms are frequently identified (Bonitz, Comm. p. 219; Waitz, Org. p. 458): but the converse is not true; as is shewn by some of the examples given above: the assertion therefore that ἰσαχῶς (ταῖς ἀρχαῖς) καὶ τὰ αἴτια λέγεται: πάντα γὰρ τὰ αἴτια ἀρχαί (a 16) must be limited to what is directly stated, the converse is not included. On the point of difference between the two, and also the identification with στοιχεῖον, see Waitz, Organ. p. 458.

Another definition of ἀρχή occurs in de Gen. Anim. V 7, 23, 788 a 14, τοῦτο γάρ ἐστι τὸ ἀρχὴν εἶναι, τὸ αὐτὴν μὲν αἰτίαν εἶναι πολλῶν, ταύτης δ᾽ ἄλλο ἄνωθεν μηδέν. See also Trendel. on de Anima p. 187.

On scientific and logical ἀρχαί or first principles, ultimate axioms, κοιναί and ἰδίαι, see note in Introd. p. 73. In the Eudemian Ethics, II 6, three kinds of ἀρχαί, general, moral, and mathematical, are distinguished, and some account given of them. [See also Index Aristotelicus, s. v. S.]

κἂν αἴτιον κ τ.λ.] Top. Γ, 116 b 1, καὶ τὸ αἴτιον ἀγαθοῦ καθ᾽ αὑτὸ τοῦ κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς αἰτίου, καθάπερ ἀρετὴ τῆς τύχης: μὲν γὰρ καθ̓ αὑτὴν δὲ κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς αἰτία τῶν ἀγαθῶν, καὶ εἴ τι ἄλλο τοιοῦτον. ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἐναντίου (τοῦ κακοῦ) κ.τ.λ.

τὸ δ᾽ οὐκ αἴτιον] On οὐκ after ἄν, understood from the preceding clause, see Appendix (C) on εἰ οὐ, c. 15, 23.

καὶ δυοῖν ἀρχαῖν κ.τ.λ.] and again, of two origins or causes, the consequence and effect of the superior is greater. The following passage of the Topics will illustrate the preceding as well as the present topic. Γ 3, 118 a 29, ἔτι εἰ τὸ μὲν ποιεῖ ἀγαθὸν ἐκεῖνο ἂν παρῇ, τὸ δὲ μὴ ποιεῖ, τὸ ποιοῦν αἱρετώτερον, καθάπερ καὶ θερμότερον τὸ θερμαῖνον τοῦ μή. εἰ δὲ ἄμφω ποιεῖ, τὸ μᾶλλον ποιοῦν: εἰ τὸ βέλτιον καὶ κυριώτερον ποιεῖ ἀγαθόν, οἷον εἰ τὸ μὲν τὴν ψυχήν, τὸ δὲ τὸ σῶμα: c. 5, 119 a 17, καὶ εἰ τὸ μὲν ποιεῖ τὸ δὲ μὴ ποιεῖ τὸ ἔχον τοιόνδε, μᾶλλον τοιοῦτο ποτε ποιεῖ μὴ ποιεῖ. εἰ δ᾽ ἄμφω ποιεῖ, τὸ μᾶλλον ποιοῦν τοιοῦτο.

καὶ ἀνάπαλιν] ‘and conversely, of two origins; the origin of the greater consequence is greater...’.


δῆλον οὖν κ.τ.λ.] ‘It is plain therefore from what has been said (§ 11, κἂν ἀρχή, τὸ δὲ μὴ ἀρχή), that in both (the following) ways it may be said to be greater: for whether it be an origin (or beginning), and the other not a beginning, it may be shewn to be made to appear greater; or if it be not itself a beginning, but the other be a beginning (it may be equally shewn to be so), because the ‘end’ is greater (superior), and yet no beginning’. ‘The end is greater’, because τέλος ἐστὶν οὗ ἕνεκα τὰ ἄλλα: and if ‘everything else’ is but a mean to an end, the beginning must be included with the rest, and is therefore subordinate and inferior. μεῖζον is here ‘greater’, ‘more important’, superior in respect of influence or effective power; not necessarily ‘better’. In the examples, first, the ‘adviser’ is the ἀρχή, the origin or originator of the plot; so in Metaph. Δ 2, 1013 a 31, βουλεύσας is an αἴτιον, namely the efficient cause, or origin of motion and change, ἀρχὴ μεταβολῆς. The adviser of a scheme is therefore according to this view the ‘cause’ of all that resulted from his advice, which is made to appear (δοκεῖ) by the argument more important than the result or actual crime (which is not ‘the beginning’); and, secondly, the converse (ἀνάπαλιν) is proved, that the crime, the ‘end’ of the advice or deliberation, is the more important thing of the two, because it was for that, as a mean to attain that, that the whole scheme was undertaken. It appears from the expressions of this text that Callistratus devised the scheme and Chabrias carried it into execution.

Leodamas of Acharnae was a famous orator, an earlier contemporary of Demosthenes and Aeschines. The latter mentions him, c. Ctesiph. § 138, as having been sent as ambassador to Thebes, and as a speaker the rival of Demosthenes; indeed in his opinion even pleasanter to listen to. He is mentioned again in II 23, 25 (comp. the note there); in Dem. adv. Lept. 501 and 502, who also speaks of him as a distinguished orator, where allusion is made to a certain proposition of his to cancel the ‘grant’, especially the ἀτέλεια, made to Chabrias for his public services —οὗτος ἐγράψατο τὴν Χαβρίου δωρεάν10, a proposition which he failed to carry; and in other places of Aeschines. See Sauppe, Fragm. Or. Att. II 216; Fr. XVI, and p. 244; Fr. XXVI; Clinton, F. H. Vol. II p. 111, sub an. 372, 3.

Callistratus, son of Callicrates, of Aphidna, a distinguished Athenian orator and politician, of the earlier half of the 4th cent. B. C. His name first appears in history in the year 379 B. C. Aristotle refers to two speeches of his, Rhet. I 14. 1, and III 17. 14. Leodamas' accusation of him, here mentioned, seems to have been directed against his conduct in the affairs of Oropus, in 366, Grote, Hist. Gr. X p. 392; Smith's Dict. Biogr. Art. Callistratus; Clinton, Fast. Hell. II 396, note w. He was associated with Chabrias, the celebrated Athenian general, in the transactions with respect to Oropus, and with him was brought to trial; and it is most probable that both of the speeches referred to in the text were made by Leodamas on this occasion.

On Callistratus and Chabrias Mr Elder's articles in Smith's Biogr. Dict. may be consulted. Callistratus' name occurs very frequently in the Attic orators. See Baiter and Sauppe, Orat. Att. Vol. III; Ind. Nom. p. 73.

βουλεύσαντα, βουλευσαμένου, βουλεύσαντος, ἐπιβουλεύειν] are all applied to the same transaction, viz. Callistratus' ‘advice’ or ‘device’. They express precisely the same thing, each from a somewhat different point of view. βουλεύειν τινί τι, is to give advice, to advise. βουλεύεσθαι to give oneself advice, to deliberate; or secondly, of a number of people deliberating together, and giving one another advice, ‘consulting in common’. So μὴ βουλευσαμένου here is, ‘if he had not deliberated upon it’ preparatory to ‘suggesting’ or ‘advising’ it. ἐπιβουλεύειν retains its proper sense of a hostile design (ἐπί ‘against’); the advice, or scheme which resulted from it, and the deliberation which suggested it, are now represented as ‘a plot’, a hostile, aggressive, design. It appears therefore that there is no occasion to have recourse to the explanation of Victorius and Buhle, that ἐπιβουλεύειν is (or can be) put for βουλεύειν or βουλεύεσθαι. Gaisford prints these two notes of V. and B. without comment.

εἰ μὴ ἦν πράξων] On this use of the definite article, indicating a member of a class or γένος, which we express by our indefinite article, see Buttmann, Gr. Gr. § 124, Obs. 2. Engl. Tr. p. 319. The two senses of the Greek definite article are, according to Schneider, on Pl. Rep. VIII 564 A, that it marks quod praesens et in conspectu positum cogitatur, and (2) the genus. ‘Articulus definit indefinita, idque duobus modis: aut designando certo de multis, aut quae multa sunt cunctis in unum colligendis’ (the second describes the generic use). Herm. Praef. ad Iph. Aul. p. XV. Several examples of this usage of the def. art. are collected from the N. T. by Dean Alford, in a pamphlet in reply to Bishop Ellicott, p. 45 seq. I will only quote Matth. xiii. 3, σπείρων: xxv. 32, ποιμήν. In a subsequent passage of this work, II 4, 31, Aristotle has quite unconsciously and unintentionally stated this grammatical distinction, τὸ δὲ μῖσος καὶ πρὸς τὰ γένη: τὸν γὰρ κλέπτην μισεῖ κ.τ.λ.

We render πράξωνanyone to do it’, carry it out, put it in execution.


τὸ σπανιώτερον τοῦ ἀφθόνου] ‘The rarer, scarcer, is greater, more valuable or important, than the abundant’. This, as is implied in ἀχρηστότερος ὤν in the example, is only true in a sense; it is in fact a paradox, which may however be asserted in argument, since there is something to be said for it, and examples may be found in which it is true; as in the case of gold and iron. In the true and proper sense, in utility and real value, iron is greater and better than gold. Isocrates, ἀντίδ. § 80, 81, on this ground of comparative rarity, ὅσῳ πέρ εἰσι σπανιώτεροι καὶ χαλεπώτεροι, thinks that, in his time at least, great orators and politicians ‘who can speak worthily on behalf of their country's interests’ are more valuable and to be more highly prized than legislators. A similar topic occurs in Top. Γ 2, 117 b 28, τὸ ἐπιφανέστερον τοῦ ἧττον τοιούτου, καὶ τὸ χαλεπώτερον: μᾶλλον γὰρ ἀγαπῶμεν ἔχοντες μὴ ἔστι ῥᾳδίως λαβεῖν. καὶ τὸ ἰδιαίτερον τοῦ κοινοτέρου.

ἄλλον δὲ τρόπον] This gives the true side of the alternative, that the value of a thing is in proportion to its usefulness. Estimated by this standard, ‘water’, as Pindar says, at the opening of his first Olympian ode, ‘is the best of all things.’ Böckh, who cites this passage of Aristotle in his note, evidently agrees with him in interpreting Pindar's ἄριστον as ‘best’ because most useful, or necessary to the support of human life11. Dissen thinks that Pindar had in his mind the great ‘wholesomeness’ of water, ἄριστον dicitur τὸ ὕδωρ quia saluberrimum est. A dry and hot climate and a parched soil would also readily suggest the notion that water is the best of all things. But I agree nevertheless with Böckh in his interpretation of Pindar's thought.

These two opposite topics represent two prevailing modes of estimating ‘value’, by use and price: Political Economy teaches us that the former is the true, the latter the false standard. In the one view air and water are the most valuable, in the other the least valuable, of all things. Plato, Euthyd. 304, 3, gives both sides: τὸ γὰρ σπάνιον, Εὐθύδημε, τίμιον: τὸ δὲ ὕδωρ εὐωνότατον, ἄριστον ὄν, ὡς ἔφη Πίνδαρος.


ὅλως τὸ χαλεπώτερον] See the passage of the Topics quoted in § 14. Anything harder to do or to attain may be said to have a higher value, when the value is estimated by the price. On the other hand measured by the standard of our own nature, of our own love of ease and comfort, and also of the extent of usefulness, that which is easier to do or to make or to obtain is more valuable.


τὸ ἐναντίον μεῖζον] ‘And one thing is greater than another when the opposite of the former is greater than that of the latter’. ‘Exemplum accommodatum erit valetudo ac divitiae; quae ambo sunt bona: contraria eorum morbus et paupertas: maius autem malum corporis morbus quam paupertas; praestat igitur valetudo divitiis.’ Victorius. On this, and the next topic, στέρησις, comp. supr. c. 6, 4, and § 18; and the passages of the Topics (Γ 2, 117 b 2,) and the Categories there referred to.

οὗ στέρησις μείζων] On the various applications of στέρησις in Aristotle's philosophy, see Met. Δ c. 22, and Bonitz's Commentary: Categ. c. 10, p. 12 a 26, and Waitz, ad loc. Trendel. Kategorienlehre, p. 103 seq.

The following illustration of the topic is given by Schrader. ‘Peius est caecum esse quam surdum: ergo visus auditu praestantior est. Gravius malum est fama quam pecunia privari; ergo bona existimatio praestat divitiis.’ ‘Things of which the privation is greater’ or more deeply felt, are those which are most necessary, essential to our existence or comfort; as air and water again, in this point of view.

καὶ ἀρετὴ μὴ ἀρετῆςτέλη] ‘and virtue is superior to non-virtue, and vice to non-vice; because the one is an end, and the other not’. The application of this seems to be to things compared as positive and negative: positive virtue and positive vice, which can be ends or objects to aim at, are in so far superior to mere negatives which can not12. Moral considerations are altogether laid aside, and Rhetoric is here permitted (not recommended) to take the immoral side of the question: vice may be regarded as an ‘end’ of human desire and exertion.

Bonitz, Arist. Stud. I. p. 87, proposes an ingenious alteration, which no one who is satisfied with the preceding explanation will consider necessary. It is to substitute for the existing text, καὶ ἀρετὴ μὴ κακίας καὶ κακία μὴ ἀρετῆς μείζων, ‘positive, downright, virtue is greater (better or worse) than mere absence of vice, and downright vice than mere absence of virtue’: which he neither translates nor explains; but, it is to be presumed, it means that the superiority of the one to the other still rests upon its positive character. The morality remains constant; for vice is still represented as the object of men's aims: it is therefore no improvement in that respect. His reason for the change is, ‘that it never could occur to any one to institute a comparison in respect of magnitude (Grösse) between ἀρετή and μὴ ἀρετή, and κακία and μὴ κακία.’ Not perhaps if μείζων implied nothing but mere magnitude or quantity; but when it is extended to the general notion of superiority the comparison may very well be made between them. And besides, Bonitz's altered comparison appears to rest upon the very same distinction of the positive and negative; for in what other sense can vice be regarded as superior to nonvirtue?


The two topics of this section are founded upon the relation of the ἀρετή of anything to its proper ἔργον or function, the work that it has to do, described by Plato, Rep. I 352 E and foll., and taken up by Aristotle as the foundation of his theory of virtue, Eth. Nic. II 5, init. The virtue or excellence of everything, horse, dog, knife, axe, the eye, the ear, the mind, is shewn in and depends upon the due performance of its proper function (supra 2. 12; 5. 4; 6. 11). τὰ ἔργα therefore, though they extend beyond the moral virtues from which Victorius draws his illustration— the comparison of ἀνδρεία and σωφροσύνη and their opposites in respect of their results good or bad, the kinds of actions that they give rise to—and include the functions of all things that can be applied to any purpose, and everything which has a τέλος, to which the ἔργον must be subservient, and in the approach to which the ἀρετή is shewn; yet the epithets καλλίω and αἰσχίω shew that Aristotle had the moral virtues uppermost in his mind.

καὶ ὧν αἱ κακίαι κ.τ.λ.] the converse of the preceding, the argument from the virtue or vice, excellence or defect, of anything, back again to its function or proper work. Virtues and vices, excellences and defects stand to ‘works’ in the relation of cause and origin to consequence and effect or result. Now as of the greater cause and origin, the one produces a greater effect, the other leads to a greater end, (§ 12,) and the less to a less, so in the case of excellence and defect the greater produces a greater work, the less a less, both in human action or comparative virtues, and in instruments of all kinds; in men and things.


This topic is analogous to, not identical with, that in § 4. When anything in excess is preferable to, or finer and nobler than, the excess of something else, then the former in its ordinary state is preferable to the other. See the passage of Polit. IV (VII) 1, quoted in § 4. Top. Γ 3, 118 b 4, ἔτι οὗ ὑπερβολὴ τῆς ὑπερβολῆς αἱρετωτέρα, καὶ αὐτὸ αἱρετώτερον, οἷον φιλία χρημάτων: αἱρετωτέρα γὰρ τῆς φιλίας ὑπερβολὴ τῆς τῶν χρημάτων. Omne maius continet in se minus.

τὸ φιλεταῖρον...μᾶλλον κάλλιον] Victorius, followed by Buhle, and Waitz, Org. 116 b 24, understand μᾶλλον κάλλιον as a double comparative, a form of expression not unfamiliar to Aristotle (see Vict. on this place, and Waitz, Org. 116 b 24, II p. 465), but certainly not employed by him here. The μᾶλλον denoting the ‘excess’ of the two qualities, which is absolutely essential to the illustration of the topic, is added for that reason to φιλέταιρον and φιλοχρήματον, the comparison being conveyed by κάλλιον: and thus the topic is exemplified. ‘Excess in love of friends being fairer, and nobler than that in love of money, friendship in its average degree is to be preferred to a similar average of love of money’. See also note on II 8, 3.


καὶ ὧν αἱ ἐπιθυμίαι κ.τ.λ.] The objects of the nobler and better desires are themselves nobler and better: because all ‘impulses’ (ὀρέξεις, which include ἐπιθυμίαι, all natural desires and appetites, as well as θυμός and βούλησις, Eth. Eud. II 7. 2, de An. B 3, 414 b 2; see note on Rhet. II 2. 1), in proportion as they are higher or stronger, have for their objects things ‘greater’, i. e. either better and higher in themselves, or more important. The stronger impulse is always towards the greater object—in some sense. And the converse: ‘the nobler and better the objects, the nobler and better the desires, for the same reason’.


καὶ ὧν αἱ ἐπιστῆμαι κ.τ.λ.] The same rule is now applied to sciences or departments of knowledge, and their objects; τὰ πράγματα, ‘their subjects13’. ὑποκειμένη ὕλη, τὰ ὑποκείμενα. Top. Γ 1, 116 a 21, ἔστι δὲ ἁπλῶς μὲν βέλτιον καὶ αἱρετώτερον τὸ κατὰ τὴν βελτίω ἐπιστήμην, τινὶ δὲ τὸ κατὰ τὴν οἰκείαν. The higher and nobler sciences deal with higher and nobler materials; and in proportion to the dignity and value of the objects that it treats, so is the dignity and value of the corresponding science: ἀνάλογον, ‘proportionally’; greater to greater, and less to less. ‘For as is the science, so is the (particular kind of) truth at which it aims: and each of them is authoritative (lays down the law, prescribes what is to be done, dictates, κελεύει) in its own special province’. On the order in invention and dignity of arts and sciences, see the instructive chapter, Metaph. A I. ἐπιστῆμαι includes here all arts as well as sciences, the two terms being constantly interchanged. The word ἀληθές, from its strict and proper sense (when the two provinces of philosophy are distinguished, θεωρητικῆς τέλος ἀλήθεια, πρακτικῆς δὲ ἔργον, Metaph. A 1), might seem to confine the application of the topic to science pure, or the ‘theoretical’ department of philosophy, but it is plainly here employed in a wider and more popular sense: truth, theoretical or practical, is the common object of every kind of scientific or artistic pursuit. And the word κελεύειν, to prescribe or dictate, is alike applicable to the necessary principles and necessary conclusions of mathematical demonstration, and to a practical science like Politics, which not only like the other prescribes the method in which its investigations are to be carried on and rules of action, but ‘orders and arranges’ διατάσσει14, determines, and limits at its pleasure the provinces and extent of the operations of the subordinate sciences and arts. Eth. Nic. I 1, 1094 a 26—b 7. On κελεύει, Victorius quotes Eth. Eud. II 3, τοῦτο γάρ ἐστιν ὡς ἐπιστήμη κελεύει καὶ λόγος.


καὶ κρίνειαν ἂν κ.τ.λ.] ‘the judgment or decision, upon any dis puted question, of...’ Top. Γ I, 116 a 14, καὶ μᾶλλον ἂν ἕλοιτο φρόνιμος ἀγαθὸς ἀνήρ, νόμος ὀρθός, οἱ σπουδαῖοι περὶ ἕκαστα αἱρούμενοι τοιοῦτοί (σπουδαῖοι) εἰσιν, οἱ ἐν ἑκάστῳ γένει ἐπιστήμονες, ὅσα οἱ πλείους πάντες, οἷον ἐν ἰατρικῇ τεκτονικῇ οἱ πλείους τῶν ἰατρῶν πάντες, ὅσα ὅλως οἱ πλείους πάντες πάντα, οἷον τἀγαθόν: πάντα γὰρ τἀγαθοῦ ἐφίεται. This passage will serve as a commentary on the topic of the Rhetoric. It describes the authority of φρόνησις (practical wisdom, the intellectual virtue which selects the proper means and directs them to the end, Eth. N. VI), and the impersonation of it in the φρόνιμος. In the definition of ἀρετή, Eth. N. II 6, init. the φρόνιμος is the measure or standard, which fixes the variable mean, in which virtue resides, for each individual character. In all arts and sciences it is the professional man, the expert, who has to decide, each in his own department. The ἀγαθός decides in moral questions, which is his special province. Comp. note on 6. 25.

πάντεςοἱ κράτιστοι] a descending scale of the φρόνιμοι, those who are competent to decide; all, or most (the many, the great mass of them, οἱ πλεῖστοι), or the (bare) majority, or the best and ablest amongst them (in point of judgment, and professional skill).

ἀγαθὸν μεῖζον] So the MSS and Edd., with the exception of one MS and Buhle's Ed., which omit , as does Muretus in his Transl. The omission certainly improves the sense; but Vater with some reason objects to this order of the two words, which he says should have been inverted, μεῖζον ἀγαθόν. ἀγαθόν, which Vater proposes to omit, is certainly wanted to explain κατὰ τῶν ἄλλων in the following clause.

ἁπλῶς κατὰ τὴν φρόνησιν] ‘either absolutely, universally, or in respect of their practical wisdom’, specially and alone. κατὰ τὴν φρόνησιν corresponds to τοιοῦτοι in the passage of the Topics, ‘in so far as they are such’ (φρόνιμοι), and in no other respect.

καὶ κατὰ τῶν ἄλλων] ‘of everything else as well’, as good. κατά with the genit. is very common in Arist. in the sense of ‘of’, ‘in the case of’; derived from its proper and primary sense ‘down upon’, and hence, ‘applying to’, ‘of’. This use of it seems to come through the intermediate sense of ‘predication’, κατηγορεῖν, κατηγορεῖσθαί τινος, ‘to predicate, be predicated, of something’.—ἐπί, ‘upon’, ‘applying to’, ‘in the case of’, so and so, is similarly used (ἐπ᾽ ἀγαθῶν) in the same section.

τί, ποσόν, ποιόν] are the first three categories; (1) the substance or true nature of a thing, (2) quantity and (3) quality. These, though properly falling under the domain of science or exact knowledge, may yet be dealt with by the ‘practical judgment’ which may convey a popular and practical acquaintance with them, sufficient for the purposes of the Rhetorician.

εἰρήκαμεν: ὥρισται γάρ] supr. § 3.

μᾶλλον φρόνησις λέγει] If that is good in genera which is pronounced to be so by the man of practical sagacity, then that must be a greater good which is pronounced by the same authority to be more so, to be so in a higher degree.


καὶ τὸ τοῖς βελτίοσιν ὑπάρχον] ‘Animi bona bonis corporis praevalent quia animus est corpore praestantior’. Schrader. Courage and strength is Aristotle's illustration; for the reason assigned by Schrader.

ἁπλῶς] ‘ut viri’ (man as the nobler animal) ‘virtutes praestant muliebribus simpliciter’. Schrader.

βελτίους] ‘aut quatenus meliores sunt: viri effeminati actiones deteriores sunt actionibus virilis animi feminae’. Id. I prefer the other explanation, as more direct and natural, ‘either generally, in respect of the entire character and qualities, or in respect of some special excellence’.

καὶ ἕλοιτ᾽ ἂν βελτίων] The better man will make the better choice in general, ἁπλῶς, by virtue of his whole character; or ‘in so far as he is better, in respect of that particular kind of excellence, as some special virtue, in which his superiority is shewn, βελτίων ἐστί. So Victorius; who proceeds (after Alexander) to distinguish between this and the preceding topic, § 21; in that the φρόνιμοι as a class choose between different kinds of good; here the comparison is between two different kinds of choosers, and the one who makes the better selection is the better in moral character.

οἷον] (sc. ἑλέσθαι, or εἴ τις ἔλοιτο). The higher and nobler choice is illustrated by the preference of being wronged to doing wrong. This, though cited here as a popular sentiment, was by no means the current and prevailing opinion at Athens. Plato, Rep. II 358 C, makes Glaucon say, speaking of the opposite view, ἀκούων Θρασυμάχου καὶ μυρίων ἄλλων: and again, at the commencement of Glaucon's exposition of the disadvantages of justice and the superiority of injustice successful and unpunished, he uses the word φασί, which seems to imply that this was the general opinion. In fact one of the main objects of the Republic is to prove that the reverse of this is true; and the long and laborious process which he is obliged to go through in the establishment of his position is quite sufficient to shew how strong must have been the prejudices in favour of the adverse doctrine which must be surmounted before he could hope to make his own views acceptable. The Gorgias also is occupied with the solution of this same question, in the comparison namely of doing and receiving injury and wrong, on which side the advantage, when rightly estimated, really lies. The Sophists, as represented by Thrasymachus in the Republic, and Callias in the Gorgias, appear to have held the lower, and as we now hold it to be, immoral doctrine. Ast, in his Comm. on Pl. Rep. p. 391, has collected a number of references to authors who sided on this point with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.


ὥρισται δέ] in § 3.

ἥδιον δὲ τὸ ἀλυπότερον κ.τ.λ.] Pleasure is subject to two drawbacks to its enjoyment, which vary in different kinds of pleasure. Some pleasures are accompanied, preceded, or followed by pain (Plato held that this is the case with all bodily pleasures), and most of them are of a very transient character and very brief duration. This may in many cases afford a measure for the comparison of pleasure: those which are marked by the entire absence or lower degree of these qualifying circumstances are superior.


τὸ γὰρ καλὸν κ.τ.λ.] This distinction of the two different kinds of καλόν, arises from its twofold aspect, physical and moral: in the former of the two senses it is the beautiful, in the latter the morally right and noble. The beautiful, to the sight and sense, is the ‘pleasant’ form or aspect of τὸ καλόν; the right is καλὸν τὸ καθ᾽ αὑτὸ αἱρετόν, that which is desirable in and for itself and for no ulterior object, and therefore an end in itself. In this latter sense the τὸ καλόν may be regarded as the end of all moral action, Eth. N. III 7, 1113 b 8, c. 10, 1115 b 24, IX 8, 1168 a 34, 1169 a 6, seq. 21 to the end. In Rhet. I 9. 3, two definitions of it are given and the distinction of its moral and physical aspects again suggested: and again II 13. 9 it is contrasted with the expedient or profitable, the one being a relative the other an absolute form of good.


καὶ ὅσων κ.τ.λ.] Things are shewn to be good by our desire of them, because all things universally desirable are good: and the more we desire anything for ourselves or our friend (the friend is the ‘second self’, the alter ego, and therefore his interest is our own,) and therefore to be the causes of it, to procure it for ourselves or our friends; the more we shew that we think it good: and the things we desire least to bring upon ourselves or our friends are by the same rule the worst and most mischievous things. The topics of Top. Γ 2, 118 a 1, are akin to this, not identical with it.


τὰ πολυχρονιώτερα καὶ τὰ βεβαιότερα] Top. Γ 1, 116 a 13, ‘more lasting and more secure, stable, safer’. One measure of the use or value of a thing is the length of time during which it remains in our possession; another, the security or stability of it, immunity from decay or corruption and the fear of losing it. The absence of these very much diminishes the value of any possession. The superiority in the value of a thing is shewn in, or measured by, either the duration or the amount of desire or wishing for it (βουλήσει) because our wishing for it shews that we consider it a secure possession, one of which we are little likely to be deprived, or which itself is not likely to be impaired, and so lose its value. A safe investment, which every one desires who has spare cash, is an example of this kind of security, and of the superiority in value that it carries with it.


καὶ ὡς ἂν (ἀκολουθοίη) ἐκ τῶν συστοίχων] as the consequences would follow (if, whenever the topic were applied) in general, so here ‘in all the rest’, in the particular case of the rhetorical application of them, the same consequences do actually follow. Perhaps the general application of this topic, which seems to be understood in the protasis, may have a tacit reference to the more general treatment of the same in the dialectical Topics. I think that only one topic is here intended; so far as σύστοιχα are distinguished from πτώσεις, the former includes the latter as the genus the species.

With this topic compare Rhet. II 23, 2, Top. Γ 3, 118 a 34—39. The instances of πτῶσις there given are the substantive and corresponding adverb, δικαιοσύνη δικαίως, ἀνδρεία ἀνδρείως. σύστοιχα and πτώσεις are explained, distinguished, (quite unintelligibly, however, were our information derived solely from this place,) and the use of them illustrated, in Top. B 9, 114 a 26—b 5. σύστοιχα are coordinate logical notions, as δίκαια and δίκαιος with δικαιοσύνη, ἀνδρεῖα and ἀνδρεῖος with ἀνδρεία; and again a 38, δικαιοσύνη δίκαιος δίκαιος δικαίως are coordinates. Also, a 29, τὰ ποιητικά and τὰ φυλακτικά are coordinate with the things which they produce and preserve, as τὰ ὑγιεινά with ὑγίεια, τὰ εὐεκτικά with εὐεξία. πτώσεις are these same coordinates in their grammatical aspects—terms that can be similarly predicated, and applicable to the same things—and they are therefore sometimes identified with the others. The πτώσεις ‘inflexions’ of the same word are not confined to the mere ‘declension’ of nouns, substantive or adjective, (the nominative is the casus rectus, or πτῶσις ὀρθή, improperly so called, the noun in its upright or normal state or position, the casus or πτώσεις are fallings away, declensions, from that standard typical form by a change of termination15,) but include adverbs, the generic and numerical terminations, masc. and femin., singular, dual, and plural, and the inflexions of verbs; in fact, as it appears, any change of termination which a root undergoes in passing into different parts of speech, and the inflexions of these: in Aristotle πτῶσις is a ‘declension’ from a root. This logical signification of σύστοιχος and συστοιχία is ‘transferred’ by metaphor, from the ranks of an army or of a chorus in the theatre (like ἀντίστροφος), to logic or grammar: but in either of the two senses, they always denote things on the same level, coordinates. Trendel. El. Log. Arist. 75, Bonitz ad Metaph. A 5, 986 a 23. Xenophon, Conv. 2, 20, has ἀντιστοιχεῖν in the sense of ‘to be one's opposite, or partner in a dance’. Anab. V 4, 12, ἔστησαν ἀιὰ ἑκατὸν μάλιστα, ὥσπερ οἱ χοροί, ἀντιστοιχοῦντες ἀλλήλοις, ‘in opposite, corresponding ranks’. In Met. l. c., and Eth. N. I 4, 1085 b 7, it is applied to the ten parallel rows or columns of the opposite ἀρχαί of the Pythagoreans, the two opposite members of the ten being in each case a συστοιχία, or pair of coordinate conceptions. Hence σύστοιχα are notions of the same order: as the four elements, which have the same rank, belong to the same row, i. e. order in nature, de Caelo 302 a 29; and hence, notions which fall under the same genus, as black and white, sweet and bitter; and even such as are under different genera, so long as they have something in common, de Sens. c. 7, 447 b 30, 448 a 14 and 16.

In Aristotle therefore σύστοιχα and πτώσεις, though occasionally identified, are, when strictly and properly applied, distinguished thus: σύστοιχο are logical notions or conceptions corresponding to things of the same rank or order in nature, having a wider and more comprehensive sphere of application than the πτώσεις, which are grammatical like the ‘declensions’, from which the name is derived, and include the various deflexions or inflexions, expressed by changes of termination, from a root.

Cicero's coniugata, which are defined Top. III 12, correspond to Aristotle's πτώσεις. Coniugata dicuntur quae sunt ex verbis generis eiusdem. Eiusdem autem generis verba sunt, quae orta ab uno varie commutantur, ut sapiens sapienter sapientia. Haec verborum coniugatio συζυγία dicitur, ex qua huiusmodi est argumentum: si compascuus ager est, ius est compascere.

Besides the authorities already referred to, see on this subject Waitz on περὶ ἑρμ. c. 2, 16 b 1; Anal. Post. II 15, 79 b 6; Trendel. Kategorienlehre, p. 27 seq.; Donaldson, New Crat. § 227.


τοῦ μὴ (ὄντος) πάντες (αἱροῦνται)] The negative of the preceding: ‘than that which is not what all prefer’.

ἦν] ‘was’ as we have said, c. 6. 2. οὗ μᾶλλον] (ἐφίενται).

οἱ ἀμφισβητοῦντες] ‘rival claimants or competitors’.

οἱ ἐχθροί] c. 6. 24. This applies especially to contested superiority in personal excellences or accomplishments. If rivals and enemies, (τὸ μὲν) who are most interested in disparaging their adversary, and most inclined to do so, if even these admit his superiority, we may take it for granted that every one else will do so, and therefore this is equivalent to the universal admission of it (ὡς ἂν εἰ πάντες φαῖεν). If ‘judges’, those that have the right to decide by reason of special qualification, the artist or professor, the expert or adept in any pursuit or study, or those whom they select as qualified to pronounce a decision, if such as these decide in a man's favour, then it is the decision (τὸ δὲ) of ‘authorities’, as it were, men empowered and entitled, or who have the right (κύριοι) to judge and decide, and (or rather, ‘because of’) the special knowledge which the occasion requires (οἱ εἰδότες); and this decision is final. Compare notes on 6. 25, 7. 21.

Victorius and Schrader appear to confine κρίνειν to its judicial sense of deciding a legal cause, οὓς οὗτοι κρίνουσι being those who are selected or deputed to try a particular case when the ordinary judges are prevented from being present themselves. If there were any doubt between the two interpretations, the question would be decided by the following passage: ἕκαστος δὲ κρίνει καλῶς γινώσκει, καὶ τούτων ἐστὶν ἀγαθὸς κριτής. Eth. N. I 1, 1094 b 27.

ὡς ἂν εἰ] Note on κἂν εἰ, I 1. 5, p. 9.


This topic also is best exemplified in personal advantages, accomplishments, or possession. It can be applied either way. Sometimes (ὁτὲ μὲν, ἔστιν ὅτε, ἐνίοτε), in some cases, the superior value of a possession of this kind is in proportion to its universality, because the greater the number of those who have the advantage, the greater the disgrace of being without it (a case of στέρησις, § 16): in other cases the reverse may be maintained on the principle that the scarcity of a thing lends it a superior value, § 14.


καλλίω γάρ] § 24. Virtue is the only true object of ‘praise’, ἔπαινος. Introd. Appendix Bk. I, c. 9, p. 212 seq.

ὧν αἱ τιμαί κ.τ.λ.] ‘and things (especially actions) may be regarded as ‘greater’, or superior in respect of their power or effect, of which the honours or rewards are greater; because honours and rewards are as it were (may be considered) a kind of valuation, estimate of the value, of a thing, ἀξία, which will afford a comparison, or measure of the comparative value of two things: and the opposite acts which involve a higher penalty, are superior in a sense, more important and effective. ζημίαι, not ‘losses’, ἀποβολαί, as it has been understood, but ‘penalties’, directly opposed to τιμαί ‘rewards’. So Victorius.


Things which are, at first sight, or can be shewn to be, greater than others which are universally acknowledged to be great or are manifestly so, are seen to be so at once and without reflexion, present themselves at once as such, φαινόμενα. A conspicuous instance of this common sense of φαινόμενος, apparent, manifest to the eye, occurs Rhet. II 2, 1 (see note) in the definition of ὀργή. Comp. I 9. 32, 8. 6; III 2. 9.

καὶ διαιρούμενα κ.τ.λ.] This and the following are purely rhetorical topics, and belong rather to the third book, On style. One mode of exaggerating the importance of anything, of making it assume a magnitude which it does not really possess, is in the way of description, to break up into parts or describe in detail what might be stated summarily as a whole. ‘The same facts or events’, when thus individually represented, will ‘seem greater’ than if they were all summed up together in one statement; because in the former case the excess or superiority, in point of importance and interest, of the facts exhibited in detail over the summary statement, will seem to be shewn ‘in more points’, which are all brought severally into view. πλειόνων ὑπερέχειν is ‘to exceed in a greater number of points’, whether we understand the genitive as one of quantityin more things’, which is probably right, or as the comparative genitive after ὑπερέχειν, ‘to surpass more things’, by which the meaning is not so distinctly expressed: in either case it is the number of things detailed that makes the superior impression. The use of this topic is well illustrated by Quintilian, Inst. Or. VIII 3. 61 sq., who however refers the strong impression produced by this detail to the ἐνέργεια or vividness of the picture. § 67, sic urbium captarum crescit miseratio. Sine dubio enim qui dicit expugnatam esse civitatem complectitur omnia quaecunque talis fortuna recipit; sed in affectus minus penetrat brevis hic velut nuncius. At si aperias haec, et cet. [then follows the description]. Majoragius refers to Cicero's description of Pompey's military experience in the speech pro lege Manilia, and Gaisford to Harris, Philol. Inquiries, p. 58 [on p. 62, this passage of the Rhet. is quoted]. He assigns this to ‘accumulation’ and ‘concatenation’. Shakespeare, in the Tempest, will supply us with a brilliant example: The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, &c. [IV. i. 152]. Comp. Acts of the Apostles, ii. 9 seq., where the wonder of the gift of tongues is heightened by the enumeration in detail of all the different nations whose language was spoken; ‘Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites.’ Bacon's Colours of Good and Evil (Vol. VII p. 81, Ellis and Sped. ed.), No. 5, is a good commentary on this topic in its most general application.

λέγουσαν] is omitted in MS A^{c}., and consequently put in brackets by Buhle and Spengel. The latter adds, Praef. ad Rhet. Gr. p. vi, ‘aliud excidisse videtur, v. c. παράκοιτιν.’ [‘Intellige τὴν γυναῖκα, quo aegre cares’. Spengel, ed. 1867. S.] ‘Deest λέγουσαν in Cod. antiquissimo Victorii, et videtur sane illud interpolatum esse. Uncinos applicavi’. Buhle.

ποιητής φησι] Homer to wit, Il. IX 592. The reading of the Vulg. is κήδἐ ὅσ᾽ ἀνθρώποισι πέλει τῶν ἄστυ ἁλώη: ἄνδρας μὲν κτείνουσι, and the rest as quoted by Ar. This example is the same as that given by Quintilian. Victorius thinks that he borrowed it from Aristotle. Spalding, ad Quint. VIII 3. 67, quotes the following Schol. on Il. XV 496, referring to the other passage of Homer: ῥητορικῶς τὸ ἓν πρᾶγμα, τὴν πόρθησιν, εἰς πολλὰ κατεμέρισεν.

τὸ συντιθέναι καὶ ἐποικοδομεῖν] are added to the preceding topic of ‘detail’ as closely akin to it. That the first at all events is so, may be inferred from the identification of ‘detail’ with ‘accumulation’ by Harris, p. 58, above quoted. The two figures are ‘accumulation’ and ‘climax’. ἐποικοδόμησις is the building up of one phrase upon (ἐπί) another, one rising above another step by step, like the rounds of ‘a ladder’ (κλίμαξ), or the stages of a building. Rhet. ad Alex. 3 (4). 9, ἐποικοδομοῦντα τὸ ἕτερον ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ ἕτερον αὔξειν τρόπῳ τοιῷδε, which is then illustrated. Arist. de Gen. An. I 18, 34, 724 a 28, ἔτι δὲ παρὰ ταῦτα ὡς Ἐπίχαρμος ποιεῖ τὴν ἐποικοδόμησιν, ἐκ τῆς διαβολῆς λοιδορία, ἐκ δὲ ταύτης μάχη, ταῦτα δὲ παντα ἔκ τινος ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως. Eustath. ad Hom. Il. B, p. 181, τὸ δὲ σχῆμα τοῦ ῥηθέντος χωρίου (verse 101) κλίμακα καὶ κλιμακωτὸν λέγουσιν οἱ παλαιοί, ἕτεροι δὲ ἐποικοδόμησιν. γίνεται δὲ σχῆμα κλιμακωτὸν ὅταν τὸ λῆγον τῆς φθασάσης ἐννοίας ἀρχὴ γένηται τῆς ἐφεξῆς, οἷον ὡς εἴ τις εἴπῃ, βασιλεὺς ἀγαθός, ἀγαθὸς ἀγαθὰ ποιεῖ, ἀγαθὰ ποιῶν εὐεργετεῖ, εὐεργετῶν θεὸν μιμεῖται, κ.τ.λ. Demetrius περὶ ἑρμηνείας § 270 (III 320, Rhet. Gr. Spengel) λαμβάνοιτ᾽ ἂν καὶ κλῖμαξ (sic) καλουμένη, ὡς παρὰ Δημοσθένει, τὸ (de Cor. § 179, p. 288) οὐκ εἶπον μὲν ταῦτα, οὐκ ἔγραψα δέ: οὐδ᾽ ἔγραψα μέν, οὐκ ἐπρέσβευσα δέ: οὐδ̓ ἐπρέσβευσα μέν, οὐκ ἔπεισα δὲ τοὺς Θηβαίους: σχεδὸν γὰρ ἐπαναβαίνοντι (mounting a staircase or a hill, from higher to higher) λόγος ἔοικεν ἐπὶ μείζονα. This figure by the Latin Rhetoricians is called gradatio, Cic. de Or. III 54. 207, Quint. IX 3. 54—7, where it is explained and illustrated by the same passage of Demosth. and from Latin authors. In Auct. ad Heren. IV 25, it is thus defined: Gradatio est, in qua non ante ad consequens verbum descenditur quam ad superius conscensum est, and then illustrated. See Aquila Romanus, cited by Ernesti, Lex. Tech. Gr. et Lat. sub vv. κλίμαξ, et gradatio, and at length by Schäfer, App. Crit. ad Demosth. p. 288, 8, Vol. II p. 250. Aquila calls it ascensus.

ὥσπερ Ἐπίχαρμος] Besides the illustration of the figure climax from Epicharmus quoted above from the de Gen. Anim., there is another and a more complete one in Athen. II 36 C. D, indicated by Schrader, ἐκ μὲν θυσίας θοίνη, ἐκ δὲ θοίνης πόσις ἐγένετο, ἐκ δὲ πόσιος κῶμος, ἐκ κώμου δ᾽ ἐγένετο θυανία, ἐκ δὲ θυανίας δίκη, ἐκ δίκης δὲ καταδίκη, ἐκ δὲ καταδίκης πέδαι τε καὶ σφάκελος καὶ ζημία16.

διά τε τὸ αὐτὸ τῇ διαιρέσει] Two reasons are now given for the impression that these two figures make upon the hearer: the first, the same as that which accounts for it in the case of διαίρεσις; the accumulation of particulars, and the rising by steps to a climax, have the same effect as the division or detail, in increasing the number of effective strokes, and so producing the impression of superiority, γὰρ σύνθεσις ὑπεροχὴν δείκνυσι πολλήν: and secondly, you make that which you are endeavouring to magnify appear to be the cause and origin of a number of important effects, which you seem to multiply by detailing them. The following passage of the Rhet. ad Alex. c. 3 (4), §§ 10, 11, will serve as a commentary on this and the entire section: συλλήβδην δὲ, ἐὰν πολλῶν αἴτιον ἀποφαίνῃς, ἐάν τε ἀγαθῶν ἐάν τε κακῶν, μέγαλα φανεῖται. σκοπεῖν δὲ καὶ τὸ πρᾶγμα ὁποῖον φανεῖται κατὰ μέρη διαιρούμενον καθόλου λεγόμενον, καὶ ὁποτέρως ἂν μεῖζον , τόνδε τὸν τρόπον αὐτὸ λέγειν. τὰς μὲν οὖν αὐξήσεις οὕτω μετιὼν πλείστας ποιήσεις καὶ μεγίστας, ταπεινώσεις δὲ τοῖς λόγοις καὶ τὰ ἀγαθὰ καὶ τὰ κακὰ τὸν ἐναντίον τρόπον μετιὼν, ὡς εἰρήκαμεν ἐπὶ τῶν μεγάλων, καὶ μάλιστα μὲν ἂν μηδενὸς αἴτιον ἐπιδεικνύης, εἰ δὲ μὴ ὡς ἐλαχίστων καὶ σμικροτάτων.


ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸ χαλεπώτερον καὶ σπανιώτερον μεῖζον] supr. § 14. An exemplification of this topic is found in Eth. Nic. VIII 15, 1163 a 12, οἱ μὲν γὰρ παθόντες τοιαῦτά φασι λαβεῖν παρὰ τῶν εὐεργετῶν μικρὰ ἦν ἐκείνοις καὶ ἐξῆν παρ᾽ ἑτέρων λαβεῖν, κατασμικρίζοντες: οἱ δ̓ ἀνάπαλιν τὰ μέγιστα τῶν παῤ αὐτοῖς, καὶ παῤ ἄλλων οὐκ ἦν, καὶ ἐν κινδύνοις τοιαύταις χρείαις. The additional value or importance for good or for evil that things, especially actions, acquire at particular ages or times of life (illustrated in the Topics), in particular places, at particular times, at particular critical seasons and occasions (καιροί), or from the special nature of the powers or faculties that are called into exercise (δυνάμεις), is derived from the scarcity of such things and actions, and the difficulty of obtaining or performing them. The καιρός in two aspects is exemplified in the Topics, Γ 2, 117 a 26—b 217. Add Prov. XV. 23, a word spoken in due season, how good is it. χρόνοι is illustrated by the case, already quoted, of Sir Phil. Sidney, and the cup of cold water at the battle of Zutphen [p. 84]: δυνάμεις, as Aristotle himself tells us, applies to cases in which any one does something ‘beyond his powers’, above his ordinary level, and more than you would expect from him; and παρὰ τοὺς ὁμοίους is exemplified by the epigram and the saying of Iphicrates.

καὶ εἰ οὕτως κ.τ.λ.] ‘and if such things be done (οὕτως), at particular places or times, they will acquire a magnitude and importance in things (i. e. actions) right, and good, and just, and their opposites’. οὕτως may however mean under particular circumstances.

τὸ ἐπίγραμμα τῷ ὀλυμπιονίκῃ] The substantive taking the same case as the verb from which it is derived is illustrated in the dative by Matthiae, Gr. Gr. § 390. Stallbaum on Phaedo 88 C. Soph. 252 D. and Euthyphr. 13 D, 15 A. Add, Aesch. Agam. 415, πτεροῖς ὀπαδοῖς ὕπνου κελεύθοις. Soph. Oed. Col. τὰ γὰρ δόλῳ τῷ μὴ δικαίῳ κτήματ᾽ οὐχὶ σώζεται. Trach. 668, Ἡρακλεῖ δωρημάτων. Aj. 696, Wunder ad loc. Eur. Ion, 508, τὰ θεόθεν τέκνα θνατοῖς. Iph. T. 1384, οὐρανοῦ πέσημα (i. e. τὸ ἀπ᾽ οὐρανοῦ πεπτωκός). Plat. Parmen. 128 C, Theaet. 177 A, Gorg. 522 D, Symp. 182 D, Rep. VI 493 D, 498 B. Ar. Pol. VII (VI) 5, 1320 a 32, βοήθεια τοῖς ἀπόροις. Some examples of an analogous construction, in which a substantive follows the ordinary construction of a verb, with prepos. and subst., are given by Stallbaum on Phaedo 99 B. Add to these, Plat. Protag. 354 A, Gorg. 472 E, Rep. II 378 D, Eur. Herc. Fur. 1334, στέφανος Ἑλλήνων ὕπο, Arist. Eth. N. X 9, 1179 a 25, ἐπιμέλεια τῶν ἀνθρώπων ὑπὸ Θεῶν, Categ. 8 b 32, μεταβολὴ ὑπὸ νόσου, de Anima B. 8, 11, 420 b 27, πληγὴ τοῦ ἀέρος ὑπὸ τῆς ψυχῆς.

This epigram is expressly attributed to Simonides by Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1761, 24 (Buhle). It is found in the Anthol. I 80 (ed. Jacobs), No. 107 of the Epigrams attributed to Simonides. Bergk, Fragm. Lyr. p. 793 [p. 921, 2nd ed], Simonidis Fragm. 166.

Eustathius l. c. explains ἄσιλλα, σκεῦός τι ἰχθυηρόν. It is described by Hemsterhuis ad Hesychium s.v. ἀστυπολεῖ, as a iugum, a sort of wooden yoke, which was carried over the two shoulders to support the fish-baskets. Alciphron I, 1. p. 6, εὐθὺς οὖν ὀψῶναι πλήσιον, καὶ τὰς ἀσίλλας ἐπωμίους ἀνελόμενοι, καὶ τὰς ἑκατέρωθεν σπυρίδας ἐξαρτήσαντες (quoted in Anthol.). Otherwise called τύλη. Arist. Ach. 860, 954. Diog. Laert. IX 53, of Protagoras, who πρῶτος τὴν καλουμένην τύλην, ἐφ᾽ ἧς τὰ φόρτια βαστάζουσιν, εὗρεν, ὥς φησιν Ἀριστοτέλης ἐν τῷ περὶ παιδείας: φορμοφόρος γὰρ , ὡς καὶ Ἐπικουρός πού φησι. So that Protagoras may be added to the examples of ἐξ οἵων εἰς οἷα, I 9. 31, or ἐξ ὧν ὑπῆρχε ταῦτα.

The exclamation of Iphicrates ‘from what I rose to this’ (from what an origin this my fortune was made) is repeated in a more correct form (Buhle) in c. 9. 31, ἐξ οἵων εἰς οἷα, as is also part of the Epigram. Plutarch, Apophth. Reg. et Imp., under the head of Iphicrates, Nos. 1 and 5, has these notices of him. Ἰφικράτης δοκῶν υἱὸς εἶναι σκυτοτόμου κατεφρονεῖτο: δόξαν δὲ τότε πρῶτος ἔσχε ὅτε τραυματίαν πολέμιον ἄνδρα μετὰ τῶν ὅπλων ζῶντα συναρπάσας εἰς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ τριήρη μ́ετένεγκεν. No. 5, πρὸς δὲ Ἁρμόδιον τὸν τοῦ παλαιοῦ Ἁρμοδίου ἀπόγονον εἰς δυσγένειαν αὐτῷ λοιδορούμενον ἔφη, τὸ μὲν ἐμὸν ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ γένος ἄρχεται, τὸ δὲ σὸν ἐν σοὶ παύεται.


τὸ αὐτοφυὲς τοῦ ἐπικτήτου] ‘native superior to acquired talents and advantages (of person, mind or character), because they are harder to come by’; nature being rather chary of such gifts, and the acquisition of them comparatively easy. Top. Γ 1, 116 b 10, καὶ τὸ φύσει τοῦ μὴ φύσει, οἷον δικαιοσύνη τοῦ δικαίου: τὸ μὲν γὰρ φύσει τὸ δ᾽ ἐπίκτητον. This topic has a wider scope than the rhetorical, and again, c. 4, 119 a 7—10. Comp. Pind. Ol. IX 152, τὸ δὲ φυᾷ κράτιστον ἅπαν. II 155, σοφὸς πολλὰ εἰδὼς φυᾷ: μαθόντες δὲ λαβροὶ παγγλωσσίᾳ ἄκραντα γαρύεμεν Διὸς πρὸς ὄρνιχα θεῖον. Nem. III 69, συγγενεῖ δέ τις ἀρετᾷ μέγα βρίθει: ὃς δὲ διδάκτ᾽ ἔχει ψεφηνὸς ἀνήρ. Specie autem comparantur ut anteponantur quae propter se expetenda sunt iis quae propter aliud: ut innata atque insita assumptis et adventitiis et seq. Cic. Topic. XVIII 69.

ποιητής] Homer. Odys. χ́ (XXII) 347.


οἷον Περικλῆς τὸν ἐπιτάφιον κ.τ.λ.] This celebrated simile does not occur, as is well known, in the funeral oration put into Pericles' mouth by Thucydides in his second book. Thucydides, who merely gives the general meaning of his speakers and never their actual words, may have omitted it intentionally, if Pericles really made use of it. But as Herodotus, VII 162, attributes nearly the same identical words to Gelo, it seems more probable that it was erroneously ascribed to the other; at all events it is quite clear that it could not have been original in his mouth. It appears, likewise, in a somewhat altered form, in Euripides (Suppl. 447, πῶς οὖν ἔτ᾽ ἂν γένοιτ̓ ἂν ἰσχυρὰ πόλις, ὅταν τις ὡς λειμῶνος ἠρινοῦ στάχυν τόλμας ἀφαιρῇ κἀπολωτίζῃ νέους), who no doubt might have borrowed it from Pericles; and it is ascribed to Demades by Athenaeus, III 99 D. It is repeated in Rhet. III 10. 7.


τὰ ἐν χρείᾳ...μείζονι χρήσιμα (μείζω ἐστί)] A friend in need is a friend indeed. ‘Auget manifesto vim beneficiorum tempus, angustiaeque eorum qui beneficium accipiunt, quod etiam Demosthenes in Leptinem significavit (p. 471, 1), πάντες μὲν γάρ εἰσιν ἴσως ἄξιοι χάριν ἀνταπολαμβάνειν οἱ προϋπάρχοντες τῷ ποιεῖν ὑμᾶς εὖ, μάλιστα δὲ οἱ παρὰ τὰς χρείας.’ Victorius. Comp. Eth. N. VIII 15, 1163 a 16, in estimating the value of services to a friend, when you wish to make the most of them you say that they are τὰ μέγιστα τῶν παρ᾽ αὑτοῖς (the best you have to give), καὶ παρ᾽ ἄλλων οὐκ ἦν, καὶ ἐν κινδύνοις τοιαύταις χρείαις.

δυοῖν τὸ ἐγγύτερον τοῦ τέλους] This topic is distinguishable from those in §§ 9 and 16. There the comparison is between end and not-end: here it is between different degrees or orders of means to an end. Top. Γ 1, 116 b 22, quoted on § 9. Alexander, in his Comm. on that passage, illustrates this by the comparison of shaving and exercise as means to the end, health; the active exercise of ἀρετή (this is the definition of εὐδαιμονία in the Eth. Nic.) to the mere ἕξις of it, as nearer to the end, happiness; in practical arts, the higher and more comprehensive are superior to the narrower and subordinate in each department, the latter being mere means to some higher end; so horsemanship is superior to the saddler's art, both being subordinate, but the former nearer, to the end, the military art; the woodman's and carpenter's arts as means to shipbuilding; medicine and gymnastics as both tending to a healthy habit of body.

τὸ αὐτῷ καὶ ἁπλῶς] The comparison in the expression of this topic is left to be understood, and the two terms are merely placed in juxtaposition by καί, one and the other are laid before us, in order that we may choose between them. The topic is a comparison of absolute good, or good in general, and relative good. That which is absolutely good, or good in itself, καθ᾽ αὑτό, or good in general, need not be the best for us (‘to a man's own self’), any particular individual, αὐτῷ, though theoretically, from the higher point of view, it is superior to the other. Top. Γ 1, 116 b 8, τὸ ἁπλῶς ἀγαθὸν τοῦ τινὶ αἱρετώτερον18. Alexander, in his Comm. on Top. p. 125 (Top. 116 b 26, τὸ δυνατὸν καὶ ἀδύνατον), illustrates this by the contrast of immortality and long life, which will apply as well to the ἁπλῶς and αὐτῷ as to that for which it is immediately intended: immortality may perhaps be absolutely the best, most desirable in itself, but it is out of our reach; for us therefore a long life, which may possibly be attained, is better: it is of no use to choose or prefer immortality. Another example is supplied by Heraclitus' dictum, quoted in Eth. Nic. x 5, 1176 a 7, that an ass would prefer any rubbish or refuse (σύρματα) to gold; because it is pleasanter to him. Comp. I 15. 12, τὸ ἁπλῶς ἀγαθὸν αἱρεῖται οὐδείς, ἀλλὰ τὸ αὑτῷ.

αὐτῷ (al. αὑτῷ) [on p. 146] is the reading of Vict., Buhle, Gaisf., Bekker, Spengel, and Bonitz, Arist. Stud. I p. 88. It is the equivalent of τινί in the familiar antithesis of general and particular good, as in the passage of the Topics above quoted; comp. I 9. 17 αὐτῷ, I 15. 20, II 13. 9, τὸ μὲν γὰρ συμφέρον αὐτῷ ἀγαθόν ἐστι, τὸ δὲ καλὸν ἁπλῶς: and as in the repetition of the antithesis, I 15. 12, it assumes the form of αὑτῷ, ‘good to a man's own self’, i.e. each particular individual, it is quite plain that the one form can in many cases be substituted for the other. On αὐτοῦ for αὑτοῦ and the rest, see Waitz, Org. p. 486, 54 a 14. Rhet. I 1. 12, ἀνάγκη δἰ αὐτῶν ἡττᾶσθαι. Also, Buttm. Excurs. X ad Dem. c. Mid. p. 140, de formis αὑτόν et αὐτόν. for καί, which is adopted by Vict. and Gaisf., and suggested by Bonitz, l. c., is, as I have above endeavoured to shew, unnecessary.

τὸ δυνατὸν τοῦ ἀδυνάτου] Top. Γ 1, 116 b 26. See Alexander's example in the last note but one. Another occurs in II 2. 2, on anger, ἡδὺ μὲν γὰρ τὸ οἴεσθαι τεύξεσθαι ὧν ἐφίεται, οὐδεὶς δὲ τῶν φαινομένων ἀδυνάτων ἐφίεται αὑτῷ, δ᾽ ὀργίζόμενος ἐφίεται αὑτῷ. We deliberate, with a view to action, and that which is to be preferred of two courses of action, only about things which we believe to be possible, and possible to us; κἂν μὲν ἀδυνάτῳ ἐντύχωσιν, ἀφίστανται...ἐὰν δὲ δυνατὸν φαίνηται ἐγχειροῦσι πράττειν. Eth. Nic. III 5, 1112 b 25.

This topic is stated as a consequence from the preceding; the possible is to be preferred to the impossible, because the attainable good is the only good for us, τὸ μὲν γὰρ αὑτῷ, τὸ δ᾽ οὔ.

τὰ ἐν τέλει τοῦ βίου] The end in question is not the temporal end, but the final cause. The τέλος is in itself good, 7. 8, 9; 6. 2; the higher or nearer to the end (τὰ πρὸς τῷ τέλει) are any of the means employed for the attainment of it, the more they approximate in their character to the end itself; hence τὰ ἐν τέλει τοῦ βίου, the means included in, or those which subserve, the end of life—happiness, or whatever else the end of life may be—are in so far superior, being nearer to that great and final end, than other means to other and lower ends. Top. Γ 1, 116 b 23, τὸ πρὸς τὸ τοῦ βίου τέλος αἱρετώτερον μᾶλλον τὸ πρὸς ἄλλο τι, οἷον τὸ πρὸς εὐδαιμονίαν συντεῖνον τὸ πρὸς φρόνησιν.


τὰ πρὸς ἀλήθειαν τῶν πρὸς δόξαν] the real and the apparent or sham; τὸ εἶναι and τὸ δοκεῖν, τὸ ὄν and τὸ φαινόμενον; the solid, genuine, substantial reality contrasted with the mere outside show and ‘appearance’; or truth as absolute certainty, and probable opinion. Top. Γ 3, 118 b 20, καὶ <*> τὸ μὲν δἰ αὑτὸ τὸ δὲ διὰ τὴν δόξαν αἱρετόν (αἱρετώτερόν ἐστιν), οἷον ὑγίεια κάλλους. (τὴν μὲν γὰρ ὑγίειαν δἰ αὑτὴν αἱρούμεθα κἂν μηδεὶς εἴσεσθαι μέλλῃ, τὸ δὲ κάλλος διὰ τὴν ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ δόξαν: μάταιον γοῦν δοκεῖ τὸ κάλλος εἶναι μὴ γνωριζόμενον. Alex. Aphrod. ad loc.) Aesch. Sept. c. Th. 592, of Amphiaraus the just, οὐ γὰρ δοκεῖν δίκαιος ἀλλ᾽ εἶναι θέλει. This topic is No. 3, in Bacon's Colours of Good and Evil (Works, ed. Ellis and Spedding, VII 79). It is shewn to fail in the case of virtue; the virtuous man ‘will be virtuous in solitudine, and not only in theatro’.

ὅρος δὲ τοῦ πρὸς δόξαν κ.τ.λ.] Top. l. c. b 21, ὅρος δὲ τοῦ πρὸς δόξαν τὸ μηδενὸς συνειδότος μὴ ἂν σπουδάσαι ὑπάρχειν. ‘The distinguishing mark or characteristic of that which is directed to mere opinion (is found in) anything that a man would not choose if he were sure that it would not be known or recognised by others’. And the same thing is expressed in the Topics, ‘anything which a man would not be anxious to possess if no one else was to be privy to it’. It is the credit of possessing the thing, in the eyes of others, and not the mere possession for its own sake, that gives it its value and superiority. Compare with this μὴ λανθάνει κ.τ.λ. § 40, which gives the other side of the question.

In the example, the superiority of receiving to conferring a benefit, the words δόξειεν ἄν suggest that we need not take this for granted; it can be ‘made to appear’ that it is true, but the real truth lies on the other side of the question; from a higher point of view, to confer is better than to receive a benefit.


ὅσα εἶναι μᾶλλον κ.τ.λ.] The difference between this and the preceding topic seems to lie in this. That lays down the general rule, and refers to ‘every thing’ that comes under it; and is therefore appealed to, πρὸς ἀλήθειαν γὰρ μᾶλλον, as the warrant and foundation of this. The second is a special variety of the first, ‘what men wish to be; the qualities, such as virtues, which they desire to possess, or seem to possess. Here again the reality is preferable to the mere credit and external appearance of the virtue. ‘And, therefore, it is a vulgar and popular opinion (φασί, Plat. Rep. II 358 A; and not merely the doctrine of the vulgar, οἱ πολλοί, but maintained also by would-be philosophers, as Thrasymachus and Callicles) that justice is a thing of small value (mean and contemptible), because the appearance of it is preferable to the reality, whereas in the case of health it is the reverse’. Victorius quotes, in exemplification of φασί, two iambic lines from Plutarch de Aud. Poet. p. 18 D, τοῦ μὲν δικαίου τὴν δόκησιν ἄρνυσο, τὰ δ᾽ ἔργα τοῦ πᾶν δρῶντος ἔνθα κερδανεῖς. Eur. Ixion. Fr. I. Dind. Quoted also in Stobaeus p. 30, 8. Another fragment to the same effect is ascribed by Valckenaer (Diatr. in Fragm. Eur. p. 166) to Euripides' Ixion.


τὸ πρὸς πολλὰ χρησιμώτερον] Top. Γ 3, 118 b 27, ἔτι διελέσθαι ποσαχῶς τὸ αἱρετὸν λέγεται καὶ τίνων χάριν οἷον τοῦ συμφέροντος τοῦ καλοῦ τοῦ ἡδέος: τὸ γὰρ πρὸς ἅπαντα πρὸς τὰ πλείω χρήσιμον αἱρετώτερον ἂν ὑπάρχοι τοῦ μὴ ὁμοίως. Wealth and health are supposed to be of the highest value because they are serviceable in so many ways; for the support and preservation of mere life, and of a virtuous and happy life (for which they supply the means), also for pleasure and for good and noble actions.


καὶ τὸ ἀλυπότερον καὶ τὸ μεθ᾽ ἡδονῆς] Top. Γ 2, 117 a 23, καὶ ταὐτὰ μεθ᾽ ἡδονῆς μᾶλλον ἄνευ ἡδονῆς. καὶ ταὐτὰ μετ̓ ἀλυπίας μᾶλλον μετὰ λύπης. The desirability of anything even which is desirable in itself or on other grounds, as things useful, is increased by the addition of any pleasure that accompanies such things; so the ἐνέργειαι are completed and perfected by the accompanying ἡδονή in each case, Eth. N. X 3, 4, 5. And likewise the absence of pain, as compared with its presence, may be regarded as a positive good. The topic in the Rhetoric combines the two, positive pleasure and negative relief from pain; these together being ‘more than one’ are superior to either of the two separately. καί is therefore ‘together with’; and ὥστε ὑπάρχει κ.τ.λ. ‘and so (in the case supposed) we have (there are there, ὑπάρχει) the positive pleasure and the absence of pain, which may both be regarded as a good’.

καὶ δυοῖν...τὸ ὅλον ποιεῖ] A + B is greater than A + C, therefore B is greater than C. Top. Γ 5, 119 a 22, ἔτι ἐκ τῆς προσθέσεως, εἰ τῷ αὐτῷ προστιθέμενον τὸ ὅλον μᾶλλον ποιεῖ τοιοῦτο, εἰ τῷ ἧττον τοιούτῳ προστιθέμενον τὸ ὅλον μᾶλλον ποιεῖ τοιοῦτο. In the second of these two cases, if the addition of a quantity to the less of two other quantities makes the sum total of the two greater than the sum total arising from the addition of another different quantity to the other, we may infer that the former of the two added quantities is greater than or preferable to the latter. 4 is less than 6: if the addition of 8 to 4 produces a total 12, which is greater than the total resulting from the addition of an unknown quantity x, to 6, and therefore less than 12, we may infer (by calculation) that x is less than 8.


λανθάνει] has been omitted, either by the author or a tran scriber. A similar omission occurs in Plat. Phaedr. 275 A, τοὐναντίον εἶπες δύναται. Similar examples quoted from Plato by Stallbaum (note ad loc.) make it probable that the oversight is due to the author. ‘Things that do shew themselves, and are conspicuous, have a greater air of reality about them than those that do not (that lurk out of sight), and may therefore lay claim to the preference’.

διὸ τὸ πλουτεῖν φανείη ἂν μεῖζον ἀγαθὸν τοῦ δοκεῖν] This, the vulgar reading, which Victorius found in all his MSS, is no inference or exemplification of the preceding rule, though it is supported by Schrader, who however does not explain the connexion. If it be applied to the rule, the show or appearance, τὸ δοκεῖν, of wealth is said λανθάνειν, not to be seen; which is absurd. It does follow from the topic in § 37, and may possibly have been thence transferred to this place. Some MSS and the Greek Scholiast give πλουτεῖν...καὶ δοκεῖν, but it seems unlikely that the two verbs, if the combination of the two was intended, should be so widely separated: also καὶ τὸ δοκεῖν would be required. This was corrected by Muretus, τὸ πλουτεῖν καὶ δοκεῖν φανείη ἂν μεῖζον ἀγαθὸν τοῦ πλουτεῖν, which seems rather too violent an alteration. Brandis would adopt the reading of his anonymous commentator, διὸ τὸ πλουτεῖν καὶ δοκεῖν φανείη ἂν μεῖζον ἀγαθὸν τοῦ μὴ δοκεῖν (Schneidewin's Philologus IV i p. 42), also conjectured by Vater, and confirmed by the Greek Schol., who explains it, καὶ τὸ πλουτεῖν καὶ φαίνεσθαι μεῖζον τοῦ πλουτεῖν καὶ μὴ φαίνεσθαι. Another mode of correction had occurred to me, the interchange, viz. of τό and τοῦ, τοῦ πλουτεῖν...τὸ δοκεῖν. The meaning of this would be, that the appearance or outward show of wealth, together with the wealth itself which it manifested, might upon this principle be made to appear superior to the wealth without the show, because the possessor would lose all the credit of it—but this involves perhaps rather a non-natural interpretation of πρὸς ἀλήθειαν τείνει. I am indebted to Mr Munro for a suggestion that deserves attention: the substitution of τῷ, for τοῦ, δοκεῖν: the alteration is very slight, and gives an excellent sense; the value of wealth by this rule may be considered to be augmented by the addition of the prominent and conspicuous display of it. Bekker and Spengel retain the vulgate.


τὸ ἀγαπητο<*>ν κ.τ.λ.] not here ‘to be acquiesced in’, ‘that which one may be content with’, (as in Eth. Nic. I, 1094 b 19); nor in the reputed Homeric sense of ‘unique’, ‘only19’, but ‘highly valued’, ‘dearly prized’ (‘beloved’, something which one is very fond of. Comp. unicus, as in Catullus, Carmen 64, 215). So it is used in Eth. Nic. IX 12 init. ὥσπερ τοῖς ἐρῶσι τὸ ὁρᾷν ἀγαπητότατον. In Pol. II 4, 1262 b 23, the meaning is more doubtful, and the sense of ‘unique’ possible. Here it cannot have this meaning, because in some cases it is μετ᾽ ἄλλων, and it is only by the addition of μόνον that the ‘great rarity’ which gives it its high value becomes the ‘solitary specimen’. Comp. Buttm. ad Mid. p. 567, note 398.

ἑτερόφθαλμον] Gaisford refers to a very pertinent passage of Dem. c. Timocr. p. 744, in which the orator tells with admirable conciseness a story of a one-eyed man of Locri, who under a law framed on the retaliatory principle (‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’) was threatened by an enemy with the loss of his solitary visual organ. ‘Vexed at this, and thinking life intolerable at the price, he is said to have ventured to propose a law, that if any one deprived a one-eyed man of an eye, he should lose both his own in return, that the loss of each might be equalized’. This is a case of ἐπιείκεια, the spirit of the law rectifying the imperfection of the letter. Rhet. I 13. 13—19.

This concludes the treatment of the general principles and topics from which arguments may be derived by the political rhetorician in the deliberative kind of Rhetoric: there remains one special subject under this head, which is indispensable to the orator who takes part in public business, and is sketched very briefly in outline in the next chapter, with a reference to the Politics for complete details.

1 If πολὺ καὶ ὀλίγον are here intended to include ‘many’ and ‘few’, πολλοὶ καὶ ὀλίγοι, as they most probably are, since they occur in the Categories and are wanted to complete the list, we must extend the τῶν πολλῶν μέγεθος to number, πλῆθος, as well as magnitude.

2 Gaisford refers to Harris, Philosophical Arrangements (‘arrangements’ mean collections of notions under general heads; and the ‘arrangements’ that he treats of are Aristotle's summa genera, or Categories), ch. 9 p. 191. Harris merely repeats what Aristotle had already said in his Categories to which Gaisford does not refer.

3 Some of the topics selected for ‘reprehension’ are identical with those of Aristotle, and probably borrowed from him. The meaning of the word ‘Colours’ in this application is thus explained by Erasmus, Adagia, s. v. fucus, p. 1915, “Qui ad exornationes atque figuras se conferunt apud Gallos proverbio dicuntur ‘rhetoricis coloribus’ uti: hoc est, fucatis pigmentis, quibus nihil ineptius si bonis sententiis non fuerint conjuncta”. And by Bacon himself in his preface.

4 ἀποστερεῖν is properly ‘to defraud or cheat’, and especially applied to keeping back a deposit. Rhet. II 6. 3, τὸ ἀποστερῆσαι παρακατάθηκην. Gaisf. quotes Schol. Aristoph. Plut. 373, ἀποστερῶ ἐστὶν ὅταν παρακαταθήκην παραλαβὼν εἰς διαβολὴν χωρήσω καὶ οὐκ ἐθέλω διδόναι αὐτῷ ἔλαβον. [See Shilleto's note on Thuc. 1 69, 1. s.]

5 Trendel. in Rhein. Mus. 1828, Vol. II p. 481—3. The author, who has discussed with great learning and ingenuity the meaning of this Aristotelian technicality, and its relation to τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι, is, it seems to me, less successful in his grammatical explanation. I think that from the analogy of similar constructions of this dative in the ordinary language, the use of it here must needs be a case of attraction, as I have explained it in the note. Trendelenburg, who takes nothing into account but the possible meanings of the dative (or, as he rightly prefers to call it, the ‘acceptive’) case, locative, instrumental, acceptive, selects the last of the three as that which belongs to the dative in this phrase. τὸ μεγέθει εἶναι express, according to him, ‘the abstract conception (τὸ εἶναι) belonging to (given to and received by) magnitude’: making this dative depend solely upon εἰναι, and leaving out the attraction to a word in the dative, actually or hypothetically preceding, as in any way concerned in the ‘government’ of it. This is all that I have to object to in Trendelenburg's paper: in the rest he has shewn the same ability and intimate knowledge of his author which characterizes all his other writings upon Aristotle.

6 The ἀρχή as essence, origin of being, οὐσία, is the primal cause, τὸ τί ἧν εἶναι. Bonitz.

7 στοιχεῖον “hoc loco eum (Aristotelem) non tam elementi naturam cogitasse, quam principem illam rei alicuius partem, in qua primum continetur et destinata est ipsa rei natura, ex exemplis allatis facile cognoscas.” Bon. Comm. p. 218.

8 This is an ἀρχὴ κακῶν.

9 καὶ διὰ τοῦτο διάνοια κινεῖ, ὅτι ἀρχὴ αὐτῆς ἐστὶ τὸ ὀρεκτόν. de Anima I 10, 433 a 19.

10 This cannot be the same accusation as that which Aristotle here refers to; ἐγράψατο δωρεάν and τὸν πράξαντα, ‘the man that carried into execution a nefarious scheme’, are quite inapplicable to the same offence. Again Demosthenes, c. Mid. 535, tells us that Philostratus was the accuser of Chabrias, ὅτ᾽ ἐκρίνετο τὴν περὶ Ὠρωποῦ τὴν κρίσιν θανάτου. Were there two accusers of Chabrias on his trial? Or two separate trials? (this seems improbable): or has Aristotle made a slip of memory in assigning the accusation of Chabrias to Leodamas? None of these suppositions is necessary to reconcile the, at first sight, conflicting statements. The accusation of Leodamas is directed against both parties; he takes the case of Callistratus first, and then secondly (πάλιν δέ) applies the converse of the argument which he had issued against the other to the offence of Chabrias. Philostratus, who took part in the same proceedings, was another and independent accuser. Mr Grote, p. 393, note 3, who does not refer to the passage of Aristotle, assigns the trial or trials of Callistratus and Chabrias to this period, 366 B. C., and the alleged misconduct about Oropus. The other speech of Leodamas against Chabrias, referred to by Dem. adv. Lept. l. c. was earlier, and had nothing to do with the affair of Oropus. [Arnold Schaefer, Demosthenes und seine Zeit 1 p. 96. s.]

11 Pindar's own view of the meaning may be readily seen by comparing the first three lines of the 10th Olympian Ode: note the word χρῆσις. In a speech, quoted by Spedding (Letters and life of Fr. Bacon, Vol. III. p. 18), Bacon says: I liken this bill to that sentence of the poet (Pindar), who sets this as a paradox in the fore-front of his book, first water, then gold, preferring necessity before pleasure; and I am of opinion, that things necessary in use are better than those things that are glorious in estimation.

12 Victorius, perhaps rightly, explains μὴ ἀρετή and μὴ κακία as states of growth and development, which have not yet reached their ‘end’, the formed ἕξις, but are mere διαθέσεις, transient dispositions, and so far inferior.

13 The terms ‘subject’ and ‘object’ from different points of view may be applied to express the same thing. The object of sense or of thought, material or mental, quod sensibus vel menti objicitur, is when looked at from the logical side the subject of all that is or can be predicated of it.

14 So printed in Bekker's texts.

15 Περὶ ἑρμηνείας 2, 16 a 32, τὸ δὲ Φίλωνος Φίλωνι καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα, οὐκ ὀνόματα ἀλλὰ πτώσεις ὀνόματος. Poet. 20. 10, 1457 a 18, πτῶσις δ᾽ ἐστὶν ὀνόματος ῥήματος μὲν τὸ κατὰ τούτου τούτῳ σημαίνουσα καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα (cases), δὲ κατὰ τὸ ἑνὶ πολλοῖς (numbers) οἷον ἄνθρωποι ἄνθρωπος, δὲ κατὰ τὰ ὑποκριτικά, οἷον κατ᾽ ἐρώτησιν ἐπίταξιν (moods of verbs). Illustrated by ἐβάδισεν and βάδιζε, indicative and imperative. πτώσεις are referred to the general head of παρώνυμα. Top. Z 10, 148 a 10, ὠφέλιμον, ὠφελίμως, ὠφεληκός are πτώσεις. Ib. H 1, 151 b 30, 153 b 25—34, where several examples are given.

16 Müllach, Fragm. Philos. Gr. p. 143, gives these lines as corrected by Meineke, Dindorf, and Bochart. A. ἐκ μὲν θυσίας θοίνα, ἐκ δὲ θοίνας πόσις ἐγένετο. B. χαρίεν, ὥς γ᾽ ἐμὶν δοκεῖ. A. ἐκ δὲ πόσιος κῶμος, ἐκ κώμου δ᾽ ἐγενεθ̓ ὑανία, ἐκ δ̓ ὑανίας δίκα, ᾿κ δίκας δ̓ ἐγένετο καταδίκα, ἐκ δὲ καταδίκας πέδαι τε καὶ σφαλὸς (the stocks) καὶ ζαμία. The other passage, in the de Gen. An., Müllach attempts to correct himself, and produces this melodious verse, p. 144, ἐκ διαβολᾶς μῶμος ἐγένετο, πολλοῦ δ᾽ ἐκ μώμου μάχα.

17 καιρός ‘due season’, ‘the right time’, ‘occasion’, ‘opportunity’, the time suitable, appropriate, to the performance of anything, is that form of good which comes under the Category of time, χρόνος; Eth. Nic. I 4, 1096 a 26. On this the Paraphrast (Andronicus Rhodius) notes, ἔστι γὰρ καιρὸς ἐπιτήδειος ἑκάστῳ χρόνος. Pind. Pyth. IX 82, καιρὸς παντὸς ἔχει κορυφάν. Ib. IV 286 (508). Soph. Electr. 75, καιρὸς ἀνδράσιν μέγιστος ἔργου παντὸς ἔστ᾽ ἐπιστάτης. Philoct. 837.

18 The comparison of these two topics well illustrates the difference of treatment in dialectical and rhetorical reasoning. In the former that which is generally and theoretically true is put forward: in the latter, looking at this same question from the practical side, we see that there are many exceptions, and that this other side is equally capable of being maintained.

19 Of the four places in which ἀγαπητός occurs in Homer, and is interpreted μονογενής, unicus, one, Od. β́ 365, has the addition of μοῦνος, which seems to shew that there, at any rate, ἀγαπητός cannot mean μοῦνος or μονογενής; and in the others the translation ‘dearly beloved’ is just as suitable and probable. It is similarly explained (in the supposed Homeric sense) by many of the Interpp. of Matth. iii. 17, Mark i. 11, Luc. iii. 22, and other places where Christ is called ἀγαπητὸς υἱὸς Θεοῦ. Dr Lightfoot, in Camb. Journ. of Classical and Sacred Philol. Vol. III. p. 92, No. 7, thinks that from the primary notion of ἀγαπᾶν ‘to welcome’—which is undoubtedly its original and Homeric sense—it expresses rather the external act than the inward feeling, and should be translated in Homer rather by ‘fondled or caressed’, than ‘beloved’. Fritzsche, on Eth. Eud. III. 6, 1233 b 2, renders τοῦ ἀγαπητοῦ, filii unice dilecti. See the references in his note. Heinsius, Exercit. Sacr. in Marc. i. 11 (quoted by Gaisford), pronounces very decidedly in favour of this interp. unicus, unigenitus, praeter quem alius non datur: referring to this passage (which is decisive against him), to Homer, and to Hesychius ἀγαπητόν, μονογενῆ. Victorius more in accordance with facts says, “carum valet, ut puto, idque significare voluit Catullus cum inquit ‘si quid carius est oculis’ quo uno se aliquis consolatur, in quo omnem spem suorum gaudiorum collocatam habet, quo impetrato ac retento contentus vivere potest:” which exactly defines it. The use of the Latin unicus is precisely similar.

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