Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

232 Aristotle and his schoolmay easily give rise to statements to the effect that he is more intelligent thanother animals, and an ‘idealistic’, anthropocentric view which postulatesa distinction of kind rather than degree between animals and men to theeffect that man is the only intelligent living being and the other animalshave no intelligence at all.I should suggest that this difficulty is to be related to Aristotle’s endeavoursto account for variations in psychic capacities and their performanceby reference to variable bodily (anatomical, physiological, pathological) factors– although it is not quite clear how these factors are to be accommodatedwithin the ‘canonical’ doctrine of the incorporeality of the intellect and thechangelessness of the soul. It is certainly to Aristotle’s credit as a scientistthat he recognises the existence of these variations, most of which are probablyto be classified as belonging to the category of ‘the more and the less’ ’ . 86 And just as, at the one end of the scale, he isprepared to account for disturbances in intellectual behaviour by referenceto physical aberrations or disturbances, he also recognises the existence ofexceptionally good performances of the intellectual part of the soul andtries to account for these by assuming that some people have extraordinaryintuitive powers that enable them to think quickly, to perceive hidden resemblances,to invent good definitions and to create effective metaphors; 87and he tries to explain these positive deviations too as the results of differencesin bodily constitution, as we have seen in the case of the ‘people withsoft flesh’ . Moreover, when it comes to physical defects,he also seems to apply a sort of principle of natural compensation, whichmanifests itself in his belief that nature (i.e. the natural, bodily constitution)provides even people with low intellectual capacities with a specialendowment or ingenuity , 88 which is at the basis of such marginalpowers as the ability to foresee the future in sleep, the instinctive powerto make the right choice , see ch. 8 below), the manifestations of‘the exceptional’ , or ‘natural virtues’ suchas moral shrewdness – capacities which seem to flourish whenthe reasoning faculties are impeded or absent and which are, of course,obviously inferior to the intellectual virtues such as ‘prudence’ ,86 Cf. Part. an. 645 b 24; 644 a 17; 692 b 3ff.; Gen. an. 737 b 4–7; 739 b 31–2.87 See the passages referred to above (n. 83) and, for metaphors, Poet. 1459 a 5–7, 1455 a 32, and Rh.1405 a 8–10.88 The word , meaning ‘natural suitability’, seems to have acquired the special sense of ‘naturalcleverness’, ‘ingenuity’ (with to be understood), and represent a special typeof people with a particular cleverness (which, however, may easily change into insanity: Rh. 1390 b28); see Eth.Eud. 1247 b 22, b39; Eth. Nic. 1114 b 8; Mag. mor. 1203 b 1–2; Phgn. 807 b 12 and 808 a37; Poet. 1459 a 7 and 1455 a 32; Pr. 954 a 32.