Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

226 Aristotle and his schooland of perception, since it is the matter of the body, and its influence variesaccording to its being hot, cold, thin, thick, troubled or pure.In these two passages, the influence of blood on intelligence is closelylinked with its influence on perception, and this again suggests that whatmakes for greater intelligence is a better, that is, swifter, more accurate,supply of perceptions for the intellect to halt upon. Aristotle’s remarks hereseem to refer to structural differences existing between different species ofanimals, but there is no reason to doubt whether similar incidental, orindividual, variations in the state of the blood may make for incidental,or individual, variations in intellectual performances. 70 Nor is there anyreason to believe that Aristotle is only referring to animals and not to man:his remarks on the importance of the blood in the process of dreaming, forexample, indicate that also in human cognition the quality of the bloodis an important factor. 71 Again, this is of considerable importance to thequestion whether Aristotle believed in animal intelligence: there is nothingin these two passages to suggest that Aristotle is not referring to reallyintellectual activities of animals, but only to something analogous; on thecontrary, there is every reason to believe that similar variations in the stateof the blood affect human intelligence just as well as animal intellectualcapacities.The most remarkable passage in this respect is De an. 421 a 22ff., whichsuggests that there is a direct connection between degrees of softness of theflesh and degrees of intelligence in human beings. 72 Aristotle deals withthe sense of smell, and he remarks that man has a very weak, unarticulatedsense of smell in comparison with many other animals: he is only capableof labelling smells as pleasant or unpleasant. Similarly, he says, animalswith hard eyes () do not have an accurate sense for seeinga variety of colours. The situation is slightly better with taste, he says, forman’s sense of taste is more accurate than his sense of smell, because tasteis a form of touch, and as regards touch man is the most accurate of allanimals. 73 He then continues:70 See Kullmann (1982) 229: ‘Es kommt freilich Aristoteles in 2.4 vor allem darauf an, die physiologischeBedeutung der beiden Bestandteile des Blutes hervorzuheben. Ihr jeweiliger Anteil ist nach seinerMeinung von Tierart zu Tierart (und wohl auch von Individuum zu Individuum) verschieden.’71 See Insomn. 461 a 25; b11ff.72 The passage seems to be a sort of embarrassment to most interpreters, for it is hardly ever commentedupon. Freeland (1992) 234 says that ‘this should be taken with a grain of salt because Aristotle offersseveral alternative explanations for human “superior intelligence”’. However, Freeland does notconsider how these ‘alternative explanations’ are interrelated in Aristotle’s physiology, and of theinstances she cites only Part. an. 4.10 is comparable to (and fully consistent with) the one here.73 Cf. Hist. an. 494 b 17; Part. an. 660 a 12.