The Theory of Moral Sentiments - Adam Smith [245]
Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aureâ,
Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem
Sperat te; nescius auræ fallacis.
Because the terminations in the Latin determine the reference of each adjective to its proper substantive, which it is impossible for any thing in the English to do: How much this power of transposing the order of their words must have facilitated the composition of the ancients, both in verse and prose, can hardly be imagined. That it must greatly have facilitated their versification it is needless to observe; and in prose, whatever beauty depends upon the arrangement and construction of the several members of the period, must to them have been acquirable with much more ease, and to much greater perfection, than it can be to those whose expression is constantly confined by the prolixness, constraint, and monotony of modern languages.11
FINIS.
Biographical Notes
Addison, Joseph (1672-1719), English essayist and Whig politician; author of the popular tragedy Cato (1713) and editor of The Spectator (1711-1712), each of which were influential contributions to defining Enlightenment conceptions of virtue and politeness.
Ajax, Greek hero renowned for his strength; his exploits at Troy were chronicled in Homer’s Iliad, and his reputed suicide, committed in anger at having been passed over for the honor of bearing the arms of Achilles, was dramatized by Sophocles.
Alembert, Jean Le Rond d’ (1717-1783), French mathematician, philosopher, and, with Denis Diderot, editor of the monumental Encyclopédie ; his writings include the Preliminary Discourse and several articles for the Encyclopédie, numerous scientific essays, a treatise on music, and a collection of éloges of his fellow members of the Académie Française.
Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), son of Philip II of Macedon, student of Aristotle, and king of the Macedonian Empire; his military genius enabled him to extend his empire as far as India, but his reign was marked by ruthless and violent persecution of those who opposed his imperial ambitions and his grandiose conception of his own divinity.
Anne (1665-1714), queen of Great Britain and Ireland from 1702 until her death; her first ministry witnessed the beginning of the string of victories earned by her principal military commander, the Duke of Marlborough, in the War of Spanish Succession.
Antigonus (ca. 382-301 BC), Macedonian general and governor of Asian provinces; after Alexander’s death he was among the foremost of the ambitious successors vying for supremacy, but ultimately proved unsuccessful despite besting Eumenes.
Antoninus: See Marcus Antoninus.
Apollonius of Tyre (mid-1st c. BC), Stoic philosopher reported to have authored a lost commentary on Zeno.
Aristides (5th c. BC), Athenian commander and politician; renowned for his righteousness and often contrasted with the opportunism of Themistocles, he played a prominent military role in the Persian Wars.
Aristippus (5th c. BC), Greek philosopher from Cyrene and student of Socrates; notable for having ostensibly founded the Cyrenaic school, for having advocated a hedonism that challenged Athenian propriety, and for being the first of Socrates’ students to charge his own students fees.
Aristomenes (7th c. BC), Messian warrior and subject of a patriotic hero-cult that regarded him as a symbol of resistance to the Spartans.
Aristotle (384-322 BC), Greek philosopher who studied in the Academy of Athens and founded the Peripatetic school; his extant writings cover a tremendous range from aesthetics to zoology, but he is principally discussed in TMS as a moral philosopher and author of Nicomachean Ethics.
Arrian (Lucius Flavius Arrianus; ca. AD 86-160), Greek philosopher and historian; author of a celebratory historical