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. 



33 Martinus Scriblerus, cap. vii. 





