He bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of his circumstances, like a skilful general who marshals his limited forces with all the strategy of war... He is his own best friend, and takes delight in privacy whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy, and is afraid of solitude. Such is the Superman of

Aristotle’s ideal man, however, is no mere metaphysician. He does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life,—knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

“when men are friends, justice is unnecessary;

Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit: “the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life;... for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.”

Aristotle begins by frankly recognizing that the aim of life is not goodness for its own sake, but happiness. “For we choose happiness for itself, and never with a view to anything further; whereas we choose honor, pleasure, intellect... because we believe that through them we shall be made happy.”

But above all, the function of art is catharsis, purification: emotions accumulated in us under the pressure of social restraints, and liable to sudden issue in unsocial and destructive action, are touched off and sluiced away in the harmless form of theatrical excitement; so tragedy, “through pity and fear, effects the proper purgation of these

One of the more lively passages is an attack on Democritus’ “void”: there can be no void or vacuum in nature, says Aristotle, for in a vacuum all bodies would fall with equal velocity; this being impossible, “the supposed void turns out to have nothing in it”—an instance at once of Aristotle’s very occasional humor, his addiction to unproved

One always feels towards logic as Virgil bade Dante feel towards those who have been damned because of their colorless neutrality: Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa—“Let us think no more about them, but look once and pass on.”

The mathematical reader will see at once that the structure of the syllogism resembles the proposition that two things equal to the same thing are equal to each other; if A is B, and C is A, then C is B. As in the mathematical case the conclusion is reached by canceling from both premisses their common term, A; so in our syllogism the conclusion is