Aristotle and The Irrational

Trustees of Boston University
Aristotle and the Irrational

Author(s): Thomas Gould
Source: Arion, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Summer, 1963), pp. 55-74
Published by: Trustees of Boston University
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IRRATIONAL
THE
AND
ARISTOTLE
Thomas Gould
1 N ONE OF A SERIESOF LECTURES

in New York in 1912 he said:
deUvered
Gilbert Murray
which
Anyone who turns from the great writers of classical

Athens, say Sophocles or Aristotle, to those of the Christian
era must be conscious of a great difference in tone. There
is a change in the whole relation of the writer to the world
about him. The new qua?ty is not specifically Christian: it
is just as marked in the Gnostics and Mithras-worshippers
in JuUan and Plotinus
as in the Gospels and the Apocalypse,
as in Gregory and Jerome. It is hard to describe. It is a rise
in a sense, of pessimism; a loss
of asceticism, of mysticism,
of seff-confidence, of hope in this life and a faith in normal
human effort; a despair of patient inquiry, a cry for infaUible
an
revelation;
to the welfare
indifference
of
the
a con
state,
version of the soul of God. It is an atmosphere in which the

aim of the good man is not so much to Uve justly, to help
the society to which he belongs and enjoy the esteem of his
fellow creatures; but rather, by means of a burning faith, by
contempt for the world and its standards, by ecstasy, suf
to be granted pardon for his un
fering, and martyrdom,
his
immeasurable sins. There is an
unworthiness,
speakable
an increase of sen
intensifying of certain spiritual emotions;
a failure
sitiveness,
of nerve.
[Five Stages of Greek Religion

'The
failure
When
ourselves,
is, I suppose,
of nerve'
it is appUed by Murray
that
is,
at
a critical
originally
to a whole
moment
( 1925), p. 155]
taunt.
schoolboy's
civiUzation, however,
in
our
the
past,
phrase
to
takes on surprising dignity and seems full of meaning. Indeed, in

the years since 1912, in the dark days when it appeared as though
irrationaUty were finally taking over, that our civiUzation had lost,
once and for all, the strength and courage to face Ufe with rea
son and sanity, many a writer on both sides of the Atlantic found
himself reaching for Murray's phrase once again. But what ex
actly does the "failure of nerve" imply when it is used of the slow,
steady dissipation of rationaUty in the third and second centuries
B.C.? Just why did men?even men among the intel?gentsia, the
writers of books, setters of opinions, and leaders of society?turn
progressively away from rationaUty: away, that is, from the per
ception that it is not only possible, but all-important to figure
as well as one could? Why did they seem almost to
things out
want to forget that we must work continuously to see through
silUness,
what
prejudice,
and
irrational
passion,
and
to
aU of the alternatives might be, the probable
ask
ourselves
consequences

AND
ARISTOTLE
56
of
How
the
each,
are we
THE
standards
of
to
explain
overcome
with
frequently
even
to
to Uve
try
and
evidence
fact
the
the
rationaUy,
men
that
feeUng
that one
it was
that
must
so on?
and
verification,
more
were
and
more
sinful
somehow
and
power,
worship
fears and feelings of guilt to be the ulti
take nameless, mindless

mate
IRRATIONAL
truths?
Murray's
that
of nerve
failure
or
more
was
less
of the city state, at the establish
the collapse
is, of Alexander's
that
ment,
for
explanation
orthodox. After
men
empire,
could
no
orient
longer
themselves from their city walls, he argued. PoUtical power was

so far away that the ordinary citizen could no longer hope to
affect poUcies by argument or action; and distant decisions af
fected
his
own
as
life,
as not,
often
in economic
only
uncertain
ties, wars against peoples with whom he had no quarrel, or sud

den, inexpUcable uprootings and dispossessions. The old gods of
the city were exposed for what they were: empty and unable to
or comfort.
protect
Greek
taste
the
as a result
Then,
and oriental
civiUzations,
wines
bittersweet
of
of Alexander's
the men
the
to unite
efforts
of the West
East?those
to
began
and
personal
tional cults which are the chief export of Mesopotamia

Levant?and
they drank ever more greedily and deeply.
emo
and the
There is surely much truth in this analysis, but there are some
holes in it as well. For one thing, Chaldean astrology, magic,
cults
of
and
other
the Greeks
personal
salvation,
from
rites
of
Asia
and
the
great
phenomena
even before
ismore
age
ecstasy,
to
known
purification
through
were
Africa
well
of Pericles.
one wants
What
mar
insight into the spiritual decay which allowed these
to
and
Economic
of
Ufe
ginal ways
finally
approaching
triumph.
poUtical explanations are not sufficient. For another thing, the
centuries
immediately
not
merely
marked,
following
new
by these
the
of Alexander
conquests
allegiances
to dark
powers,
were
but
also by an ever more widespread devotion to a rather f ooUsh kind

of rationaUsm. Murray tended to exaggerate the sentimental and
religious sides of the Stoics and Epicureans. Taken all in all, thev
sense
in one
were,
of
the
more
word,
rational
than
Plato
and
Aristotle. For while the classical philosophers assumed that only

the rest
the gifted few could really live the life of reason?that
would have to borrow the necessary intelUgence from the laws
Stoics and Epicureans
and from the wisdom of their betters?the
offered systems which made the rational Ufe available almost im
even
mediately
peror
or
slave.
to
One
the most
feels
Umited
that
there
man
or woman,
person,
was
a failure
indeed
of
em
some
the
sort in the generation which saw the triumph of Macedonia,
death of Aristotle, and the foundation of the Stoics and Epicu
reans; but just what happened then, and why it took so long to
show its full effect, is far from clear.
Sooner
or
later
someone
was
bound
to offer
a Freudian

inter
Thomas Gould
for this failure of nerve. It was offered, in fact, by Mur
pretation
successor
ray's
57
at Oxford,
E.
R.
in a
Dodds,
series
of
lectures
which he deUvered in California in 1949. These lectures, which

he dedicated to Murray, were called The Greeks and the Irra
tional.1 Dodds traces with almost ghouUsh delight the slow spread
of
darkness:
in
belief
mortem
occultism,
and daemonic
mysteries,
evil
eye
the
the
punishment;
animals,
and
plants,
who would
savior?all
susceptible
'In all
as
poet
good
no mathematician
name
that
the
in philosophy
be
extinct?transcendental
for
this
would
it eventually
no
as
as Archimedes,
represent
he
decline,'
still
world would
scientist
good
and
it
made
succumbed,
of existence
centuries
awaiting
produce
no
as Eratosthenes,
. . . the one
great
a point of view believed

To
Platonism.
long-drawn-out
a mediator
and
the world
weakened
to which
sixteen
as Theocritus,
as
good
theurgy;
at
post
to certain
the initiate and his god; the hungry
he says, 'the Hellenic
it' (in 200 B.C.)
astrology,
terror
of magical
powers
the adoration
of
stones;
to the disease
Christianity.
possession;
attribution
precious
intercede between
for
look-out
alchemy,
says,
the
understand
'is one
to
reason
of the major
prob
lems of world history' (p. 244). Then, after warning his audience
modestly that the study of men's attitudes toward their irrational
experiences is only part of this larger problem, Dodds offers a
suggestion meant really to explain the whole decline of Greek
rationaUsm.
Dodds'
for
phrase
this
event
is nowhere
near
as
as Mur
good
ray's. In fact, he borrows a phrase from Erich Fromm, of all

people.2 It is 'the Fear of Freedom'. The idea which it repre
sents is more interesting: it might be summed up in the more
lurid phrase, 'The Revenge of the Id.' Dodds points out that the
really startling thing about the schools of philosophy which took
shape just after Aristotle's death is that they tended to deny the
existence
very
of
the
unconscious
those untamable
especially
conscious
personaUty
can
parts
of
the
human
and irrational energies

have
circumstantial
only
mind,
of which
the
but
evidence,
from which, unbeknownst to itself, it really draws all its fires. This
forgetfulness or suppression by the Hellenistic philosophers could
have been the thing which finally undid them, he argues, for, as
Freud
showed,
can
rationality
be
sustained
by
a man
only
so
long
as he remains alert to the

signs of these volatile and brutish drives
and
admits
ownership
to them
as a
part
of his
true
self.
If we
ex
amine the philosophies of the healthier period, Dodds points out,

we find a great contrast:
they were in full possession of this vital
insight.
Plato,
for
instance,
spoke
of
a monster
in us
all, whose
1
and Los Angeles,
1951.
2 Berkeley
See Dodds
(New York,
1941).
from Freedom
Escape
p. 252. The
in the lecture which
Freudian
Dodds
calls "The Fear
theory
implied
of Freedom,"
to the mixture
bears
little
resemblance
of
enough
Marxism
in Fromm's
and Romanticism
book.

ARISTOTLE
58
AND
THE
IRRATIONAL
bestial and unholy appetites we are aware of reaUy only when we

are asleep; elsewhere he spoke of a terrifying black horse which
the driver of the soul can never hope entirely to understand or
subdue. Freud's term for this unconscious energy is the 'it,' 'das
Es' or, as it is usually translated in EngUsh (with an added sinis
ter sound not in Freud's German)
the id. He too pictures it in
one passage as a horse,3 although in his version we each ride our
horse rather than drive it from our chariot: the id, he says, is the
aUen brute which suppUes its rider with speed and energy, but is
capable also of throwing him and trampling him to death if its
power is forgotten for a minute. As the desires of the id are un
conscious, not only their nature but their very existence must be
inferred indirectly from dreams, sUps of tongue, thoughtless be
havior, and so on; and indeed, it was not until our own time
that a really tnistworthy technique was devised for unmasking
and examining this under-Ufe. But the founders of psychoanalysis
were always eager to point out that the great men of classical
and Plato above all?were
antiquity too?Sophocles,
Euripides
vividly and continuously aware of this counter-self. Indeed, sug
if these ancients had not had this amazing self
gests Dodds,
their brilUant rationalism could not have lasted for
knowledge,
a
day.
Now it is a cardinal tenet of psychoanalytic

theory that you
cannot reaUy reason with the id; in order to Uve a rational Ufe
allow
you must
in your
wants,
the monster
dreams,
some
fantasies,
sort
of
in aU
satisfaction
and
day-dreams,
its
thousand
inexpUcable rituals, large and small, pubUc and private,

and unconscious,
all through your Ufe. If you refuse
can do
to
its
demands?a
recognize
altogether
thing which you
your attention from the evi
only by deUberately withdrawing
dence for its existence?it will simply take over: hysteria, insanity,
otherwise
conscious
paralysis,
uncontroUable
despair,
obsessions?its
revenge
has many
forms. For the id, it seems, harbors two strident and dictatorial
drives, both of which, unless heavily disguised, are utterly ab
horrent to the conscious self: it has a Umitless appetite for camal
a
gratification, and will to destroy?to destroy something outside
itself if it is aUowed the chance, to destroy itself if it is not. It is
no
incapable of responding directly to reason, because it knows
law outside itself, not even the laws of cause and effect. Nor does
it have so much as a sense of time. UnUke our conscious selves it
never rests, night or day. We can relax in sleep, notice, only by
inventing dreams which fool the id, making it think that it is
getting what it wants.
(Luckily it does not know the difference
between an image and a fact. ) But we must fool ourselves at the
same time. If the disguise becomes too thin, allowing our con
scious
3New
selves
to
recognize
Introductory
Lectures
(London, 1957), p. 102.
the monster
what
on
Psychoanalysis,
reaUy
wants,
Tr. W.
we
J. H.

wake
Sprott
Thomas Gould
59
up instantly, in a cold sweat. And if a man is not allowed to sleep

at all, or even to day-dream, for several days and nights in a row,
a
collapse of the conscious Will follows with horrible inevita
to
in the East have discovered
biUty?as certain governments
their deUght. The id takes over and rational judgement is no
we all lay ourselves open to this kind
longer possible. But in fact,
of catastrophe whenever we fail to keep alert to the signs of the
beast
clamoring
within
we
whenever
ourselves,
its
deny
exist
ence or underestimate
its power. Consider then, Dodds suggests,
if our whole civiUzation did not make precisely
this mistake
end
the
B.C.
somewhere
about
the
of
fourth
century
beginning
Are not the phenomena of the following centuries classic symp
toms of the revenge of the id?We denied altogether the existence
of the irrational within us, and so eventuaUy we were deprived of
the strength to Uve the Ufe of free, rational individuals.
This thesis is controversial, of course (to say the least!). But it
deserves very careful consideration. Now the basic theory is not
the chief difficulty, I think. Indeed, Dodds has chosen one of the
most successful of Freud's ideas. In fact, since the triumph of
in the 1920's, many forms of hysterical breakdowns
psychoanalysis
have all but disappeared among the educated. We are too aware
of our unconscious now to let things get to that state: we sUp
into
various
neuroses
boring
In
instead.
other
Freud's
words,
theory about the revenge of the id has been verified by the fact
that it has effected a change in the phenomena. Not that HoUy
wood has heard about this yet, to be sure. They continue to show
us "Freudian" thrillers where hysterical
paralysis is inevitably
as
explained
we
the
result
of
are actually beyond
sider
this
one
item:
under
personaUty
stress,
childhood
shell-shock,
so common
the
complete
in the First
virtually unknown in the Second World War.

Nor does the trouble Ue in the assumption
vidual
may
suffer,
and
"traumas,"
the
Uke.
But
that now, thanks to Freud himself. Con
a whole
civiUzation
may
collapse
World
War,
that what
suffer
also.
of
the
was
an indi
That
is an
idea which has proved brilUantly illuminating, from Plato's Re

public to Freud's Totem and Taboo. Rather, what we must do
now, in the wake of Dodd's suggestion, is to re-examine antiquity
itself, and see how far the idea may need to be modified if it is to
seems to be mainly
explain the facts. Dodds
right about the
Stoics, for instance, that they denied the existence of an incor
rigibly irrational element within the human psyche, but it ap
pears
that
the
Stoics
were
by
no means
unanimous
in this
assump
tion, as he admits. And Dodds seems to be right only in a very

queer sense when he Usts Aristotle along with Plato as one of
those of the great healthy period of rationaUsm who had a
deep
respect for the unquenchable power of the irrational.
This is a point of considerable
interest, because if Aristotle

AND
ARISTOTLE
60
THE
IRRATIONAL
really was the last to respect the id, then we will still be able to
assume that the fatal mistake coincided with the traditional date
for the end of classical Greece?the
beginning of the "Hellenistic"
period, the generation, that is, which was just getting under way
when Aristotle died. If, on the other hand, Aristotle turns out to
have denied the reality of the irrational, then we must look for the
error farther back, at least as far as the period of Aristotle's youth
and Plato's old age, and perhaps farther back yet, to the heyday
of classical Athens.
Did Aristotle accept the existence of the id or not? It would seem
that one would only have to look at the texts and find out. It is
not so simple, however. If you collect together all of Aristotle's
on
remarks
madness,
ritual
melancholy,
cures,
dreams,
tragic
pleasures and wild music; his visions of god and cosmic beauty,
individual failure and poUtical stupidity; his analyses of action
under
of war,
stress,
evil
or sexual
drunkenness
anger,
rhetoric,
his
passion;
and
poetry
slavery,
acceptance
to
melodies;
upsetting
say nothing of his detailed theories of mutilations and monstrous

find that he is almost always acute, sensitive and
births?you
about
intelUgent
factor
this
of
comes
One
reality.
from
away
Jeanne Croissant's Aristote et les Myst?res

(Li?ge, 1932) with
the feeUng that Aristotle was deeply impressed with the ubiquity
contrast to his master Plato, who
of irrationaUty in the world?in
lashed out with rage or spat with disgust at people who could not
obUterate irrationaUty from their Uves.
On the other hand, if you collect Aristotle's careful analyses of
the metaphysical
and
emotions;
causation
and
status
of
more
when
even
in
general,
that Aristotle
covery
in Plato's
motion
and human
chance,
luck,
look at his treatment
of nature
you
cannot
be
struck
the dis
but
by
necessity,
you
simply
leaves no place
for truly irrational
undirected
sense?absolutely
working
toward no genuine
universe,
sense
of
to Aristotle,
is
actually
according
at
the word?aimed
unerringly
energy
energy,
in the
All motion
good whatever.
rational
some
real
in
the
strict
advantage
however often conflicts between such aims may result in failure,

waste, or tragedy in this or that part of the sublunary world.
That is, a lamb headed straight for all that a lamb should be
a
a
might get in the way of wolf headed straight for all that wolf
from the shepherd's
should be. The result will be unfortunate
point of view (to say nothing of the lamb's). But there is nothing
irrational here, it is all expUcable by the identification of the
several genuine goods being pursued, the perfection of lambhood
and
the
whole,
for
the
irrational,
of wolfhood.
perfection
And
anyhow,
the death of a lamb is an inconceivably

so-called
not
irrational
in the
that their tendencies
sense
within
passions
are
that they
men's
aimless,
in the universe
as a
trivial event. As
are
they
psyches,
in the sense
but
are simple and unambiguous?like
the wolf's,

Thomas Gould
or
a rock when
like
like
as
tree
it hurtles
ever
it grows
toward
the
closer
to
center
a
of
or
the universe,
its
of
specimen
perfect
61
kind. When Aristotle zeroes in on the most basic of all of his

differences from Plato, it is precisely this feature which he hits
on: whereas Plato had thought that there must be a source of
undirected,
unpredictable,
in
energy
unanalysable
universe
the
preventing the visible world from attaining perfection, he, Aris

totle, saw for the first time that one needed no such hypothesis.
And surely this squares well with our general impressions of
both Plato and Aristotle. When Aristotle discusses
irrational
it
phenomena,
is
to
always
that
show
are
they
not
irra
really
tional, that there is no true difference between these and rational

phenomena. And when Plato tells us that all irrationality is bad by
definition, it is because he has a healthy respect for its undying
the impossibiUty of reconciling it with
power, and understands
true
is Plato,
It
rationality.
not
who
Aristotle,
has
us
given
so
many unforgettable
pictures of the undersides of our psychic
before, he speaks elo
energy. In the Republic, as I mentioned
in
vision
id
of
the
his
the
of
quently
many-headed monster which
comes aUve at
some apparently good
night in the dreams even of
and happy men, and in the Phaedrus he Ukens the id to an ugly,
vicious black horse quite capable of wrecking the chariot of our
soul. The desires of this black horse are an obscene parody of our
reasonable
it is a permanent
but
aims;
of us,
part
Plato
argues,
so
we had
just better get used to it and learn how to render as harm
less as possible its hideous tendencies and appetites. In the world
as a whole,
too,
unpredictable
encies
Plato
even
which
the
toward
tending
beauty,
or indeed
universe
essentially
or Chance?tend
could
not
reduce
around you: you see that things are
patterns
perfect
the
of
and
wild
he calls Necessity
designer
to his plans. Look
entirely
is a similar
there
says,
energy, which
and
splendor?whether
colors,
orders,
powers,
everywhere?toward
strength,
trees or men,
think
of horses,
of every
excellences
dimensions,
you
sort; but you also see that all of the horses, all of the trees, and
all of
the men
exists
no
waste
more
and
are maimed
than
pure
unhappiness
or another,
in one way
and pure water
or the
Confusion,
purely
equal.
or lesser
to a
abso
reign
greater
degree
blue
the possible exception of the outer

lutely everywhere, with
heavens. If there is energy toward perfect patterns, then, there is
also another kind of energy?energy
toward no goals whatever,
planless
motion,
"wandering"
as
Plato
says,
incapable
of
being
harnassed entirely for the purposes of intelligence. Plato was

against the id. (If intelligence is the best possible move toward
how could one defend wnintelUgence?)
But
genuine well-being,
to be against the irrational is hardly the same as to fail to under
stand it.
One
can
and find,
read many,
really, very
many
pages
in Aristotle,
little appreciation
on
the other
hand,
of the irrationaUty of

62
ARISTOTLE
AND
THE
IRRATIONAL
irrational phenomena. The element of Necessity which so haunted

cosmos is defined out of existence by Aristotle.
Plato's would-be
It has two main senses: the inevitable push of a piece of matter
toward the perfection of some species, or the unwanted interrup
tion in such a process caused by the interference from another
(as in the case
piece of matter on the way toward its perfection
of the lamb and the wolf.)4 Or, of course, you can speak of
in a "hypothetical" sense: if the lamb is to reach the
Necessity
full glory of its species, it will need to find in its pasturage the
foUowing proportions of the various species of crude elements,
so on.5
and
But
as a source
Necessity
of unruly
motion,
a fountain
head of failure, ugUness, and corruption, he specificaUy denies.6

As for Chance, that is not a real cause either, it is justwhat we say
when two or more purposive processes yield as an incidental side
effect an event which some person or natural tendency might have
aimed at, although none did. In reaUty, all motion and process in
the whole of the universe is purposive, however true it may also
be that the criss-cross of various processes down here beneath
the moon never aUows any single being to reach absolute per
fection, even for a minute. After all, in addition to the rather
wasteful interactions between individual plants and animals (not
too wasteful, though, Aristotle thought) there is also an inevitable
frustration resulting from the fact that higher patterns of perfec
not by pure matter
like men?are
realized,
organisms
more
matter
by
by
elementary
pre-formed
already
so on. Even
and
water,
however,
here,
flesh,
grain,
a
acts
Uke
Aristotle
economical
housewife,
marvelously
tion?complex
directly,
patterns:
nature
but
points out,7 often utiUzing the apparently waste materials with

wonderful
ingenuity.
The patterns of perfection being striven for by matter are
reduced by Aristotle to the species of plants and animals, and
their parts, also the various kinds of crude elements (these are
distinguished by the place in the universe at which they would
come to rest?their tendencies toward the center or the periph
men are driven to super
ery), and finally, the patterns which
or
on
their
impose
surroundings, artifacts, buildings, poUtical
so
on.
In
and
each
addition,
health,
ganizations,
speeches, plays,
of the heavenly spheres has a beauty which is being realized in its
perfect
circular
and
motion,
round and round by desire
the
as
universe
for the most
a whole
is moved
of all things,
beautiful
4
See, e.g. Eudemian Ethics II 1224 a 15 ff. and b 10 ff., also
Posterior Analytics II 95 a 1 ff., and De partibus animalium I 639 b
25 ff.
5 See
Physics
especiaUy
II ch.
9,
and
duction ? la Physique Aristot?licienne2

6
Metaphysics
ch.
9, Cf.
ch.
10, N
cf. Augustine
Mansion,
Intro
(Paris, 1946) 282-289.

ch.
4,
De anima III 430 b 22.

7De
generatione animalium II744 b 16 ff.
and
Physics
I ch.

9. Cf.
Thomas Gould
63
God. Now Aristotle claims that if you could discern all of these
patterns, from the lowliest to the most august, you would have a
complete explanation for every single thing that happens in the
whole universe. This is because the only other thing in nature,
matter, has neither resistance nor any independent energy of its
own, only love and desire for the perfection of these patterns,
nothing else. As he puts it in the clearest of the several passages
(Physics I, ch. 9) where he contrasts his analysis of nature with
the one which he learned from his teacher, while Plato thought
that matter simultaneously
cooperated with and frustrated the
realization
the patterns,
of
saw
Aristotle
was
that matter
motivated
only by desire for these patterns. What failure there was could
all be traced to the effect of mutually exclusive patterns pulling
the same substratum. And the frustrations are trivial, Aristotle
thought, in comparison with the glorious order of the whole
(Metaphysics A ch. 10).
All of this, all that I have said so far about Aristotle's vision of
the universe, is reasonably clear and for the most part, quite
is all there in Aristotle's writings, and accurate
uncontroversial?it
wiU
be
in any decent study of Aristotle's system.
found
analyses
And yet you will also find it said, in handbook after handbook,
after monograph,
that there are really two processes
monograph
at work
in
(sometimes
sometimes
cooperation,
at
cross-purposes)
in all natural events?that

in addition to the pull of the perfect
patterns you also have other tendencies latent in matter itself.8
Now it is true that when Aristotle describes individual events,
of an individual specimen of
especially the coming-into-being
some species of
plant or animal, he does, quite often, speak of
or
irregularity
resistance
in
the
stuff
itself,
it from
preventing
a perfect
becoming
example of its kind;9 but in the passages
where he broadens his scope and discusses with rigid precision
the true nature of aU of the factors involved in a natural event,
Aristotle leaves no possible explanation for this apparent resist
8
Eduard
E.g.
B. F. C. CosteUoe
and
ZeUer, Aristotle
and J. H. Muirhead
the
465, ff.; J. L. Stocks, Aristolelianism

Robin,
Aristote
(Paris,
1944)
Earlier
(London,
tr.
Peripatetics,
I 355,
1897)
ff.
by
and
(London, 1925) 45-57; L?on
15&-158;
Mansion,
cit.
op.
289-90;
H. H. Joachim, Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford, 1951)

184; D. J. Allan, The Philosophy of Aristotle (Oxford, 1952) 47-8;
Friedrich Solmsen, Aristotle's System of the Physical World (Ithaca,
1960)
104-5.
The
only
exceptions
seem
to be
the
discussions
of
Physics I ch. 9 and the like which merely accept Aristotle's analysis of
matter
e.g. W.
without
D.
Ross'
or not he was
whether
questioning
always
of the Physics,
edition
and Harold
Cherniss,
Criticism of Plato and the Academy

9
be
E.g.
two
Final
20-24.
consistent,
Aristotle's
(Baltimore, 1944) 90.
I 642 a 1, ff. where

animalium
there are said to
partibus
later as the Material
and
causes,
(identified
cause)
Necessity
Causation.
et corruptione
also De
C.f.
II 336 b
generatione
See the passages
cited by Mansion,
28-30.
op. cit. 289, notes
De

AND
ARISTOTLE
64
ance of matter
THE
IRRATIONAL
were
but that the other patterns which
at a more
the matter
elementary
pulling
as crude
fied
tissues,
elements,
organs,
already
level?the
patterns
so on?were
not
and
identi
pull
ing the matter into just those realizations which would be re

quired if the new, unifying pattern were to be perfectly reaUzed.
What we must remember is that there simply is no such thing as
entirely
out
matter?one
unpatterned
we
of water,
would
orate?to
that
behave,
Da
Leonardo
is,
according
Vinci's
as
that matter
to
paintings
out
the
pattern
such
resisted
of water
or a wall.
If
is not
that
brown,
turning
of
a house
to flow and evap
of a foundation
are
not
house,
tried to build
of this bit of matter
the construction
preclude
If we
not
discover,
us, but that the tendency

would
makes
or bricks.
but out of wood
matter,
because matter has a tendency to undo his designs, but because

the particular matter which Leonardo chose tended toward pat
terns which were incompatible with his higher plans for them.
The very same thing happens in conception and digestion, Aris
totle suggests. The only difference really is that in the appropria
of matter
tion
the
for
structure
of
natural
constructions,
raw materials
are
the
of an artist or artisan
beyond the wildest nightmares

anima 1403 b 11-14).
can
how
Now,
we
notion
that Aristotle
failure
in the
art? Well,
careless
writing;
to make
quite
But
"irrational."
Indeed,
he
of
persistence
(cf. De
erroneous
this
as such to be the cause of
believed matter
striven
and
for in nature
patterns
own
can
Aristotle's
blame
certainly
in
not
take
the pains
he does
always
particular,
or
he means
"matter"
clear
the words
just how
realization
for
the
explain
about
specifications
a
with
preciseness
the
dictated
one
then
regularly
the
of
thing,
we
is never
Aristotle
a
asks
great
deal
a
writer.
considerate
very
of his readers,
that
namely
they keep the whole of his immensely complex analysis of reaUty

vividly before them at all times. But there is a much more impor
tant
reason
for
this
universal
almost
and
misunderstanding,
that
is
the gross improbabiUty of Aristotle's idea itself?the very sugges

tion itself that the whole world could be shown to be really
look
flawlessly rational if we but looked closely enough. We
around
us
and
we
see
that
these
we
patterns
should
Uke
nature,
and we
seem to strive for patterns;
be
unable
ourselves,
indeed
does
reaUze that if it were not for

to make
any
sense
of
our
perceptions of separate experiences and make predictions which

will be vaUd for the future; but we also see, as Plato taught us
to do,
perceive
for our
that
with
eyes
tions?similarities
these
patterns
our minds,
us
give
only
but no
are
never
not
our
an
actually
eyes, where
infinite
identities
reaUzed.
sequence
our
among
We
are
things
of unique
experiences
have
to
tending,
percep
in this
some kind of
perpetual flux. Surely, we say, this points clearly to
an irreducible brutishness and irrationaUty in the very stuff of the
world: how, we ask, could Aristotle possibly have avoided that

Thomas Gould
65
conclusion?
In
we
fact,
question,
we
man,
Indeed
we
is what
this
own Uves are full of

ugliness
and
in
a man
and
emptiness,
dream.
as
And
we
are
feel,
must
who
Hobbes'
famous
by
phrase,
could
be
It might
to
than
aware
constantly
as of the orderly
Our
"reaUstic."
being
triviality, absurdity
see
not
with
this, we
capital
is
say,
"N,"
well,
Uving
how
If even a man's Ufe is usually,
could that be anything but worse?

to use
be
as well
mean
does
well
to Plato
closer
and hardships,
nature
for
as we
far
rational universe.
aspects of our world
of the appalling
aspects.
as
vision of a completely
on this
that,
a sensible
For
be
argued
Aristotle.
in a way,
are,
today
from Aristotle's
nasty,
"solitary,
and
brutish
short,"
how much less satisfying yet, we feel, must be the brief survival,
say, of a hen, a rat, a weed, a piece of mud or a drop of Uquid?
We could not bring ourselves to take seriously any philosopher
who denied that. Our vision of natural processes has been per
in his films of wild-Ufe: some un
fectly stated by Walt Disney
beUevably hideous rodent, insect, or reptile is forever being shown
an
enemy in long, slow, ugly gulps.
eating
equally unedifying
Our sciences all tell the same tale: physics, medicine,
psy
chology, anthropology?all
catalogue the weird array of unin
telligent drives which we take to be the real world. In fact, we are
always faintly embarrassed to find traces of intelligence, beauty
or
even
excellence,
within
ourselves.
Aristotle
that
suggested
the
pull of rational goals on the mind of an intelligent man has an

exact counterpart in the pull which the patterns of nature exert on
matter; we are far more struck by the thought that probably our
conscious
ful
plans
the spin
than
and
are
no more
designs
really
our brains
electrons
of which
rational
of
the
meaning
are made.
If we do look for something in nature which mirrors our own

souls, we find it quickly enough, but it is not the orderUness, it is
the
nize
planless
as
and
destructive
to
counterparts
tendencies
the
we
which
stupidity,
vulgarity,
blind self-gratification which we know all about within

Now
we
notice,
some
with
ourselves.
a level
was
that Aristotle
satisfaction,
recog
and
instantly
violence,
headed
scientific in his spirit.

chap, realistic and downright
Further, we notice that, far from denying the existence of the
waste and failure everywhere which so impresses us, he
spends
many pages describing it, often in painful detail. And so we are
simply baffled and greatly disappointed when we come to the
accounts which Aristotle gives
grossly inadequate metaphysical
of
these
brute
tendencies.
How,
we
ask,
can
one
man
describe
so well and yet

deny the existence of irrational energy
altogether? And so, instead of taking a closer look at his descrip
nature
tion
of
natural
physics. We
any
real
actually
drives,
conclude
status
to
to
describe
we
tend
to
turn
our
that, despite Aristotle's
genuinely
purposeless
a human
or natural
on
backs
his
meta
odd failure to allow
energy,
event,
when
he
he
must

came
have
AND
ARISTOTLE
66
THE
IRRATIONAL
slipped again and again into the inevitable

as
that matter
was
true
the
such,
author
by
of
and
sluggishness
all
Platonic
of
"To what
imperfection.
assumption
aimlessness
its own,
other
source,
indeed," says Eduard Zeller,10 "could this be traced?"

But the truth is that Aristotle apparently did not see it that
that the source of
way. He tells us repeatedly and consistently
or
violence
in
resistance
realization
the
of
be
should
pattern
traced, not to energy or sluggishness in the stuff of the world as

such, but to other patterns also pulling the same piece of matter.11
since
And
means
rationaUty
action
aimed
at a
accurately
genuine
all of these patterns are causes of motion precisely

good?and
because they are good, the goals which motivate both men and
nature?true
not
at no
aimed
energy
the universe,
according
irrationaUty,
in
exist
anywhere
does
genuine
good,
to Aristotle.
He
really did deny the reaUty of the irrational, the id, in all of nature
and therefore, a fortiori, inman. The temptation is then very great
to throw up our hands and assume that surely Aristotle could not
in
have kept this clearly in mind throughout his meticulous
of the whole of the universe; but let us resist that
vestigations
make
and
temptation
visuaUze what
existence
of
as
instead
an
brave
famines,
quakes,
and death. Well,
the large, obvious

wars,
diseases,
storms, earth
things:
of pain
inevitabiUty
to
in
these
things
keep
this
sort, you will
notice,
the
murder,
you have
Aristotle,
and
failures
says
conflicts
perspective:
of
actually occur only in that fraction of the universe which

sphere
inevitable
eternity.
to
the
irrationaUty.
Let us begin with
the moon.
of
the
can
as we
effort
look like to a man who denied
the world would
and
stops
turns
the
God
motion
rectilinear
where
Beyond,
starts
is
unknown,
totally
outermost
he
sphere,
is below
its
with
and
beauty
contact
is in direct
all
is
only with
that, and the farther you get away from him, the more
confusion
you must
the master
household,
But
expect.
must
be
as
then,
in efficient
in any well-run
command
every
or
state
minute
of the day and night, but the lowliest servants can be allowed to
waste a good deal of their Uves just kilUng time (Metaphysics A
ch. 10). And the system works remarkably well, really. The sun
moves north and south every year with a perfect rhythm; and this
creates
seasonal
mixtures
cruder
the
That
thing.
its pattern
onto
his
sperm?and
10
Op.
11 The
here
when
to survive
the
of matter?an
separates
cause
in turn
which
is, the parent,

on to a
piece
it off
proper
oak
from
the patterns
eternally
season
onto
himself.
it is to be a full grown oak or what
then?what
grown,
matter
changes,
down
happy
from
cit.
man?pulls
its environment,
at
shaping
every
despite
arrives,
its acorn,
The
stamps
a man
pattern,
it is to be a full
the matter,
appropriate
utiUzing
is reached
and
until maturity
new
it is
357.
relevant
passages
are
collected
by
Cherniss,
loe.
cit.
above).

(n.
Thomas Gould
time
survival
on
to pass
its pattern
again.
is
of the
species
guaranteed
In
this
eternal
the
manner,
if sooner
even
or
67
some
later
thing inevitably destroys the pattern of each individual speci

men (De generatione et corruptione II ch. 10). Indeed, so beau
tifully arranged is the whole, that the variety of the species which
are
in this manner
to survive
able
forms
or chain,
ladder
perfect
are left out

from the lowest to the highest kind possible?none
De
IV
VIII
588
b
animalium
animalium
4-16,
(Historia
partibus
681a 12-16). So you see, when that wolf prevented the lamb from
a sheep, nothing
achieving the full splendor of what it is to be
very
important happened.
really
As
for
nature's
an
produce
inevitable
individual
errors
little
specimen
every
some
of
it
time
species,
to
tries
is not
too
that
is
really very hard to explain, Aristotle thought.12 Conception
to
in
human
he
creative
the
the
arts,
process
precisely parallel
points out: the pattern is realized by being superimposed, as it
onto
were,
the matter
matter,
foreign
as
selected
being
already
suitably formed on a more elemental level. Error obviously is

possible at either of two points; either the matter itself is not
(as in the case of the man trying to build a
suitably pre-formed
house out of water) or the active striving toward the new pattern
is it, Aristotle
is itself somehow distracted by other goals. Why
muses,13 that the young of wild animals look very like their par
ents, but the young of human beings often do not? Could it be, he
concentrate
that
animals
suggests,
sometimes
men's
minds
on
the
the woman's
pattern;
a 11).
if the man
Now
while
passes
was
to
patterned matter
of differently
I 729
animalium
generatione
they
copulate
who
notice,
Aristotle
job,
thought,
only
the original mixture
supply
when
It is the man,
wander?
does
(De
his
part
well, if other goals do not divide his energy at the crucial mo

ment, the foetus will be male and will strive, not only for the
pattern "what it is to be a full-grown and happy man," but will
strive also toward re-producing all of the little peculiarities which
made
the
father
unique?the
father into baldness,

pattern
Aristotle
The
most
is not
done
outlines
common,
is the female
frustrating
which
side-goals
drew
the
irrascibility and so on. If the stamping of the
well,
he
various
however,
and classifies
says,
and
he
peculiar
phenomenon
ness,"?"natural"
because,
calls
the most
animalium
(De generatione
an
although
things
these accidents
interesting
may
happen.
in grisly detail.
monstrosity
IV 775 a 16). This
a "natural
lame
ava-n-qpla ^vo-lkt]
a botched
is indeed
the woman
attempt at realizing the pattern Man (after all, male and female
cannot be two species of the genus Man, because they do not
each reproduce their own kind), nevertheless nature does utilize
12Most
114, ff.
13
but
of
the
relevant
passages
are
X 10, written
Problemata
perhaps
in its
orthodox
entirely
implications,
collected
one
by
I think.
by Mansion,
of Aristotle's
op.
cit.
students,

ARISTOTLE
68
this waste
ing
IRRATIONAL
in a most
product
the next
again
THE
AND
time
in the process
way
then another
whole
ingenious
And
around.
of
class
try
of
monstrosities,
giants, dwarfs, and the like, follow inevitably from
in
which the matter presented by the female is pre
conceptions
formed by patterns other than the most congenial ones. But in all
fairness to nature, it must be said that it really does amazingly
well: look around you and you will see an astonishing number of
really good attempts at reaUzing that intricate pattern known as
In fact, Aristotle points out (Nicomachean Ethics II
Manhood.
1106 b 14-15), nature, which pursues its patterns without con
or deliberation
sciousness
are
beings
in that
is
really much
and
completion
imitation
better
than
we
we
of nature
human
art.14
call
But this brings us to the most crucial point of all in our project
to picture the world as harboring no truly irrational tendencies.
How are we to account for all of these foolish lusts, passions,
fears, hungers, and distracting emotions which are always leading
you and me into stupid, ruinous decisions? If all of the activities
in the whole universe are caused by the single-minded
love of
matter for the perfection of these patterns, whether it be a stone
a
falUng off cliff, a plant unfurling its leaves, or a beast pursuing
its prey, what in the name of heaven is a man doing when he finds
it advisable to go against an involuntary or instinctive drive
within him? Is man, by reason of his intelUgence, the only irra
in the universe?
That would
indeed
be an odd conclu
thing
But consider
for a minute.
It is a fact, after
all, as Zuckerman
err in sexual
rats never
matters
that whereas
showed,15
(isolate
tional
sion.
them from birth, then put them together, a male with a female,
and they will know exactly what to do), an ape, because of his
superior intelUgence, has to be taught by his elders in these
matters. And as for human beings?the
difficulties which they
in
trying
known.
discover
too well
sense
to make
"Congenital
of
their
relations
sexual
ignorance,"
are
Aldous
concludes
all
Hux
ley, is apparently "the condition of intelligence." But does that

mean that the more intelUgent an animal is, the more Ukely it is
to make
reason
14
mistakes?
means
Protrepticus
fr.
abiUty
15 See
Aldous
to act
13, Physics
1337 a 2, Meteorol?gica
Works
in one
Yes,
the
Huxley,
but
sense,
in more
II ch.
is
that
really
only because
one
And
this
way.16
than
8, also
194
a 21-2,
Politics
VII
Iv 381 b 6-7.
Texts
and
Pretexts,
vol.
17
in the Collected
(London, 1949) 137 f.
16
6 ch.
2 and 5. As
for Aristotle's
1-5,
Metaphysics
especially
at
de
and very
absolute
attempts
avoiding
peculiar
unsatisfactory
in nature
E
19 a 6-b
terminism
4, Metaphysics
(De
interpretatione
et corruptione
II ch. 11, De partibus
ch. 3 and K ch. 8, De generatione
a 8-10.
1-5
I
animalium
III ch.
and
640
Ethics
Nicomachean
+
Die
des
also H. Maier,
ch. 3), see Mansion,
op. cit. 315-333,
Syllogistik
Aristoteles
Nicomachean
(T?bingen, 1896) I 83, ff., H. H. Joachim, Aristotle, The

Ethics
(Oxford,
1955)
Newman, The Politics of Aristotle
108-11,
also
22-6,
and W.
(Oxford, 1887) I 16-24.

L.
Thomas Gould
69
in turn is a good thing to have, for it follows that there must be

more than a
main pattern
single drive toward the reaUzation of the
in question. For instance: the rock never errs in hurtUng toward
the center of the earth (throw it upward ten thousand times,
Aristotle points out, and you will never even begin to pervert it
from its true instincts [Nicomachean Ethics II ch. 1] ), but if it is
one inch from the edge of a cliff it is powerless to further its
course
over?it
by moving
tireless
futility
to press
on
continue
will
move
and
nowhere.
Plants,
downward
the
with
other
hand,
a hill, turn their leaves

push aside dirt, correct for the slope of
toward the sun?all sorts of things. But a plant is powerless to
defend itself against a goat if one should choose to chew off all
of its bark. The goat, by contrast, is well able to defend itself
its enemies,
from
attacks
against
say
from
fox?it
hungry
can
run away. But to stop chewing bark and to consider what

fight or
be
done to prepare for future fox raids is quite beyond the
might
powers of the goat. Man, on the other hand, can do just that: lay
aside his interest in present satisfaction and look ahead to remoter
means that
contingencies. Thus to have intelligence, although it
one
ever
makes
so
far greater
with
pattern
more
many
the abiUty to perceive
also means
mistakes,
and pursue
than
precision
that
to the
is open
one
has
of a complex
the perfection
unintelligent.
But this still leaves unanswered the excruciating problem of the

status of those instincts and desires which
the
metaphysical
man must squelch or resist. In the battle between fear
prudent
and
or
reason,
lust
between
and
for
reason,
instance,
is
what
are fear and lust,

really going on? Why, on Aristotle's analysis,
not just as rational as reason? We cannot allow him to make this
one
or
in the whole
exception
to
experience
is, by a genuine
that
fox. Here
sion when
pleasure
good?as
is our
it vetoes
ghastly
a natural
thing in the universe!

slips
out
of
our
universe.
must
just
desire
goods,
but
we
save
our
are
skin
that
the fall of that stone or the anger of

a rational
deci
again:
to be the one
irrational
once
paradox
desire
seems
more.
All
passions,
indeed rational, in the strict sense, caused,
genuine
to
as rational-motivated,
But we have not caught Aristotle

once
net
The
be
never
in fact
he
yet; he
suggests,
are
that is, by the pull of
presented
with
one
soli
tary drive within us which we must frustrate for our own higher
benefit: we are invariably presented with two, mutually exclusive,
passions of this sort, and the intelligent decision is to take that
course between them which is aimed most economically
toward
our
the true realization of the pattern Man?toward
highest pos
in
in other words. True, if a man is wanting
sible happiness,
and
has
been
he
will
have
exercised
perception
badly trained,
one of the pair of
conflicting passions to the point where it is far
too strong for him to battle against; but there was theoretically a
time in his Ufe when itwas still possible for him to avoid this state
of affairs (Nicomachean Ethics III ch. 5). The fact that a man

THE
AND
ARISTOTLE
70
IRRATIONAL
can eventually find himself with an

incorrigible character, a state
where he can no longer feel clearly the pull of his truest good, is
no more
Aristotle
surprising,
case
is the
suggests,
than
efficient
course
the man
of
who could have thrown a stone a minute ago but finds that that is
no longer in his power now that he has
dropped the stone out of
his hand. However
little we may be aware of the fact in daily
life, especially after we have been corrupted by bad habits, the
truth is that regrettable desires invariably pull on us in mutually
exclusive
our most
and
pairs,
lies between
always
two.
the
This
infamous, much
tendency
ridiculed
the mean
to take
path
I think,
as a
accounted
for,
incredibly
difficult metaphysical
his
to make
to
for
say,
the
of
It cannot be
to
problem
real
all
one
surely
attempt
desperate
resulting
True,
irrationaUty.
seem
Even
when
plausible.
a desire
simultaneous
with
an
solve
in finding psychological
ingenious
theory
that
instance,
is
blunders.
problem?a
away
explain
is marvellously
Aristotle
ments
to
attempt
except
as a
excellence
extremes
to explain of all of Aristotle's
the hardest
from
theory of moral
between
argu
is forced
he
to flee
from
battle, we also invariably feel a desire to run head-long into fire

(Nicomachean Ethics II ch. 7 and III ch. 6-9), he manages to
touch upon something which may well be true. In addition, he
finds that the theory fits tolerably well with some others of his
ideas, and even with ideas latent in Plato's teachings.17 It remains
a bizarre
herent
charge of harboring
In
there
fact,
is indicative
and
however,
theory,
in Aristotle's
main
of
to clear
program:
in
the
difficulty
universe
of
the
any
irrational impulses.
are
quite
number
famous
of
philosophical
puzzles, I would maintain, which can be solved only if we take

seriously this insistence by Aristotle that true irrationality has no
real
existence.
For
there
example,
is
the
curious
that
fact
Ari
stotle, who did not have a poetic atom in his body, should have
been the one to defend the rationality of poetry and tragic drama,
whereas Plato, one of the great poets of all time, had found it
necessary to lash out in terror at the power which poetry and
could
tragedy
wield
over men's
minds.
Let us look at this strange development. Poets and dramatists,

Plato pointed out, are imitators. That is, they show the outsides
of things: how men walk, talk, show fear, delight, and so on.
What poets do not do is go, Uke philosophers,
directly to the
heart of things and explain what is really going on. But alas, says
can
a clever
Plato,
poet
that his audience,
deeply
derstood
poet
or
2, ff.,
seem
moved,
something marvellously
the
language;
17 Cf.
also
audience
could
but that discovery
X 619
Republic
a 27, ff., 431
III426
articulate
so
convincing
assumes
that
profound.
the
new
in his
imitations
it must
Not
have
that either
insight
un
the
in rational
is only taken as proof of the Umi
a ff., the Philebus

De
passim,
a 11-20,
VII ch. 3.
Physics
anima
II 424

Thomas Gould
tations
the
of
rational
far more
surely
The
language.
of our own
man
literate
in
wisdom
literate
man
felt
that
time,
great
of Plato's
art
like
time,
there
somehow
imaginative
71
was
in rational
than
investigations. But this was a feeling which Plato wanted to fight.

It is not only good poetry and drama, Plato pointed out, which
sweeps men along and gives them this sense that they are getting
extraordinary insights. Men find different things profound accord
ing to the wisdom which they bring with them into the theater.
of
And what is worst of all, the real secret of the persuasiveness
music
is
its
that
and
draw
their
excite
myth
tragedy
compelling
ment entirely from the release which they give to the dangerous
irrational tendencies dammed up within our psyches. The trouble
with learning from poetry, then, is that one has to be a philoso
pher first before he can tell which poems are wise and which are
not.
judgment of history has gone against Plato
The
but
so much
not
because
his
was
analysis
in this matter,
or unsound,
unfeeling
I think, as because philosophy never again reached the standard

for rational discourse which Plato set for it. On the other hand,
Aristotle's
drama
see how
that worked.
and
human
as rational
poetry
human
the
world,
and
been
immeasurably
forced him to
are
therefore
the only differ
in
is that
energy
in the matter
there
right
us
Let
good.
out before,
non-human
patterns
has
and
system, as I pointed
In Aristotle's
between
times
that his metaphysics
by the odd chance
reinstate
ence
in modern
reputation
enhanced
non
the
which
they are pulling?as the pattern of the full-grown oak must be there
acorn from within?while
in human actions the pattern
pulling the
is in some
mind,
person's
him
drawing
on
to
the
reproduce
pat
tern in matter which he finds lying at hand (Physics II ch. i).

Indeed, when a doctor brings into being the pattern Health, not
in another
in his
but
body,
art
his
own,
is
a natural
like
precisely
process. Now when a man is motivated

by the belief that he
should bring into being some pattern which he sees in his mind
a house,
say
a constitution
speech,
it?
not,
Certainly
the pattern Man

7-8).
One
of
Aristotle,
says
or
more
any
over
system
after all, is that all of the patterns which
the mind
nature
at
and
art may
be
to
assumed
embedded
right there in matter,
permanent
nevertheless,
propagation
pattern
simply
that
hends
exist
to another
house
a housebuilder
the principle
see
in
exactly
any
the
built
they
by
in
moment
to be
eternal
by
can hardly pass on its
same
and the advantages,
perceives
given
survive
way
in his son. Presumably

a house
Z ch.
Plato's,
else, and yet
nowhere
because
of their kind. Still, a house
keeps his pattern going
to
invents
(Metaphysics
of Aristotle's
advantages
a father
than
in the act of conception
the
are we
play?how
in his mind? Did he invent
of that pattern
explain the appearance
another
a man
in which
what
man,
happens
is
compre
and is led to build

72
AND
ARISTOTLE
THE
IRRATIONAL
house for himself

(cf. De partibus animalium I 639 b 17, ff.).
Or perhaps in backward times, he sees the requisite pattern im
pUed in nature. (Think how much Greek architecture resembles
a forest.) Aristotle did believe that the arts
progressed and de
cUned, that they found full realization in one generation and
were but dimly perceived
in others;18 nevertheless,
he insisted
that no pattern can have been invented ex nihilo, either in nature
or in human activities, or they would not be eternal and there
fore not universals and objects of knowledge. Therefore the pat
tern House,
also
the
pattern
must
Tragedy,
existed
have
forever,
?
passed on from one reaUzation to another (cf. Metaphysics
1047 a 2?of the art of housebuilding).
But tragic drama presented a very special problem, for two
reasons.
First,
was
Aristotle
all
aware
too well
that
were
tragedies
a recent and local taste. Second, Plato had trained his

biggest
guns on tragedy and shown with horrible clarity how destruc
tively irrational it could be. Thus Aristotle had to demonstrate,
first, that the pattern which, when well reaUzed, was caUed
Tragedy had really been around all the time, and, secondly, that
it was as rational as any of the other activities and institutions in
it was not an
which men habitually engaged themselves?that
evil, in other words, but a good.
solution shows wit and cleverness. He picks up
Aristotle's
Plato's very words and makes them work for his theory. Plato said
drama
that
was
imitation.
Very
then,
well,
says Aristotle,
that wiU
work admirably as a way to identify the eternal activity which is

expressed in writing and attending dramas. Children, notice, do
not have to be taught to imitate; it seems to be a natural need.
Then if we assume that epic poetry is but a less effective mani
festation of the same eternal pattern (Poetics 1459 a 5 ff.), we
can trace a gradual progress in the perception as to how this
pattern
is best
reaUzed.
When
men
wrote
epics
in the
dim
past,
they were pursuing the pattern which moderns reaUze better in

plays, Aristotle suggests. But what is the good in this pattern,
what is it that draws men to reproduce it as men are drawn to
reproduce the pattern House or Health? Plato directed our at
tention to the manner in which drama rouses us to disturbing
emotions of pity and fear (Republic X 606). Very well, then, let
us take our cue from the way in which the arousal of violent
emotions has a purifying effect in many an ecstatic ritual (cf.
Politics VIII ch. 7). Why may we not assume that the arousal of
pity and fear has just this effect on us in the theater? Finally
Plato said that drama imitated the actions of men (ibid. 603) ;but
we
can
answer
that
an
imitation
of
highly reveaUng, and even philosophic

essential
beauty?in
other
words,
it
an
action
can
be
selective,
in that it displays order and

completes
the
tendencies
18Politics VII 1329 b 24,

ff., also II 1264 a 3, ff., Metaphysics
1074 b 10, ff. and Laws III 676.

of
Thomas Gould
Nature
and
plays,
reveals
our
case
and
voil?,
prove
the
a
by
we
eternal
careful
have
reinstated
Poetry is rational?imagine
trying to prove that!
of
let us
Now
themselves!
patterns
examination
the most
effective
as a rational
poetry
73
activity.
to
being driven by your metaphysics
Well, there it is: the world as it looked to a man who denied the
reality of genuine irrationaUty. If Aristotle had not also been a
very great genius, the whole project would have been irritating,
even monstrous. But I suppose we should be
glad that somebody
tried it. Or should we? According
to Dodds' version of the
Freudian
it was
theory,
precisely
our
because
once
civiUzation
tried to argue that the irrational did not exist, that irrationality
finally took over and reigned for centuries. If Aristotle was the
first to show how we might systematically ignore all evidence of
the id, then, according to Dodds' argument, he may have been
one of the chief authors of the downfall of ancient rationaUsm.
Or was Aristotle just a child of his generation, as we say?Was he
perhaps just the cleverest of many people who were thinking
along those lines at that time? Still, the guilt would seem to be
very great on the head of the first man to show just how the
of
suppression
our
awareness
of
true
was
irrationality
consonant
with progress in every department of science and art.

But what are we to make of this larger theory?that a whole
civiUzation loses its abiUty to hang on to reaUty whenever
it
suppresses all memory of the existence of the id? There is a new
book inspired by Dodds as much as by Freud himself, which
tries to explain the insanity of the French Revolution, coming as
it did
at die
example
of
end
of
same
the
an
reason
of
age
phenomenon.19
and
Perhaps,
hard-won
enlightenment,
this
then,
as
an
pattern?
rationaUty, followed by super-rationaUty denying all

irrationaUty, followed by the triumph of irrationality?is repeated
at many
generations,
exciting
remember
at
levels
and
discovery
that
same
the
whole
individual
time, within
civilizations.
But
let us
to cause
the
age
us
of
to
the
over-simplify
enlightenment
was
lives, nations,
not
allow
this
must
facts. We
also
the
age
of
Blake and Swedenborg; the age of Freud cUmaxed in the Second

World War. And right in the heyday of ancient rationaUsm we
find, not only Aristotle, but Socrates too, in a way, and perhaps
also some of the Sophists, arguing the id right out of existence.
Dodds closes his lectures with the pious hope that we today,
armed as we are with the new vision given us by
psychoanalysis,
will
never
suffer
so violent
a withdrawal
from
reasonableness
as
our fathers did at the end of

antiquity (op. cit. pp. 254-5). But
this raises a doubt from another quarter. When we
classify and
explain our every irrational drive, are we not doing just what
19Brigid Brophy, Black Ship To Hell (London, 1962) 279, ff. and
359.

ARISTOTLE
74
did?
Aristotle
not
really
to
addition
is
else
AND
THE
IRRATIONAL
not
that,
saying
are
if
they
we
Are
irrational
at
all
our
confessing
ownership
contrast
of us: we must
required
over
your
it as no
cepted
versal
law
irrationality
but
anomaly
Is our
of nature?
to
such
the
with
if, like Aristotle,

an inevitable
scientific
you
just
expression
investigation
of
calmly
of the
us
once
more
is Plato's
way:
pose,
remain
essentially
dence
that it exists,
to Aristotle's
recognize
fatal
that
error?
the
incomprehensible;
that it is immortal,
truly
ac
uni
alternative,
must
irrational
circumstantial
accept
and that it is your
lead
I sup
The
always
evi
enemy;
tap it cautiously in symbols and in song; and hate it with

love of life which you have in you!
20 It is true
you
irrationality,
by making us doubt that there is such a thing as rationality,

ing
are
drives
In
correctly?20
id, then,
something
it our rational
selves
kind of a victory would
and honor this above the id.What

have
in a sense,
understood
was
all the
a convinced
to his
duaUst
dying
day, and
meant
the fact that to be irrational
to be
in note
the lecture
cited
above
3, especially
incomprehensible
(e.g.
awareness
this vivid
is meant
to be
of what
) ; but one meets
pp. 98-99
in his followers.
truly irrational
only very infrequently
that
he
often
that Freud
emphasized


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1 N ONE OF A SERIESOF LECTURES

Anyone who turns from the great writers of classical

version of the soul of God. It is an atmosphere in which the

[Five Stages of Greek Religion

takes on surprising dignity and seems full of meaning. Indeed, in

aU of the alternatives might be, the probable

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fears and feelings of guilt to be the ulti

take nameless, mindless

of the city state, at the establish

themselves from their city walls, he argued. PoUtical power was

ties, wars against peoples with whom he had no quarrel, or sud

tional cults which are the chief export of Mesopotamia

also by an ever more widespread devotion to a rather f ooUsh kind

Aristotle. For while the classical philosophers assumed that only

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for this failure of nerve. It was offered, in fact, by Mur

which he deUvered in California in 1949. These lectures, which

a point of view believed

the initiate and his god; the hungry

he says, 'the Hellenic

it' (in 200 B.C.)

ray's. In fact, he borrows a phrase from Erich Fromm, of all

and irrational energies

as he remains alert to the

amine the philosophies of the healthier period, Dodds points out,

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bestial and unholy appetites we are aware of reaUy only when we

Now it is a cardinal tenet of psychoanalytic

inexpUcable rituals, large and small, pubUc and private,

(London, 1957), p. 102.

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up instantly, in a cold sweat. And if a man is not allowed to sleep

are actually beyond

virtually unknown in the Second World War.

that now, thanks to Freud himself. Con

idea which has proved brilUantly illuminating, from Plato's Re

tion, as he admits. And Dodds seems to be right only in a very

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say nothing of his detailed theories of mutilations and monstrous

Jeanne Croissant's Aristote et les Myst?res

for truly irrational

however often conflicts between such aims may result in failure,

the death of a lamb is an inconceivably

that their tendencies

are simple and unambiguous?like

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kind. When Aristotle zeroes in on the most basic of all of his

preventing the visible world from attaining perfection, he, Aris

tional, that there is no true difference between these and rational

around you: you see that things are

to his plans. Look

the possible exception of the outer

harnassed entirely for the purposes of intelligence. Plato was

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irrational phenomena. The element of Necessity which so haunted

head of failure, ugUness, and corruption, he specificaUy denies.6

points out,7 often utiUzing the apparently waste materials with

round and round by desire

for the most