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النشر الإلكتروني

As your shifts and your tricks and your prophecies show.

CLEON. 'Tis a scandal, a shame! to throw slander and blame

On the friend of the people! a patriot name,

A kinder protector I venture to say,

Than ever Themistocles was in his day,

Better and kinder in every way.

S. S. Witness, ye deities! witness his blasphemies!
You to compare with Themistocles! you!

That found us exhausted, and filled us anew
With a bumper of opulence; carving and sharing
Rich slices of empire; and kindly preparing,
While his guests were at dinner, a capital supper,
With a dainty remove, both under and upper,
The fort and the harbor, and many a dish
Of colonies, islands, and such kind of fish.
But now we are stunted, our spirit is blunted,
With paltry defences, and walls of partition;
With silly pretences of poor superstition;
And yet you can dare with him to compare!
But he lost the command, and was banished the land,
While you rule over all, and carouse in the hall!

CLEON. This is horrible quite, and his slanderous spite,
Has no motive in view but my friendship for you,
My zeal
DEM. There, have done with your slang and your stuff,
You've cheated and choused and cajoled me enough.
S. S. My dear little Demus! you'll find it is true.
He behaves like a wretch and a villain to you.
He haunts your garden and there he plies,
Cropping the sprouts of the young supplies,
Munching and scrunching enormous rations
Of public sales and confiscations.

CLEON. Don't exult before your time,
Before you've answered for your crime-
A notable theft that I mean to prove
Of a hundred talents and above.

S. S. Why do ye pounce and flounce in vain ?
Splashing and dashing and splashing again,
Like a silly recruit, just clapped on board?
Your crimes and acts are on record

The Mitylenian bribe alone

Was forty minæ proved and shown.

502

ARISTOTLE.

ARISTOTLE, a Greek philosopher, the founder of the school of Peripatetics. He was born at Stagira, a Greek colony in Macedonia (whence he is denominated "the Stagirite"), in 384 B. c., and died at Chalcis, on the island of Euboea, in 322 B. C. At the age of seventeen he was sent to Athens to complete his education, and resided there during the ensuing twenty years. When he was about forty years old, Philip of Macedon invited Aristotle to become the tutor of his son, Alexander, afterward known as "the Great," then a boy of thirteen. When he was about fifty years old, Aristotle took up his residence at Athens, bringing with him his vast scientific collections, and established his new school of philosophy in the Lyceum, a gymnasium near the city, surrounded by shady walks (peripatoi), in which he was wont to discourse to his pupils while walking about, whence his school of philosophy is styled the "Peripatetic School." His friendly relations with Alexander were at length broken off, on account, it is said, of the admonitions which he addressed to the great conqueror upon the dissolute way of life into which he had fallen. The Athenians, however, charged him with still being a partisan of the Macedonian dynasty, accused him of impiety, and forced him to flee to Chalcis, where he died.

Aristotle was beyond question by far the best educated man of all antiquity. He seems to have grasped all the knowledge of his times, and to have made numerous important additions to almost every department of natural science to say nothing of his undoubted merits as a metaphysical thinker. He was the first careful dissector and describer of animals; the first to divide the animal kingdom into classes. He described many species of animals hitherto wholly unknown to his countrymen, and came near to discovering the fact of the circulation of the blood. His entire philosophical method seems to be almost identical with that long after enunciated by Bacon. It rests upon the principle that all our thinking must be founded on the observation of facts.

ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HISTORY AND POETRY, AND HOW HISTORICAL MATTER SHOULD BE USED IN POETRY.

(From the "Poetics," Chapter 9.)

BUT it is evident from what has been said that it is not the province of a poet to relate things which have happened, but

such as might have happened, and such things as are possible according to probability, or which would necessarily have happened. For a historian and a poet do not differ from each other because the one writes in verse and the other in prose; for the history of Herodotus might be written in verse, and yet it would be no less a history with metre than without metre. But they differ in this, that the one speaks of things which have happened, and the other of such as might have happened. Hence, poetry is more philosophic, and more deserving of attention, than history. For poetry speaks more of universals, but history of particulars. But universal consists, indeed, in relating or performing certain things which happen to a man of a certain description, either probably or necessarily [to which the aim of poetry is directed in giving names]; but particular consists in narrating what [for example] Alcibiades did, or what he suffered. In comedy, therefore, this is now become evident. For comic poets having composed a fable through things of a probable nature, they thus give whatever names they please to their characters, and do not, like iambic poets, write poems about particular persons. But in tragedy they cling to real names. The cause, however, of this is, that the possible is credible. Things therefore which have not yet been done, we do not yet believe to be possible; but it is evident that things which have been done are possible, for they would not have been done if they were impossible.

Not indeed but that in some tragedies there are one or two known names, and the rest are feigned; but in others there is no known name, as for instance in "The Flower of Agatho.". For in this tragedy the things and the names are alike feigned, and yet it delights no less. Hence, one must not seek to adhere entirely to traditional fables, which are the subjects of tragedy. For it is ridiculous to make this the object of search, because even known subjects are known but to a few, though at the same time they delight all men. From these things, therefore, it is evident that a poet ought rather to be the author of fables than of metres, inasmuch as he is a poet from imitation, and he imitates actions. Hence, though it should happen that he relates things which have happened, he is no less a poet. For nothing hinders but that some actions which have happened are such as might both probably and possibly have happened, and by [the narration of] such he is a poet

But of simple plots and actions, the episodic are the worst.

But I call the plot episodic, in which it is neither probable nor necessary that the episodes follow each other. Such plots, however, are composed by bad poets, indeed, through their own want of ability; but by good poets, on account of the players. For, introducing [dramatic] contests, and extending the plot beyond its capabilities, they are frequently compelled to distort the connection of the parts. But tragedy is not only an imitation of a perfect action, but also of actions which are terrible and piteous, and actions principally become such (and in a greater degree when they happen contrary to opinion) on account of each other. For thus they will possess more of the marvellous than if they happened from chance and fortune; since also of things which are from fortune, those appear to be most admirable which seem to happen as it were by design. Thus the statue of Mityus at Argos killed him who was the cause of the death of Mityus by falling as he was surveying it. For such events as these seem not to take place casually. Hence it is necessary that fables of this kind should be more beautiful.

ON PHILOSOPHY.

(Quoted in Cicero's "Nature of the Gods.")

If there were men whose habitations had been always under ground, in great and commodious houses, adorned with statues. and pictures, furnished with everything which they who are reputed happy abound with: and if, without stirring from thence, they should be informed of a certain divine power and majesty, and after some time the earth should open and they should quit their dark abode to come to us, where they should immediately behold the earth, the seas, the heavens; should consider the vast extent of the clouds and force of the winds; should see the sun and observe his grandeur and beauty, and perceive that day is occasioned by the diffusion of his light through the sky; and when night has obscured the earth they should contemplate the heavens, bespangled and adorned with stars, the surprising variety of the moon in her increase and wane, the rising and setting of all the stars and the inviolable regularity of their courses, when, says he, "they should see these things, they would undoubtedly conclude that there are gods, and that these are their mighty works."

ON ESSENCES.

(From "The Metaphysics," Book xi., Chapter 1.)

THE subject of theory (or speculative science) is essence. In it are investigated the principles and causes of essences. The truth is, if the All be regarded as a whole, essence is its first (or highest) part. Also, if we consider the natural order of the categories, essence stands at the head of the list; then comes quality; then quantity. It is true that the other categories, such as qualities and movements, are not in any absolute sense at all, and the same is true of [negatives, such as] not-white or not-straight. Nevertheless, we use such expressions as "Notwhite is."

Moreover, no one of the other categories is separable [or independent]. This is attested by the procedure of the older philosophers; for it was the principles, elements, and causes of essence that were the objects of their investigations. The thinkers of the present day, to be sure, are rather inclined to consider universals as essence. For genera are universals, and these they hold to be principles and essences, mainly because their mode of investigation is a logical one. The older philosophers, on the other hand, considered particular things to be essences; e. g., fire and earth, not body in general.

There are three essences. Two of these are sensible, one being eternal and the other transient. The latter is obvious to all, in the form of plants and animals; with regard to the former, there is room for discussion, as to whether its elements are one or many. The third, differing from the other two, is immutable and is maintained by certain persons to be separable. Some make two divisions of it, whereas others class together, as of one nature, ideas, and mathematical entities; and others again admit only the latter. The first two essences belong to physical science, for they are subject to change; the last belongs to another science, if there is no principle common to all.

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