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JOHN BURNET, The Ethics of Aristotle. The main justification for the present edition is to be found as Mr. Burnet indicates in the preface, in the fact that the " method of interpretation is a somewhat novel one ". Mr. Burnet's thesis is that "most of the difficulties that have been raised about the Ethics are due to the fact that, though the dialectical character of many passages has long been admitted, commentators have never thoroughly recognised that the treatise is dialectical throughout " It is therefore primarily with reference to this theory that the work as a whole must be judged. Mr. Burnet's account of Aristotle's conception of Method is givi n in 20-26 of the introduction. He begins by reminding us that " the question of method is always vital to Aristotle ". Every science can be regarded as a conscious application of the rules of the special method appropriate to its special subject-matter, and implies a previous general training in method and also a special training that shall enable the student to recognise the appropriate- ness of the special mode of treatment. The general training in method is of course logic. As Mr. Burnet points out, Giphanius said long ago : " Vocat ille muSd'ar habitum quondam recte judicandi de rebus omnibus quod docet doctrina Analytica; contra diroiSewri'a contrarius ab illo habitus dicitur, hoc est ignoratio doctrinae Ana- lyticae ". It was indeed a commonplace of the time of Giphanius that a study of the Oryanum is a necessary propaedeutic to the other Aristotelian treatises. But recent students of Aristotle have rather lost sight of this point, and Mr. Burnet does well to recall attention to it. The nature of the special training presupposed by a special science is less clear, and it can hardly be said that Mr. Burnet has succeeded in elucidating completely the brief hints given by Aristotle. The question of method in the Ethics is considered under two heads. In Ethics, as in all practical sciences, two problems are presented, (1) to find the ap^rj of the science, (2) to pass from the dpX 1? to the conditions of its being realised. The former is dis- cussed in S 22-25 of the introduction, the latter in jig 22 and 26. The apprehension of the dp^r/ of Ethics (i.e., the definition of cv&u/xovta) presupposes a certain habituation (t0r/*os) in the hearer. When this has been secured, the science is able to commence its search for its dpx'/> and the method it uses is Dialectic. " The word Sia(KTiKi'i properly means nothing more than the art of dia- logue or conversation it signifies the theoretical formulation of the practice of Socrates. Plato developed this method. ... In his hands it became the only instrument of philosophical thinking, the ideal of a completed science. To this Aristotle could not agree. A dialectic proof was to him no proof at all : for it had no middle term. It could not be the right instrument for arriving at mediate propositions : for we can only be said to know these in the true sense of the word when we know them as the conclusions of a syllogism. 'This was Aristotle's own contribution to Logic, and he is never weary of showing us that the syllogism is the only 34