Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

146 Aristotle and his schoolMoreover, a check of all the occurrences of euthuoneiros and euthuoneiria 31in Greek literature proves Effe’s interpretation to be wrong. The fact thateuthuoneiriai are opposed to ‘confused and disturbed images’ ( ) in464 b 9ff. shows that euthuoneiriarefers to ‘lucid’ and ‘clear’ dreams, which come about because the waytaken by the movement of sensory perception from the sensory organ tothe heart has been straight (euthus). 32 Consequently, the relation betweenthese dreams and reality is immediately clear (this explains the remark in464 b 10 that anyone can interpret such dreams; cf. 463 a 25). For this reasonthese dreams can in fact be right or prophetic, yet this possibility also appliesto the distorted and blurred images in dreams, for, Aristotle says, assessingtheir relation to reality clearly is the work of a professional interpreter ofdreams.Another option is to assume that the confusing effect of air (pneuma)mentioned in On Dreams apparently does not apply in the cases referredto in On Divination in Sleep. This is either due to the large number ofimages (for, in On Divination in Sleep images seen in dreams are a resultof movement, whereas On Dreams speaks about the influence of bodilymovement on images that have already been formed), 33 or because otherpsycho-physical processes or states neutralise, as it were, the confusingeffect. If one attempts to solve the problem in this way (supported byJ. Croissant), 34 one has to assume that the contradiction is only apparent,but it must be admitted that Aristotle did not make an effort to avoid theimpression of contradicting himself. Yet it is very well possible that this ispartly due to the differences in aim and method between the more technicaland programmatic On Dreams and the more polemical On Divination in31 The noun occurs in 463 a 25 and 464 b 7 and 16, the adjective in 463 b16 and 464 a 27 as well as in the passage Eth. Eud. 1248 a 39–40, which will be discussed below.Apart from the Aristotelian Corpus, the word does not occur until in Plutarch (De def. or. 437 d–e, apassage that does not offer much of an explanation as it clearly refers to Div. somn. 463 b 16ff.). As tothe meaning of this word, similar combinations with are to be mentioned, such as (cf. Geurts (1943) 108–14).32 Cf. the use of in Mem. 453 a 25.33 The ‘many and manifold movements’ from Div. somn. 463 b18 are clearly ‘movements that produce images’ , whereas the ‘huge movement’ from Insomn. 461 a 24 refers to the ‘resistance’ against thesemovements, as mentioned in 461 a 11.34 Croissant (1932) 38–9. According to Croissant, the effect of the lack of rational activity in melancholicsis that the movements can reach the central sense organ, despite strong resistance of the air in theblood. However, this interpretation presupposes the identity of ‘the ecstatic people’ and the melancholics . Although Croissant bases this identity on Pr. 953 b 14–15(and probably also Eth. Nic. 1151 a 1–5; see below), it does not do justice to the separate discussion of‘the ecstatics’ in Div. somn. 464 a 24–7 and ‘the melancholics’ in 464 a 32ff., as well as the differencesbetween the explanations Aristotle gives for each group.