“Labour ennobles the human race and completes it with the fruits of genius; but idleness deadens the mind. Not experience, but ignorance, of labour turns us from it. For what man who has made trial of labour has ever forsaken it? And the power of the mind lies in keeping the mind tense; to unstring it is to ruin it. My fixed intention, if the potent favour of the deity will so grant, is (although others have laboured in this field, yet not with satisfactory method) to translate into Latin every work of Aristotle that comes to my hand, and furnish it with a Latin commentary. Thus I may present, well ordered and illustrated with the light of comment, whatever subtilty of logic’s art, whatever weight of moral experience, and whatever insight into natural truth, may be gathered from Aristotle. And I mean to translate all the dialogues of Plato, or reduce them in my commentary to a Latin form. Having accomplished this, I shall not have despised the opinions of Aristotle and Plato if I evoke a certain concord between them and show in how many things of importance for philosophy they agree--if only life and leisure last. But now let us return to our subject.”[102] One sees a veritable love of intellectual labour and a love of the resulting mental increment. It is distinctly the antique, not the patristic, attitude towards interests of the mind. In spite of his unhappy sixth century way of writing, and the mental fallings away indicated by it, Boëthius possessed the old pagan spirit, and shows indeed how tastes might differ in the sixth century. He never translated the whole of Aristotle and Plato; and his idea of reconciling the two evinces the shallow eclectic spirit of the closing pagan times. Nevertheless, he carried out his purpose to the extent of rendering into Latin, with abundant comment, the entire _Organon_, that is, all the logical writings of Aristotle. First of all, and with elaborate explanation, he rendered Porphyry’s famous Introduction to the _Categories_ of the Master. Then the _Categories_ themselves, likewise with abundant explanation. Then Aristotle’s _De interpretatione_, in two editions, the first with simple comment suited to beginners, the second with the best elaboration of formal logic that he could devise or compile.[103] These elementary portions of the _Organon_, as transmitted in the Boëthian translations, made the logical discipline of the mediaeval schools until the latter part of the twelfth century. He translated also Aristotle’s _Prior_ and _Posterior Analytics_, the _Topics_, and the _Sophistical Elenchi_. But such advanced treatises were beyond the requirements of the early mediaeval centuries. With the lessening of intellectual energy they passed into oblivion, to re-emerge only when called for by the livelier mental activities of a later time.