Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2 (Physics, On the Heavens, On Generation and Corruption)

PREFACE

THE translation of the first two books of the Physics for this series was originally entrusted to Mr. C. D. Robertson, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and he had, before his untimely death, prepared a draft translation of these books, which was placed at the disposal of Mr. Hardie and freely used by him. The present translation of the first four books is, however, in the main by Mr. Hardie himself. He has received valuable help from Professors Joachim and J. A. Smith, and from Dr. J. C. Smith and Mr. Henry Barker. The last four books were translated by Mr. Gaye, who also died before his time, regretted by all students of Greek philosophy. Where the word ' I ' occurs in notes on these books, the writer is Mr. Gaye. To me has fallen the task of securing comparative uniformity—I have not tried to produce complete uniformity—between the two halves of the translation. In this I have been much helped by Mr. George Brown, M.A., Lecturer in Logic in the University of Glasgow, who has kindly read the proofs throughout. At the same time I have on the basis of a study of the reported manuscript readings and of the Greek commentators adopted a good many changes of reading in the Greek text and altered the translation to suit them. All divergences from Bekker’s text are mentioned in the notes.

Many of the technical terms in the Physics present considerable difficulties to the translator. The most difficult, perhaps, is κίνησις. κίνησις would often be most aptly rendered by ‘ change ’; but often again it is distinguished from μεταβολή, and therefore narrower than ‘ change ’. As the lesser of two evils, I have adopted the translation ‘ motion ’ or ‘ movement ’, and have very rarely