Thus we say that the desire of human praise was the motive of the
Pharisees, or the principle on which they acted.
Their practical syllogism then would stand thus:
Whatever gains human praise is to be done;
Public praying and almsgiving gave human praise:
[ergo] Public praying and almsgiving are to be done.
The major premisses may be stored up in the mind as rules of action,
and this is what is commonly meant by having principles good or bad.
[5] The difficulty of this passage consists in determining the
signification of the terms [Greek: gnorima aemin] and [Greek: gnorima
aplos]
I have translated them without reference to their use elsewhere, as
denoting respectively what _is_ and what _may_ be known. All truth is
[Greek: gnorimon aplos], but that alone [Greek: aemin] which we
individually realise, therefore those principles alone are [Greek:
gnorima aemin] which _we have received as true_. From this appears
immediately the necessity of good training as preparatory to the study
of Moral Philosophy for good training in habits will either work
principles into our nature, or make us capable of accepting them as
soon as they are put before us; which no mere intellectual training can
do. The child who has been used to obey his parents may never have
heard the fifth Commandment but it is in the very texture of his
nature, and the first time he hears it he will recognise it as morally
true and right the principle is in his case a fact, the reason for
which he is as little inclined to ask as any one would be able to prove
its truth if he should ask.
But these terms are employed elsewhere (Analytica Post I cap. 11. sect.
10) to denote respectively particulars and universals The latter are so
denominated, because principles or laws must be supposed to have
existed before the instances of their operation. Justice must have
existed before just actions, Redness before red things, but since what
we meet with are the concrete instances (from which we gather the
principles and laws), the particulars are said to be [Greek:
gnorimotera aemin]
Adopting this signification gives greater unity to the whole passage,
which will then stand thus. The question being whether we are to assume
principles, or obtain them by an analysis of facts, Aristotle says, “We
must begin of course with what is known but then this term denotes
either particulars or universals perhaps we then must begin with
particulars and hence the necessity of a previous good training in
habits, etc. (which of course is beginning with particular facts), for
a fact is a starting point, and if this be sufficiently clear, there
will be no want of the reason for the fact in addition”
The objection to this method of translation is, that [Greek: archai]
occurs immediately afterwards in the sense of “principles.”
Utere tuo judicio nihil enim impedio.