Page:O. F. Owen's Organon of Aristotle Vol. 2 (1853).djvu/123

 Another (place is), if it is spoken metaphorically, for instance, that science is that which cannot fall, or that the earth is a nurse, or that temperance is symphony, as everything enunciated metaphorically is obscure. It is also possible for him who uses a metaphor to cavil that he has spoken rightly, for the given definition will not suit, e. g. in the case of temperance, since all symphony is in sounds. Besides, if symphony be the genus of temperance, the same thing will be in two genera not containing each other, since neither does symphony contain virtue, nor virtue symphony.

Moreover, (the definition is obscure,) if established names are not used, as Plato calls the eye, that which is shaded by the eyebrows, or a spider, a feeder on putrescence, or the marrow, bone-begetter, since whatever is unusual, is obscure.

Some things, however, are asserted neither equivocally, nor metaphorically, nor properly, for instance, law (defined as) a measure, or an image of things naturally just. Such things, indeed, are worse than metaphor, for metaphor in some way makes known what is signified on account of similitude, as all who use metaphors do so according to a certain similitude, but this kind of thing does not make known, as neither is there any similitude, according to which law is a measure or an image, nor is it accustomed to be predicated properly. Wherefore, if a person says that law is properly a measure or an image, he speaks falsely, for an image is that, the generation of which is by imitation, but this does not exist in law: but if it is improperly, it is clear that he speaks obscurely, and worse than any thing spoken metaphorically.