Aristotle on divine movement and human nature 249
23 I
T B^35
"% 6 (
' # D)0 2#
24 .
1 3
-# ,
$ -
;^36 3 .
25 =#- $5
0 8
) "% C :Co
26 % ? *C )C 3 " )C.^37
‘However, one might raise the question whether good fortune is the cause
of this very fact, that we desire the right thing at the right moment. Or will
good fortune be in that way the cause of everything? For then it will also
be the cause of thinking and deliberation. For we did not deliberate at a
particular moment concerning a particular thing after having deliberated –
no, there is a certain starting-point, nor did we think after having already
thought before thinking, and so on to infinity. Intelligence, therefore, is
not the starting-point of thinking nor is counsel the starting-point of de-
liberation. So what else if not good fortune? Thus everything will be caused
by chance. Or is there some starting-point beyond which there is no other,
and is this starting-point such as to be able to produce such an effect? What
we are looking for is this: what is the starting-point of the movement in
the soul? It is now evident that, as it is a god that moves the universe, so it
is in the soul.’
Comments: So far the text provides few interpretative difficulties. It is of vital
importance to notice that the ‘starting-point’ (") Aristotle is seeking is
the starting-point of all movement in the soul, both of ‘thinking’ (
)
and of ‘desiring’ (
0 ). Thus God is also the ‘principle
of movement’ in the souls of those people who actualise ‘intellect and
deliberation’ ($0 <-
).^38
(^35) The MS tradition is
, which does not make sense, since the sentence obviously marks
a disjunction (cf. the Latin traditionaut est aliquod principium, etc.).
(^36) The MS tradition is2# .
-# 3 ,
3 $ -
. I follow Jackson
( 1913 ) 197 and Mills ( 1983 ) 289 n. 13 in reading:2# .
1 Q
-# ,
$ -
, which accounts for the corruption better than Dirlmeier’s2# .
-# 1 3
,
3
$ -
( 1962 a).
(^37) The MS tradition is + )Cwhich, if translated as ‘also everything is moved by him (i.e.
God)’, yields a tautology with? C )C(sc."%
)). W. J. Verdenius (private
correspondence) suggested to me as a translation of the whole sentence: ‘It is clear that this starting-
point is analogous to the part which God plays in the universe, where he moves everything’ (reading
+ )Cand takingas specifying? C )C). However, the connection with the
following then becomes difficult, for the"sought is not3 8 (which is the$)
but !(who is $ $). The analogy which Aristotle wants to express is best achieved
when we read" )C, where )Crefers to:(as so often in this chapter a neuter pronoun
refers to a masculine or feminine noun; for this reason Wood’s conjecture" #Ccan be left
aside). Dirlmeier reads + and translates: ‘so bewegt er auch alles jene (in der Seele)’,
but this is awkward as Greek.
(^38) See Gigon ( 1969 ) 211.