full of Aristotelian “fossils,” that is, remnants of his peculiar phraseology. These mostly come through Latin renderings of his terms, though sometimes the original Greek form is preserved. The following are a few specimens of these fossils: “Maxim” is the major premiss of the Aristotelian syllogism. “Principle” has the same meaning—it comes from principium, the Latin for “beginning” or “starting-point,” which was one of Aristotle’s terms for a major premiss. “Matter” comes from materies, the Latin for “timber” (see above, p. 167); when we say “it does not matter,” or it makes a “material” difference, we are indebted to Aristotle for our words. “Form,” “end,” “final cause,” “motive,” “energy,” “actually,” “category,” “predicament” (the latter of these two being Latin for the former), the “mean” and the “extremes,” “habit” (both in the sense of “moral habit” and of “dress”), “faculty,” and “quintessence,” are all purely Peripatetic; while the terms “Metaphysics” and “Natural History,” are derived from two of the titles of Aristotle’s works.
Aristotle, the strongest of the ancients and the oracle of the Middle Ages, must always hold a place of honour in the history of European thought. Writings which have interested and influenced mankind so deeply and through so many centuries can never fall into contempt, even though they may be devoid of the graces of style and though the matter in them may be either superseded or else absorbed into the treatises of other authors. Nor is it from mere curiosity—from a merely antiquarian or
