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‘and in the single words, by the metaphors they contain, and these neither foreign and strange’, (compare III 11. 5, ἀπ᾽ οἰκείων, where reference is made to this place; so that ἀπ᾽ οἰκείων may be regarded as an interpretation of μὴ ἀλλοτρίαν here: and this coincides with III 2. 9, metaphors should be ‘appropriate’, ἁρμοττούσας, or ἐκ τοῦ ἀνάλογον ‘derived from a proportional or kindred subject’: and ibid. § 12, metaphors should not be ‘far-fetched’, οὐ πόῤῥωθεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκ τῶν συγγενῶν καὶ τῶν ὁμοειδῶν,) ‘for such it is difficult to take in at a glance; nor superficial, for these produce no impression. Further, (words are popular) if they vividly represent (things that they describe); for things should be seen (in the orator's description of them) as if they were actually being done (going on, transacted, before the hearer's eyes) rather than as future. This is in fact the ‘historic present’, applied to future, instead of past, events. On πρὸ ὀμμάτων, see note on II 8. 13. ἀλλοτρίαν “alienam, ductam a rebus parum propinquis et affinibus,” Victorius; who also, as a parallel case, refers to Cic. de Or. II 59. 241, est autem haec huius generis virtus, ut ita facta demonstres, ut mores eius de quo narres, ut sermo, ut vultus omnes exprimantur, ut iis qui audiunt tum geri illa fierique videantur. ‘These three things then are to be aimed at (in the attempt to give vivacity and pungency to style), metaphor, antithesis, and vivid representation’. The meaning of ἐνέργεια is clearly shewn by a comparison with the statements of c. 11. It is there identified with πρὸ ὀμμάτων ποιεῖν, § 2, and is principally shewn in animation, literally and metaphorically, in a vivid, vivacious, style, and in animating, vivifying, inanimate objects; investing them with life, motion, and personality1; §§ 2, 3, 4. κινούμενα γὰρ καὶ ζῶντα ποιεῖ πάντα: ἡ δὲ ζωὴ ἐνέργειά τις (Eth. N. X 4, 1175 a 12). This sense is borrowed from the metaphysical use of the term, to express ‘realization’, as opposed to δύναμις, the mere capacity or potentiality of life and action. I may add that ἐνέργεια is used in two distinct senses, representing two different forms of development, which may be distinguished as the metaphysical and moral applications of it; as will appear from a comparison of the form it assumes in the Nicom. Ethics, and the biology of the de Anima. It is sometimes identifiable with ἐντελέχεια, expressing the actuality or actual realization of existence out of a mere undeveloped capacity of life: in the moral view, it is the realization of action, a realized activity, from the dormant capacity—implying existence—to the active exercise or energy of the bodily and mental functions. So happiness is an ἐνέργεια ψυχῆς, pleasure τελειοῖ (completes and crowns) τὴν ἐνέργειαν, Eth. N. X 4, sub init. and again c. 4, ult. c. 5, sub init.: and the def. of pleasure in the seventh (Eudemian) book, ἐνέργεια ἀνεμπόδιστος. Sometimes three stages are distinguished (as frequently in the de Anima), illustrated by three degrees of knowledge in man: (1) the latent capacity, (2) knowledge acquired but not exercised, and (3) the active exercise of thought and knowledge by θεωρία, philosophical contemplation and speculation2. Quintilian on ἐνέργεια, VIII 3. 89, ἐνέργεια confinis his (est enim ab agendo dicta) et cuius propria virtus, non esse quae dicuntur, otiosa. Ib. 6. 11, Praecipueque ex his oritur sublimitas quae audaci et proxime periculum translatione tolluntur, quum rebus sensu carentibus actum quendam et animos damus; qualis est, pontem indignatus Araxes. From ἐνέργεια another quality of style is to be distinguished (in Quint) viz. ἐνάργεια, ‘clear, lively, graphic, narration,’ (evidentia,) though near akin to the other. It is mentioned IV 2. 63, and distinguished from perspicuitas, VIII 3. 61. ἐνάργεια, quae a Cicerone illustratio et evidentia nominatur, quae non tam dicere videtur quam ostendere: et affectus non aliter, quam si rebus ipsis intersimus, sequentur [id. VI 2. 32]. See Ern. Lex. Tech. Gr. s. v. et ἐνέργε<*>ια.
1 I may observe that this is one of the principal arts by which Mr Dickens attracts his readers, to which the remarkable vivacity of his writings is due.
2 At the conclusion of Mr Mill's Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Phil. p. 559, we find the following remark. “In Aristotle's case the assertion (of Sir W. H.) rests on a mistake of the meaning of the Aristotelian word ἐνέργεια, which did not signify energy, but fact as opposed to possibility, actus to potentia.” Had Mr Mill turned to the first two sentences of Aristotle's Ethics, or to the chapters on Pleasure, X. 4, 5, he would have seen reason to alter this statement. By ‘energy’ I suppose active, vigorous, exercise to be intended.
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