Aristotle on melancholy 163
melancholics the ability of deliberation and rational thought (see the pas-
sages fromNicomachean EthicsandEudemian Ethics), and that he attributes
their special mental ability (divination in dreams) only to the fact that for
some reason their reasoning faculty is inactive or powerless (On Divina-
tion in SleepandEudemian Ethics): as a result they are classified in these
texts under the group of ‘simple-minded people’, as opposed to the ‘best
and most intelligent’. This seems to be in stark contrast to the thought
expressed inPr. 30. 1 , namely that theperittonof melancholics is connected
to reason ( 954 b 1 :
L, for without this connection it would
in Aristotelian terms have been impossible to apply theperittonin the fields
of philosophy, politics and poetry, which in Aristotle’s view are unthinkable
without reason (phronesis ̄ ). It is impossible to see how Aristotle’s statements
are supposed to tie in with the existence of a ‘wise melancholic’ (melan-
cholikos sophos) as recognised in the chapter from theProblemata(cf. the
references to Socrates, Plato and Empedocles).
However, apart from the exceptional nature of the melancholicperitton
and the fact that theeuthuoneiriaof melancholics is unrelated to this (see
note 78 ), the text in theProblematadoes in fact allow for some positive
remarks on this contradiction. The way in which the relevant passage in the
chapter is phrased shows that the author was apparently aware of the fact
that the connection betweenphronesis ̄ and melancholy implies a paradox in
an Aristotelian context. To quote the passage: ‘All those, however, in whom
the excessive heat is moderated towards a mean, these people are, to be sure,
melancholics, but they are more intelligent, and they are, to be sure, less
eccentric, but different from the others in many aspects, some in culture,
others etc.’K
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>L>^82 The use of >>>(‘to be sure...but’) and thecomparatives
may well indicate that the author was aware of the paradoxical nature
of his statement:althoughthey are melancholics,yetthey are relatively
close to reason;althoughthey are less abnormal,yetthey are outstanding.
The comparatives
and6show that these people are
not rational and normalper se(that would really contradict Aristotle’s
statements), but only in comparison to other melancholics (or to those
moments when their own balance between hot and cold, which is after
all unstable, is disturbed or absent). They are not really ‘intelligent’, but
(^82) For this reading (instead of the transmitted but incomprehensible CLsee Klibansky et al.
( 1964 ) 24 n. 58 ; Flashar ( 1962 ) 720 ;Muri ( ̈ 1953 ) 25 n. 5 (against Pigeaud ( 1988 a) 123 ).