The Metaphysics of Aristotle

neighbor does, but he scarcely knows whether he is a man, or some other animal. But what man is, and what a nature of this kind ought principally to do or suffer, this he makes the object of his inquiry, and earnestly investigates.The asterisk refers to the footnote at the bottom of the page. Do you understand, Theodorus, or not?

"Theodorus. I do: and you are certainly right.

"Socrates. For, in reality, my friend, when a man of this kind is compelled to speak (as I said before) either privately with any one, or publicly in a court of justice, or any where else, about things before his feet, and in his view, he excites laughter, not only in Thracian maid servants, but in the other vulgar, since through his unskillfulness he falls into wells, and every kind of ambiguity. Dire deformity too causes him to be considered as a rustic: for, when he is in the company of slanderers, he has nothing to say reproachful, as he knows no evil of any one, because he has not made individuals the objects of his attention. Hence, not having anything to say, he appears to be ridiculous. But, when he is in company with those that praise and boast of others, as he is not only silent, but openly laughs, he is considered as delirious: for, when he hears encomiums given to a tyrant or a king, he thinks he hears some swineherd, or shepherd, or herdsman proclaimed happy, because he milks abundantly; at the same time he thinks that they feed and milk the animal under their command, in a more morose and invidious manner; and that it is necessary that a character of this kind should be no less rustic and undisciplined through his occupation than shepherds, the one being inclosed in walls, and the other by a sheepcot on a mountain. But when he hears any one proclaiming that

• When intellectual men, therefore, are compared with such as are solely busied in the investigation of sensible particulars, who are alone delighted with objects of sense, and who do not even dream that these objects rather resemble the delusions of sleep than the realities of vigilant perception, we may exclaim in Homeric (referring to Homer) language:

The race of these superior far to those,
As he that thunders to the stream that flows.