2019-01-04

设备的简陋，给亚里士多德的研究带来了致命的缺憾。尽管如此，这位哲学家和他的助手却给后世留下了很多著作，为后世科学奠定了基础。

Aristotle and Greek Science

II. The Work of Aristotle

See, here, how inventions make history: for lack of a telescope Aristotle's astronomy is a tissue of childish romance; for lack of a microscope his biology wanders endlessly astray. Indeed, it was in industrial and technical invention that Greece fell farthest below the general standard of its unparalleled achievements. The Greek disdain of manual work kept everybody but the listless slave from direct acquaintance with the processes of production, from that stimulating contact with machinery which reveals defects and prefigures possibilities; technical invention was possible only to those who had no interest in it, and could not derive from it any material reward. Perhaps the very cheapness of the slaves made invention lag; muscle was still less costly than machines. And so, while Greek commerce conquered the Mediterranean Sea, and Greek philosophy conquered the Mediterranean mind, Greek science straggled, and Greek industry remained almost where Ægean industry had been when the invading Greeks had come down upon it, at Cnossus, at Tiryns and Mycene, a thousand years before. No doubt we have here the reason why Aristotle so seldom appeals to experiment; the mechanisms of experiment had not yet been made; and the best he could do was to achieve an almost universal and continuous observation. Nevertheless the vast body of data gathered by him and his assistants became the groundwork of the progress of science, the textbook of knowledge for two thousand years; one of the wonders of the work of man.

Aristotle's writings ran into the hundreds. Some ancient authors credit him with four hundred volumes, others with a thousand. What remains is but a part, and yet it is a library in itself—conceive the scope and grandeur of the whole. There are, first, the Logical works: "Categories," "Topics," "Prior" and "Posterior Analytics," "Propositions," and "Sophistical Refutation"; these works were collected and edited by the later Peripatetics under the general title of Aristotle's "Organon," —that is, the organ or instrument of correct thinking. Secondly, there are the Scientific works: "Physics," "On the Heavens," "Growth and Decay," "Meteorology," "Natural History," "On the Soul," "The Parts of Animals," "The Movement of Animals," and "The Generation of Animals." There are, thirdly, the Esthetic works: "Rhetoric" and "Poetics." And fourthly come the more strictly Philosophical works: "Ethics," "Politics," and "Metaphysics."

▍语言点

astray: adj. 迷路的

disdain: vi. 蔑视

manual work: 手工业

listless: adj. 无精打采的；百无聊赖的

prefigure: vt. 预示；预想

lag: n. 滞后

appeal to: resort to，诉诸于

mechanism: n. 机制；原理

observation: n. 观察

Organon: n. 工具论；推理法

conceive the scope and grandeur of the whole: 包罗万象

与柏拉图相反，亚里士多德这位具有科学倾向的人无法像柏拉图那样创造很多文学词汇，他创造的是一套科学和哲学术语。一直到今天，我们在谈到任何一门科学时，都会用到他发明的词汇。

Aristotle and Greek Science

II. The Work of Aristotle

Here, evidently, is the Encyclopedia Britannica of Greece: every problem under the sun and about it finds a place; no wonder there are more errors and absurdities in Aristotle than in any other philosopher who ever wrote. Here is such a synthesis of knowledge and theory as no man would ever achieve again till Spencer's day, and even then not half so magnificently; here, better than Alexander's fitful and brutal victory, was a conquest of the world. If philosophy is the quest of unity Aristotle deserves the high name that twenty centuries gave him—Ille Philosophus: The Philosopher.

Naturally, in a mind of such scientific turn, poesy was lacking. We must not expect of Aristotle such literary brilliance as floods the pages of the dramatist-philosopher Plato. Instead of giving us great literature, in which philosophy is embodied (and obscured) in myth and imagery, Aristotle gives us science, technical, abstract, concentrated; if we go to him for entertainment we shall sue for the return of our money. Instead of giving terms to literature, as Plato did, he built the terminology of science and philosophy; we can hardly speak of any science today without employing terms which he invented; they lie like fossils in the strata of our speech: faculty, mean, maxim (meaning, in Aristotle, the major premiss of a syllogism), category, energy, actuality, motive, end, principle, form—these indispensable coins of philosophic thought were minted in his mind. And perhaps this passage from delightful dialogue to precise scientific treatise was a necessary step in the development of philosophy; and science, which is the basis and backbone of philosophy, could not grow until it had evolved its own strict methods of procedure and expression. Aristotle, too, wrote literary dialogues, as highly reputed in their day as Plato's; but they are lost, just as the scientific treatises of Plato have perished. Probably time has preserved of each man the better part.

Finally, it is possible that the writings attributed to Aristotle were not his, but were largely the compilations of students and followers who had embalmed the unadorned substance of his lectures in their notes.

▍语言点

evidently: adv. obviously，显然的是

Encyclopedia Britannica: 大英百科全书

no wonder: 自然而然

fitful: adj. 不稳定的

brutal: adj. 残暴的

lack: vt. & n. 缺乏；不足

in the lack of something: 缺乏某物

literary brilliance: 文学闪光点

myth and imagery: 神话与意象

terminology: n. 术语 (与 term 区别）

fossil: n. 化石

faculty: n. An inherent mental or physical power. 工具；设施，与 facility 区别

mean: adj. 中庸的

the doctrine of the mean: 中庸之道

syllogism: n. 三段论（大前提、小前提、结论）

maxim: n. 大前提（现在意思为公理）

premiss: n. 前提

major premiss: 大前提

minor premiss: 小前提

actuality:  n. 实在

motive: n. 动因

indispensable: adj. 难以分离的

coin: n. 造出来的词；硬币

mint: vt. 造币

mint coins:  铸造硬币

perish: vt. 毁坏；消失

attribute to: [ə'trɪbjut] 归功于

compilation: n. 编纂

embalm: vt. 保存