244 Aristotle and his school
moral), and thus the degree of excellence found in the people among whom
eutuchia, or divination in sleep, or any other phenomenon commonly at-
tributed to divine dispensation, occurs, actually becomes for Aristotle a
criterion by which he judges whether this attribution is correct. Just as the
fact that ‘happiness’ (eudaimonia) is found with the ‘wise’ (thesophoi), who
are ‘most beloved by the gods’ (theophilestatoi), supports the idea that it is
granted by the gods, likewise the fact thateutuchiaoccurs with people who
are not ‘wise’ and do not possess excellence furnishes an argument against
the idea thateutuchiais given by the gods. This is consistent with Aristotle’s
remark (Div. somn. 464 a 20 ; see above) that if foresight of the future were
given by the gods, they would give it ‘during the daytime’ (meth’ h ̄emeran),
not at night; for at night the faculty in virtue of which good people can be
distinguished from bad people is inactive.^23
This whole complex of thought on the relationship between a ‘divine
concern’ (theia epimeleia) and human moral qualification – irrespective of
whether there is such a thing as divine concern at all – is firmly rooted
in Aristotle’s ethics, as is shown by the passages cited above (to which
might be addedEth. Eud. 8. 3 , 1249 b 3 – 23 ).^24 It is clear, therefore, that
the distribution argument is not simply an occasional, or even (as was
claimed by Dirlmeier) an un-Aristotelian argument,^25 and it is all the more
surprising that this argument does not pose an impediment to Aristotle’s
conclusion thateutuchiais ‘divine’ (theia)in 1248 b 4.
The first part of the solution to this problem is in that the ‘movement’ of
God in the fortunate men (the ( who succeed without reasoning,
'
\ $
), as described in 1248 a 25 ff., is not regarded by
Aristotle as a form of ‘divine concern’ (
). The idea which is
labelled as ‘paradoxical’ (')in 1247 a 28 – 9 is that a god or demon
‘loves’ (
) a man who does not possess reason ( !): the emphasis
is on ‘loving’ no less than on ‘a god or demon’ ( 3 B ). But in his
(^23) Cf.Eth. Nic. 1102 b 3 – 11 ;Eth. Eud. 1219 b 19 ff.;Mag. mor. 1185 a 9 ff.
(^24) See especially 1249 b 16 ff.: 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; this
is ‘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 the
character of a directive power. This directive power is turned towards practical action through the
intermediary of !#
.’ The fact that this standard () consists in ‘paying as little attention as
possible to the irrational part of the soul’ (3 Z
$ " !(or:' )
:) is in marked contrast with 1248 a 40 : ‘It seems that this starting-point is more powerful
when reason has been disengaged’ (
1 8 "% " $ !
-
+ ).
(^25) Dirlmeier ( 1935 ) 60 – 1 ‘Sie geh ̈ort noch dem suchenden Aristoteles an, ja sie ist gar nicht aristotelisch,
sondern platonisch.’ But Dirlmeier also labelsEth. Nic. 1162 a 5 and 1179 a 23 ff. as ‘un-Aristotelian’.
See also Vidal ( 1959 ) 179.