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Aristotle on divine movement and human nature 241mor. 2.8 is that in the latter chapter Aristotle (or the Peripatetic author ofthe Magna moralia) seems to be satisfied with these impulses as the causeof eutuchia, whereas in Eth. Eud. 8.2 Aristotle proceeds to a search for thecause of these impulses themselves. 12In his discussion of divination in On Divination in Sleep, Aristotle usesthe distribution argument three times in order to combat the traditionalview that dreams are sent by a god: 13 in each case the wording is strikinglysimilar to Eth. Eud. 1247 a 28–9:462b 20–2: For that the sender [of such prophetic dreams] were a god is irrationalin many respects, and it is particularly paradoxical that he sends them not to thebest and the most intelligent of people but to ordinary people. 14463 b 15–18: For it is quite simple-minded people that tend to foresee the futureand to have clear dream images, which suggests that it is not a god that sendsthem but rather that all those people whose nature is, so to speak, melancholic andgarrulous see all kinds of dream visions. 15464a 19–20: And for this reason, this experience [i.e. foreseeing the future in sleep]occurs in ordinary people and not the most intelligent. For it would happen duringthe daytime and in intelligent people, if it were a god who sent it. 16Moreover, it is remarkable that in 463 b 18 ‘the melancholics’ are mentionedas an example of the fact that ‘quite simple-minded people tend to foreseethe future and have clear dreams’ ( ), whichis for Aristotle a sign that dreams cannot be sent by a god. This is barely,if at all, compatible with Eth. Eud. 1248 a 39–40, where he says that ‘this iswhy the melancholics have clear dream images’ ( ), and where the causal connection marked by ‘this is why’ ()is with the assertion that God ( ) foresees the future, and that God12 See Dirlmeier (1958) 421. I am aware that the authorship of the Magna moralia still is, and probablyalways will be, a matter of dispute, but the arguments in favour of an Aristotelian origin of much ofthe philosophical contents, at least, are so strong that I have thought it desirable to include Mag. mor.2.8 in my discussion (see ch. 5 above, n. 42). I have refrained from an explanation of the discrepancybetween Eth. Eud. 8.2 and Mag. mor. 2.8 concerning the cause of the ‘impulses’, and from a discussionof the implications of this discrepancy, should it be an inconsistency, for the dating and authorshipof this part of the Magna moralia.13 463 b 13: . On the wider context of these three passages see ch. 6above.14 .15 .16 .