Note 30 — Chapter XIV · THE LATER AGE OF THE GREEK WORLD PART I PHILOSOPHY

de An. 407b, 13–26; 414a, 19–27.—And yet it must be admitted that the νοῦς of Aristotle is itself a τυχόν within another τυχόν—not indeed as a separate entity with any qualities set in a fortuitous vessel of perhaps discordant qualities that do not fit it (which acc. to the Πυθαγόρειος μῦθος was true of the ψυχή in the σῶμα)—but at any rate set within an animated individual with quite definite qualities as a stranger, itself devoid of all definite quality and therefore not capable of having a character specially fitting that individual in which it is placed. Thus, after all, the Aristotelian μῦθος about the νοῦς betrays its origin from the μῦθοι of old theology.