Prima Pars
Lecture 26: Being and Good: Identity, Distinction, and Universality

Transcript
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with it. That's why you talk about, you see, I don't even talk about the ideas, Augustine talks about the ideas in the way that is conforming to the faith, not in the way exactly Plato talks, but you see he's pulling as much as he can out of Plato, right? Okay. He says, nevertheless, according to the first act, it is in some way good, right? And according to the ultimate or last act, in some way it is what? A being, right? Okay. So I'm said to be when my parents generated me, right? I didn't come to be when I learned geometry, but I did come to be in some way, right? I did come to be a geometer. But when I acquired virtue, if I did, I came to be good, right? But when I was generated, I was good in some way, right? So if you take being and good simply, they're not the same, right? But being simply is in some way good, and being good and good simply is in some way being, right? So they are reading the same thing, right? But there's this interesting distinction that Thomas makes, right? And he's looking both at the, what? The same kind of distinction he's making with the, what? Being and with the good, right? And then after seeing the distinction, the same kind of distinction in both, he realizes that they're just in a way, what? Contrary, right? Okay. Do you see that? Okay. Do you see how fundamental that distinction is, huh? Again, huh? That particular, one of the four or five distinctions I said that are used again and again in philosophy. Now the second objection was saying that the good informs being, right? We're thinking of the good simply as informing what? And now that you are, why don't you think about being good now? You know? That's going to be something added, right? See? Now that you are simply, why don't you think about being good simply? See? And then there's something added, right? But still, what you're adding there is being in some way too, right? Okay? And that's the way he also solves the third objection, right? That good is said according to what? More and less, right? Huh? According to the, what? Later kind of being, right? Okay? That's according to science or virtue, right? So you can be more courageous or less courageous than me, right? You can be wiser or less wise than I am, but can you be more or less than I am? No, see? Okay? But you can be more or less wise, be more or less courageous, be more or less healthy or something like that, right? Okay? So the, where you find good simply, you find being more and less. Where you find good only in some respect, being simply, you don't find more or less, right? So you can solve that. You can see the way the objections are arranged, right? Because the solution of the first objection helps you see the second and the third, right? That's what the teacher does, right? He, you know, in real life, the, the, the objections might come in any order, right? As people think of them, right? When the teacher orders them, you know, you realize that the solution of this objection is presupposed to the solution of that objection. So you'll put this objection before that objection, right? Interesting, Thomas, in the third part of the Summa, when he's asking, you know, whether, um, some of these inferior kinds of knowledge will remain with the beauty of vision, right? And he says, well, even dialectic, huh, remains after you get epistemia or science. And you actually, you, it's more perfect, because it's more, what, ordered, right? So if you read Plato's dialogues, right, the conversations and the dialogues are a long way from knowing the truth. And they, a lot of times, you know, kind of frustrating, they don't, you know, resolve the thing, huh? And they say the dialogues are written to be, to be read by students coming into the academy, so you have all these questions you want answered, and so on, you know. But we don't know how far Plato got, huh? But the dialectic, you might say, the dialogues is not as well-ordered as the dialectic that Aristotle has in, in the, uh, eight books of natural hearing and the common ethics, huh? But after man's arrived at the end, he realizes that some dialectic is more, what, useful to lead a man to eventually see something. And as you see, like here, too, you know, it can order it better, right? So dialectic is actually more perfect, huh, after you, you're, you're sure about what the truth is. And so I describe myself now, no, in teaching, you know, that the more I see the truth, the more I can see, uh, those probable things that will lead somebody towards the truth or not, right? Okay? But don't do, well, this guy doesn't, right? Okay. Now, second narrative for one, whether good, um, in definition is before being, right, huh? Okay. And of course, Thomas is going to say the reverse, right? So then he objects to himself, right, huh? I suppose the psychologist is going to say, what is something wrong with a man? Why is he objecting to what he thinks before he goes further? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody, somebody, my brother Richard went to college with, you know, and he went, in fact, got a medical degree, then he went into psychiatry, you know, and he had a medical doctorate to him, you know, he's, he's, uh, he's got the idea that we're all, you know, right at the borderline, you know? After he was studying all these, all these mental illness and so on, then you go out into the, the real world, shall we say, and he kept talking to him, and you realize, hey, this guy's just about ready to go, you know? All of us are just, you know, just that far away, you know? That's the way the world appears to him, at least. Maybe it's true, I don't know, we were all that close, but, okay. To the first, to the second one proceeds thus, it seems that good, uh, in definition, you might say, huh, secondum ration is before, what, being, right, huh? For the order of names is according to the order of the things signified to the names. But Dionysius, now he's, there's a big authority, yeah, among the other names of God, puts good before being, as is clear in the third chapter of the divine names, huh? Therefore, good, in definition, is before being, right? Or good, you might say, in our knowledge, is before being, right? Okay? So this is, again, the authority of Dionysius. Moreover, that is before, by reason, that is more universal, that extends to more things, right? But good extends itself to more things than being. Because, as Dionysius says in the fifth chapter about the divine names, the good extends itself both to existing things and non-existing things, huh? But the being, to existing things only. Therefore, good is before, in thought or reason, than, what, being, huh? Okay? Moreover, what is more universal is, what? Before, according to reason. But good seems to be more universal than being. Because good has the notion of the desirable. But to some, it's desirable for him not to be. For it is said in Matthew, chapter 26, 24, Christ speaking about Judas. This is a traitor. It would be good for him if he had not been, what? Born, huh? Terrible. Therefore, good is before being, in definition, right? Moreover, not only is being desirable, but also, what, life and wisdom and many other things of this sort are desirable, right? Okay? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. And thus it seems that to be is a particular desirable thing, right? And good, the universal. Therefore, good simply is before by reason than what? Being, huh? So the third and fourth objections have something in common there. They're trying to show that good is more universal than being, right? How could it be more universal, huh? Without being. But it makes a good attempt to do it each other, right? But against this is what is said in the book De Causes, right? That the first of created things is what? To being. I answer, it should be said that being, by definition, or according to reason, is before good, huh? For the definition that is signified by the name is that which the understanding or the reason conceives about the thing. And what it signifies through, what? Words or the vocal sound. Therefore, that is before by reason, which falls before in the, what? In the thoughts of the understanding, right? But first, in the thinking of the, or the concept, conceiving of the understanding, falls being. Because, as Aristoteles shows in the ninth book of wisdom, each thing is knowable in so far as it is, what? Act. Remember that? Right? You're showing that with the example, you know, the triangle and you had to draw the line, make it actual before it became understandable, right? Whence being is the proper object of the understanding, huh? And thus is the first understandable, just as sound is the first hearable. Therefore, by reason, being is before the, what? Good, huh? Okay? We're saying, in a sense, that something is knowable in so far as it is, what? An act, right? In so far as it has being, right? And therefore, secundum rationum, talking about the order in our knowing, in a sense, right? It's going to come before good in our knowing, huh? It's not knowable because it's good, it's knowable because it's actual, right? Okay? You can see that in a geometrical example, too, you draw that line, you're thinking of the good there, no, you're making actual something that was there in potency. When it becomes actual, it has more being, it's more of what? Knowable, right? So it's knowable in so far as it is being. So, it's having being come first in our knowledge, then it's being, what? Good, huh? Okay? It's not knowable because it's desirable, is it? No. It's knowable because it has, what? Being. Being, yeah. It's act for it. Okay? Kind of subtle reason, huh? Do you see it a little bit, huh? Yes. Now he's got to face the objection from the Greek Dionysius, and, of course, he himself says that Dionysius, he falls short of understanding Dionysius fully. But again, you know, a lot of things in Dionysius are misunderstood, but to the first, therefore, it should be said that Dionysius determines about the divine names according as they, what? Import about God, the relation between them, of a cause, right? For we name God, as he himself says, from creatures, just as a cause is named from its effect. The good, however, has the, what? Notion of the desirable, right? The good, since it has the, what? Meaning of the desirable, implies the, what? Relation of the final cause. And that's the cause of the, what? Causa, causar. Cause of all the other causes being caused, right? Whose causality is first, because the agent doesn't act except on account of the end. So the agent is a cause because of the end. The carpenter makes a chair because of sitting, right? And from the agent, the matter is moved to form. Whence the end is said to be the causa, causar. Now, you remember, was it Charles Holland's doctorate thesis? Causa, causar! All about this topic, right? Right, the whole doctorate thesis that the end is causa, causar. Or the cause of the moderns neglect the most, right? And thus, in causing, good is before, what? Being, right? Just as the end is before the, what? Form, right? That's why form is so important in metaphysics, right? Because that's the science of being as being. And for this reason, among the names signifying divine causality, first is laid down good, then, what? Being, right? Okay. Now, let's stop in there for a moment, huh? Okay. There's something special about the way in which Dionysius is, what? Considering these names, right? That makes him give the name good before the name, what? Being, right? And that's because you're considering these names according as they, what? That has some connection with God being our cause, right? And good being the type of the cause of causar, huh? Because they're going to be there for the most fundamental name, right? Okay? So, it shows that the great care that these people wrote, huh? You know, this is an amazing thing. One thing I've noticed in my study of the fifth book of wisdom, which is the book about the names, right? Well, when he gets to the names of the subject of wisdom, right? The subject of wisdom, we learn, as learned earlier in the fourth book of wisdom, the subject is, first of all, being as being, right? And then afterwards, Aristotle shows that it's also about the one, that one and being are the same as the kundum rem, right? And even closer than good and being, right? Okay? So, when you get into the middle part of book five, which are the names of the subject and the parts of the subject, you have the name being and the name one, right? And then the names of the parts of being and the names of the parts of one, right? What order do you think he does it in? Well, he does the name one before the name being. And then the names of the parts of one before the names of the parts of being. I said, that's very strange, I said, right? Because in book four, when he shows that the subject is being and one, he shows it as being before he shows it as one. And when he takes up the subject in book six through ten, he takes up being as being in book six through nine, and then he takes up the one and the many in book ten. So, the order in book six through ten and the beginning of book four is being before one. Now, when you get to the names, he takes up one before being. And it doesn't seem to be a, you know, textual accident, because no one does he take up one before being, but he takes up the parts of one before the parts of being. Okay, the names of those, huh? Well, why does he do this? Okay. Well, there might be more than one reason, right? And there's a couple of things that I see, but kind of special to the way the book is arranged, huh? Aristotle will take up the names of causes first, and then the names of the subject, and then find the names of the properties, like perfect and so on. Okay? And why does he begin with the names of the causes, right? Well, of course, the main name of cause is the word cause itself, right? And he spent all his time in book four, in book one, showing there are four kinds of causes and so on, right? So it's kind of natural to begin with that, right? Those names. And the first name he begins with is the name, what? Beginning. Okay? But then we find out that it's a property of, what? One to be in the beginning. So because he started with the word beginning among the names of causes, right? So they're appropriateness to begin with one among the names of the subject. Because of the affinity between beginning and one, right? Now, later on, you get down to the names and the parts of one and what followed upon them. You get before and after and so on. And that corresponds to beginning again, huh? Okay? Now, maybe there's another reason there, too, because Aristotle distinguishes the names of the subject and then the names of the parts of the subject, right? He has three names in the subject. Substance, being, and one. Okay? And now you've got a special problem there, right? You've got to distinguish the meanings of being before the meanings of substance. Because substance, although it's the chief subject of wisdom, right? And therefore, it's put with being and one. Nevertheless, in some ways, it's a little more particular than being, right? So you've got to kind of distinguish the meanings of being, among which are the, what, figures of predication under which is substance, right? Before you do substance, right? So if you did one after being and substance, right, it'd be a little bit jerky, because the meanings of one and being are very similar. Beings are something quite different. So you've got to do being and one together. But you've got to do substance right after being. Right? What can you do? You see? And maybe one's a little less complicated than being, too, so it's a little easier for our mind to do, right? So there seems to be some kind of special reasons, right? You see? Why he takes up the word one before being, right? Partly because he's begun with the word beginning. Right? You see? And it's kind of striking, though, but there's just a reverse order of what you have in book four when you find out that the subject of wisdom is being in one, right? And when you take up the subject in books six through ten, right, it's always being before one, right? But then in the middle, the reverse order, right? But I think there's a special reason, right? And I can think of those reasons at least, right? You see? You get the sense of what care we are to all about these things, right? The same way you get the idea of what care Dionysius has, but also Thomas has an understanding that there's a special reason why Dionysius put being before being in the names of God, right? Not because he himself thought that in our understanding, the meaning of good is understood before the meaning of being. No. But because he has a particular way of ordering, you know, the names of God insofar as they, what, pertain to God being our cause, right? God is being named as a, what, from his effects in a way, right? As a cause of them, and therefore it begins from the name that most of all tied up with the cause and the first cause, the end, huh? You know? There's kind of a special reason there, right, for ordering that way, huh? So, what is St. Thomas supposed to thank God, among other things, for having understood everything he read? I don't know if I can quite thank God. I should thank God for a lot of things, but I can thank him for having understood everything I read because there's some things I've read I haven't understood. But, you know, he's understood Dionysius, he's understood Augustine, he's understood Boethius, right? You know, and he's probably quite into people who have misunderstood Dionysius or Boethius or Augustine, and there are all kinds of people running around who still haven't understood them. Now, you've got to realize that Dionysius is more in the Patanian tradition than in the Aristotelian tradition, right? Okay? I think I mentioned earlier today, the day where he taught, where Thomas was quoting Augustine, and says, Augustine tries to follow Plato as far as he can so long as, what, Plato's still conforming to the faith, right? Okay? So, he kind of adopts the Botanic ways of speaking, right? He speaks more like a Platonist, right? Okay. And that's why I say, I think, a certain reasonable belief in Plato as a philosopher, you get that from the authority of Augustine as a Catholic, right? And the reasonableness of believing Aristotle to some extent, right? Because of Thomas, right? But in the case of Dionysius, he's more speaking like a Platonist, right? And you have to understand that he's kind of stretching, and to a certain extent, the Aristotelian might say that, right? To make this way of speaking, you speak to Plato as far as you can, right? Okay? And that's what Thomas says. And also because, according to the Platonists, right? They couldn't do Platonicals, right? Who, not distinguishing matter from privation, right? Remember how Aristotle, we saw it, did we, in the first book of Natural Hearing? The confusion and the Platonists between matter and what? Privation. Privation, right? You can kind of see how they would do that, right? Because if you're distinguishing between matter and form, considering them separately in your mind, then you're thinking of matter without form, and therefore matter as being formless, right? But Aristotelian says, matter and is formless are not the same thing, right? Because the matter is not as such none being, but the lack of form, right? As such is none being, okay? And the matter, in a way, is what? Desire is form, it's perfected by form, but it makes no sense for the lack of form to desire form, right? So the Aristotelian would want to distinguish between matter and lack of form more than the Platonists, huh? And there's a great danger in confusing matter and lack of form, because the lack of form, in a way, seems to be opposed to form, and form is something good and desirable, therefore the lack of form seems to be something bad. So if you don't distinguish between matter and what? Lack of form, you're going to think of matter as something, what? Bad or evil. And if you look at Plotinus, right? He speaks that way, that matter is evil, right? Well, now you're into the Manichaean position, really. That's a very dangerous thing, right, huh? Okay? But Dionysius and Augustine are trying to, what? Use Plato as much as they can, and they have something of his way of speaking, right, huh? Okay? So, and it's important, he says, who, not distinguishing matter from privation, right, huh? Okay? Say that matter is none being, right? Now, simply speaking, that's not true, right? But you could say it in some way, right? Yeah. It's none being an act, right, huh? And so on, huh? And, you know, if you read some of these passages of Augustine, he talks about the first matter, right? If I could say it's a something that is a nothing, or a nothing that is a something, that's what I would say. You know, if you realize it's not exactly, you know, altogether clearly saying, right? But it's a rather strange reality, right? See? But you see, he's not, in a sense, distinguishing clearly between the matter and the, what, lack of form, right? Okay? So because they don't distinguish between matter and privation or lack of form, they say matter to be none being, right? Okay. And then they extend to more things, the partaking of good, the partaking of being. For the first matter partakes of the good, since it desires it, right? For nothing desires something, unless it be in some way like itself, right? But it does not partake of being, since they lay it down to be none being, right? So what it's atonium, you have to say, but it is being, but being in ability, right? It's less a sense, huh? And therefore, Dionysus says that good extends to, what? Non-existing things, huh? Okay. Now, as an Aristotelian, I don't think Thomas, you know, thinks that's the best way of speaking about this, but he's willing to go along with Dionysus and Augustine's way of speaking, right? Which is closer to Tom's way of speaking, right? But strictly speaking, you have to say that matter is, what? Being in ability, right? So even if matter is in some way good, it's not as if it's not being in some way, right? But it's not as good as act, huh? And form, huh? That's where Aristotelian says there that form is something God-like, right? Because God is pure act, huh? But insofar as abilities for the sake of form, it partakes of something of the goodness of form. So why don't you take a... A little break, is it too early? A little break after the ejection? Yeah. A little break. We're going to a second ejection. Okay, let's go on to the second objection, I guess. Once is clear the solution to the second objection. And the second objection is saying that good is more universal, right? And he says, well, that's just the Platonic way of speaking, right? But other places you might distinguish more. Or, he says, it should be said that good extends to existing things, to non-existing things, not by predication, but by what? What? Causality, yeah. That to non-existing things we understand, not those things which simply are wholly not at all, but those things which are, what? In ability and not an act, right? But strictly speaking, should they be called non-existentia? Most strictly. Yeah, because strictly speaking, they're being and potency, right? Okay, but you could say they're non-existing in the sense of non-existing an act. In a certain way. Yeah, because good has the notion of an end, in which not only rests those things which are in act, but to it also are moved those things which are not in act, but in potency only. Where being does not seem to imply the relation of a cause except that of a, what, formal cause only, either one in herring or the exemplar that you model something after, whose causality does not extend except to those things which are, what, in act. That's a kind of subtle way of explaining it, huh? To say that good has more of the notion of end, right? And end is not only what things rest in that have reached their perfection, right? But it's also that to which things that are seeking their perfection are still in ability and not in act, and moved, right? By being refers more to what? But the form of a thing, which it has to be in, and therefore it seems to be more tied to the actual, right? That's the way of looking at it. But you could still say, you know, that matter is more being in ability than it's non-being. Okay? It's non-being in act, but it's also being in ability. So, but the causality of form, whether it be one in herring or an exemplar that you model things after, does not extend itself except to those things which are in act. Okay, now the third objection is a different kind of objection, right? And it says, well, it's only to be desirable, because the good is the desirable, right? Well, it's desirable for, what, Judas not to have been born, right? Okay? And, of course, you know, these tragedies, there's always someone at the end taking his life or something, right, huh? So, it seems desirable to Romeo, let us say, to take his own life, right? When he thinks that Juliet has, what, died, right, huh? Because he thinks he can only have happiness with Juliet, and therefore, right? Now, in the superior objection, Thomas is going to be touching what distinction? What kind of distinction? Right? Secundance, or simply speaking, in a certain way? No. No. What? Different forms of the foil? No. He's going to be distinguishing between the as such and the by happening. Okay? Now, this is something we do, and we did before when we developed the definition of the good, that is what everybody wants, right? Okay? And someone says, well, some people sometimes want what is bad, right? Remember that? Okay? They say, well, do they want the bad as such? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. And that comes up again in the other thing about the matter and privation, right? Because Aristotle will say that matter as such is not an unbeing. Lack of form as such is an unbeing. But matter, by happening, is not. So that distinction could injure up if you wanted to speak more like Aristotle does. So you'll meet these distinctions again and again and again. So the sooner you begin to understand that kind of distinction, the more you can understand a particular example of that kind of distinction. And you can start to avoid the most common kinds of mistakes, right? From speech or outside of speech. The fourth objection is saying, well, not only being is desirable, but life and knowledge and so on, right? I don't know if I'm a lover of being, I'm a lover of wisdom. It says, to the fourth, it should be said that life and science and other things of this sort are thus desired that they might be an act. Whence in all of them is desired a certain being. So when I love wisdom, I want to be wise, right? So what I want is to be in some way, right? And thus nothing is desirable except being, right? And consequently, nothing is good except what? Being, huh? Okay. So in a way, you're seeing both sides here that being and good are what? Convertible, right? But this will come out more now in the third eye corner. Okay. Whether every being is good, huh? Okay. This always strikes the non-philosophist kind of straight. How can you say that everything is good, right? What kind of an optimist are you, you know? Well, you know, a fragment of Empedocles, or there, you know, he mentions, you know, men having lived a short time in life and experiencing bad things and good things. And I say, well, he's mentioned bad things first. Okay. To the third one proceeds thus. It seems that not every being is, what? Good, huh? For good adds something above being, as is clear from what has been said before. But those which add something above being contract it, right? And he takes the, what, distinction of being according to the figures of predication, substance, quantity, quality, and so on, right? So they're, what, less universal. So if good adds to being, just like substance, quantity, and quality do, then it's going to contract it, right? Okay. Now, as he's going to point out here, a little bit in the reply to this objection, that that's not the way in which good adds to being, in the way in which substance, quantity, and quality do. But if I remember rightly, in the Veritatte, there comes a beautiful distinction of three ways that this can add to that. Okay. And maybe I'll give you that when I get the reply to the first objection, right? It doesn't make it explicitly here, right? Okay. So sometimes, I think the Veritatte is probably earlier than the Summa, I think. But sometimes in earlier work he's more explicit than in later work. Sometimes it's reverse, right? But you have to get used to that phenomenon of writing, right? Because I know myself, my own experience, that sometimes I'm, what, more brief, and sometimes I unfold myself more, you know? It's an old Shakespearean phrase, unfold yourself. But Shakespearean, I mean, they kind of use it in class sometimes, you know, unfold yourself, you know? But sometimes you unfold yourself more, and sometimes less, right? But not necessarily in any, what? We say it's order, right, huh? Okay. So I'll do that when you get the reply to the objection, huh? Moreover, nothing bad is good. But, for I say it says, fifth chapter, verse 20, Woe to you who call bad, what? Good and good bad, huh? That reminds me of the beginning of what? Of the witches there in the beginning of Macbeth. Fair is foul, and foul is fair. Good is bad, and bad is good, right? Hover through the fog and filthy air. I gave a lecture at St. Anselm's one time in those two lines, right? Because in the moral order, fair is foul, and foul is fair. There's two mistakes you can make. You think that what is good is bad, and what is bad is good. And then, hover through the fog and filthy air. The two causes of that, huh? The fog of the mind, right? And then the filthy air of your morals, right? Okay. And I had other texts where Shakespeare, you know, elaborates those things. Well, that's a beautiful text in Shakespeare, right? The two mistakes you can make and the two causes of mistakes. Okay, that's a nice text from Isaiah. Moreover, good has the notion of what? The definition of desirable, the meaning of desirable. But the first matter does not have the ratio of something desirable, but of one desiring only, huh? Matter desires form. Therefore, first matter does not have the ratio of good. Therefore, not every being is good, right? Moreover, the philosopher says in the third book of metaphysics, that in mathematics, there is not the good. But the mathematics are some beings. Otherwise, there would not be about them any knowledge, huh? Therefore, not every being is good. You can see kind of why, in the mathematical science of nature, it kind of dominates modern science, why they should have difficulty in understanding the good, right? And the end. And the end of the good being in nature, right? You only see nature mathematically, in a way, is seeing it without the good, huh? It's kind of the moderns, see the world as being without sense qualities, without substance, and without purpose. And all those things are missing in math. There's no substance there. There's no sense qualities. There's no purpose. And so, you know, custom is what? The major force in our thinking, huh? So if you're accustomed to thinking mathematically, you're accustomed to thinking things rigorously, without sense qualities, without substance, without purpose. And so all those things seem unscientific. But against this, huh? Every being that is not God is a creature of God. But every creature of God is good, as is said in the first epistle to Timothy. Chapter 4, verse 4. Now, God himself, of course, is most of all good, right? Therefore, every being is good, huh? I answer, it should be said, that every being, in quantum as then, right? That's saying, as such, right? No way of saying that. Is good, right, huh? For every being, insofar as it is a being, is an act, huh? And therefore, in some way, perfect, right? Because every act is a certain, what? Perfection. But the perfect has the notion of the desirable and the good, as it's clear from the things said before. Whence it fouls at every being, and as such is good, right? Right, huh? Okay. But you could also go on and add that being is said, to some extent, to what? Ability, too, right? But ability desires act, right? Ability is for the sake of act. It's in order to act. And therefore, in a more remote way, it partakes of the good, too, right? Which is, it's being in a lesser sense, right? So it's not good as fully as that which is an act, huh? So to know something actually is good. Did you know that? Yeah. But if to know is good, then to be able to know is good, right? Well, it's not as good as knowing. Okay? So ability as well as act is good, huh? Now, Thomas says, To the first, therefore, it should be said that substance, quantity, and quality, these are some of the, what, highest jain right there, and the things that are contained under them, they contract being By applying being to some what? What it is, or some nature, right? Sick, however, thus, however, good does not add something over what? Being, right? So, but it adds only what? The thought of being desirable and imperfection, right? Which belongs to to be itself in whatever nature it might be, right? Therefore, the good does not contract being, right? Okay, now this other text, I think it's in the very talk today, where he says, something can add to something else in three ways, right? And he says, the first way can add to something, something entirely outside the nature of the other thing, right? So you have a triangle, let's say, and you add to triangle green, right? Okay? Well, green is entirely outside the nature of the triangle, okay? Or you add to a man's geometry, right, huh? Okay? Well, geometry is not part of the nature of man, right? Some connection, I think, between the two, okay? But you're adding another thing. Now, a second way something can add to something, and that's in this example of substance, quantity, and quality, is the way in which what is added determines, right? Contracts in some way what it's added to, huh? And that's the way in which man adds to what? Animal, right? Or square adds to quadrilateral, right? Now, does square add to quadrilateral in the same way that green adds to a triangle, let's say? No, see? Because green is not a determination, right, of what it is to be a triangle, right? But does equilateral triangle, let's say, I don't have a name for it, so let's take the whole phrase. Does equilateral triangle add to a triangle in the way that green adds to a triangle? No. So it distinguishes those two ways, right, huh? Okay? Now, what's the third way? Yeah, yeah. We're adding something not real there, right, but something of reason, right? And Thomas will sometimes point out that a being of reason is of only two kinds, a negation or a privation, that kind of addition. We're not adding anything real, okay? And then some kinds of relations, which are only relations of reason. That's a very involved subject to get into, right? Okay? And when Thomas will contrast, as we'll see later on here, when we get to the one, right, the one adds to being nothing real, but a, what, being of reason. It adds indication, right? Undivided being, huh? Okay, so the meaning of one, you say God is one, you mean he, say what? Undivided being, right? Indivisible being, right? Okay? Now, sometimes they say, they'll say indistinguishable others, too. Okay? But even that is negation, too, huh? Okay? You're not divided, right? But you're not anything else, either. But that's, is that anything real? No. Okay? I am a man whose body and soul are not separated now. If I add something real to me? You're just a man, right? But I'm a man whose body and soul are not separated. If I add anything real to me? Are that not? See? Now, if I say I'm a healthy man, then I'm adding something real to me, right? Healthy, right? But a man whose body and soul are not separated. What I'm adding there is negation, right? But is negation something in the real world? Okay? Okay? Or I'm a blind, if I was a blind man, right, huh? Is blindness adding something? So, if you do the very, very topic sometime, we'll make this distinction of the three ways something can add to something, huh? What if we're swaying again? Well, you're adding something of another nature, right, huh? Of another nature. And times to say, nothing can add to being in that way, huh? Because then it wouldn't be anything, right? It can't be something wholly outside the nature of being. Like green is wholly outside the nature of trying, right? Because being is completely universal, right? Okay? You know, you can say the same thing about the word thing or something, right, huh? You know, can you add something to something? I'm thinking of something, right? Well, am I thinking of a substance or a quantity or am I thinking of a quality or a relation, right? You know? They would add to something, right? But in the way that substance, quantity, and quality add to being, right? Okay? But now suppose I say, I'm thinking of something undivided. Something undivided. Does that add something to something? No. No, you're just relying on something. What? It's okay, reason only. Yeah, reason only, yeah. And is it contracting something, see? Like when I say, I'm thinking of something substantial, or I'm thinking of some relation, right? Then I'm contracting it, right? Okay? But can you add something to something that's entirely outside of something? Then you'd be adding to something something that isn't something. Right? Okay? Yeah. So it's kind of interesting, you know, Thomas, again, a distinction of three, right? There seems to be three ways that something can add to something else. Yeah, we're adding something that is entirely outside the nature of the other thing, right? I mean, you know, you're saying, okay? But when I go, say, from quadrilateral to square, right, it's a different thing there, right? Because in a way, that's what square is, is a quadrilateral, right? Okay? Green is not a triangle, right? But square is a quadrilateral. But what quadrilateral is saying in a kind of general and indistinct and undetermined way, right? Square is saying more distinctly and determinedly, right? Determine that, right? Okay? But when I speak of a straight line and an undivided line, right? It's undivided adding something that contracts line, right? An undivided something, huh? Something distinct for everything else. And thinking of something that is distinct for everything else. But something of reason, Thomas will say that anything absolute is opposed to relative, right? In a posizio absoluta is what the latinians say, right? Well, posizio is opposed to negatio, right? And absoluta to, what, relative, right? Anything that posits something absolute in a thing is going to be, what, something in a thing, right? But it's only a negation and certain kind of relation. That gets very tricky in any type of relations. And that can be something only in reason, right? Only a being of reason, huh? That's it. And ti avatsilis. And the second objection was from Isaiah's there about woe to those who call bad good. So I say everything's good. There's a lot of bad things out there, right? Everything's good in the world, right? I see him saying some bad things are good, right? Oh, I'm under the condemnation here of Isaiah's, and the one he speaks the name of, right?