Aristotle's Problems

...whether sorrow also falls upon beasts. When a matter is distributed into parts: as if it were asked how many species of motions there are, whether they be of the soul or of the body; or when the form and, as it were, the natural mark of each thing is described: such as what form of urine it is that portends health or the opposite. Of consequence, they make two species: for either the question is simple, as if one asks why the yolk of an egg is easily digested; or it is from comparison, as whether the yolk or the white is more easily digested. Concerning things to be sought and avoided: as whether anything should be sought by the sick and likewise avoided. Concerning the just and the unjust: as whether it is just to stubbornly defend that all human affairs are administered by divine counsel. Of comparison, there are two species: one, when it is asked whether things are the same or if some difference exists, such as pus and ichor, or a eunuch and a castrate, as was asked by Aristotle; the other, when one asks which excels the other, as whether experience, art, opportunity, or judgment is of more use for acquiring medicine. Furthermore, not only what is more useful, but what is most useful. Of those things which pertain to action, they make two kinds: one pertains to duty, in which kind it is asked what is right and what ought to be done, such as what things it is fitting for a physician to inspect and inquire about with a patient; the other pertains to the production of a motion of the mind, such as when and how a patient is to be encouraged with hope by the physician, or on the contrary, to be frightened and, as it were, roused. These are generally the kinds of questions handed down by the ancients, whence come various problems, which some in Latin call "propositions," Quintilian calls "ambiguities," and others "questions." But since the Greek term clearly occurs to us through the unskillfulness of usage, we have judged that we should use the Greek name instead. Finally, since we seem to have spoken enough in the preface already, let us yield to Alexander of Aphrodisias himself, who will speak through me as interpreter.

VICTOR PISANUS to LUDOVICO MUCENIGO, a man of preeminent eloquence, sends many greetings.

Ornamental woodcut initial 'S' with floral/foliage motifs.

Your singular learning, your far from common eloquence, and your distinguished prudence, Ludovico Mucenigo, have long since bound me to love and respect you. Furthermore, your gentleness has brought it about that a mutual love exists between us, so that one may congratulate the other when fortune brings it, and likewise condole, as I consider I must do at present. For when in recent days I was with our teacher, Giorgio Valla—as I am accustomed to visit him regularly—I heard that a certain printer, who was accustomed to print and publish his works, was vehemently demanding for himself the printing of the Problems of Alexander of Aphrodisias, which Giorgio Valla himself had long ago rendered into Latin; and that Nicoletto, the most acute of all philosophers of our time, considered they should be published and was greatly urging it. I also learned from our teacher Valla that many were urging him to do the same, especially a certain Lazzaro Dal Gallo of Piacenza, by far the most excellent physician, whom he is frequently accustomed to call the second Galen of our time, so much does he excel in admirable learning. When I had heard this, I most greedily asked for the book itself to be shown to me; and when I had read it, my Ludovico, being inflamed by the knowledge of so many and such great things and by the splendor of the prose, I asked as a priority that it be printed; nor could I restrain myself from congratulating you on such a great benefit. For you may see this preeminent philosopher and physician discoursing so acutely on the nature of man, of beasts, and of other things, that you would believe not a man, but the very nature of things were speaking with us. Moreover, it has been set forth to us in such a translation that you would think the philosopher himself, not another, was relating to us what he says. Therefore, let us congratulate this city of ours, that we have found such a man who is of such manifold and excellent learning that he illustrates our age. Thus every day something new emerges everywhere in all his opinions; and so that we may congratulate our city still more, know that this man of sublime learning, our teacher, bestows manifold fruits upon his disciples in diverse kinds of speaking: some, under his direction, compose rhetorical commentaries, others poetic, and others mathematical; and as others translate Greek into Latin, so among the rest, one who is far from speechless in speaking is translating into Latin a history concluded in nineteen Enneads, from the first memory of man down to the most recent times. There, besides those things which have been done in the whole world, you may see not only the inventors of the disciplines, but also what they added to them or corrected in what their predecessors handed down to memory by their own or another's talent; and how from small beginnings, as if by steps and by hands, all disciplines have climbed to the highest peak. Immortal gods! how great a good has shone upon us, and how manifold a fruit emanates from one man, and will be in the future, God willing, from whom all good things come. But I dismiss these things now; for if I wished to pursue them as the matter itself demands, no end of his praises would be found. Therefore, I now leave you to behold his skill in writing and the by far most excellent learning of Alexander of Aphrodisias.