[p. 10]
follows the MS. A very closely, but on several
occasions I have accepted (with acknowledgements)
the emendations of Coray, Reinhold, Ermerins,
Littré, Diels and Kéhlewein. One passage I have
rejected on my own authority, and in another I
have presented a new combination of readings which
I think restores sense out of nonsense. I have
generally noted readings only when the choice makes
a decided difference to the translation.
The translator is often perplexed how to render
semi-technical words which belong to a time when
the ideas underlying them were in a transition stage,
or when ideas were current which the progress of
time has destroyed. "Hot" and "cold" were no
longer bodies, but they were not yet qualities. As
Professor Taylor shows, the word εἰδοσ2
is most
elusive, referring to the form, appearance, structure
of a thing, the physique of persons, etc., and yet it is
becoming capable of being applied to immaterial
reality. There are about half a dozen words to
describe the process which we describe by the single
word "digestion."In deference to authority I translate
ἀπαλλάσσειν in
Chapters X and XX "come off" well or ill. But I am almost
convinced that in both cases the word means "to get rid of
food," "to digest." Compare Chapter III, p. 18, l. 32. | These nice
distinctions must be
lost in an English version. The most difficult word
of all is perhaps δύναμις2. Scientific thought in the
fifth century B.C. held that certain constituents of
the body, and indeed of the material world generally,
manifested themselves to our senses and feelings in
certain ways. These are their δυνάμεις2, "powers,"
or, as we may sometimes translate, "properties,"
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