The best manuscripts of the Ethics and Politics, though not of first-rate authority, are not much worse than the primary manuscripts of other Greek authors. We cannot by the transposition of sentences make them clearer, nor by verbal conjecture remove small flaws in the reasoning, or inconsistencies in the use of words. We can hardly tell how or where they came into existence: how much is to be attributed to Aristotle, how much to his editors or followers,-whether his first followers, such as Eudemus, or later editors, such as the Alexandrians, or Andronicus of Rhodes, or Tyrannion, the friend of Cicero. The original form of some of the Aristotelian writings will never be restored. Are they the work of one or of many? Do they proceed from the hand or mind of a single writer, or are they the accumulations of the Peripatetic school? This is a question, like the controversy about the Homeric poems, which cannot be precisely answered. The style of Aristotle runs up into the more general question of the manner in which his writings were compiled or have been transmitted to us. With the causes of these peculiarities we are not at present concerned. And yet this defect of form has not prevented their exercising the greatest influence on philosophy and literature the half-understood words of Aristotle have become laws of thought to other ages. No other work of genius is so irregular in structure as some of the Aristotelian writings. There are words and clauses which seem to be out of place or at any rate not to be duly subordinated to the rest of the passage. He sometimes crosses over from his own line of argument to that of his opponent and then returns again without indicating that he has made a change of front. We do not understand why the writer should again and again have repeated himself why he should have made promises which he never fulfills why he should be always referring to what has preceded, or to what follows. In the Politics we are often unable to follow the drift of the argument the frequent digressions and conflicting points of view which arise are troublesome and perplexing to us.
The writings of Aristotle are almost entirely wanting in the charm of style, and several of them cannot even be said to have the merit of clearness.
into English with introduction, marginal analysis, essays, notes and indices by B. Source: Introduction to The Politics of Aristotle, trans.
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