158 Aristotle and his school
to a large extent determine it (the so-called ‘character-affecting aspect’,to
̄ethopoion, of human physiology, 953 a 35 ; cf. Pigeaud ( 1988 a) 25 ff.). Sec-
ondly, it explains that wine, depending on the quantity consumed, has the
ability to provoke verydifferent(pantodapous, 953 a 38 ) and even contrast-
ing states of mind. In 953 b 17 this analogy is applied to the problem of
melancholy: both wine and the melancholic nature ‘affect character’, yet
the difference is that wine does so only occasionally and for a brief period of
time, whereas the melancholic nature does so permanently and persistently
(aei). For some people are aggressive, taciturn or sentimental by nature –
they are in a state of mind that affects other people only occasionally and
for a brief period of time, under the influence of wine. Yet in both cases
the cause of thisethopoion ̄ remains the same: it is the heat that controls^67
the body and causes the development of breath (pneuma) (the connection
between heat and breath is made again in 955 a 35 ).^68 In the ensuing passage
the breath-containing properties of wine and black bile, as well as aphro-
disiacs, are discussed. In 954 a 11 , the author returns to the notion of the
melancholic nature: his remark that black bile is a mixture of heat and cold
( 954 a 13 ) ties in with line 953 b 22 , but it also allows him to continue his
train of thought, as this mixture is said to allow for variation: although black
bile is cold by nature ( 954 a 21 ;cf.Somn. vig. 457 a 31 ), it can be heated and
invoke various states of mind, depending on the mixture of heat and cold
( 954 a 28 – 30 :
. C -
# +
-#0 ( R j
1 N #
0 ' ’' # +
LQthis way, the
second objective of the analogy with wine is met.^69 Those in whom cold
predominates are numb and obtuse, yet those in whom heat predominates
get beside themselves (manikoi),^70 or they become astute, horny or prone
(^67) Flashar’s translation ‘all dies namlich wird durch die Ver ̈ ̈anderung des W ̈armehaushaltes bewirkt’
does not do justice to the use of
-
(cf. 954 a 14 ; 955 a 32 – 3 ).
(^68) As to the role ofpneuma,cf. Klibansky et al. ( 1964 ) 30 : ‘In this “pneuma” there dwells a singularly
stimulating driving-force which sets the whole organism in a state of tension (orexis), strongly affects
the mind and tries, above all in sexual intercourse, literally “to vent itself ”; hence both the aphrodisiac
effect of wine and the lack of sexual restraint, proper, in the author’s view, to the man of melancholic
temperament.’ Onpneumaas physiological principle of movement cf.Somn. vig. 456 a 7 ff.
(^69) This paragraph also gives further information on the physiology of the melancholic: the typical
feature of the melancholic is apparently not the mixture of heat and cold within the black bile (as
might be concluded from 954 a 13 ), for this balance may vary. Rather, the typical feature is that he
has an excess of black bile by nature, as 954 a 22 – 3 shows.
(^70) Flashar states that the wordmanikoscannot be right here, as it is indicated in line 36 ‘as a further
increase’ of the heat and as it does not fit well with the other predicates. Against the latter it
has to be said that the combination ofmanikosandeuphues ̄(curiously translated ‘gutm ̈utig’ by
Flashar) is known fromPoet. 1455 a 32 andRh. 1390 b 28. As to the former difficulty, it should be
noted that 35 – 6 does not speak about ‘a further increase’ at all: in fact it deals again with those