ARISTOTLE 



Additional Note on 684 b 21-29 



Commentators agree that no satisfactory sense can be 

 obtained from the first three lines of this passage as it stands 

 in Bekker's edition. None has so far produced a remedy ; 

 but an examination of the Arabic translation (or of Michael 

 Scot's Latin translation made from the Arabic) shows plainly 

 what has happened. In neither of these two translations is 

 there any reference v:hatever to a diagram until 685 a 2. 

 Thus the MS. from which our present Greek text is derived 

 had been corrupted through the efforts of someone who tried 

 to improve the text of 684 b 22-27 by inserting references to 

 a diagram here also ; and the result is that these references 

 have caused the complete loss of one important phrase (b 22) 

 and serious corruption of another (b 24-25). Some disloca- 

 tion has also been caused in the lines following, up to line 29. 



The two diagrams given in the sis. Ζ are obviously con- 

 structed to suit the interpolated text. One of the mss. (Mer- 

 ton 278) of Michael Scot's version has an entirely different 

 diagram ; the three mss. of Scot at Cambridge have no 

 diagram at all, nor has the Arabic ms. B.M. Add. 7511. 



I give below the passage as it appears in Michael Scot's 

 version. 



Natura ergo istorum duorum modorum est sicut diximus ; 

 et propter hoc ambulant imiformiter^ sicut accidit animalibus 

 quadrupedibus et hominibus etiam. homo vero habet os in 

 capite, scilicet in parte superiori corporis ; delude habet 

 stomachum, deinde ventrem, et post ventrem intestinum per- 

 veniens ad locum exitus superfluitatis. iste ergo res in 

 animalibus habentibus sanguinem sunt secundum hanc dis- 

 positionem, et post caput est clibanus, scilicet pectus, et quod 

 vicinatur ei. alia vero membra sunt propter ista, etc. 



I am much indebted to Dr. R. Levy for his kindness in 

 reading this passage for me in the Arabic in Brit. Mas. ms. 

 Add. 7511. 



" inuniformiter Caius 109 & Camb. U.L. li. 3. 16; fortasse igitoi 

 scribendum uniformiter et non inuniformiter. 



432 



