10th. "Not that I suppose," continues he, "that I know God thoroughly, nor do I suppose that I do not know him at all as among us he, who knows the meaning of the above stated assertion, is possessed of the knowledge respecting God;" viz. "that I neither know him thoroughly, nor am entirely ignorant of him."

11th. [The spiritual father again resumes:] He, who believes that he cannot comprehend God, does know him; and he who believes that he can comprehend God, does not know him; as men of perfect understanding acknowledge him to be beyond comprehension; and men of imperfect understanding suppose him to be within the reach of their simplest perception.

12th. The notion of the sensibility of bodily organs, which are composed of insensible particles, leads to the notion of God; which notion alone is accurate, and tends to everlasting happiness; man gains, by self-exertion, the power of acquiring knowledge respecting God, and through the same acquisition, he acquires eternal beatitude.

13th. Whatever person has, according to the above stated doctrine, known God, is really happy; and whoever has not known him, is subjected to great misery: learned men, having reflected on the Spirit of God extending over all moveable as well as immoveable creatures, after their departure from this world, are absorbed into the Supreme Being.'

The study of this work may be a matter of curiosity in our own country, although it may not assist in modifying the creed of some of our philosophizing theologians. In the evangelic German church, pantheism is already becoming the favourite theology, and is believed to be that of the Christian Scriptures by very eminent and very learned commentators. Among the Protestants, Servetus, Bishop Berkeley, and Professor Paulus, have severally acceded to this theology; and it seems likely to recover some of the ascendancy which it so long possessed at Alexandria.

Rammohun Roy is mentioned with great warmth of admiration by Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzclarence, in his Travels through India, which we lately noticed, and we will quote this splendid testimonial.

"There has never been to my knowlege an instance of any Hindoo of condition, or caste, being converted to our faith. The only conversion, if it can be called so, that has come within my observation, was that of a high-caste Bramin of one of the first families in the country, who is not only perfectly master of the Sanskrit, but has gained a thorough acquaintance with the English language and literature, and has openly declared that the Braminical religion is in its purity a simple deism, and not the gross polytheism into which it has degenerated. I became well acquainted with him, and admire his talents and acquirements.

His

His eloquence in our language is very great; and I am told he is still more admirable in Arabic and Persian. It is remarkable that he has studied and thoroughly understands the politics of Europe, but more particularly those of England; and the last time I was in his company, he argued forcibly against a standing army in a free country, and quoted all the arguments brought forward by the members of Opposition. I think he is in many respects a most extraordinary person. In the first place he is a religious reformer, who has, among a people more bigoted than those of Europe in the middle ages, dared to think for himself. His learning is most extensive, as he is not only generally conversant with the best books in English, Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Bengallee, and Hindoostanee, but has studied rhetoric in Arabic and in English, and quotes Locke and Bacon on all occasions.

"From the view he has thus taken of the religious manners and customs of so many nations, and from his having observed the number of different modes of addressing and worshipping the Supreme Being, he naturally turned to his own faith with an unprejudiced mind, found it perverted from the religion of the Vedes to a gross idolatry, and was not afraid, though aware of the consequences, to publish to the world in Bengallee, and English, his feelings and opinions on the subject. Of course he was fully prepared to meet the host of interested enemies, who from sordid motives wish to keep the lower classes in a state of the darkest ignorance.

"I have understood that his family have quitted him; that he has been declared to have lost caste, and is for the present, as all religious reformers must be for a time, a mark to be scoffed at. To a man of his sentiments and rank, this loss of caste must be peculiarly painful; but at Calcutta he associates with the English. He is however cut off from all familiar and domestic intercourse; indeed from all communication of any kind with his relations and former friends. His name is Ram Mohun Roy: he is particularly handsome, not of a very dark complexion, of a fine person, and most courtly manners. He professes to have no objection to eat and live as we do, but refrains from it in order not to expose himself to the imputation of having changed his religion for the good things of this world. He will sit at table with us while the meat is on it, which no other Bramin will do. He continues his native dress, but keeps a carriage, being a man of some property. He is very desirous to visit England, and enter one of our universities. I shall be most anxious to see him, and to learn his ideas of the manners, customs, literature, arts, and monuments of our country."

ART. VI. A New Translation of the Nichomachean Ethics of Aristotle. 8vo. pp. 272. 8s. Boards. Longman and Co. 1819.

IT is probably a well-known fact to a majority of our readers, that the academical distinctions in the University of Oxford are awarded to those who signalize themselves in REV. JUNE, 1820.

N

either

either of two specified modes of examination; viz. mathematical honours, with certain gradations according to merit; and also classical honours, marked with similar lines of discrimination. The mathematical sciences have usually been supposed to flourish with greater vigour in the soil of the sister University; and whether from such a conviction, or from what other cause 'we know not, the Oxford candidates for the classical honours have usually out-numbered those who aspire to the mathematical, in a considerable degree. Both distinctions may be, and both not unfrequently are, obtained by the same individual: but the feeling of the junior part of the University evidently preponderates in favour of the "litera humaniores."

To attain these latter distinctions, it is considered as requisite for the candidate, according to the grade of honour to which he aspires, to offer himself to be examined in one or more of the treatises of Aristotle, at the time when his proficiency in the Greek and Latin historians and poets is ascertained. The treatises of Aristotle most frequently studied for this purpose are the Nichomachean Ethics, the Rhetoric, and the Poetics; the two former by almost every aspirant; the latter, we apprehend, not altogether so frequently, though its brevity might offer some inducement to the less industrious candidate. It seems probable, therefore, that at no one period have these treatises been so perfectly understood in all their bearings, as they are at this day in that University; for, although many junior members may have only a confused or superficial knowlege of them, this cannot be the case with those who undertake the office of examiners or instructors: since they are obliged, by the number of candidates that come before them with the same treatises, to vary their mode of examination in every possible way, lest some habitual method of procuring the analysis of them from the examined should render the study comparatively trifling in the labour bestowed, and the requisite proficiency easy to be obtained by reducing it to little else than a set of conventional answers to a series of conventional questions.

When a certain line of studies is uniformly pursued at a great place of education, it will naturally follow that various persons will attempt to facilitate it by translations of authors, explanatory commentaries, and all other approved means. To such a motive as this we apparently owe the present translation of the Nichomachean Ethics; which is un-pretending in its general appearance, and openly acknowleges, by the method pursued in it, the more especial purposes for which it was designed. With this view of the intention, it is scarcely necessary

necessary to observe that the translation has been made as literal as the circumstances of the two languages would allow ; and, although it must be confessed that elegance of English style is materially sacrificed by this endeavour, we cannot often complain of want of perspicuity resulting from it. Nor can we deny that we approach the nearer to the true meaning of an author, when a translation is conducted on these principles, in every detached passage which our occasions require us to examine; although it may be doubted whether the person who rises from a perusal of the whole treatise, without reference to the original, will have obtained as good a general view of it, as he might possibly have derived from a version less servile, and which rendered the subject-matter more familiar to him by a greater approximation to the usual flow and style of his own language.

A literal translator undergoes an ordeal, to which it is difficult to bring the more polished writer of a popular version: his inaccuracies, misconceptions, and ignorance, have no cloke to conceal them; or, at most, he can very rarely indeed venture to wrap himself up in such a disguise, which even the semidocti may easily pull aside to expose him. With the writer of a free version the case is altogether different; an advantage of which some of that class seem at all times to have been well aware. Indeed, no person can have been much in the habits of studying classical or philosophical authors in the dead languages, occasionally referring to translations to solve his difficulties, without sometimes finding it more difficult to grapple with his ally than with his enemy; and, as such sins are usually committed by the translator with the most undisturbed tranquillity, the greater provocation still remains to assail him; because it is with difficulty that he can decide, whether his own stupidity be in fault in not comprehending the directions of his guide, or whether that guide be himself altogether ignorant of the way.

The present translation of the Ethics professes to rescue its followers from such dilemmas as these, which, if painful to the grown scholar, are most disheartening to a tiro; and he promises that, where difficulties do occur, he will meet them with open and fair contention. In attempting to ascertain how far this promise has been redeemed, we have compared the translation with the original in a considerable number of passages, and have had no reason to complain that good faith has not been kept with us. The translators (for the advertisement gives us to understand that there are two) are evidently very familiar with their author, and perhaps professionally engaged in explaining him to junior members of

N 2

the

On

the University. The notes, which are not very numerous, and are usually concise, are almost entirely explanatory; affording frequently enlarged definitions of terms used by the philosopher in his treatise, when, from apparent similarity in any two expressions applied to faculties or operations, a nicer line of distinction is required than can be collected from the text by a moderate proficient in the author's manner. other occasions, they have been inserted where the translator apparently feels a doubt whether his expression in our own language may not fail to convey the precise idea of the original. Some brief recapitulations of parts of the argument are also at times introduced in the form of commentary, when the thread, from a long intervention of other matter, is in danger of being disregarded. So careful, indeed, does the translator appear to be that he may not mislead where he cannot inform, that in one or two places he specifically states that he has translated a passage literally, without professing to understand the meaning of the author.

Having given this favourable testimony to the present version, especially with reference to its immediate purpose, which we consider rather as that of education than as meaning to naturalize the Stagyrite in English, we may observe that, to some of the translator's remarks, though rare and not material, we have not altogether subscribed. These few discrepancies of opinion have related to some verbal criticisms which struck us as inaccurate. We will merely instance two or three, and about double that number would probably comprize them all.

Εἰ δε δύλως ἄθλιος μὲν ουδέποτε γένοιν ἂν ὁ εὐδαιμων· ὁ μὴν μακά βιός γε, ἂν πριαμικᾶις τύχαις περιπέσῃ· ἐδὲ δὴ ποικιλος γε, και εὖμετάβολος· ἔτε γὰρ ἐκ της εὐδαιμονίας κινηθήσεται ραδίως, ἔθ ̓ ὑπο τῶν τυχόντων ἀλοχημάτων, ἀλλ ̓ ὑπὸ μεγαλων και πολλῶν· ἔκ τὲ τῶν τοιύλων ἔκ ἀν γένοιτο παλιν εὐδαιμων ἐν ὀλίγῳ χρόνῳ· ἀλλ ̓ εἶπες, ἐν πολλῳ τινι και τελείῳ, μεγάλων και καλων ἐν αὐτῷ γενόμενος ἐπήβολος. Boxos. Lib. i. c. 11.

But, if so, the happy man can never become miserable; nor yet will he be prosperous, if he should fall into the calamities of Priam; but he will not therefore be variable and easily changed, for he will not be removed from happiness either easily or by common misfortunes, but by great and many; and out of these he cannot become again happy in a short time; but if at all, in some long and perfect time, having in the interval become possessed of great and noble goods.' (P. 23.)

Even this passage, short and irrelevant as it is for all other purposes, will sufficiently point out the general method of

trans