Aristotle · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| Problems Concerning Practical Wisdom, Intellect, and Wisdom
2| Why is it that all those who have become outstanding men, whether in philosophy or statesmanship or poetry or the arts, are evidently melancholic, and some of them so much so that they are actually seized by the ailments that come from black bile, as is said of the heroes in the case of Heracles? For he too seems to have been of this nature, which is why the ancients named the ailments of epileptics after him, calling it the sacred disease. His derangement concerning his children, and the eruption of sores that occurred before his disappearance on Oeta, show this; for this too happens to many people from black bile. It happened to Lysander the Spartan as well, that these sores appeared before his death. Then too there is the case of Ajax and Bellerophon, of whom the one became completely deranged, while the other sought out desolate places, which is why Homer wrote as follows: 'But when he too became hateful to all the gods, then indeed he wandered alone over the Aleian plain, eating out his own heart, avoiding the path of men.' And many other heroes too are evidently affected in the same way as these. Among later men, Empedocles and Plato and Socrates, and many other notable figures. And further, most of those concerned with poetry.
3| For many such men develop bodily ailments from this sort of mixture, while in others their nature is clearly inclined toward these affections. In any case, all of them, so to speak, are simply of this nature, as has been said. We must grasp the cause, then, taking up an example first. For wine, when drunk in quantity, seems above all to produce men of the sort we say the melancholic are, and to produce very many different characters when drunk — for example irritable men, men warm to their fellows, men prone to pity, reckless men; but by nature none of them are so. One could see that it produces every sort of character by observing how it changes those who drink it, by degrees; for taking hold of men who are cold and silent while sober, a little more of it drunk makes them more talkative, still more makes them eloquent and confident, and as they go further toward action, reckless, and drunk still more, given to outrage, then frenzied, and drunk to excess it slackens them and makes them foolish, like those who have been epileptic from childhood, or those excessively given over to melancholy. So then, just as one man changes his character by drinking and using some quantity of wine, so, character for character, there are men who are permanently each of these kinds. For whatever a man is now while drunk, another is that way by nature — one talkative, another agitated, another quick to tears;
4| for wine makes some men weep as well, which is why Homer too wrote it, and says of himself: 'weeping copiously, weighed down with wine.' Men also sometimes become full of pity, and savage, and silent; for some, again, fall completely silent, especially those melancholics who are prone to derangement. Wine also makes men affectionate; a sign of this is that a man who is drinking is led on even to kiss with his mouth people whom, sober, not one man would kiss, either because of their looks or because of their age. Wine, then, makes a man exceptional for not a long time, but only a short one, whereas nature does so always, for as long as one lives; for some men become bold, others silent, others full of pity, others cowardly, by nature. So it is clear that wine and each person's nature produce character through the same cause; for they accomplish everything by regulating it through heat. Now both the humor and the mixture of black bile are full of breath; which is why the doctors say that flatulent affections and hypochondriac ailments are melancholic. And wine too has a flatulent power. For this reason wine and the melancholic mixture are alike in nature. That wine is full of breath is shown by its foam;
5| for oil, though hot, produces no foam, while wine produces much, and dark wine more than white, because it is hotter and more substantial. And for this reason wine makes men inclined to sex, and Dionysus and Aphrodite are rightly said to belong together, and most melancholics are lustful. For the sexual act too is a matter of breath. A sign of this is the male organ, in that it makes a rapid increase from being small, because it is inflated with breath. And further, even before boys are able to emit seed, a certain pleasure already occurs in them, when, being near the age of puberty, they rub their genitals out of self-indulgence; and this evidently happens because breath passes out through the passages through which the fluid is later carried. And it becomes evident that the outpouring of seed in intercourse, and its ejection, occur because breath is pushing it out. So it is reasonable that, among foods and drinks, those are aphrodisiac which fill the region around the genitals with breath. This is why dark wine, no less than anything, produces men of the sort melancholics are — full of breath. This is evident in some cases; for most melancholics are hard-fleshed, and their veins stand out prominently; and the cause of this is not the quantity of blood, but of breath. But as for why not all melancholics are hard-fleshed, nor all dark-complexioned, but rather those of worse humor are, that is another discussion;
6| but as to the matter we set out from the beginning to discuss — that this melancholic humor is mixed directly into a person's nature from the start — it is a mixture of hot and cold; for nature is composed out of these two. This is why black bile becomes both hottest and coldest. For it is natural for the same thing to undergo both of these states — just as water, though cold, nevertheless, if sufficiently heated, as when boiling, is hotter than flame itself, and stone and iron, once made red-hot, become hotter than a burning coal, though they are cold by nature. This has been discussed more clearly in the treatise on fire. So too black bile, which is cold by nature and not superficially so, when it is in this state as described, if it exceeds the proper amount in the body, produces apoplexies, or torpors, or fits of despondency, or fears; but if it is overheated, it produces cheerfulness accompanied by song, and derangements, and eruptions of sores, and other such things. Now in most people, when this arises from their daily food, it makes no difference at all to their character, but produces only some melancholic ailment. But those in whose nature such a mixture has been constituted from the start become, straightaway, of every sort of character, each according to his own mixture;
7| for example, those in whom it is present in large quantity and cold become sluggish and foolish, while those in whom it is present in very large quantity and hot become frenzied and gifted by nature and given to erotic passion and easily moved to anger and desire, and some are also more talkative. And many, because this heat is close to the seat of the intellect, are seized by frenzied or inspired conditions, which is how all the Sibyls and the Bacides and the divinely inspired come to be, whenever they arise not from disease but from a natural mixture. Maracus of Syracuse was even a better poet when he was out of his mind. But those in whom the excessive heat blooms up toward the mean are melancholic, but more prudent, and less eccentric, and superior to others in many respects — some in education, some in the arts, some in statesmanship. And this state also makes a great difference in the face of dangers, since it sometimes makes many men inconsistent in their fears. For depending on how their body happens to stand with respect to this mixture at a given time, they differ from themselves. And the melancholic mixture, just as it makes men inconsistent in their illnesses, is itself inconsistent as well; for at one time it is cold, like water, and at another time hot.
8| So that when something frightening is reported, if the mixture happens to be rather cold, it produces cowardice; for the fear has already prepared the way, and the fear chills. Those who are excessively fearful show this, for they tremble. But if the mixture is rather hot, the fear settles it into the mean, and keeps it there and unaffected. The same holds for the despondencies we feel from day to day; for often we are so disposed as to feel pain, and we could not say over what; and at other times we feel cheerful, and it is not clear over what either. These conditions, and the ones spoken of long ago, occur in some small degree in everyone; for in everyone there is some admixture of this power. But those in whom it goes deep are already people whose characters are of a certain quality. For just as people come to differ in appearance not by having a face but by the face being of a certain quality — some fine, some ugly, some having nothing out of the ordinary, these last being of a middling nature — so too those who partake only slightly of this mixture are of a middling character, while those who partake of it abundantly are already unlike the many. For if the state is extremely intense, they are excessively melancholic; but if they are mixed in some measure, they are exceptional.
9| If they neglect themselves, they tend, in different people, toward melancholic disorders affecting different parts of the body; and in some it gives warning signs of epilepsy, in others of apoplexy, in others of severe fits of despondency or fears, in others of excessive boldness, as happened, for instance, to Archelaus the king of Macedon. The nourishment of this power is the mixture, however it stands with respect to cold and heat. For when it is colder than the occasion requires it produces irrational despondencies; that is why hangings occur especially among the young, and sometimes among older people too. Many also destroy themselves after bouts of drunkenness. But some melancholics pass their time despondently as a result of drinking; for the heat from the wine extinguishes the natural heat. Now the heat around the region with which we think and hope makes us cheerful. And this is why everyone is eager to drink to the point of drunkenness — because a great deal of wine makes everyone full of hope, just as youth does children; for old age is prone to despair, while youth is full of hope. But there are a few who, while drinking, are seized by fits of despondency, through the same cause that afflicts some after drinking bouts. So those in whom the despondencies arise as the heat is gradually wasting away are more prone to hang themselves.
10| That is why the young or the very old are more prone to hang themselves; for old age wastes the heat away, and in the young the condition is natural, the very wasting-away of heat being itself natural to them. But those in whom the heat is suddenly extinguished mostly kill themselves in some other, sudden way, so that everyone is astonished, because they gave no sign of it beforehand. So the mixture that comes from the black bile, when it becomes colder, as has been said, produces despondencies of every kind, but when it is hotter, cheerfulness. That is why children are more cheerful and old men more despondent; for the former are hot, the latter cold, since old age is a kind of chilling. And it happens that the heat is suddenly extinguished by external causes as well, just as things that have been set on fire are extinguished contrary to their nature — a coal, for instance, when water is poured on it. That is why some kill themselves as a result of drunkenness; for the heat from wine is imported from outside, and when it is extinguished this condition results. And after sexual intercourse most people become more despondent, but those who discharge a great deal of residue along with the seed become more cheerful; for they are relieved of an excess of residue, breath, and heat. The others, however, are often more despondent, since they are chilled by having had intercourse, because something of what was sufficient for them has been taken away; and this is shown by the fact that the discharge was not copious.
11| To sum it up, then: because the power of the black bile is uneven, melancholics are uneven; for it becomes at times extremely cold, at times extremely hot. And because it shapes character (for hot and cold are the most character-shaping of the things in us), just as wine mixed into the body in greater or lesser amount makes our character of a certain quality, so does this. Both are of the nature of breath — both wine and black bile. And since it is possible for this unevenness to be well-tempered and to be in a good condition somehow, being hotter where it needs to be, and again colder, or the opposite, on account of having an excess, all melancholics are exceptional, not on account of disease, but on account of their nature. Why is it that with respect to some branches of knowledge we say we have a state, but with respect to others we do not? Is it that we are said to have a state in respect of those in which we are capable of discovery? For discovering comes from a state. Why is man the most intelligent of the animals? Is it because he has the smallest head in proportion to his body? Or because his head is smallest in an uneven way? For it is on this account that he is also small-headed, and among men themselves those of this kind are more intelligent than the large-headed.
12| Why does a road seem to us to be longer when we walk it without knowing how long it is, than when we know, other things being assumed to be equal? Is it because to know how long it is, is to know a number? For the unlimited and the uncountable are the same thing, and the unlimited is always greater than the determinate. Just as, then, if one knew that it was of such-and-such a length, it would necessarily be finite, so, if one does not know how long it is, the soul reasons falsely as though by conversion, and the road appears to be unlimited, since the quantitative is determinate and the determinate is quantitative. So whenever it does not appear determinate, it will seem to be as it were unlimited, because what is naturally determinate, if it is not determinate, is unlimited; and what appears not to be determinate must in some way appear to be endless.
13| Why do we have more intelligence as we grow older, yet learn more quickly when we are younger? Is it because god has given us two instruments within ourselves, with which we are to make use of the instruments outside us — to the body a hand, to the soul an intellect? For intellect too is among the things in us by nature, existing as it were as an instrument; whereas the other branches of knowledge and crafts belong to things made by us, while intellect belongs to things that are by nature. Just as, then, we do not use the hand best as soon as we are born, but only when nature has brought it to completion (for as our age advances the hand becomes most able to accomplish its own work), in the same way intellect too, being among the things that are by nature, comes to us not immediately but especially in old age, and is then most fully completed, unless it is maimed by something, just like the other things that exist by nature. And intellect comes to us later than the power of the hands, because the instruments of intellect are also later than those of the hand. For the instrument of intellect is knowledge (for knowledge is useful to it, just as pipes are to a pipe-player), while the hands have many instruments that are by nature; and nature itself is prior to knowledge, as are the things produced by nature. And things whose instruments are prior are also likely to have their powers arise in us earlier; for it is by using these instruments that we acquire a state, and each thing's instrument stands to it in a similar way — and conversely, as the instruments stand to one another, so do the powers stand to one another. Intellect, then, for this reason comes to be present in us more fully when we are older. But we learn more quickly when we are younger because we do not yet know anything. Once we know something, we are no longer equally able to learn. And we are able to retain, just as we also remember better the things we happen to meet first thing in the morning; then, as the day goes on, we no longer remember as well, because we have met with many things.
14| Why should we trust man more than any other animal? Is it as Plato answered Neocles, that man alone among the animals knows how to count? Or because he alone believes in gods? Or because he is the most imitative of all? For it is because of this that he is able to learn. Why do we feel no pleasure in contemplating or hoping that the triangle has its interior angles equal to two right angles, nor in any of the other such facts, except in the act of contemplation itself — and this pleasure is the same whether the angles turned out equal to three right angles or more? But when we won at Olympia, and about the sea-battle at Salamis, we feel pleasure both in remembering these things and in hoping for such things again, but not their opposites — [or] is it because in such cases we feel pleasure as at things that have happened or that exist, whereas with things that hold by nature it is the pleasure of contemplation according to truth, as it stands, that alone produces pleasure in us, while for actions it is the pleasure that comes from what results from them? Since actions are unlike one another, the outcomes that result from them turn out in some cases painful, in others pleasant; and we avoid and pursue everything according to pleasure and pain.
15| Why do doctors carry on their work only up to the point of health? For the doctor makes the patient thin, then from this dries him out, then produces health, and then stops there. Is it because it is not possible for anything else to come from this state? Or, if it is possible, does it belong to another science, and will there be someone who produces something else out of health? If indeed a state comes to be out of contraries and out of intermediate states, it is clear that the patient is sick, or too dry or too moist or something of this kind. So the doctor produces the change starting from a state less severely cold, and brings the patient all the way to being warm in this way and dry or moist in that way, passing over from the contraries, or from the intermediate state, until he arrives at being in that very condition which constituted health; and from this state nothing else naturally arises except the intermediate state. Now the one who possesses the craft is able to produce the reverse. For just as he brought the patient to health, he is able to undo it and take it away again — yet this is not what the craft is for. For the craft always aims at the better. So neither another science nor this same science will produce something else out of health; for nothing would come to be except the contrary of health, if indeed it were the same science governing both. So too in the case of a house, the same craft would produce nothing that is its contrary; there is no other craft that will produce something out of it, except as a part of the process — as, for instance, the leather-worker's craft makes a shoe out of a piece cut for it. For from each of the two states, the outcome comes about in two ways, either by combining or by destroying.
16| Why do people think the philosopher differs from the rhetorician? Is it because the philosopher spends his time on the forms themselves of things, while the rhetorician spends his on the things that participate in them — for example, the one asks what injustice is, the other how such-and-such a man is unjust; and the one asks what tyranny is, the other what sort of man the tyrant is. Why are performers of the Dionysiac art generally base? Is it because they share least in the wisdom that comes through reasoned argument, since the greater part of their life is spent on the necessary crafts, and because the greater part of their life is spent in lack of self-control, and some of it also in poverty? Both of these tend to produce baseness.
17| Why did those who established the games from the beginning set out a prize for contests of the body, but set none for wisdom? Is it because the judges of matters concerning the intellect ought reasonably to be no worse than the competitors, or even better? But if those who excel most in wisdom had to compete and a prize had been set out for it, they would have found themselves at a loss for judges. In the case of athletic contests, it is within anyone's competence to judge, by watching with his eyes alone. Furthermore, the one who set things up from the beginning did not wish to propose to the Greeks a contest of a kind out of which factions and great enmities were bound to arise. For instance, when someone is either rejected or admitted to one of the bodily contests, people do not take it altogether hard, nor do they fall into enmity with the judges — but over being judged more or less intelligent or more or less base, they grow angriest and most indignant of all. Such a thing tends to produce faction and baseness. Further, the prize of a contest ought to be better than the contest itself. In the case of athletic contests, the prize is more desirable and better than the contest; but what prize could be better than wisdom? Why does man especially think and act in opposite directions? Is it because the same knowledge covers contraries? Or is it because intellect ranges over many things, while desire is of one thing? Man, then, for the most part lives by intellect, while the beasts live by desire, spirit, and appetite.
18| Why do some prudent men go on acquiring things without ever using them? Is it because they act out of habit? Or because of the pleasure that lies in hoping? ... that perception and thought operate through the soul's being at rest — which indeed knowledge too seems to be, since it brings the soul to a standstill; for when the soul is being moved and carried about, it is possible neither to perceive nor to think. This is why children, the drunk, and the mad lack understanding: because of the quantity of heat present in them, the greatest and most violent motion occurs in them, and once this subsides they become more sensible, since when the thought is undisturbed they are better able to master it. Those, too, who dream in sleep do so insofar as the thought comes to rest, and just to the extent that it is at rest — for it is precisely in sleep that the soul is most in motion. For when the heat withdraws from the rest of the body into the region within, it is then that the greatest and most violent motion occurs — not, as most people suppose, that the soul is then at rest and by itself, especially when a person sees no dream at all. What happens is the opposite: because the soul is in the greatest motion and is not at rest even slightly, it is unable to think either. And it stands to reason that it is in the greatest motion precisely when a person sleeps most pleasantly, since it is then above all that the greatest amount of heat gathers into the inner region. And here is a further sign that the soul, while in motion, is unable to think — not only while awake but even in sleep:
19| for in the sleep that follows the taking of food, dreams are least likely to be seen; and it is precisely then that the soul happens to be most in motion, on account of the food that has been brought into it. And a dream occurs whenever sleep comes upon people while they are thinking and setting things before their eyes; this is why we see above all the things that we are doing, or are about to do, or wish to do, for it is about these above all that reasonings and images arise most often. And better people for this reason see better dreams, because even while awake they think about better things, whereas those in a worse condition, either in thought or in body, see worse ones. For the body's condition too contributes to the imagery of dreams, since in the sick person the settled dispositions of thought are also poor, and further, because of the disturbance present in the body, the soul is unable to be at rest. Melancholics for this reason start up suddenly in their sleep, because, there being more heat than is fitting, the soul is in motion beyond what is moderate, and since the motion is more violent, they are unable to sleep.