Micromegas, by Voltaire 1752
Channel: Age of Enlightenment
Date: 2015-10-28

Finally Micromegas said to them, "Since you know what is exterior to you so well, you must know what is interior even better. Tell me what your soul is, and how you form ideas." 

The philosophers spoke all at once as before, but they were of different views. The oldest cited Aristotle, another pronounced the name of Descartes; this one here, Malebranche; another Leibnitz; another Locke. An old peripatetic spoke up with confidence: "

The soul is an entelechy, and a reason gives it the power to be what it is." This is what Aristotle expressly declares, page 633 of the Louvre edition. He cited the passage[4].

Here is the passage such as it is transcribed in the edition dated 1750: "Entele'xeia' tis esi kai' lo'gos toû dy'namin e'xontos toude' ei'nai."

This passage of Aristotle, On the Soul, book II, chapter II, is translated thusly by Casaubon: Anima quaedam perfectio et actus ac ratio est quod potentiam habet ut ejusmodi sit. B.

"I do not understand Greek very well," said the giant.

"Neither do I," said the philosophical mite.

"Why then," the Sirian retorted, "are you citing some man named Aristotle in the Greek?"

"Because," replied the savant, "one should always cite what one does not understand at all in the language one understands the least."