The Fifth Book of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. By
H. Jackson, M.A. (University Press, Cambridge.)—The perplexities of the Fifth Book of Aristotle's Ethics are well known to scholars. The text has somehow become dislocated, and this partially—not, indeed, completely—explains the obscurity of the book. In fact, the whole book is one of the hardest problems with which students of Aristotle have to deal. Professor Munro argued, in the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology (1855, II., 66-81), that this book, as also Books vi. and vii., belong to the " Eudemian Treatise," a work either composed out of his own resources by Eudemus (Aristotle's contem- porary and disciple), or else a mere edition of his master's lectures. It is not possible to fit in the book, as it stands. with the other books of the "Ethics," and we find that Mr. Jackson accepts Professor Munro's theory, which, in regard to Book V., be vindicates in his introduction. Side by side with the Greek Let he gives us a translation or a paraphrase, retaining Greek phrases where they hardly admit of an English rendering, except by means of an elaborate paraphrase or explanation ; and he has added notes, wherever his interpretations seemed to require defence or justifi- cation. He has, we think, followed a method which, whatever super- ficial objection may be taken to it, will prove most helpful to the student of this most difficul book. We hope that we shall see his name again in connection with the great Greek philosopher, whose writings he has, it is quite clear, most laboriously studied.
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