Difference between revisions of "Page from Aristotle's On Youth and Age"

Latest revision as of 08:49, 6 April 2007

Found in the coffin of Antigonus Gonatus in the dungeon at Aegae.

   ix. On Youth and Age
   
   The old, through having lived for many years and having been so often deceived and having 
   made so many mistakes themselves and since most things turn out badly, assert nothing with 
   certainty and all things with less assurance than is needed. And they "think," but do 
   not "know" anything. And being doubtful they always add perhaps and maybe and say 
   everything that way, but nothing definitively. And they are cynical, for a cynical 
   disposition supposes everything is for the worse. Further, they are suspicious because of 
   distrust and distrustful because of experience. And for this reason they neither love nor 
   hate strongly but, following the advice of Bias, they love as if they would one day hate 
   and hate as if they would one day love. And they are small minded because of being worn 
   down by life; for they desire nothing great or unusual but things necessary for life. And 
   they are stingy; for one of the necessities is money, and they know from experience that 
   it is difficult to acquire and easy to lose. And they are cowardly and fearful ahead of 
   time about everything for their disposition is the opposite of the young, for the old are 
   chilled, but the young are hot, so old age has prepared the way for cowardice; for fear is 
   a kind of chilling. And they are fond of life and more so in their last day because of the 
   presence of desire of what is gone, and people most desire what they lack. And they are 
   fonder of themselves than is right; for this is also a form of small-mindedness. And they 
   live for what is advantageous, and not for what is glorious, more than is right, through 
   being fond of themselves. (The advantageous is good for the individual, the glorious 
   absolutely). And they are more shameless than sensitive to shame; for since they do not 
   care equally about what is fine and what is advantageous, they think little of their 
   reputation. And they expect the worst, through experience-the greater part of things that 
   happen are bad; at least most turn out for the worse - and through their cowardice, too. 
   And they live in memory more than in hope; for what is left of life is short, what is past 
   is long, and hope is for the future, memory for what is gone. This is the cause of their 
   garrulity; for they keep talking about things that have passed; for they take pleasure in 
   reminiscence, and the tedious enumeration of the glories of the past, like Nestor; as 
   though we were all Epigone and theirs, furthermore, was the time of Chronos. And yet age, 
   by sheer accumulation of experience, can also produce wisdom, which is the attainment of 
   knowledge; for a storehouse that is stocked constantly over the years will have a water 
   store on which to call in lean times than a warehouse that, however actively filled, has, 
   only been in the process of filling for a very few. And what is said of individuals is 
   also true of peoples; for is it not the case that the Egyptians, who are the oldest people 
   in the world, are also as enfeebled and superstitious and jealous as old men? And yet also 
   the wisest. And the Persians, who are also very ancient, are also both enfeebled and wise. 
   Much has been learned from these barbarians, for writing was invented on the shores of 
   Persia, and astronomy in Egypt; and perchance much may still be learned. Nectanebos taught 
   the symbols of calculation used for the convenience of mathematicians from ancient times 
   in Egypt -the cross for addition, the line for subtraction, the little star for 
   multiplication, the roasting spit for division, and the parallel lines for equality, for 
   nothing can be more equal than two parallel lines - and these may indeed be of use to our 
   mathematicians, being more precise than out own notation. Some say Nectanebos himself 
   invented these symbols, for his own use, and then passed them on, but our reasoning above 
   proves this not to be the case, for the Egyptians are now too enfeebled by their own age 
   to contrive new things, and only live through the reflected glory of their past, when they 
   were still young and vigorous. It is this youth and vigor that is Greece's special 
   province, for it contrasts splendidly with the senescent languor of Egypt, or Asia, or the 
   Getae, and with the immaturity of the Hyperboreans, whose infancy precluded their 
   producing any manner of wisdom, such that even their great sage Ikulu, as she admits, 
   needed to travel to Greece to understand what she learned, partially formed and 
   imperfectly grasped, in the North.