60 THE GREEK SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY. 



this difficulty of translation, that he consulted the 

 evil spirit by night, entreating to be supplied with 

 a more common and familiar substitute for this 

 word : the mocking fiend, however, suggested only 

 a word equally obscure, and the translator, discon- 

 tented with this, invented for himself the word per- 

 fectihabia. 



We need not here notice the endless apparatus 

 of technicalities which was, in later days, introduced 

 into the Aristotelian philosophy; but we may re- 

 mark, that their long continuance and extensive use 

 show us how powerful technial phraseology is, for 

 the perpetuation either of truth or error. The Aris- 

 totelian 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 employment 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 comfortable subsist- 

 ence to many poor philosophers, should now be 

 hunted down like so many wolves, without a possi- 

 bility of retreat. He considered 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. 



23 Martinus Scriblerus, cap. vii. 



