Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

Aristotle on divine movement and human nature 2511248 a 29–34:29 ,30 43 31 44 .32 45 33 . 4634 . 47‘And for this reason, as people spoke of old, those people are called fortunatepeople who, when they make a start, succeed though lacking reasoning, andit is not profitable for them to deliberate. For they have such a starting-pointwhich is stronger than intelligence and deliberation (others have reasoning;this the lucky people do not possess) and they have divine inspiration, 48but they are not capable of intelligence and deliberation: they hit the markwithout reasoning.’Comments: The question about the cause of the lucky people’s success isnow answered: they succeed owing to ‘the starting-point which is strongerthan intelligence and deliberation’. The adjunct ‘though lacking reasoning’( ) again stresses what has already been noted in the beginningof the chapter (1247 a 4; 13), that their success is not due to reason orintelligence; the sentence ‘it is not profitable for them to deliberate’ refersto 1247 b 29–37, where Aristotle says that in the case of eutuchia the naturalimpulse () is contrary to reasoning and that reasoning is idle ( , 35). The anticipation in lines 26–9 now turns outto be very appropriate: having discussed the part played by the intellect( being on a par in this context with and ) in humanaction, Aristotle stipulates that there is a starting-point which is even morepowerful than this, and that this starting-point is the cause of the luckypeople’s success.43 The MS tradition is , with omitted, having dropped out (cf. the Latin tradition:propter hoc quod olim dicebatur).44 The MS tradition is , but a finite verb is obviously appropriate here.45 For the neuter (cf. line 28) see n. 37 above.46 The MS tradition is .47 The MS tradition is , but this is completely out of place here, since the subjectmust be the (see below).48 On the word see n. 28 above.