Read "On the Art of Reading, Introductory" by Arthur Quiller-Couch online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Wednesday, October 25, 1916.
In the third book of the Ethics, and in the second chapter, Aristotle, dealing with certain actions which, though bad in themselves, admit of pity and forgiveness because they were committed involuntarily, through ignorance, instances "the man who did not know a subject was forbidden, like Aeschylus with the Mysteries," and "the man who only meant to show how it worked, like the fellow who let off the catapult" (ἢ δειξαι βουλόμενος ἀφειναι, ὡς ὀ τὸν καταπέλτην).