256 Aristotle and his school
preferable in view of the bipartition which runs through this whole section
of the text. In any case, both irrational and rational divination are caused
by !; also the !
use the divine movement, and this
conclusion can, as we have seen above, be read as a plain reference to the
distribution argument of 1247 a 28 – 9. Only then can it be understood that
Aristotle says that God movesalso() in those whose !is disengaged,
and that he movesmore strongly(
-
+ )^63 in those: he doesnot
say that God does not move in the !
.^64
The rest of the chapter does not contain any further problems of interpre-
tation as distinct from textual difficulties.^65
To sum up, we may say that there are two reasons why the distribution
argument actually poses an impediment to the attribution ofeutuchiato
a god in 1247 a 23 – 9 , but does not do so in 1248 b 4. First, in 1247 a
28 – 9 Aristotle speaks of ‘being loved’ (
) by the gods;eutuchiais,
(^63) The words
-
and" -
seem to form a contrast here, but it remains obscure what
exactly Aristotle means when he says that ‘reason is disengaged’ ( ! " ! ), and through
what cause it is supposed to be so. The example of the blind in 1248 b 1 – 2 points to a physical defect,
but perhaps we should not press the analogy too far (see my note 65 below). In view of this obscurity
it is questionable whether the traditional readingjshould be emended into2), for this
vague reference can only be to the way in which the ( succeed'
\ .
(^64) Dirlmeier’s ( 1962 a) remark that, if rational divination too consulted God, ‘die ganze Argumentation
sinnlos w ̈urde’, cannot be approved. On the contrary, if rational divination did not consult God,
many elements in the text (lines 26 – 9 and 34 – 8 ) would be out of place.
(^65) In 1248 b 1 – 2 the MS tradition is ? / # -
+ " $ 3
#
,
3 # $. The difficulty is" $ 3
#
,
3 # $, for which many emendations have been proposed, none of which are free from dif-
ficulties. The simplest solution is that suggested by von Fragstein ( 1974 ) 377 :" C 3
#
,
3 # $; but how can the blind be called" without further
qualification (although the aorist participle, after" , is striking)? Dirlmeier ( 1962 a) and
Woods ( 1982 ) proposeC " $ 3 )
[sc. ,
]
! ,
3 # $, but this is based on the Latin traditionamissis hiis quae ad visibilia virtuosius esse
quod memoratur. It is safer, though not free from difficulties either, to read" $ 3
)
,
3 # $. Anyhow, the point must be, as Woods ( 1982 , 219 ) puts it,
that ‘just as the blind man has better powers of memory as a result of lack of preoccupation with
the visible, the power of divination is improved when reason is in abeyance’. Then the text runs as
printed by Susemihl, who emends 3into 3 , but for Spengel’s conjecture in 1248 b
4 〈8 . -
〉which is certainly wrong (see n. 2 above): ‘It is clear, then, that there are two forms
of good fortune, the former of which is divine. For this reason the fortunate man seems to owe his
success to a god. He is the one who succeeds in accordance with impulse, the other succeeds contrary
to impulse; but both are irrational. It is the first form, rather, which is continuous; the second is not
continuous.’ The second form is the one caused by-#referred to in the section 1247 b 38 – 1248 a
15 , as Dirlmeier ( 1962 a, 492 ) rightly observes. But his contra-predestinarian remark ‘Weiterdenken
darf man hier nicht, also nicht fragen, warum Gott in solchen Seelen nicht t ̈atig wird’, is certainly
out of place, for God is moving in all souls: the second form also occurs with people who have the
first form, but in them its cause is different. For meaning ‘continuous’ cf.Eth. Nic. 1150 b
34 :8 . 1 % 8 5 ( % #, andInsomn. 461 a 10.