Note 40 — Chapter III · ARISTOTLE.

Here one of the first very important differences of interpretation comes in. Professor Butcher would translate ζῷον “picture,” as though it were short for ζῷον γεγραμμένον. Scholars differ whether the word can by itself have this meaning, and on such a point I have no pretensions to decide. But its more common sense is certainly “living organism,” and I feel certain that this is the only meaning which makes full critical sense here. To begin with, Aristotle has just used it in this way, and in the second place the analogy of another art would come in very ill. We want a comparison drawn from nature, to give us the law for the imitation of nature.