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244 Aristotle and his schoolmoral), and thus the degree of excellence found in the people among whomeutuchia, or divination in sleep, or any other phenomenon commonly attributedto divine dispensation, occurs, actually becomes for Aristotle acriterion by which he judges whether this attribution is correct. Just as thefact that ‘happiness’ (eudaimonia) is found with the ‘wise’ (the sophoi), whoare ‘most beloved by the gods’ (theophilestatoi), supports the idea that it isgranted by the gods, likewise the fact that eutuchia occurs with people whoare not ‘wise’ and do not possess excellence furnishes an argument againstthe idea that eutuchia is given by the gods. This is consistent with Aristotle’sremark (Div. somn. 464 a 20; see above) that if foresight of the future weregiven by the gods, they would give it ‘during the daytime’ (meth’ hēmeran),not at night; for at night the faculty in virtue of which good people can bedistinguished from bad people is inactive. 23This whole complex of thought on the relationship between a ‘divineconcern’ (theia epimeleia) and human moral qualification – irrespective ofwhether there is such a thing as divine concern at all – is firmly rootedin Aristotle’s ethics, as is shown by the passages cited above (to whichmight be added Eth. Eud. 8.3, 1249 b 3–23). 24 It is clear, therefore, thatthe distribution argument is not simply an occasional, or even (as wasclaimed by Dirlmeier) an un-Aristotelian argument, 25 and it is all the moresurprising that this argument does not pose an impediment to Aristotle’sconclusion that eutuchia is ‘divine’ (theia)in1248 b 4.The first part of the solution to this problem is in that the ‘movement’ ofGod in the fortunate men (the who succeed without reasoning, ), as described in 1248 a 25ff., is not regarded byAristotle as a form of ‘divine concern’ ( ). The idea which islabelled as ‘paradoxical’ () in1247 a 28–9 is that a god or demon‘loves’ () a man who does not possess reason (): the emphasisis on ‘loving’ no less than on ‘a god or demon’ ( ). But in his23 Cf. Eth. Nic. 1102 b 3–11; Eth. Eud. 1219 b 19ff.; Mag. mor. 1185 a 9ff.24 See especially 1249 b 16ff.: the man who makes such a choice of the ‘natural goods’ ( )that they advance the contemplation of God possesses the best standard for the practical life; thisis ‘the wise man’ ( ). I follow the interpretation of this passage offered by Verdenius (1971)292: ‘When God has revealed himself through the channel of contemplation, his influence gets thecharacter of a directive power. This directive power is turned towards practical action through theintermediary of .’ The fact that this standard () consists in ‘paying as little attention aspossible to the irrational part of the soul’ ( (or: ) ) is in marked contrast with 1248 a 40: ‘It seems that this starting-point is more powerfulwhen reason has been disengaged’ ( ).25 Dirlmeier (1935) 60–1 ‘Sie gehört noch dem suchenden Aristoteles an, ja sie ist gar nicht aristotelisch,sondern platonisch.’ But Dirlmeier also labels Eth. Nic. 1162 a 5 and 1179 a 23ff. as ‘un-Aristotelian’.See also Vidal (1959) 179.