Aristotle on Youth and Old Age, Life and Death and Respiration

IN his former work Dr. Ogle gave ample proof of his competence to deal with Aristotle, both as a scholar and as a biologist. The "simple Aristotelian" might cavil at some of his readings and renderings and at his method of translation, which is rather that of a paraphrase than of a literal translation. But the "simple Aristotelian" is generally a severe and sometimes rather a pedantic critic, and the biological student, to whom rather than to the pure scholar Dr. Ogle appeals, is more likely to appreciate good and intelligible English than a verbal and therefore often obscure rendering of the Greek. In the same spirit and with the same insight into Aristotle's thought and its relation to the history of biology, Dr. Ogle has now translated some of the smaller treatises of the master, which are variously regarded by different editors as either three separate treatises on Life and Death on Youth and Old Age, and on Respiration or as variously divided sections of the same treatise. Dr. Ogle adopts the latter view. "There seems," he says, " no adequate reason for any subdivision whatever of the treatise, and it appears more consistent with its internal structure to treat it as a single work dealing with several closely connected topics." We shall not attempt to anticipate the judgment of scholars on this solution of a problem which arises in one form or another in connection with nearly every one of Aristotle's works and has been the occasion of almost endless discussion and controversy. Nor need we attempt to appreciate the merit of Dr. Ogle's translation in general or of his solution of the many critical difficulties which confront the student of every portion of Aristotle's writings. His notes seem to show that he has allowed himself considerable latitude of conjectural emendation, but questions of this kind do not concern us here. Of far greater interest to the general, and more especially to the biological, reader is the lucid and very instructive introduction on the historical relations and fate of Aristotle's theory of respiration which Dr. Ogle has prefixed to his translation and the explanatory notes of the same character with which he has accompanied it.

-London Times.