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ἀλλ᾽ οὐ τὸ δοκοῦν] δίκαιον ἀληθές ἐστι κ.τ.λ. ‘and that justice is something real, genuine, and salutary, but this sham, apparent justice (the rigorous interpretation) is not. And therefore the written law, the letter of the statute, is not; because it sometimes—and this is one of the cases—does not do the proper work of the law’, which is to do substantial, not merely apparent and fallacious justice, that which seems to be, but is not justice. On the superiority of natural justice to positive enactments, see Cicero, de Legg. I 15, referred to in Introd. p. 194. ‘And we may further argue that the judge is like an assayer of coin and appointed for the purpose of distinguishing base justice from genuine’. ἀργυρογνώμων] Moeris, Lex. Attic. (p. 50, ed. Koch) ἀργυραμοιβοί, Ἀττικῶς: κολλυβισταί (money-changers, who change large coin for small, κόλλυβος), Ἑλληνικῶς. ἀργυρογνώμονες, Ἀττικῶς: δοκιμασταί, Ἑλληνικῶς, and Pierson's note, who refers to the pseudo-Platonic dialogue περὶ ἀρετῆς, 378 D (Zurich ed. p. 867), ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ περὶ τὸ χρύσιον καὶ τὸ ἀργύριον εἰσὶν ἡμῖν δοκιμασταί, οἵτινες ὁρῶντες κρίνουσι τό τε βέλτιον καὶ τὸ χεῖρον; Εἰσίν. Τίνας οὖν τούτους καλεῖς; Ἀργυρογνώμονας. Pollux, VII § 170. To the same family of words belong προβατογνώμων Agam. 768 (see Blomfield's Glossary) a ‘discerner of the flock’, one that can distinguish the several sheep of a flock; hence ‘a judge of character’; ἱππογνώμων in the same metaphorical sense, Aesch. Fragm. Tox. 224 Dind. Cf. φυσιογνώμων, Ar. de Gen. Anim. IV 3. 32, and on φυσιογνωμονεῖν, as an art (the study of character from the indications of the features and other external peculiarities), see Anal. Pr. II 27, 70 b 7—38; and the treatise φυσιογνωμονικά, printed with Aristotle's works, Bekk. Vol. II. p. 805. Compare Cic. de Fato, 5. 10 (quoted in Blomfield's note, as ‘De Nat. Deor. I 8’), Quid? Socratem nonne legimus, quemadmodum notarit Zopyrus, physiognomon, qui se profitebatur hominum mores naturasque ex corpore oculis vultu fronte pernoscere? Compare, lastly, the simple γνώμων, Xen. Memor. I 4. 5 (ap. Blomfield), of the tongue as distinguishing between sweet and bitter, and Agam. 1099, θεσφάτων γνώμων ἄκρος.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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