Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

160 Aristotle and his school(954 a 34ff.), 73 yet this seems to leave room for the possibility of bile beingin other places (cf. Somn. vig. 457 a 33). The lack of clarity as to whether thedefining feature of melancholics is cold (Somn. vig. 457 a 31) or heat (Part.an. 672 b 29; and implicitly (probably) the passages on recklessness andlack of self-control from Eth. Nic. 7) is solved here by attributing to blackbile the possibility of great changes in temperature (954 a 14–15: Lastly, thequestion whether melancholikos characterises the human phusis or the humanēthos receives an answer here, which is: both; for melancholics appearto illustrate how the human character is influenced by the physiologicalconstitution. The text of the Problemata uses the term ēthopoios, ‘affectingcharacter’, to describe this influence.6 the aristotelian character of the theoryin the problemataWhen considering the Aristotelian character of the theory presented in thischapter, it should first of all be said that whereas the psycho-physical andmoral features of melancholics that Aristotle mentions do not occur in theexact same words in the text of the Problemata, most of them easily fit intothe theory. The melancholic’s sensitivity to a large number of movementsand images, repeatedly discussed in the Parva naturalia and EudemianEthics, and the resulting divination in sleep can readily be related to theeffects of heat in the melancholic nature as mentioned in 954 a 31–8. Theuse of the example of the melancholic in the context of lack of self-controland physical lust (Nicomachean Ethics) in the Problemata theory couldequally be understood as an expression of a mixture of black bile dominatedby heat (954 a 33: However, it cannot be denied that the chapter in the Problemata relates themelancholic nature to a much larger number and variety of mental andphysical afflictions (as shown above); in addition, an important question iswhether there are elements in this process which cannot be reconciled withAristotle’s statements (see below).Secondly, it should be noted that the author of the text apparently isvery well informed about Aristotle’s statements on melancholy, and evenseems to make an effort to take the Aristotelian concept into account73 Cf. Mem. 453 b 23–4, which mentions the presence of black bile around the ‘perceptive region’(aisthētikos topos, i.e. the heart, which to Aristotle is also the ‘place where thinking takes place’, noerostopos). [See also ch. 4 and ch. 7, p.224.]