Prima Secundae
Lecture 24: Beatitude, the Soul, and the Body's Role

Transcript
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, Guardian Angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Dios, gracias. God, our enlightenment, Guardian Angels, thank the lights of our minds, or to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Prepare for us. And help us to understand what you're written. Up to question five, we'll be in. And in Prima Secundae here. Question four, critical five. Let's stop for a moment here, though, and ask something here. We're talking about the love of God. And remember the distinction between the amor concupiscentiae and the amor amicitiae, the titles, which you could translate as the love of wanting and the love of friendship or the love of wishing well. Now, if you love God for the good of your own mind, God's the only thing that can satisfy your mind, huh? Is that the love of charity for God? Is that a love of amicitiae or a love of concupiscentiae? Is that a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae or a love of concupiscentiae But if I love God for the sake of satisfying my mind, right? It would be one hell of a vision or interested in anything else I've done, right? Or seen, rather, I should say. Now, but then what does it mean to love God by the love of charity, see? Now, if I love you people, other human beings, by the love of charity, right? I really have to wish you to, that you will someday see God as he is, face to face, right? If I don't wish that for you, I don't have the love of what? Charity for you, right? Now, does it mean something like that to love God by the love of the amor amicicentiae? That I wish God to see himself as much as he, to know himself as much as he's knowable, right? And to love himself as much as he's lovable. Not that he doesn't already have that, right, huh? And not that my wishing him this, in any way, gives it to him, right? But is that what it means, huh? At least in part, that to love God by love of charity, is I must wish to God that he would know himself as much as he's knowable, and love himself as much as he's lovable, which no creature can do, right? And therefore, that he would be, what? In a unique way, huh? Blessed, huh? Because God is blessed in knowing and loving himself, right? In knowing and loving himself completely, right? Is that what it means? Yeah, but can I do it? I mean, because what else would it mean, right? I can't wish something good for God that it doesn't have, right? Can I? I wish that this guy here, I assume, Thomas, sees God as he is face to face, right? Right now, right? And I'm sure Mary sees him face to face, right? If I love Mary by the love of what? Not what you can do for me. I do a lot of what you can do for me. But if I love her by the love of charity, I've got to wish that she sees God as much as the mother of God should see God, right? And she loves God as much as the mother of God should love God, right? Even though she already does this, yeah. Isn't that what it means? That's what, yeah, that's Francis de Sales speaks of as the love of benevolence. Yeah. I have good will for God to sort of wish him the greatest good that he could possibly have, which is for himself. Yeah. As if, he said, as if he didn't already have it, which is absurd. Yeah. But that's the love, that's what it is. Yeah. That's why I usually speak of the Amor Amicizia as the love of wishing well, which is what benevolence means, huh? Yeah. Romeo's friend there, Benvolio, right? True friend, huh? Benvolio. As opposed to Melvolio in the comedy. Okay. That's interesting, huh? Now, another thing I was thinking about this here, in Beatitude, one thing that kind of puzzles us because of our way of knowing in this life, which is always discursive, right? Which means both that we go from thinking about one thing to thinking about something else, right? All the time. And we also try to know what we don't know to what we do know and succeed to some extent and coming to know, right? But this is not the way that the Beatitude Vision will be, right? The Beatitude Vision will be eternal life, huh? And it's called eternal life because you're partaking of God's eternity, huh? There's no motion in the Beatitude Vision. And there's no before and after in it, huh? So, the thing that kind of puzzles me is, of course, I know that no creature can know God as much as he is knowable, right? And no creature can love God as much as he's lovable, right? But in this life, we always are trying to know more of the things that are worth knowing, right? So, in this life, I'm always trying to know God better, right? I make a little bit of progress, you know, and so on. Now, when I kind of transpose my way of knowing in this life to the Beatitude Vision or to heaven, right, I say, well, granted, I will not see God as much as he's knowable, but he's more knowable than the extent to which I know him. Would I want to know him more, right? So that, you know, you kind of imagine that in eternity, you'd be like in this life, where I keep an understanding in a perfect way, God, more and more. Wouldn't heaven consist in always, you know, each century or so, knowing God, what? More, right? But in that case, as Aristotle said, there wouldn't be any end, huh? Because it would be endless, right? It's not like a bad ending, but it's kind of hard to understand why you wouldn't have this desire to know him better, right? And yet, that seems to be contrary to what it is, right? I think part of it is because you imagine as if this was, in time, this seeing God, right? And therefore, there's some time left for you to know him more, right, huh? As a matter of fact, this is all at once, and that's it, okay? But then, I got thinking again about the words of the seven wise men of Greece, huh? And according to the legend, huh? They put up on the oracle of Delphi two words, know thyself, know this out time, and then made them a God, huh? Nothing too much, huh? Now, I think those words are very wise, right? And I often thought about them. But then you come to knowing God and loving God, right, huh? It seemed ridiculous to say, can you know God too much? Or can you say, you know, you love God too much? I mean, let's tone it down, right? That doesn't make any sense, right? Okay? But there's to be to go against the thing, because... You're saying, no matter how much you love God, it's never too much. No matter how much you know or love, either one. It's never too much, right? So you're not violating this, right? My wife thinks I know Shakespeare too much, but... But I quote her, write lines for her talk, and I says, write those down for me. But then I got thinking about this, you see. See, in this life, it seems to me, we should always be trying to love God more. We should always be trying to love God more, right? We should never in this life say, ah, now I know him enough. Put away the sum of, you know, or put away the, or now I know him enough. That's a very dangerous thing, it seems to me, to say or do. But that doesn't apply to him, right? And you might say that there is a too much. If you look at this from the point of view of heaven now, right? Because I should, what, want to know God as much as God in his plan for me wants me to know him, right? And I should love God as much as God wants me to love him in the plan that he has for me, right? And he doesn't, in his plan as far as I understand it. He doesn't want me to know and to love him as much as the man Jesus knew and loved God, right? He doesn't want me to know and love him as much as the mother of God, right? Now you can't say how much the, what, son of man knows and loves God, right, as man. But he knows and loves the, what, God as much as the son of man, the son of God made flesh, should know and love him, right? And Mary, yeah, loves, knows and loves God as much as the mother of God should, which is incomparably more. But the Americans should know and love God, right, yeah? Okay. And the apostles, right, I guess come mixed in place after Mary, right? And the apostles should know and love God as much as the apostles should do, right, yeah? And I should know and love God as much as God tends to join the breakfast, right, yeah, okay? So if in heaven I wanted to know God better or love him even more, right, than God intended for me, I would be imitating the sin of the devil, right? At least the way Thomas explains that in the case of the angels there, that the devil sinned by wanting his, what, beatitude, right, from his own powers, right, huh? So if I want to know God more than God wants me to know him, I'd be wanting a beatitude of which I was the source rather than God, right, huh? And it's interesting. So in that sense, nothing much has a different application to heaven than it does to us in this life, right? In this life, I don't think you can know God too much. You can never say, you know, no, that's as far as you can go, right? And however far you go to be, you know, much less than what you'll see in the vision, obviously, right? In the same way, the love that you'll have after you see God as he is will be much greater, incompletely greater, than the love you have for God in this life, huh? So that these can always grow more in this life, huh? But in heaven, they won't, huh? But in terms simply of, you know, the fact that the division is above our nature but not opposed to our nature, right? And it might seem to be opposed to our nature because we, what, always want to understand something worthwhile understanding better, right? And so why wouldn't I, in heaven, you know, be frustrated because I want to understand God better, right? But part of it, as I say, is the fact that we're thinking of our understanding God as being in time, right? And there's still time left, you know? It's an alternative, right? But it's not really time. There's no before and after there, right? Okay? So when I see God face to face, I will always see him face to face, and there won't be any, what, movement at all in this seeing God as he is, huh? One thing that happens, I'm still trying to figure out, but there is, and that the way there is a certain time in the sense that, or how do you understand that, the fact that they don't have the body now, and that will come after? Yeah, well, this is going to be, yeah, well, this is going to be, in this article now, we've got the day. Oh. Okay. So, let's look now at this here. Article 5. To the fifth one proceeds thus, it seems that for beatitude is required the, what, body, right, huh? For the perfection of virtue and grace presupposes the perfection of nature. But beatitude is the perfection of virtue and grace. But the soul without the body does not have the perfection of nature. The whole is more perfect than the, what, part. Part, you know, the soul is the better part. That's why you always refer to your spouse as your better part. We'll be sure that Mrs. Berk was tears then. When I say that, I always get, you know, some kind of woman standing, you know, by, you know, you know, nods with appreciation of mine. So we don't, okay. The soul, that means worthy to heal. Since it is a part naturally of human nature, huh? But every part is imperfect, separated from its, what, whole. Therefore, the soul without the body is not able to be, what, blessed, right, huh? And, of course, this is kind of arguing behind the argument for the resurrection, right, huh? Moreover, beatitude is a certain perfect operation, as has been said. But perfect operation follows upon perfect being. You've got to be before you can do something, huh? And so you've got to be, it seems, perfect in your being before you can be perfect in your operation. Since nothing does anything except according as it is a being in act. And I ran across a text there in the Summa Contra Gentiles there, Thomas, where he's saying, he's talking about how creatures try to be like God in their operation, right? And then operation, he says, there's three kinds of operations. And he says, well, that's a nice example of three, right, huh? And he says, one kind of, what, operation is acting upon something. Another kind of operation, it's kind of strange to use the word here, is being acted upon, huh? And what's the third kind of operation? Well, it's an operation that is not an operation of something imperfect, like the one I just mentioned was, being acted upon, being moved, being in motion. And it doesn't, what, go out of you and act upon something else. So this is like the operation of understanding or willing or... So I was thinking, gee, Thomas's choice of words there, you know, operatio, huh? But operatio seems to have the sense of looking up in the dictionary in Latin, kind of, you know, working or something, right? But it's kind of interesting, he uses to cover these, what, three, right? And then he, you know, goes on to show how in different ways they become like God. These are the operations. Because when you're acting upon something else, you're like God as a cause. But when you're being acted upon in motion, then you're becoming like God because you're being perfected, right? And another way that you're like God when you understand the will, right? That's interesting, interesting. He calls all three of those operations, kind of a stretch of the word, right? I often wonder how to translate that, because you get that in the ninth book of Wisdom there, right? You get the distinction of these three. But what should you call Commodaldom? It's a discussion of act there, but one sense of act is what? Motion, another sense of act is form, right? And then like motion is any kind of doing or something, right? And I wonder what the best word to use in English is, huh? I mean, operation seems to be more active in meaning, doesn't it? It's like, but I suppose you could take the English word, and I'm tempted, but I don't know if it's a word to use. Doing, right, huh? Okay. But again, doing has a kind of more active sense, huh? But when I'm making a chair, I'm doing something, right? But I insist that when I'm thinking, I'm doing something, too, right? Although the average man might think, you know, you're not doing anything all day long. You're just sitting there in a chair, right? I always teach a concert, it says, the man sitting becomes wise. That's Thomas, huh? Homo sedens fits somebody ends, right? The man up at bringing things is making things, right? But I think both of those are doing, right? I'm listening to the music of both of them, are they doing something? Yeah. But these are different kinds of doing, making a chair, making dinner or something, right? And thinking and hearing and so on, right? But then what about growing? Is that doing something? Little grandchildren doing anything when they're growing? It's kind of doing, isn't it? What do the trees do out there, don't they? Yeah. They grow and eventually reproduce, right? They're reproducing, isn't it? They're making, but growing is kind of doing something, right? Nourishing yourself, of course. You are, I keep on the food, but is falling doing something? See, I can kind of stretch the word, but I don't know if we don't have to stretch some kind of word. Thomas stretches the word operatio, right? There in that text where he distinguishes those three, right? But you've got to have some name. You distinguish act, right? The first meaning of the word act is motion. And then the kind of second meaning is form is called act. It's an analogy to motion. But then we distinguish from motion these other activities, right? You want to kind of have a name to cover all three of them as opposed to form. But anyway, the perfect operation follows esse perfectum, right? To be perfect. Because nothing acts except insofar as it is being an act. Since, therefore, the soul does not have perfect being when it is separated from the, what? Body. Just as neither any part when separated from the whole, right? It seems that the soul without the body cannot be, what? Blessed, huh? Moreover, beatitude is the perfection of man. But the soul without the body is not man. Therefore, beatitude cannot be in the soul without the body. Well, Thomas, are you blessed now or not? Because the man, Thomas, is not there, right? The soul is. Moreover, according to the philosopher in the seventh book of the Nicomachean Ethics, the operation of happiness in which the attitude consists is not, what? Impedent, huh? But the operation of the separated soul is impedent. Because, as Augustine says in the 12th book, Genesis to the letter, there is in it, huh, a certain natural desire of administering the body, huh? From which desire it is, what? Retarded or held back in a way? Lest by its whole intention it, what? Perga? Tends toward? That highest heaven, right? That is in the vision of the divine essence. It's just the soul doesn't want to go there, huh? Therefore, the soul without the body cannot be, what? Blessed, huh? That's kind of, you know, Socrates, of course, has a little different view of the soul, right? It's more the whole man. But it's interesting, even Socrates there, he argues that the soul would be better off separated from the body than in the body. But then he says that you shouldn't commit suicide. And as if the soul is in the body by the command of the gods, and they can't leave the body until. So you think he's got to put that caution in there. And because they say some people are reading about how better off the soul would be contemplated suicide if not committing it, huh? War, fifth, beatitude is a sufficient good, right? And quiets desire, right? But this does not belong to separated soul, because it still desires the union of the, what? Body, as Augustine says, huh? Therefore, the soul separated from the body is not, what? Blessed. Moreover, man in beatitude is equal to the angels. But the soul without the body is not equal to the angels, as Augustine says. Therefore, it is not blessed, huh? But against all this is what is, well, there's six objections here, right? Yeah. Large number for the beginner's book here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got pity on it. But against this is what is said in the 14th chapter of the Apocalypse, huh? Blessed are the dead who have died in the Lord, right? They're their souls, but they're blessed, right? There you go. That's an interesting question, huh? Now, Thomas is standing back. I answer it should be said that two-fold is beatitude. One imperfect, which is had in this life, huh? She happened to be in the summa, right? Understanding it. And another perfect, which consists in the vision of God, huh? Vision of God as he is. Now, it is manifest that for the beatitude of this life, huh? Of necessity is required the body, right? For the beatitude of this life, for the beatitude of this life is the operation of the understanding, either of the, what, looking up intellect, or the, what, doing, the practical, right? Aristotle says the speculative intellect, the theoretical intellect, the looking intellect, and the practical or doing intellect, right? They differ by their end, right? And so in the 10th book of the Nicomachian Ethics, he speaks of two beatitudes, or two happinesses. One which is more divine, which is the act of the virtue of, what, wisdom, right? And the other one, which is the act of, what, political foresight. And the other one, which is the act of, what, political foresight. But anyway, it's an act of the intellect, right? But the operation of the understanding in this life cannot be without the, what, image. And the image is not found except in a bodily organ, as is had in the first in the treatise on the soul, right? And thus the beatitude which is in this life, which can be had in this life, depends in some way upon the, what, body, right? So I could lose my beatitude, not lose my mind, as they say, right? Okay. We visit this neighbor there, it's in the rest home there, you know. Sometimes she's clear and other times, you know, she thinks she's working there or something, you know. So Euclid said, gee, I'm slower than I used to be. It's a long, long, doesn't it? It goes through this whole theorem, you know. It's a long theorem. Like, oh, let's see that for tomorrow or something. So I said, I'm going to lose my beatitude of this life, right? They say, I guess, Albert the Great must have had one of these kind of photographic memories, you know, but towards the end of his life, they just kind of lost it, you know. It's all, it's signs gone, or you can't recall things. Okay. So he's saying in terms of that imperfect beatitude, which is in this life, if the body's necessary, right? And the point of connection there is the fact that you don't think without imagining, huh? And the image is in the body, huh? But about perfect beatitude, which consists in the vision of God. Some lay down that it cannot come to the soul without the, what, body existing, right? Saying that the souls of the saints separated from the bodies do not come to that beatitude until the day of judgment, right? When they resume their bodies, huh? Because in the Greek church sometimes they have that idea. I don't think they have it, the orthodoxy or not, but. Which appears to be, what, false, huh? Both by authority and by reason, right? Which is strongly the argument by authority or by reason? By authority. Yeah. That's why I often point out how Thomas will speak of theology as sacra doctrina, right? And doctrina is named from, what, the teacher, right? By mathematics is named from the learner, right? So the learner is more sufficient, self-sufficient, you might say, in geometry than any other science, huh? Mathematics. But the teacher is most necessary, right? The authority to teach you. In theology, right? More than any other, what, science, huh? Aristotle's physics, actually, in the Greek it's called natural hearing. Why is it called that, huh? By authority, because the apostle says, 2 Corinthians 5, so long as we are in the body, we wander from what? From the Lord, huh? And what is the reason of this wandering he shows? Adding, we walk through faith, right? And not through sight, you might say, from the species. From which it appears that as long as someone walks through faith and not through sight, lacking the vision of the divine essence, he is not yet present to, what? God, huh? But the souls of the saints, separated from the bodies, are present to God, to God. Whence there is added, we dare over, and we have a, what? Good will to wander from the body and to be present to the Lord, huh? So when you wander from the body, yeah. I know some of the English novels there, you have a character, it's called Peregrine, right? And they wander all over the place, so I can't help but think of that. Whence it is manifest that the souls of the saints, separated from the body, walk through species, through the sight, huh? Seeing the essence of God, huh? The nature of God, in which is found true beatitude, huh? So they do have true beatitudes. And this also appears by reason, by argument. For the understanding does not need for its operation the body, except an account of, what? The images in which it looks upon the, what? Understandable truth, as has been said in the first book, huh? So as Aristotle says in the natural knowledge of our understanding, the natural object of our mind is the what it is of something sensed or imagined, huh? And so we understand drawing something from these senses and imagination, huh? And when we consider it, it's the what it is of something sensed or imagined, so we imagine something. So when I think about what a triangle is, I'm thinking about the what it is of this thing I imagine. And so I don't think about what a triangle is without imagining that of which it is, the what it is. And that's why I'm tied to the images, huh? In my thinking, huh? And of course that's just shown by experience, right? I can't remember the image. It's how it jumped, right? You can't get the image. I told you I had these little, you know, cardboard things to look like a hydron and so on, you know, so I could try to help my imagination a bit, right? Maybe someone should hang them above your bed and you'd like to return to your childhood. Yeah, yeah. Just hang them above your bed and go to sleep. My son-in-law sent me these little metal things, you know, made up of the five regular salads, so. And each one of them named after one of the grandchildren, so. They also informed me that something I'm ready now for Euclid, that I should bring my Euclid. So I'm going to have to start teaching Euclid out there in Maine. Actually, I'm running out of wisdom. I've got to go out there and get tanked up with seeing Sophia there, you know, and get some more wisdom. So, it says, the understanding for its operation does not need the body except on account of the images in which it, what? Looks upon the understandable truth. But it's manifest, however, that the divine essence cannot be seen through, what? Images, huh? There's no image of God. As has been shown in the first book. Whence, since in the vision of the divine essence, the divine substance, the divine nature, the perfect beatitude of man consists, the perfect beatitude of man does not depend upon the, what? Body. Whence, without the body, the soul is able to be, what? Blessed, huh? But now, Thomas, in the last paragraph here, he's going to point out a little distinction now, nevertheless. But it should be known that for the perfection of something, something pertains in two ways. In one way, for the constituting of the very essence, the very, what it is of that thing, right? Just as the soul is required for the perfection of, what? Man. In another way, there's required for the perfection of a thing, but pertains to its well-being, as the beauty of the body, huh? And the, what? Quickness of genius, huh? Pertains to perfection of man, huh? Is that what Thomas says? Lomuchita, sinjini? Herstal talks about that. So, although, therefore, the body in the first way does not pertain to the, what? Perfection of human beatitude. It's not essential to it. It pertains, nevertheless, in the, what? Second way, right? Since, therefore, the operation depends on the nature of the thing, or from the nature of the thing, when the soul will be more perfect in its nature, right? Then it will have more perfectly its own, what? Operation. Operation. Operation. Operation. Operation. in which happiness, what, consists. When Seagustin says in the 12th book, upon Genesis to the letter, when he, what, asks, whether to the spirits of the, what, dead, right, without bodies, right, is possible for that summa, that highest yetitude to be, what, bestowed upon, I guess? He answers that, not thus are they able to see, right, that unchangeable substance as the holy angels see it, whether from some more hidden cause, or because in them there remains the natural desire of it in the stream, the, what, body, huh? So you're not going to get free of that enemy, the body. So he's saying they're essentially blessed, right, huh? But there's a certain catted perfection there, right? Which is not to see God more clearly, but because the complete perfection of the operation of the soul depends upon the complete perfection of the one who's operating, right? And we're not completely without our body. So Aristotle would be believed to know this, right? Aristotle was supposed to have died of what? Overwork, right? He tried to get as much into his head before he died. So he'd have one more thing to think about. Okay, the first objection, though. Those objections are all saying that no, you're not blessed, right? So essentially you are. And he said, beatitude is a perfection of nature, right, huh? To the first, therefore, it should be said that beatitude is a perfection of the soul from the side of the understanding itself, huh? But according as the soul transcends the organs of the, what, body, huh? Not, however, according as it is the form of a natural body. So when we show that understanding doesn't, what, take place inside the body, right? Which most people think it does, right? And I've talked to you about that when you're talking about the soul, right, huh? I remember having a student in class that was convinced that the brain is the organ of thought, right? And so I came into class and I said, a blow to the eye interferes with seeing, right? Therefore, the eye is the organ of sight. A blow to the brain interferes with thinking. Therefore, the brain is the organ of thought. I said, alcohol going to the brain interferes with thinking. Therefore, the brain is the organ of thought. Then I took this example, huh? So suppose you and I were in a room with no windows, and the only source of light was a little light bulb in the center of the room. And we could see each other because the light bulb was on and so on. And then I hit the light bulb, huh? I can not want to see you. Well, therefore, the light bulb is the organ of sight. And then you realize maybe there's a problem, right? You see? Because hitting the light bulb interferes with seeing just as hitting the eye does, right? But hitting the eye interferes with seeing by interfering with the organ of sight, right? Hitting the light bulb interferes with seeing not by interfering with the organ, but with the object of sight, huh? Okay? Just like you're leaving this room interferes with my seeing you, right? But not by hurting my eye in some way, right? But by interfering or taking away, in some sense, the object of my sight, right? So now you realize that a blow in the brain or alcohol going to the brain or something like this interferes with thinking, right? And that shows that there's a connection between the brain and thinking, right? But whether it's that of organ or object, it doesn't tell you which it is, right? But now by separate argument, we can argue that thinking is not in the body. And there's many ways of showing that. Aristotle, you know, kind of develops it gradually because he studies the senses before he gets to the reason, huh? And he notices, for example, that the liquid in the eye, does it have a color? Or is there an actual sound in the ear? Well, you see that the senses seem to be more or less lacking the object that they are able to, what, receive, right? And if my tongue, for example, was sugary, huh? Like an all-day sucker or something, it would interfere with my tasting different things, huh? And you notice how even, you know, the sense which is the most material in the way, the sense of touch, when you go in to, say, the shower, right, huh? The water might be hot enough for you, but then after you're in there, why, you might turn up the heat a little, right? Because the heat has become the heat of your thing. And if you don't taste it, you don't feel it anymore. And so then Aristotle points out that reason is open to what? Understanding all material things. Therefore, it must lack any, what, material nature, right? It's a very concrete way he is of presenting it, huh? But there are other arguments that he gives and touches upon, right? And the one that's very common is the fact that whatever is received in the continuous in a body is by that very fact individualized, huh? Singular. So, but what a triangle is, let's say, is something, what? Universal, right? So, if it's universal, if it's singular when sensed, received in the sense organ, but universal when received in the reason, then the reason can't be a body itself, huh? Because if it were, it would receive the triangular sphere as, what, in the continuous, and therefore as, what, singular, right? Or another way of showing this, which I kind of fond of myself, the triangle, the triangle, say, or the square, whatever you want to take of this sort, is something continuous, right? It's parts, meaning the common boundary, right? It's divisible forever and so on. Now, when I receive square in my reason in a distinct way, by definition, right? And is the definition of square continuous? Do the parts meet? Equilateral and unangled quadrilateral, do they meet at a common boundary, right? Or are they divisible forever? So they're not continuous, right? Now, is it not continuous because of the thing being known? No, that is continuous, right? So our reason knows a continuous thing in an uncontinuous way. When the continuous thing is received in the reason, huh? Clearly, in the form of a definition, it's received in a non-continuous way, right? It's a beautiful example, by the way, of how truth does not require that the way we know be the way things are, right? So since the thing you're knowing in this case is something continuous, it must be due to the reason itself that it knows it in a non-continuous way. So these are some of the ways we show that the reason itself, the understanding itself, is not embodied, right? By the way it knows, right? And therefore, in the interference, in thinking, in a non-continuous way, in a non-continuous way, by a blow in the brain or something of that sort, must be on the side of the object, right? And as Aristotle shows there in the third book, the reason it's on an object is that what it is is something sensed or imagined. So it's on the side of the object that interferes with it. And so long as the soul is in the body, it's naturally turned towards the image. So we're in the first objection, right? The beatitude is the perfection of the soul on the side of the understanding by which the soul transcends the, what, organs of the body, huh? Now how do you know that the soul transcends the organs of the body, right? Well, you have to be before you can do something, right, huh? So if the being of the soul was only in the body, it had being only in the body, you would have doing only in the body, right? So if it has a doing that is not in the body, then the being of the soul is not entirely in the body. It's not immersed, they say, in the body, right? And so the activity of understanding in the A4.0, the activity of seeing God as he is, right, is of the soul insofar as it transcends the, what, body, huh? And that perfection of its nature remains according to which, what, beatitude is owed to it, huh? That's in the operation of the understanding insofar as it transcends the body, right? Although that perfection of nature according to which it is the form of the body doesn't remain, right? It's not in forming the body when it's separated, right? But still has the existence which transcends the body. And the operation of seeing God is an operation of the soul insofar as it transcends the body. Now, what about the parts argument here in the second one here? To the second should be said that the soul has itself in a different way towards being than the other parts. For the being of the whole is not of any of the, what, of its parts. Whence either the part wholly ceases to be, the whole being destroyed, right? Just as the parts of the animal, when the animal is destroyed, huh? Or if it remains, they have another being in act, as part of a line, as another being, then the, what, whole line, huh? But the human souls remain, but to the human soul remains, the being of the composite after the destruction of the body. And this because there is the same, what? Being of form and matter. Of form and matter. And this is the being of the composite, huh? But the soul always subsists in its own being, huh? The soul has some being of its own, you might say, right? That the body doesn't partake in, which is shown by the fact that it does something not in the body, namely understanding, right? And of course, the body has its existence by sharing the existence of the soul. But the soul has its own existence because it has its own, as we know from it, it's having its own operation. And the, yeah. For the soul subsists in its own being, right? Once it remains, it after separation from the body, it has, what? A perfect being. Yeah. Once it is able to have a perfect, what? Operation. Although it does not have the perfect nature of the, what, species. And we've talked a lot about looking before and after, right? And I was thinking the other day, what's the most universal before and after that the reason sees? Well, you think that firsthand there must be the before and after in being, right? Because being is what's said of all, right? Can there be something that isn't a being? So what's the before and after in being? Well, you say, well, you know there's two main distinctions of being. One is into substance and accident, which you meet even in the categories. And Peristyle shows in the metaphysics that substance in many ways is before, what, accident, huh? Some accidents are before other accidents. But this is enough to give a general idea, right? And then the ninth book, when he distinguishes ability and act, potency and act, then he shows in the third part that act is in almost every way before ability, huh? Before in knowledge, before in time and being and so on. Okay. Well, those are pretty, pretty universal things. Anything else is universal as that? Those two befores? For oneself, whether it's before yourself or... It can't be before itself. Nothing is before itself, yeah. That's the axiom. Nothing is before or after itself, huh? You might say everything is either a substance or an accident, right? It's an act and ability. Maybe you could say everything is either a cause or an effect or both, right? And the cause is, of course, one of the senses of the forearm. That's very universal, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. So these are the main candidates, right? In some sense, act and ability is more universal than substance. It's an accident, so we could, you know, argue it out. This hair is, of course, seems to be a pretty universal one. Everything is either a cause or an effect. God is a cause. God is a pure act, and so on. He's not really substance in that genus, right? So these are... How about this one here? The to-itself is before the through another, huh? And sometimes you see substance is being per se, to itself, right? Accident as being only in substance, right? And the act seems to be actual through itself, through the act, right? By ability is actual only through some kind of act, like form. What sense is the through itself before the through another? What sense before? Yeah. Second sense? Second sense, yeah. So sugar can be sweet without the coffee being sweet, but the coffee can't be sweet without the sugar, huh? And in the other sense, it's before. Fifth one? Fourth, fifth? Yeah, it tends to be in the fifth sense, right? Because what is sold to another is sold because of what is sold to itself. So the coffee is sweet because the sugar is sweet, okay? So, to some extent, in the fifth sense, right? Maybe also in the fourth sense, right? Oh, okay. Okay? When you say that the through itself is more perfect, right? That's where Estelle takes this up as one of the words attached to perfect, right? And certainly what is sold to itself is more so than what is sold to another, right? And to even if sugar was not good, certainly what is sweet to itself is more sweet than what is sweet to another, right? And, of course, you can apply this also to a knowledge, right? Because statements that are known through other statements... And, of course, you can apply this to another, right? And, of course, you can apply this to another, right? And, of course, you can apply this to another, right? And, of course, you can apply this to another, right? And, of course, you can apply this to another, right? 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