222 Aristotle and his school
"% % #!
) #L.^56 If the heat which raises the
organism up wanes still further and the earthly matter waxes,^57 then the animals’
bodies wane, and they are many-footed; and finally they lose their feet and lie full
length on the ground.
This passage clearly speaks of the ‘movement’ of thought and the common
sense admitting of being impeded by the position of the body. Again the
mention of ‘intellect’K
Land of ‘the principle of the soul’ as be-
ing susceptible to bodily disturbances (even acquiring a ‘body-like’ state,
) #Lis significant.^58 The seemingly indiscriminate use of$0
0
0 , and" may suggest that Aristotle is
not talking about a specific intellectual function but about thinking in
general; however, it might also indicate that thegradualdifference of in-
telligence between man and other animalsK" Lamounts to
aprincipaldifference of havingnousor not having it – although the ex-
pression*C 3 $
occurs in a context where he is
discussing differenceswithinthe human species, which suggests that the
inferiority of dwarfs consists in their having a lower degree of intelligence
rather than having no intelligence at all. This point is of relevance for the
question whether Aristotle believed in lower or higher levels of thinking
which are to a higher or lower extent susceptible to bodily influence, and
for whether Aristotle believed in animal intelligence (see below).
It is further significant that, perhaps somewhat to our surprise, the pas-
sage states thereasonwhy man is the most intelligent of all blooded animals –
something which is usually simply postulated as a fact without argument by
Aristotle inOn the Souland in theEthics– by stating thematerialcause for
man’s being intelligent.^59 All blooded animals are less intelligent than man
because of their dwarf-like natureK#L, and also within the human
species differences in intelligence are accounted for by the dwarf-like shape
(^56) The text is uncertain here; is A. L. Peck’s emendation of the manuscript reading *C.
(^57) A. L. Peck, in his Loeb translation, compares this to the HippocraticOn Regimen 1. 35 ; on this see
below, pp. 230 – 1. On ‘earthiness’ as an impeding factor cf.Gen. an. 781 b 20.
(^58) The mention of the ‘common sense’, and ‘the principle of the soul’ suggest that a principle located
in the heart is meant here (cf.De iuv. 469 a 5 ff.; b 5 – 6 ;Gen. an. 743 b 26 ;Somn. vig. 456 b 1 ). For
the difficulty of relating this passage to Aristotle’s conception of the soul see Althoff ( 1992 ) 73 n. 146 :
‘Der Seele selbst die Eigenschaft des K ̈orperhaften zuzusprechen ist nach der aristotelischen Seele-
nauffassung sehr problematisch. Es scheint vielmehr so zu sein, dass die mangelnde Beweglichkeit
der Seele (und damit die mangelnde Intelligenz) zur ̈uckgef ̈uhrt wird auf eine Druckeinwirkung, die
der obere Teil des K ̈orpers auf das Herz als den ersten Sitz der Seele ausubt.’ However, also in ̈ Part.
an. 672 b 16 – 17 Aristotle seems to allow the ‘principle of the sensitive part of the soul’ to be affected
by the evaporation of food.
(^59) Further below in the same chapter ( 686 a 7 ff.) Aristotle also gives a teleological explanation for the
difference in bodily shape between man and other animals with a view to man’s being intelligent.
There, however, the material explanation offered by Anaxagoras and rejected by Aristotle is different:
it is not man’s upright position, but his having hands which is at issue.