Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

246 Aristotle and his schoolshould rather be conceived as a psycho-physiological mechanism: in virtueof their particular natural constitution (their phusis) the ‘irrational people’() are more open to the divine movement (which turns the ‘impulses’in the right direction so that the fortunate people make the rightchoice) 29 than are people who use reason and deliberation ( and). The conclusion that eutuchia is found among simple-mindedpeople is therefore not incompatible with the statement that eutuchia is‘divine’ (): the psycho-physiological process that Aristotle here has inmind does not presuppose an active and purposive divine choice (or ) – whereas the theory rejected in 1247 a 28–9 does presuppose sucha choice, as the verb ‘love’ () shows – but is based on a general physicaldivine movement which works more strongly with those people whosereasoning faculty is disengaged. The process seems similar to the workingsof the ‘superhuman nature’ ( ), to which Aristotle ascribesthe phenomenon of prophetic dreams in On Divination in Sleep (463 b14); there the susceptibility of simple-minded people to foresight and cleardream images, as well as the absence of this susceptibility in intelligentpeople, is accounted for by the absence (or, in the case of the intelligentpeople, the presence) of rational activity: ‘for the mind of such [i.e. simpleminded]people is not inclined to much thinking, but is, as it were, vacantand devoid of everything, and once set in motion it moves along withthe agent of motion’ ( [= ] (464 a 21–2). By contrast, in intelligent peoplethe presence of ‘their own proper movements’ ( ) preventsthis susceptibility. 30 Like eutuchia, divination in sleep is for Aristotle not ane me paraît pas devoir être compris, d’accord avec cette interprétation, comme le résultat d’uneinfluence directe de la divinité suprême. Il faut plutôt rapprocher ce passage des dialogues de Platonoù l’on voit cités les mêmes phénomènes psychiques et notamment de Ménon.’ Cf. Gigon (1969) 211:‘Man wird allerdings auch zugestehen müssen, daß der Einschub über den Enthusiasmus verwirrendwirkt: denn in ihm liegt eine göttliche Einwirkung vor, die ihrer besonderen Art nach kaum genannt werden kann.’ I agree with Croissant’s conclusion that ‘ni la chance, ni la divination parles songes ne sont le fait d’une inspiration divine et elles sont conditionnées par des facteurs quin’ont rien de noble, mais elles découlent cependant en droite ligne de ce que l’homme possède deplus divin’ (1932, 30), and with her statement that ‘Ainsi la reste bien une ’,although here I would prefer to refer to the ‘superhuman nature’ ( )ofDiv. somn. 463b 14 (see below).29 This seems to be the working of God in the soul. Cf. von Fragstein (1974) 375, contra Woods (1982)183 and Dirlmeier (1962a) 490.30 It seems best to interpret in Div. somn. 463 b 14 as applying not to nature in general(for on this view, it is difficult to see why Aristotle stipulates that nature is ‘superhuman, thoughnot divine’, ) but as human nature, and not as human nature ingeneral, but as the particular natural constitution of a human individual, as is shown by the exampleof the ‘garrulous and melancholic nature’ ( ) in the sequel. This is called