ITS TECHNICAL FORMS. 75 



fall in with the description of the soul, which is the subject with which 

 Cicero is concerned, does not appear to agree with the general appli 

 cations of the term. Hermolaus Barbaras is said to have been so 

 much oppressed with this difficulty of translation, that he consulted 

 the evil spirit by night, entreating to be supplied with a more com- 

 mon and familiar substitute for this word : the mocking fiend, how- 

 ever, suggested only a word equally obscure, and the translator, discon- 

 tented with this, invented for himself the word pcrfedihabia. 



AVe need not here notice the endless apparatus of technicalities 

 which was, in later days, introduced into the Aristotelian philosophy ; 

 but we may remark, that their long continuance and extensive use 

 show us how powerful technical phraseology is, for the perpetuation 

 either of truth or error. The Aristotelian terms, and the metaphysical 

 views which they tend to preserve, are not yet extinct among us. In 

 a very recent age of our literature it was thought a worthy employ- 

 ment by some of the greatest writers of the day, to attempt to expel 

 this system of technicalities by ridicule. 



"Crambe regretted extremely that substantial forms, a race of 

 harmless beings, which had lasted for many years, and afforded a com- 

 fortable subsistence to many poor philosophers, should now be hunted 

 down like so many wolves, without a possibility of retreat. He con- 

 sidered that it had gone much harder with them than with essences, 

 which had retired from the schools into the apothecaries' shops, where 

 some of them had been advanced to the degree of quintessences. 3 * 



We must now say a few words on the technical terms which others 

 of the Greek philosophical sects introduced. 



2. Technical Forms of the Platonists. The other sects of the 

 Greek philosophy, as well as the Aristotelians, invented and adopted 

 technical terms, and thus gave fixity to their tenets and consistency to 

 their traditionary systems ; of these I will mention a few. 



A technical expression of a contemporary school has acquired per- 

 haps greater celebrity than any of.the terms of Aristotle. I mean the 

 Ideas of Plato. The account which Aristotle gives of the origin ol 

 these will serve tt explain their nature. 25 " Plato," says he, " who, in 

 his youth, was in habits of communication first with Cratylus and the 

 Heraclitean opinions, which represent all the objects of sense as being 

 in a perpetual flux, so that concerning these no science nor certain 



24 Martinus Scriblcrus, cap. vii. 



K Arist. Metaph. i. 6. The same account is repeated, and the subject discussed, 

 Metnph. xii. 4. 



