Prima Pars
Lecture 27: Evil as Privation and the Good as Final Cause

Transcript
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To the second it should be said that no being is said to be bad insofar as it is what? Being, huh? But insofar as it what? Lacks a certain being, huh? Okay? I kind of learned that even in the first book of Natural Hearing, huh? Where a style distinguishes between matter and form and lack of form, right? And form seems to be something God-like, right? Good and desirable, right? Because God is pure act, as we know, huh? And form is a kind of act, so it's something God-like, huh? And then he distinguishes between matter and lack of form. Lack of form, being opposed to form, seems to be something bad, right? But matter being capable of form, in order to form, seems to, in a secondary way, partake of goodness, right? So he sees the bad as rooted fundamentally in what? The non-being as something you're able to have, and especially something you should have, right? Okay? That's the fundamental meaning of bad, right, huh? So, again, the distinction of the as such, you see, in quantum essence, right? Just as a man is said to be bad, right, insofar as he, what, lacks the being of virtue, right? And the eye is said to be bad insofar as it lacks the, what? Clearness. Yeah, yeah, so I say sometimes, you know, as far as this is concerned, they're more distinct with my left eye than my right eye, right? So I say that's my bad eye, right? But this is my bad eye, as far as distance, and reading it's just reverse. The bad eye is what? Its badness is it's lacking something, right? It's able to have and should have, right? So, sometimes we speak of bad in another sense, but it's not that there's something bad, right? So, again, you see that there's nothing but, that neither act nor ability as such is bad, right? But it's when you're able to have something, and should have and don't have it, that there's something bad, huh? That's kind of the key to understanding the bad, huh? So, sometimes we speak of bad in another sense, not the lack itself, but what has the lack, right? It could be said to have a lack, okay? So, what is a bad human act? Well, a bad human act is not simply a non-being, because it's an act, right? But it's a secondary meaning now, bad, right? A bad human act is a human act that lacks something it should have, right? It doesn't have. It's an act that lacks the order or the measure, right, of reason, huh? Okay? So, that's why the badness is a lack there, right? And then the third meaning of bad sometimes is what produces a lack, right? So, because blindness is bad, then to be blind is bad, right? And because to be blind is bad, and for me to poke your eye out is bad, right? I don't think that it causes you to be blind, huh? But the fundamental meaning of bad is the blindness, right? And what is the blindness? Well, it's a non-being, right? Something you're able to have and should have, right? So, my mug here is not blind, huh? So, it's not that the bad is a negation, simply, right? It's not bad that the mug doesn't see, right? But it's a non-being of something in a subject able to have it and should have it and when it should have it, right? Okay? So, when Augustine says, you know, sin is nothing, and the man who sins becomes nothing, right? He's not speaking with quite the precision that you could maybe speak, right? Because nothing is really almost the same as, what, non-beings, right? But we distinguish between non-being and lack, right? Because lack is a non-being in a subject, huh? That is able to have something, should have it, huh? But doesn't have it, huh? So, not seeing is not bad, but being blind is bad, right? Okay? See that? So, there's, Herstal, you know, is the man who distinguished between the opposition of contradiction and having and lack and the opposition of contrariety, right? And when you have, let's say, virtue and vice are opposed in one way, sight and blindness in another way, and seeing and not seeing in a third way, right? And seeing and not seeing, there's no alternative, right? You either see or you don't see. If this doesn't see, I see, okay? But are you either have sight or you're blind? No. You and I either have sight or we're blind, and the dog or the cat, but the mug here neither has sight nor is it blind, huh? Okay. So, the thing that has sight and the thing that is blind has something in common, namely that they are a subject, right? It's able to have sight and should have sight, right? Okay? But see and not see doesn't require even a subject, right? Nothing in common. But then you get to virtue and vice. You have not only the subject, but you also have, what? The same genus, right? Because both virtue and vice are a habit. Vice, sight, and blindness are not both equality, but one is the non-being of equality, huh? So, I still distinguish those three kinds of opposites and then the relative opposites, right? There's then the categories and then the fifth book of wisdom, huh? That'd be important when we get to talk about the Trinity, huh? Because how is the Father and the Son distinguish the kundum rem? Yes. They really distinct, the Father and the Son, huh? But by what kind of opposition are they distinguished, huh? Well, it's not the opposition of being and non-being. I am who I am is there. And certainly not the lack, right? The contrariety. The times of the limit, all of them, they must be by relatives, right? And that's what Augustine did show them before him, right? That's what St. John says, huh? Beginning was a word and the word was, what? Towards God, huh? Post the word for relatives. Okay, the third objection was, the good has the notion of the desirable, but the first matter, huh? People always call it prime matter. I call it the first matter, right? I like to speak English. But the first matter, it sounds more obtrusive to say prime matter, right? But the first matter does not have the notion of desirable, but of desire only. Therefore, the first matter does not have the notion of the good. Therefore, not every being is, what? Good, right, huh? To the third, it should be said that the first matter, just as it is not being except in, what? Ability, right? So, neither is it good except in, what? Ability, right? Although, according to Platonists, right? It is able to be said that the first matter is non-being on account of the, what? Privation adiuntum, right? It's not because it is the privation, but it's, what? Because it happens to it, right? Okay? But nevertheless, it partakes something of the good insofar as, what? Namely, the order or the aptitude that it has to the good. It's capable of the good, right, huh? And thus, it does not belong to it that it be desirable, but that it, what? Desirous, yeah. And when Thomas talks about the human mind, he says the human mind, the human reason, is in the order of understandings, like prime matter is in the sensible world, huh? Which means that we've got the lowest mind of all. You know? And so Aristotle says it's like a tavern on which nothing's written at first, huh? By the angels, they're created, you know. Already an act, huh? Not as an act as God is, but the other act. Or just an inability at first. What one priest said about potential vocations, he says, we don't want prime manner. But if the end of this is consequently to be desirable is not his property, what the desire, but if it's not, if desire, being desirable is not his property, then what's the cause of saying it's good? What he says is, here, above there, he's saying that it's not good except in, what, ability, right? But, again, you're not saying it's being yet except in ability either, right? Okay? So you're not having, what, being extending further than, what, good, or being found we don't find the good, right? Oh, okay. Just as you find being, you might say, in a lesser sense, so you could say you find good in a lesser sense here, too, right? That's clear there from the, remember how he showed that in the ninth book of wisdom, right? That act is better than, what, ability, right? That book right now. Okay. So, the fourth objection from mathematics, right? To the fourth it should be said that mathematical things do not subsist, separated, according to being, huh? And it goes back to the disagreement between Plato and Aristotle, right? Remember the central question of philosophy? Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are, right, huh? And Plato seems to be answering yes, as most philosophers do, right? And Aristotle says no, right? So Aristotle says, it's possible to truly know things in separation that don't exist in separation, right? Now, Plato's saying no, you can't truly know things in separation if they don't exist in separation. Well, they both agree that you're truly knowing in mathematics, right? But because of their different answer to the central question, then Plato says, well, then the mathematical things must truly exist in separation from, what, sensible things outside of our mind, right? So there's a mathematical road between the world of forms and the sensible world, right? And Aristotle says, no, no, no. There's a separation in our knowing, but not in the thing, right? And Aristotle was saying you can know in separation things that, what, don't exist in separation. Not always, but in some cases you can, right? So you can know I'm a grandfather without knowing I'm a philosopher. I know I'm a philosopher without knowing my being a grandfather. Your knowledge may be incomplete, but it's not false. So he says, following Aristotle, that the mathematical things do not subsist, separated, say, kuna messe. Because if they subsisted, right, in themselves, right, there would be in them the good, right? Namely, they're, what, they're very being, right? But the mathematical things are separated according to reason only, insofar as they abstract from motion and matter. We saw that in the second book of Natural Hearing, right? In the definitions of geometry, there's no, what, matter in the ordinary sense and no, what, no reference to motion, right? So the geometrical sphere has no melting point and no freezing point. And it's neither heavy nor light nor fragile nor, you know. So you can't speak of, you know, remember my example there, if you take a rubber ball, you throw it against the wall, it'd bounce back, maybe. Take a glass ball, it'd probably, what, shatter? Take a steel ball, it'd probably stick in the wall if you didn't go through it. But you couldn't say any of these things about the geometrical sphere, would you? Which you didn't do. You threw a geometrical sphere against the wall, would it shatter or would it bounce back, you know? If you didn't go over a lead balloon and go down, if you didn't go over a heating balloon and go upright, if you didn't go over a geometrical sphere, what does it do? But there's no reference to motion, though, right? So it's separated from that, right? And this they abstract from the notion of the, what? In, right? Which has the notion of something that moves things, right? It's not over inconvenient that in some being, according to reason, there is not the good or the razzio of good, since the razzio of being is before the razzio of good, right? But maybe, you know, you might say it sometime else, maybe that there's, what, something good there for a reason, right? Okay. So, we're halfway through, maybe you should stop here, it's almost 4.30. We're halfway through, and three is enough, as I said, and we've learned, huh? So we're learning about the good, right? So, we're learning about the good, right? So we're learning So we're learning Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Jellic Doctor, and help us to understand all that you have written. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. So we're up to the fourth article of the fifth question. And we might just recall a bit here our knowledge of good that we had from philosophy. And when Socrates asked the question, what is something? Like if he asked the slave boy, or the American boy for that matter, of what is good, right? You would get a number of examples, right? Candy's good, pizza's good, baseball's good, and so on. But then when Socrates would stop and explain to the American boy, the difference between defining what something is and giving examples of it. And that the definition has to bring out distinctly what is common to all these examples. Well, then the boy said, well, what does the bicycle and vacation and pizza and all these things have in common? Well, these are all the things that he wants, right? So he might come up with the first definition of good, as the good is what all want. The good is what all desire. And that is, in fact, the first definition of the good. As Aristotle gives it himself in the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, he begins with a little induction to show that, and then hence he says, they speak well who say. The good is what all want. And Socrates had said something like this in the dialogue called the Mino, that everybody wants something good for themselves, right? Then the next step is to ask the kind of question that Socrates taught us to ask in the Utifo. And you could ask it about this, and you could say, is it good because we want it, or do we want it because it is what? Good. Good, yeah. And that's the kind of question you can ask about a lot of things. This guy here, Augustine here, that I gave some books of the day, I gave some books of the day, if I remember rightly. But anyway, Augustine quotes the first definition of the beautiful. The beautiful is that which pleases when seen. And he asked the Socratic kind of question. Is it beautiful because it pleases our eyes, or does it please our eyes because it is beautiful? And Augustine says, I have no doubt that it pleases our eyes because it is beautiful. Well, if that's so, then that definition of the beautiful is that which pleases the eyes when seen is a definition of the effect, a result of its being beautiful. So it's not a perfect understanding of what the beautiful is. But we tend to know effects before causes, and we tend to know causes at first through their effects. So it's not surprising that we first define the beautiful as that which pleases when seen. and how we define the good here. The good is what all want. Is that the cause of it being good? Or the effect of it being good? Well, as you may recall, we went through this before, I think. There's a very obvious objection to saying something is good because you want it. And that's the experience everybody has of having wanted something at some time in their life, which not other people, but they themselves, later recognized was bad for them, right? My standard example is what? The guy who says at the party, you want another drink? And you say yes, okay? And that drink is one too many for you. So then you realize that last drink was bad for you, right? But he wasn't forced to do another drink. And he said yes. And so if wanting was the cause of something being good, then that last drink would have to have been good for you, but obviously it was not. Or I take the example of the kid who drives his car 100 miles an hour down the city street. He wants to drive it 100 miles an hour, right? But after his car is smashed around the tree and he's in the hospital and so on, even to himself he might admit it was not good for him to drive his car 100 miles an hour. But he didn't want to drive it that fast, right? No one was pushing his foot down on the gas pedal. He did it. He wanted to do it. So it's clear that something then is not good because we, what, want it, huh? Now if you say the opposite though, that we want it because it is good, that the good is the cause of the wanting, then there are a couple of objections to this too. One is that the good is not always wanted. So how is it possible that you have the cause and not the effect? And then the idea that contrary causes have contrary effects. So if the good is the cause of wanting, then the bad, which is the contrary of good, should be the cause of the opposite of wanting, of turning away. But as his example of the last drink and so on showed, sometimes people want what is bad for them, right? So there's a little problem on either side, right? And you may recall how I tend to first try to answer the question, right? By the kind of argument that is most proportionate to us in universal things, induction, right? and make a list of fundamental goods like food and water and reproduction and money and so on, right? And the desire for these things, huh? And you can see in each particular good a reason for saying it's good apart from the desire for it. You can see a reason why food is good for a man and for that matter for the other animals apart from their hunger for food, right? So nature didn't give hunger to make food good and necessary for the animal but because it's good and necessary for the animal nature gave them a hunger so they would pursue what is good and necessary for them. The same way with water and thirst, right? You can see that water is good and necessary for man and the other animals and even the plants apart from their head and thirst. So thirst did not make water good for the animals or man but because it's good and indeed necessary for their very life nature has implanted in them all this desire for this. And notice generally speaking you have more hunger more desire more thirst when you need food more, right? When you need water more, right? And the same way with reproduction, right? Can you see a good reproduction for man and for the other animals and even for the plants apart from their desire to reproduce? Well, without man and the other animals and the plants reproducing that kind of animal that kind of plant would go out of existence, right? That's very well. So there's a very great good that reproduction achieves the preservation of this kind of animal this kind of plant, huh? So you can see reproduction is good apart from any desire that the animals have to reproduce. So nature didn't give animals the desire to reproduce to make reproduction the great good that it is. But because it's such a great good for the species, right? Especially nature is implanted in all the animals this desire to what we produce. And again with money I think a more human thing here everybody in my class wants money, right? And I say now is money useful in our society for all kinds of things because you want it or do you want it because it is useful to get all kinds of things? Well obviously you'll want it because it's useful for all kinds of things and to be useful is one sense of being good, huh? So you can see inductively, right? That something is not good because we want it. You can see a reason why something is good apart from the wanting for it. So the wanting is not the cause of the good being good but a really an effective result of it being good, huh? Now sometimes we go and say a little more and say a little more and say a little more and say a little more and say a little more Fully, that the good is wanted insofar as it's known in some way, by the senses or by the reason. So the good as known in some way, you could say, is a cause of desire, right? And that explains why the good is not always wanted. It's not always known, right? So in the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo doesn't want Juliet, even though she's as beautiful in the beginning as she is later on. But he doesn't know about her beauty, right? He wants her eyes on it. And this also explains why people can, in some sense, seem to want what is bad. Bad, because both the senses and reason can have partial knowledge of something, right? So they may know the good in something and not know the bad in it. So you might want to drink a delicious poison, not because it's poisonous, but because it's delicious, right? So it's the good as such that's moving the desire, not the poisonous character of the strength, huh? Or one is moved sometimes, or one can be deceived by the likeness, right? So people eat poisonous mushrooms not because they want to be poisoned, but because it's hard to tell the poisonous mushrooms apart from the good mushrooms, huh? So you can explain those difficulties that we saw on this side where the truth is, right? So we conclude, finally, then, that this first definition of the good, the good is what all want, is a definition by effect, huh? That the thing is not good because you want it, but the good is the cause of the what? The one thing, yeah, okay? Now we're ready for Article 4, right? What kind of a cause is the good, huh? Okay? And as you know, philosophy of nature, and in the fifth book of wisdom also, we learned that there are four kinds of what? Cause, huh? One kind of cause is matter, that from which something comes to be, existing within it. Like the wooden chair, say, came to be from wood, and wood exists within the chair. And the second kind of cause is the definition of what was to be. And this is the kind of cause you might call form, right? What makes the chair to be a chair, intrinsically, huh? And then the third kind of cause is the mover or maker, the mover being defined as whence there first is a beginning of motion and of rest, right? And then the fourth and last kind of cause to really be recognized was a kind of cause called the end, huh? Purpose. Sometimes people call it the final cause, but that comes in the Latin word for end, right? And that's defined as that for the sake of which, huh? Okay? So it may be that for the sake of which something is, or it may be that for the sake of which something is done, huh? So the chair is for the sake of what? Sitting. So sitting is the end of the chair. And taking medicine is for the sake of health, huh? So health is the end or purpose of taking medicine, huh? Okay? Or knowing is the purpose of what? Studying, right? Okay? And of course it's that fourth kind of cause that Aristotle, you may recall, sees as being committed with the good, right? When Thomas now is going to develop that in this fourth article, right? And that's why also Aristotle says in the second book of wisdom that if you do away at the end, you do away with the good. So it's no little thing you're taking away when you take away the end, huh? Of course it's going to be important too in seeing the goodness of God, right? Because there'll be a connection between God being the end of the whole universe and his being the supreme what? Good, right? So to the fourth one proceeds thus. Now here again, he's attacking himself, right, huh? You know? It seems that the good does not have the notion of a final cause, but more of what? Other kinds of cause, huh? For as Dionysius says in the fourth book about the divine names, the good is praised as what? Beautiful, right? But the beautiful implies the definition of the formal cause, huh? So we say something is shapely, right? That's form, right? Okay. Therefore, the good, if it's the same thing as the beautiful, has the definition of a formal cause, huh? That's an interesting objection, huh? Moreover, the good is diffusive of its existence, as we gather or take from the words of Dionysius, huh? By which he says that the good is from which all things subsist and are, right? But to be diffusive of being, to be diffusive, implies the notion of a, what? Efficient cause, a maker. Therefore, the good has the notion of an efficient cause. Now, he's not going to have the third argument here for matter, because matter in no way seems to be diffused, huh? But it's interesting that form and mover or maker, as well as end, are all based upon actuality, as opposed to potency or ability in the passive sense, huh? So they have something in common, right? Moreover, Augustine says in the first book about Christian teaching, Christian doctrine, that because God is good, we are, right? But we are from God as from a, what? Efficient cause, huh? You know, the first arguments were God is the unmoved mover, and the first, what? Efficient cause. Those were the first causes we, first arguments we had, resistance of God, huh? Therefore, good implies the notion of the efficient cause. So the second and third arguments are trying to conclude that the good is a, what? Efficient cause. And the first one, a formal cause, huh? But no argument is here to show this matter, huh? Poor David of Dinat, huh? The most stupid he taught that God is the first matter. But against this is what the philosopher, now, who's he? The capital P. Aristotle. Yeah. Just as Aristotle calls Homer the poet, right? Okay. But against this is what the philosopher says in the second book of natural hearing, the second book of the physics. That that, and kind of which, right, is as the end and the good of other things, right? So he's identifying the end and the good. Now, sometimes you say the means is good, too, but in reference to the end, huh? Therefore, the good has the notion of a final cause, huh? So, he says, I answer, it should be said that since the good is what all desire, going back to that first, what, definition of the good by its, what, effect, right? But since the good is what all want or all desire, and this has the notion of a, what, end of it. Okay? Now, sometimes I'll say to the students when you're talking about the distinction of the four kinds of causes, and Aristotle putting good with the end, right? If they're almost the same. Sometimes you first define the good as what all want, right? And the end is that for the sake of which, huh? But it's not too hard to see a connection there in a kind of a loose way, because if people want something, they'll act for the sake of getting that, won't they? So if they want something, it'll become an end for them, right? And vice versa, if you see that people are acting for the sake of some end, then you can kind of... ...that they consider that good that they're acting for the sake of, right? Okay. So, Thomas is going back to that first notion that we met, huh? Of the good, huh? And actually, if you study the Greek words there in the beginning of Nicomarckian Ethics, which are usually translated, the good is what all want, right? But it could almost be translated, the word, the Greek word is, you know, what all aim at, right? Which is more like the idea of the end, huh? Okay. And sometimes, I think people even translate that way sometimes, huh? Oh, okay. Okay? But it's probably better to translate at first, you know, desire, because that's the way. And it's very clear in Latin that Thomas takes it that way, huh? But it shows how close those things are together, right? It's almost like the same word. To want something and to aim at it, right? Yeah. But aiming at it is more the idea of the end, huh? Shakespeare uses the word aim a lot for guess. For what? To guess. Oh, to guess. Because when you aim at something, you don't always get, you know, but you're trying to get to it, huh? But you see that word used in that way, and Leavis said, not just peculiar to him, but I see it in his text because I'm familiar with that. Okay? So, it's manifest that the good implies the, what, definition, the notion of the, what, end, huh? Okay? So notice that first syllogism, right? He's saying the good is what all, what? Desire, and what is desired is what? The end, what is being aimed at. Therefore, the good is to have the end. But nevertheless, he says, huh? The notion of the good presupposes the notion of an efficient cause, right? And the notion of the thought of the formal cause, huh? For we see that that which is first in causing is last in the, what, of cause, huh? And he gets example from the old physics, right? For fire first, what, heats before it induces the, what, form of the fire, right? So the fire warms the paper before it sets you the fire. But nevertheless, the heat in the fire follows upon the, what, substantial form of the fire. But in causing, however, first is found the end, the good, and the end, which moves the, what, efficient cause to do something. And secondly, you have the action of the efficient cause, right? Moving the matter, whatever it is, to the form, right? And third is found the, what, form. Whence a converso is necessary to be in the cause, huh? That first is the form itself to which it is a being. Secondly, there is considered in it its power of effecting something, according as it is perfect in being. Because each thing then is perfect when it can make another like itself, as the philosopher says in the fourth book of meteorology. So animals are not able to be produced, right? Until they're mature, right? You can't teach another until you know something yourself. And third follows the notion of the good, through which, in a being, right, perfection is, what, founded upon, right? Okay. So it's saying as far as the cause is concerned, you have, first of all, the end, right? And that moves the, what? Efficient cause. Yeah, and then he induces the form, right? Okay. But now in effect you get your form first, and then you have a power to move other things, and you do so, and then you finally reach your, what? Your perfection, your good, your end, huh? Okay. So grace is like a form, right, huh? You get a certain power through the grace, huh? And then you act, and you reach your end goal, right? So the end is the last thing you achieve, your end. But as far as the cause is concerned, that was the beginning. The end, huh? Okay. You see that? Okay. Now he's going to reply to the objections, huh? And the first objection was about it being a form, and it's being the same as you could have all. To the first, therefore, it should be said, that the beautiful and the good in subject, he says, are the same, because they are founded upon the same thing, namely upon form. And in account of this, the good is praised as, what? Beautiful, huh? But in definition, they differ, huh? For good properly regards the appetite, for the good is what all, what? Want, all desire. And therefore, it has the notion of an end. For the appetite is, as it were, a certain motion towards the thing. But the beautiful regards the, what? Knowing power. For the beautiful are said to be things that please when, what? Seen. Whence the beautiful consists in a suitable, what? Proportion. Proportion. Because the senses delight in things well proportioned, as in things like themselves, because there's a certain proportion ratio. For the sense is a certain ratio in every knowing power. And because knowledge comes about to assimilation, and likeness regards the form, the beautiful properly pertains to the notion of a, what? Formal cause, huh? Yeah. Now, it's very hard to understand the beautiful in some way, you know, because is the beautiful more the object of the mind or the heart? What do you think? The mind, for sure. Yeah. But it's kind of interesting, because, take a little sign here from English, huh? We have a synonym for the beautiful. We call it the lovely, right? And it's so interesting. One synonym for beautiful is derived from the word for love, right? And you have, you know, the poet, huh? Spencer there, one of the four great poets of England, right? You know, he has the hymn to earthly beauty, and earthly love, and then the hymn to heavenly love, heavenly beauty, and heavenly love, huh? Kind of imitation of Socrates there in the symposium and so on, huh? But notice, huh? The hymns to earthly beauty and earthly love, heavenly beauty and heavenly love, right? You seem to be identifying the beautiful with the, what? With love, right? Of course, this is very common in the poets, right? And Romeo sees Julia, Julia is the loveliest thing he's seen, right? So he falls in love with it, right, huh? So, is the English word lovely, huh? A sign that the beautiful is the object of love more than of knowing, huh? But then I could bring in, you see, things from Heisenberg, say, the great physicist, you know, on the role of beauty and the discovery of scientific theories, right? And how the scientists are naturally attracted to the beautiful theory. And if the theory is ugly, they just reject it, you know? I mean, about that, it's just so ugly. And sometimes you see them being almost, you know, excessive, it seems, at times, you know, that they want the theory to be both beautiful and true, but if they have to choose between the two, they'll choose to be beautiful. They actually say that, correct? Oh, they do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's how it got estranged, right? But it shows you how important beauty is, huh? And in geometry, I think, you know, the simplicity of some of these things is what makes them so, what, beautiful. Even the Pythagorean theorem, right, that the square on the side opposite the right angle is exactly good to the square. All these interesting, you know, equalities strike the mind as what is beautiful. You describe a hexagon and a circle and so on, right? I guess what, the side of the hexagon would be equal to the radius of the circle? Does that make sense? I can't remember. I think so, yeah. Interesting, you know, things like this, the mind finds them beautiful, right? And so, but I've seen them and physicists sometimes say, you know, they just reject that because it was such an ugly theory. So, but then again, we do speak of the beautiful as being shapely, right? Or something of that sort, right? And then we tie it up with, what? Form, right? And form, as form, perfects the reason, what it is. The proper object of reason is what a thing is. And that's, Aristotle defines the formal cause. It defines as the definition of what was to be. So it seems to have a special connection with reason. So if you think of the beautiful as being more tied to form than to end, then you think of it as being closer to reason, right? But, I remember talking to Monsignor D'Anne one time about this a little bit, you know, and I was kind of thinking that the beautiful is more the object of the heart than of the mind. And I was using it as two kind of witnesses to that. One was this word, lovely, right? Which is a sign of that. And the other is that Dionysius, in the divine names, he takes up the beauty of God with the, what? Goodness of God, right? As if they belong kind of the same consideration. He doesn't take up the beauty of God with the truth, with God being truth himself, right? But that God is good and God is beautiful, right? Well, how's Augustine, again, the confession there, too late have I come to know thee, thou ancient beauty, isn't that the way he says? And there he talks about knowing, right? You see? And so. I think you'd find text, though, you know, where the beautiful seems to be closer to the heart, right? In some cases, more to the mind. Well, when you define the beautiful at first, by its effect, you know, the beautiful is that which pleases it and seen. It does their reference to the mind, right? To being seen, to the senses or to the mind, right? But it's the knowing powers in general, right? But when you say pleases, right, then it shows a connection with the, what? Heart, yeah. And sometimes you say, well, the good is that which pleases. And the beautiful is that which pleases it and seen, so it's a particular kind of pleasant, huh? But if you emphasize that it has to be seen, then you emphasize the connection with the, what? Mind, you know? And that, in the knowing of it, the mind itself is delighted by knowing this, huh? You know? And Brother Mark used to kind of joke sometimes about these beautiful things in geography, you know? It's too pleasant, you know? It's too pleasant, you know? You can't do too many of these, you know, you get too much pleasure, you know? You gotta watch the planet and say, you know, that's, in the most of Nicomachian Ethics there, Aristotle, you know, gives the three rules there, and one of the rules is, watch out for the pleasant. But some of these tears are so beautiful, you know? But they're beautiful in being what? Known, right? And someone who's not really into these things mentally doesn't find them beautiful, right? You know? But someone who gets into them, they are beautiful, right? I remember, you know, one time the chemist, well, the chemist, he's retired now, but the chemist, you know, talking about how beautiful these chemicals were, you know, the way they're structured, right? And mostly wouldn't be stuck by that, you know, but if you're very much into the structure of the chemicals, and there's a symmetry there, right? Aristotle, in the, I think it's the 13th book of Wisdom, he says, the three main forms of the beautiful are order, symmetry, and the, and moderation or limit. But order, you know, seems to be especially the object of what? Mind. Mind, yeah, you know, Shakespeare defined reason as the ability for large discourse looking before and after, right? And you may remember how Thomas divides the knowledge of reason by the order it considers, right? And he gives us a, kind of a starting point what Aristotle says in the metaphysics that it belongs to the wise man most of all to order, right? But he gives us the reason for that that's peculiar to reason no longer. So wisdom being the highest perfection of reason most of all would be able to order things, huh? So you think of order as being, you know, central to the beautiful, then it seems to have a connection with the, what, with reason, right? Which looks for order, right? Okay. But there's a connection between them, he said, because they can be both based upon what? Form, and form can be the end of what? Generation, and so on, Now, in the second objection there, the second, it should be said that the good is said to be diffusive of its being in the way in which an end is said to move, huh? You gotta be very careful about that, huh? Because we tend to borrow the word move, right? From the third kind of cause and apply it to the fourth kind of cause, huh? So you might say, you might say, what moved the leaves? Well, the wind moved the leaves, right? Well, then you're talking about the third kind of cause, right? But what moved Romeo to go over the garden wall of the Capulets? Or what, you know, the guy climbed the tower to get to Rapunzel there, you know? See? We could say, her beauty moved him, right? To climb the tower or something, or the beauty of Juliet moved him to climb over the garden wall. This is the dangerous thing to do. But move there now refers to what? The end, right? The end is moving, right? Okay? The philosopher is moved by what? Wisdom to do what he does, huh? But if wisdom is his end or goal, it's moving not in the sense of the third kind of cause, but the fourth kind of cause. And, you know, sometimes we take the word maker, strictly speaking, it's the third kind of cause, the mover or the maker, right? But sometimes we take the word make and we apply it to, like, say, the formal cause. Like, I might say, you know, you've got a wooden chair, let's say, you've got a wooden table, Well, why is that a chair and this, say, what? Table, right? Well, it's the form that it has, right? That makes it to be a chair or a table. But now when you say makes, you're talking about something like the carpenter, that kind of a cause? Oh, no. No, no. So, or if I say, you know, I take the word, cat, let's say, it's made out of the same letters as the word act, right? So, why isn't this the word act that's made out of the same letters? What makes this to be the word cat? The order. Yeah. But now you say the order of the letters makes it to be the word cat, right? Not thinking of the maker of the sense of the writer, Or the printer, you see? They're talking about a cause in the sense of form, right? The second kind of cause, includes form, only in the sense of shape, but order, ratio, right? The example I established is what? Two to what? Ratio of the thing. Yeah. So, we do use the word make sometimes for the formal cause, right? And we tend to use the word mover sometimes for the what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got to be careful that Aristotle is a reasoning saying in the 12th book of wisdom that God is the first cause, that he's the unmoved mover, right? He wants to show that not only does God not have a mover in the sense of the third kind of cause, right? But he's not acting for the sake of some, he's not moved to do what he does by some good other than himself. See? Because then he'd have a mover, not in the sense of an efficient cause, but a mover in the sense of which the end is said to move one, right? Mm-hmm. okay? So, God is not moved by some end or some good to do what he does. He does it's by loving his own goodness that he communicates himself to us so I just mentioned that because both the word mover and the word maker which properly name the third kind of cause are sometimes carried over to the formal cause and to the what the end right mover especially to the end and maker to the what yeah do you see that so you got to be careful of the most common mistake in thinking which is what mixing up sense of the word yeah now to the third this is the objection now that Augustine says because God is good we are but we are from God is from the efficient cause to the third it should be said that everyone or anyone having a will right is said to be good insofar as he has a good what will because a will uses all the parts of you right so a man is said to be good simply by having a good will because through the will we use all that is in us right all the things that is in us once one is not said to be a good man man who has a good understanding now think of that you philosophers put that in your pipe and smoke okay but who has a good what will right but the will regards the end as its own what proper option yeah and thus what is said that because God is good we are refers to the what final cause nice way of answering that objection right so God cannot will us except in what willing himself right loving himself his own goodness so the basic so just know is what the good is what all want what all want is the end therefore the good is the end right okay and as I say I can't bring it out in a popular way by saying you know if somebody really wants something they will aim at it won't they and vice versa if you see people aiming at something that's a sign that what they want it yeah yeah okay so even though the definition is a little bit different of good as what all want in the end that for the sake of which you can see the two are going to go together right yeah and so in the moderns you know leave out this kind of cause called end doesn't appear in their natural science or anything like that right and they don't really understand much in ethics either then they're really doing away with the good so that's a real problem okay now in the fifth and the sixth articles we're going to what get into kind of divisions but five is more like the intrinsic divisions as we said right and the sixth is more like the what subject parts okay to the fifth one proceeds thus it seems that the notion of the good does not consist in mode species and what order for the good and being differ in what definition as has been said above but mode species and order pertain to the definition of what or to the notion of what being right because as is said in the eleventh chapter of the book of wisdom you have disposed all things in number weight and what measure right to which three are reduced species mode and order now how are they reduced to that which one goes with which is it species and number modus and mensura and order and thunder okay of course you know Plato had spoken of species of things being numbers right and Aristotle in the eighth book of wisdom doesn't say they're the same but the what species of things are like numbers right remember that you know how he puts out some number of likenesses of them for example that definitions are not divisible forever and number is not divisible forever and you add or subtract one you have another number and so in Shakespeare it says in the exhortation to use reason what is a man if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed a beast no more okay so if you take away reason from man right he's no more than a what beast if you take away sensation from an animal it's no more than a plant you take away life from a plant it's no more than a stone really so it's like what numbers right so man man is more than we say a beast just like four is more than three and a beast is more than a plant like three is more than two and a plant is more than a stone so a body plus life equals a plant a body plus life plus sensation is a beast and a body plus life plus sensation plus reason number four that's man okay and of course ponder I suppose means like weight so you're inclined in a certain direction right so it's the idea of order right and measure there is explained by Guston here in the fourth book on Genesis to the Letter for the measure what fixes a mode for everything okay and number gives species to everything and weight draws everything to rest and what stability right therefore the ratio of good does not consist in mode species and order like this part pertains to what is right okay but of course good includes the idea of being plus something else right I mean good is like what a desirable being or a desirable thing right so it includes the idea of being or things so maybe Thomas will what to see how he solves it but he'll bring that in moreover mode species and order themselves are good things right if therefore the notion of good consists in mode species and order it would be necessary that mode have also a mode a species in order and likewise species would have to have a mode a species in order and so on and then these would also have to have each of them a mode a species in order and so on forever right okay that's a nice objection right moreover the bad is the privation of the lack of mode and species in order right but the bad does not entirely take away the good because the subject of the bad is something what good right and therefore the notion of good does not consist in mode species and what order right because you've got to realize that there's more than one sense of what good right the good of the nature and the good that is added to that and so on more of that in which consists the ratio of good cannot be said to be bad but they're said to be a malus modus a malus species malus ordo right therefore the ratio of good does not consist in modes