[13] If the mina be taken at 15 oz. avoirdupois, (Dict. of G. and R.
Antiquities, article _Talentum_,) we must be sadly degenerate in our
gastric capacity.
[14] The two are necessary, because since the reason itself may be
perverted, a man must have recourse to an external standard; we may
suppose his [Greek: logos] originally to have been a sufficient guide,
but when he has injured his moral perceptions in any degree, he must go
out of himself for direction.
[15] This is one of the many expressions which seem to imply that this
treatise is rather a collection of notes of a _vivâ voce_ lecture than
a set formal treatise. “The table” of virtues and vices probably was
sketched out and exhibited to the audience.
[16] Afterwards defined as “All things whose value is measured by
money.”
[17] We have no term exactly equivalent; it may be illustrated by
Horace’s use of the term _hiatus_:
“Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?” Opening the mouth wide
gives a promise of something great to come, if nothing great does come,
this is a case of [Greek: chaunotes] or fruitless and unmeaning
_hiatus_; the transference to the present subject is easy.
[18] In like manner _we_ talk of laudable ambition, implying of course
there may be that which is not laudable.
[19] An expression of Bishop Butler’s, which corresponds exactly to the
definition of [Greek: nemesis] in the Rhetoric.
[20] That is, in the same genus; to be contraries, things must be
generically connected: [Greek: ta pleiston allelon diestekota ton en to
auto genei enantia orizontai]. Categories, iv. 15.
[21] “[Greek: Deuteros plous] is a proverb,” says the Scholiast on the
Phaedo, “used of those who do anything safely and cautiously inasmuch
as they who have miscarried in their first voyage, set about then:
preparations for the second cautiously,” and he then alludes to this
passage.
[22] That is, you must allow for the _recoil_. “Naturam expellas furca
tamen usque recurret.”
P. 43, l. 2. This illustration sets in so clear a light the doctrines
entertained respectively by Aristotle, Eudoxus, and the Stoics
regarding pleasure, that it is worth while to go into it fully.
The reference is to Iliad iii. 154-160. The old counsellors, as Helen
comes upon the city wall, acknowledge her surpassing beauty, and have
no difficulty in understanding how both nations should have incurred
such suffering for her sake still, fair as she is, home she must go,
that she bring not ruin on themselves and their posterity.
This exactly represents Aristotle’s relation to Pleasure he does not,
with Eudoxus and his followers, exalt it into the Summum Bonum (as
Paris would risk all for Helen), nor does he the the Stoics call it
wholly evil, as Hector might have said that the woes Helen had caused
had “banished all the beauty from her cheek,” but, with the aged
counsellors, admits its charms, but aware of their dangerousness
resolves to deny himself, he “feels her sweetness, yet defies her
thrall.”