Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

Aristotle on divine movement and human nature 24923 35 24 ; 36 25 26 . 37‘However, one might raise the question whether good fortune is the causeof this very fact, that we desire the right thing at the right moment. Or willgood fortune be in that way the cause of everything? For then it will alsobe the cause of thinking and deliberation. For we did not deliberate at aparticular moment concerning a particular thing after having deliberated –no, there is a certain starting-point, nor did we think after having alreadythought before thinking, and so on to infinity. Intelligence, therefore, isnot the starting-point of thinking nor is counsel the starting-point of deliberation.So what else if not good fortune? Thus everything will be causedby chance. Or is there some starting-point beyond which there is no other,and is this starting-point such as to be able to produce such an effect? Whatwe are looking for is this: what is the starting-point of the movement inthe soul? It is now evident that, as it is a god that moves the universe, so itis in the soul.’Comments: So far the text provides few interpretative difficulties. It is of vitalimportance to notice that the ‘starting-point’ () Aristotle is seeking isthe starting-point of all movement in the soul, both of ‘thinking’ ()and of ‘desiring’ ( ). Thus God is also the ‘principleof movement’ in the souls of those people who actualise ‘intellect anddeliberation’ ( ). 3835 The MS tradition is , which does not make sense, since the sentence obviously marksa disjunction (cf. the Latin tradition aut est aliquod principium, etc.).36 The MS tradition is . I follow Jackson(1913) 197 and Mills (1983) 289 n. 13 in reading: , which accounts for the corruption better than Dirlmeier’s (1962a).37 The MS tradition is which, if translated as ‘also everything is moved by him (i.e.God)’, yields a tautology with (sc. ). W. J. Verdenius (privatecorrespondence) suggested to me as a translation of the whole sentence: ‘It is clear that this startingpointis analogous to the part which God plays in the universe, where he moves everything’ (reading and taking as specifying ). However, the connection with thefollowing then becomes difficult, for the sought is not (which is the )but (who is ). The analogy which Aristotle wants to express is best achievedwhen we read , where refers to (as so often in this chapter a neuter pronounrefers to a masculine or feminine noun; for this reason Wood’s conjecture can be leftaside). Dirlmeier reads and translates: ‘so bewegt er auch alles jene (in der Seele)’,but this is awkward as Greek.38 See Gigon (1969) 211.