The Metaphysics of Aristotle

everything that which everything is capable of receiving. The unstable essence, therefore, of apparent natures is not known by him in an unstable, but in a definite manner; nor does he know that which is subject to all-various mutations dubiously, but in a manner perpetually the same. For, by knowing himself, he knows everything of which he is the cause, possessing a knowledge transcendently more accurate than that which is co-ordinate to the objects of knowledge. Hence, in order to know sensible natures, he is not in need of sense, or opinion, or science; for it is himself that produces all these, and that, in the unfathomable depths of his own intellection (the act of understanding), comprehends a unified knowledge of them, according to cause, and in one simplicity of perception.

Wisdom, therefore, considered as a causal knowledge of particulars, resembles the knowledge of Divinity, and is consequently most honorable and most excellent. And hence the wise man, from resembling Divinity, must be the friend of Divinity. Beautifully, therefore, is it observed by Aristotle:

"That the man who can live in the pure enjoyment of his intellect, and who properly cultivates that divine principle, is happiest in himself, and most beloved by the gods: for, if the gods have any regard to what passes among men (as it appears they have), it is probable that they will rejoice in that which is most excellent, and by nature the most nearly allied to themselves; and, as this is intellect, that they will requite the man who most loves and honors this, both from his regard to that which is dear to themselves, and from his acting a part which is laudable and right*."

• The above translation is from the Hermes of Mr. Harris, p. 302. This most elegant scholar had the happy art of uniting, in his occasional translations from ancient writers, perspicuity with precision, the exact manner with the accurate meaning of his author. And it is much to be regretted that he so soon abandoned.