PREFACE. THE text of this edition of what, in deference to tradition, I have called on the title-page the Fifth Book of the Nicomachean Ethics, is founded upon a new collation of eight MSS. I cannot pretend that my researches in this direction have yielded much that is important. They have indeed enabled me to correct a few oversights in Bekker's text and critical notes, but they have thrown little light, if any, upon the difficulties of the treatise, and have convinced me that Bekker lost little by confining his attention to the four MSS. KÖLÄM1O. I have however printed the results of my collation, in the hope that others may thereby be spared the repetition of an ungrateful labour. Thinking, as many others have done, that the several parts of the Fifth Book do not stand in their proper order, I have with some hesitation adopted what seems to me a more intelligible arrangement than that of the received text. The chapter "On Dislocations in the Text", which forms a part of the Introduction, is based upon an article which I contributed to the Journal of Philology in 1875. In the translation or paraphrase which stands opposite the text, my chief aim has been to show how I understand the drift and the several arguments of the original. Hence, wherever a Greek phrase seemed to be clearer than an English equivalent would have been, I have not scrupled to retain it in my version: and in general I have sacrificed neatness of expression to precision and perspicuity. The necessity of justifying my interpretations has caused my notes to become in some parts, and especially in chapters 5, 8, and 9, disproportionately long. The substance of the commentary on chapter 5 appeared in 1872 in the Journal of Philology. I believe that I have in all cases acknowledged my debts to previous commentators. But I should be ungrateful indeed if I did not make particular mention of my obligations to Sir Alexander Grant. It was in the pages of his edition that I first became acquainted with the Ethics, and however much I may differ from him in detail, I can never forget the help which, both as learner and as teacher, I have derived from his fresh and instructive work. Professor Ramsauer's new edition did not reach me until my commentary was already in the press. As it was then too late to make use of his researches, I deferred the perusal of his work until my own little book should be out of my hands. Finally it is my pleasant duty to offer my thanks to the Syndics of the University Press for their liberality in undertaking the publication of this book; to the authorities of the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, the Library of the Vatican, the Library of St Mark at Venice, the Laurentian and Riccardian Libraries at Florence, the British Museum, and New College, Oxford, for their courtesy in allowing me to consult MSS. in their collections; and to my friends the Rev. W. M. Gunson, Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, Mr S. H. Butcher, Fellow of University College, Oxford, and Mr G. G. Greenwood of this College, with whom I have discussed many of the difficulties which beset this part of the Ethics. H. J. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. November 9, 1878. |