TRANSLATORS' PREFACE

A FEW introductory remarks on the structure of this volume may facilitate its use. This translation is based on the Leonine edition of St. Thomas, which is the best available text. We have numbered the paragraphs in one consecutive series throughout the entire translation to ease the problem of cross-referencing.

             In writing his Commentary St. Thomas obviously used a Latin translation of Aristotle's Physics. This text has not been identified. The Latin version of the Physics which is usually printed together with St. Thomas' Commentary is a later Renaissance translation. We have not deemed it advisable to include in this volume an English translation of this Renaissance Latin version of the Physics since St. Thomas clearly did not use this text. However, all of the Commentary, including the valuable introductory division of the text, has been translated. In translating the Commentary we have collated it with the Oxford English translation of the Physics (by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye), which should be used as a companion to this volume. We have also included the Bekker numbers for all references to Aristotle's text in order to facilitate the references and to permit the use, if desired, of other editions of the Physics.

             In any translation, especially of a work which is as technical as this one, textual decisions must be made which are not wholly satisfactory. This becomes most acute when tensions arise between the accurate literal meaning of the original language and the accepted literary style of the second language. We have tried always to give preference to the former over the latter whenever a sacrifice had to be made. There is also the problem of selecting the most acceptable English usages as much as possible and as consistently as possible throughout the entire translation. However, using distinct English expressions for distinct technical expressions in the Latin has at times made this very difficult. Here again our main principle has been to preserve technical meaning as best we could. A special problem is involved in the rendition of the word ratio which bears so many importantly different meanings in St. Thomas' Latin. Wherever we felt that our translation of this word might be open to disagreement, we have added the Latin term in parenthesis for the reader to formulate his own evaluation. This same procedure is used occasionally for other expressions when similar difficulties are involved.

             Our special appreciation must be extended to Professor Vernon J. Bourke of Saint Louis University both for his valuable Introduction and for his encouragement and advice since the inception of this translation. We are also indebted to the Very Reverend Hugh E. Dunn, S.J., President of John Carroll University, and to the Reverend Joseph O. Schell, S.J., Director of the Department of Philosophy, John Carroll University, for their support and for making the necessary secretarial assistance available.

             We hope that those who do not read Latin will find this volume to be a reliable presentation of what was previously inaccessible to them. And may those who do read Latin be stimulated by this volume to study the original text, for which no translation can be an adequate substitute.