Here's a passage I like for its colorful writing. But can you identify it? (And although monkeys never would type it, they too could very easily google it.)
Aristotle, in his book of Politics, when he conies to compare the several kinds of government, he is very reserved in discoursing what form he thinks best: he disputes subtilely to and fro of many points, and judiciously of many errors, but concludes nothing himself. In all those books I find little commendation of monarchy. It was his hap to live in those times when the Grecians abounded with several commonwealths, who had then learning enough to make them seditious. Yet in his Ethics, he hath so much good manners as to confess in right down words that "Monarchy is the best form of government, and a popular estate the worst." And though he be not so free in his politics, yet the necessity of truth hath here and there extorted from him that which amounts no less to the dignity of monarchy; he confesseth it to be, first, the natural and the divinest form of government; and that the gods themselves did live under a monarchy. What can a heathen say more?Note: 'conies' does indeed come from the word for rabbit (as in Pepys diary, "I find that a coney skin in my breeches preserves me perfectly from galling") and is cousin to 'cunning'.
6 comments:
Hi Michael,
My first guess is Sir Richard Filmer's Patriarcha (1648).
Incidentally--the mystery author is correct. At the risk of self-promotion, I published a piece on this in Ancient Philosophy.
Best,
Thornton
You are right (though it's Robert). What is the reference for your article? M
Hi Michael,
Yea--do I get a gold blogger star? ;-)
Although I don't discuss Filmer, I do try to make sense of the line he's referring to, which is EN VIII.10.1160a31-37. The citation is: “The Best Regime of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.” Ancient Philosophy 26 (2006): 355-70. I have an electronic off-print if you'd like me to send you a copy.
Best,
Thornton
I can't give you a star (that's technically beyond my abilities) but here is a (very tiny) smiley face: ☺.
Smiley face trivia: Did you know that the inventor of the yellow smiley face was Harvey Ball of Worcester, Mass., who in 1863 devised it as a logo for State Mutual Life Insurance located there?
Now, talk about sanguine: the symbol which marks Havery Ball's gravestone in the Notre Dame Cemetery is ... a bright yellow smiley face.
Hi Michael,
I enjoy the balance of humor, seriousness and content on this blog. It's refreshing.
This is something of a nonsequiter comment, so I hope you won't mind. I was happy to discover in the post last week a letter from the University of Edinburgh approving my application to become a postgraduate in their new year-long MSc in Ancient Philosophy programme.
I seem to remember that you did some postgraduate work at Edinburgh back in the 80s and while I don't have any pointed questions to ask presently, I was hoping to perhaps elicit from you an idea of what your academic experience was like.
I shall leave it at that for now.
Best Wishes,
CA
Congratulations on your acceptance into the program. Please feel free to write directly to me if you have further questions.
It's true that I studied in Edinburgh, and I have only good things to say about it. At that time I was not yet interested in ancient philosophy. My M. Litt. thesis was a critical examination of Hume's naturalism, and certainly Edinburgh then was the best place in the world to study Hume and Scottish philosophy.
The philosophy department provided an excellent education because postgraduate students were invited to participate in seminars and reading groups with faculty quasi among peers.
You'll be astonished by Edinburgh's beauty. I never tired of seeing Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags, and each morning when I walked from the New Town, where I lived, up over 'The Mound' to the University, I would look across the Firth of Forth to the hills of Dunfermline, which typically were golden in that low northern light, and wonder when I would get out to the Highlands again.
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