Prima Secundae
Lecture 72: Moral Good and Evil in the Passions of the Soul

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I was reading again the account there, you know, the fight with the British there in New York, you know, where the soldiers, the American, raw soldiers, you know, just fled, you know, and so on. And he was trying to stop them, you know, he's out there with a sword, everything like that. He's just, you know, erupting, you know, how can I fight a war with these, you know, and so on, you know. And he was just kind of paralyzed out there, you know, and fortunately some of his assistants went out there and turned him around, you know, because the British were coming up, you know, he could have been, you know. He always had like a death wish, you know, so you get a little bit of the emotional aspect of him, but he kept, you know, pretty, you know, he had an awful lot of self-control, he did, but I mean, there was, you know, emotions underneath the man. So it's kind of interesting, you know, you're reading that and you're studying the passions here, huh? It's like Julius Caesar when he was, I think it was in his 50s, and the troops weren't fleeing, but they were frightened. And he, in his 50s, he went to the front line and he encouraged them on the all-charge and that one thing, what about that? Dr. Carroll talked about that. He was a really amazing man, his presence and his influence. Yeah, this is what he would do too, you know, Washington, you know, kind of amazing. Yeah, he looked at Valley Forge now, oh my God, that's an awful condition to be, you know. He was just keeping them, you know, by moving around the camp all the time, you know, and encouraging them, you know, to survive these terrible, really terrible conditions. Okay, now we're up to question 24, about the good and the bad and the passions of the soul, right? Okay, then we're not to consider about good and bad, considering the passions of the soul. And about this, four things are asked. First, whether the good and bad that is moral, right, can be found, is able to be found in the passions of the soul, right? Secondly, whether every passion of the soul is bad morally, right? This is to the influence of these stoics, right? Third, whether every passion adds or diminishes from the goodness or badness of the, what? Act, huh? So that ran away in battle because I was so afraid. That diminished my guilt? Yeah. Because sometimes, you know, they have to take into account, this is the first battle I've been in, you know. Green wine. Yeah, yeah. Or maybe it was the hundredth battle, because they say that the dread of battle increases as soldier ages, because he's seen so many, he says, there's a bullet out there that's waiting for me, he's got my name on it. The example with the Churchill, I mean not Churchill, the Washington, you know, there's so many examples of him being missed, you know, by the enemy. And some of them are trying to get him, you know. It's like, you know, Dr. MacArthur too, you know, he first went down to Mexico there, you know, and got shot through the head, you know, everything dead. Someone's like this, and you're blessed, you're saved for the rest of your life, you know. And MacArthur's saying they haven't made the bullet yet, and it's going to kill me, you know. But it's kind of amazing, you know, the kind of risks that, especially in Washington, you know, but also. And MacArthur, you know, couldn't always tell the story, you know, you know, where the enemy strafed, you know, MacArthur's place, there he was, and the officer was in the outer office, and he comes right in to see if MacArthur's okay, you know. And, you know, what, MacArthur says, yes. That's my foot on, you know, but I mean, he was kind of a barber. Yeah, what are you rushing in there for, you know, and he's like, yes, what can I do for you? And they're pulling all over. There's also another story, just about this, this soldier tells a story he was captured by the Japanese. They were leading him down, you know, wherever, and this airplane comes, you know, one of his own, comes and strafes him. All the Japanese went to cover, and an American just standing up. They're all ashamed when he comes. You know, my son was in Kuwait there, you know, and there's some other military men, and they stop and get a little meal someplace, you know, and, of course, there are all these bullet holes inside the place, you know, because the Iraqis, before they left Kuwait, you know, they shot the place, you know, so he was talking, telling his Americans about it. And four, whether some passion is good or bad from its very, what, you know, species, you know. Well, as a little boy, you know, you'd have, you know, anger is one of the capital sins or something, you know, huh? That's kind of, you know, that's kind of, you know, needs a little clarification there, you know, because even our Lord is angry sometimes, right? The hardest of their hearts. To the first, then, one proceeds thus. It seems that no passion of the soul, no emotion, is either good or bad, morally speaking, right, huh? For good and bad, morally speaking, the moral good or bad, is something private to man, huh? For mores are properly said to be human, as the great Ambrose himself says, right? One of the great doctors of the Western Church, upon, what, the Gospel of St. Luke, huh? But the passions, the emotions, are not private to man, but they're also common to the other, what, animals, right, huh? Therefore, no passion of the soul is either good or bad, morally, what, speaking, huh? Moreover, the good or bad of man is to be in accordance with reason, or to be outside of reason, right? As Dionysius himself says in the fourth chapter of the Divine Names, huh? But the passions, the emotions of the soul, are not in reason, but in the sense desiring power. Therefore, they do not belong or pertain to the good or bad of man, which is the moral good, huh? Moreover, even the philosopher says in the second book of the Ethics, that by the passions, we are neither praised nor, what, blamed, right? But according to moral goods and evils, we are praised and, what, blamed, huh? We are praiseworthy or blameworthy, right? Therefore, the passions are not good or bad, morally, huh? But again, this is what Augustine says in the 14th book about the city of God, speaking there about the passions of the soul. Those things are bad if bad is the, what, love. Good if good, right? Well, Thomas says we have to see a distinction to begin with, right? I answer, it should be said, Thomas says, that the passions of the soul, emotions, are able to be considered in two ways, huh? In one way, by themselves, right? In another way, according as they are in some way subject to the command of reason and the, what? The will, huh? Are the emotions of the newborn baby, are they all subject to the command of his reason and his will? Hmm? Fair enough. Hmm? Fair enough. Haven't met one yet. Maybe our Lord. Yeah. His reason was somewhat more developed. If, therefore, they are considered by themselves, right? Just in so far as they are motions of the desiring power that is without reason, right? It's not a rational sense of being opposed to reason, but just, you know, without reason. Thus, there is not in them either good or bad, morally speaking, right? Or moral, good, or bad. Which all depend both upon, what? Reason, right? Either being in accordance with the reason or not said. If, however, when they are considered, according as they are subject to the command of reason and of the will, thus there is in them a moral good and moral bad, right? Now, Tom, it's an interesting argument, right? Propinquior, they are nearer, right? Nearer is the sense-desiring power to reason and the will than the exterior members, like my feet or my hands, right? Whose motion and acts, nevertheless, are good or bad, what? Morally, right? Somebody's got sense to life there for strangling some woman, okay? Strangling them with your hands, I guess. Not with your feet, I guess. Okay? And so if that act of the hand is morally, what, reprehensible, isn't it possible that the emotions, right, are even closer to reason, right, than the will, than my hands? Unde mutto magis, much more, right? The passions themselves, according as they are, what, voluntary, in some way, are able to be called good or bad, what, morally, right, then? Now, they are said to be voluntary, either from the fact that they are commanded by the will, right, or from that that they are not, what, prohibited by the will. Yeah, but it's interesting, because I think, you know, Aristotle would probably say that you have a kind of tyrannical rule over your hands, right? But you have a more political rule over your emotions, right? You know, the famous thing there where he says, should you rule the, should reason rule the emotions as a master rules the slave? There's nothing to say about what he does, right? Or should you rule them in the way that a father rules his, what, son, right? The son has something to say about what he should do, right, huh? Where he should go to college, where he should, he should, where he should eat and so on, right, huh? What he should do, right? And so, the emotions, in that sense, don't obey automatically the way they handle it, right? If the mirrors are reason, so why don't the mirrors to reason make them more subject to reason, it seems they're not? Well, it's because, I suppose, because that they have, they're moved by the, what, their objects, right? In a way that is, they could be independent. Right, right, yeah. Yeah. They have their own options. Yeah. I think it's insane all the thoughts, I forget where, one of the spiritual authors, he says, as we get older, we can kind of, or maybe Father Harden says this too, as we get older, we can kind of conceal our reactions to things, but they're still going on inside us. And that's kind of a real sign of maturity, is that you don't do that. That's what our Lord says. It's one thing to say, don't kill. It's another thing to say, don't be angry at your brother. Yeah. Because you can not kill him, but he's got, you know. Think of 10 different ways you can strangle him. That's worse than if you were, I think, just to go out and strangle him. You can kill him a hundred times. Inside. Inside. Which is worse than just one thousand. Nereshtal talks about music there in the Eighth Book of Politics, huh? And he's talking about music, you know, being not only relaxation, that sort of thing, you know, but also that it can be a part of moral education, right? And it's kind of, you know, kind of a bridge there between reason and the emotions there, huh? Because it's something that's appealing to the senses, right? And therefore, if you listen to the right kind of music, your emotions are, what, moved in harmony with the music, right? And if music, like Osterly says, right, in the book, in the article there, towards an evaluation of music, the music of the Baroque period, right, and Mozart, the classical period, represents the emotions in a state in harmony with reason, right? So when your emotions are moved in harmony with the music of the Baroque or Mozart, then your emotions are moved, what, in a kind of reasonable way, right? And this is a kind of disposition for what? For it. Yeah, yeah. When Aristotle defines tragedy, he puts in the definition of tragedy that it's a catharsis, right? Pity and fear and so on, right? And so catharsis there is a term borrowed from, what, medicine, right? And a catharsis in medicine is removing some harmful substance from your body, right, huh? So if you swallow a poison, something like that, right, you know, that you might, in some cases, you know, they might induce vomiting or something of this sort, right? That's kind of a purge for that, right, huh? Okay. But when you're hit by a snake or something like that and they bleed you, right? That's kind of a catharsis, right, huh? So the catharsis, the emotion, is removing some disorder from the emotions, huh? Remember a friend of mine being in some, some angry with his brother, you know, huh? And Shakespeare is what? As you'd like it was showing, right? We had this conflict of brothers, right, huh? And so I took him to see this, right? And see him to, you know, make him more gentle, you know, for his brother that he'd been angry with, right, huh? You know? So the good fiction there, right, huh? Moves the emotions and then, what? He's in my way, right? But bad music and bad fiction, you know, moves the emotions in a way that is, what? Bad, yeah. Pornographic stuff and so on, right? And I remember when my cousin Donald was in the Navy and they still had the, down in Newport there, you know, they still had the Navy base there and so on. And this is rock and roll, this is crazy stuff that's coming out and getting, kind of thing. And they get so excited down there that they're throwing these, you know, collapsible chairs, you know? Chairs, yeah. I said, God, what are those things you like? Yeah, yeah. It'll be a real while. Well, this is not the effect of listening to Mozart or Handmaid, you know? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Aristotle says they're in the politics and so on. So this is totally neglected in education, of course. It's the opposite. It's cultivated. Yeah. I mean, you're in the Catholic great schools, you know? I mean, what's your favorite band? That's about the, that's about the, that's about the, that's about the contact they have, you know? That's the kind of steering they have, you know, huh? Yeah. He cuts by his son, Paul. He says, yeah, he didn't know any bands. Well, that's, I'll tell you what happened when I went, this is way back when, in the 80s, and they didn't even, I mean, cassette tapes were about in advance and they didn't have CDs yet. Yeah. And I remember going into a record store, when they had record stores, and I went in there and I was looking for Gregorian chant. And there was some teenager at the counter up there and I walked in, I'm looking around and I can't find any. So when I'm talking, I said, do you have any Gregorian chant? And it's blank. Total blank. And he said, name some of the groups. I said, okay, monks of Salaam. I don't think we have any of that. Name some of the groups. Now, when I was working in the package store, you know, and actually come in and you have Grateful Dead on them, right? Well, I mean, I didn't know there was a band known as Grateful Dead, right? Oh, I thought it was just, I said, what a sick slogan they have. Not, I think glad it would be out of my misery or something. That's how I could think of this. What kind of stuff? I didn't know what the hell, I didn't even know a band was named Grateful Dead. So, and of course, you know, and the people, you know, follow them around for all the concerts. Yeah. They're called deadheads, right? Yeah. It says a lot. Yeah, I know. I mean, just. I don't know. I don't know. That's a good one. Maybe someone had an analysis and said, by the way, I'm not grateful. I'm angry. Someone told me this story as a prayer request, but apparently some son was mad at his parents, so he's going to be a house and he's pounding on the door. I don't know. I don't know. and he has like a flashlight or something pounding on the door and he's yelling and screaming and you miss this, he knocks himself in the head and you and his parents had to come out and call the ambulance and he's like, I don't know. Emotion? Okay, so replying now to dejections. The first effort should be said that these passions considered by themselves, right, are common to men and to the other, what, animals, right, but according as they are, what, commanded by reason and they are proper to, what, man, right. I played Mozart a lot for our cat, but he didn't seem to take any interest in it. I tried to pretend that he liked it, but I don't think I was being fanciful there, right, no? But then I got up and went in the kitchen and got a little, we had a sandwich to meet there, you know, a little wrap of paper there, it kept me right next to me, you know. I said, how did, now I try to be as quiet as I can, you know, getting a little sandwich to meet there. That's what our cat's favorite music is turning up the air. Yeah, it's in the piano opener for a tuna can. It got very sensitive years, right? When I was little, we had a cat, and the cat would kind of stay in the garage there, right? And then in the morning, you know, you come to the back door of the house there, and you open the door, and the cat went up from the garage, you know, couldn't know he was going to be fed. We tried to see if we could just open the door as quiet, and as slowly, and as a thing, and the cat would always hear it, and it's swimming right up there. Now to the second one, about them being rational. To the second, it should be said that the lower desiring powers, right, the sense appetite, are said to be rational in some way, according as they, what? Partake in some way of reason, as is said in the first book of the Ethics, right? Now I always say, you know, if you want to get kind of a vivid sense of what it means for the emotions to partake of reason, listen to the music of Mozart right now. He really has that, right? It's kind of an amazing thing to see, right? And, you know, certain kinds of music would just irritate you after you, a little bit of philosophy, something like that, you know, kind of relaxing after that. And all sorts of music, yeah, it just seems to fit the mood of the man who's been thinking rationally, you know? And some of the stuff just, I told you the story of Father Boulay, they're being in a restaurant there, and the guy's performing, and he set up money to have them stop. It was just a way to insult them, they just stop. So you go, I need to get a meal, all this, and it's junk, because you like good music, you're crazy. One time, I guess we're too shy to do what we should do, hopefully, you know? The third, about praise and blame now, it should be said, the philosophy says that we are not praised or blamed according to passions absolutely considered, right? So we just say no. Should you blame a man or praise him for being angry? Well, it depends upon what he's angry about and how much he's angry, right? You know? It was appropriate, right? If you're using my kids for target practice, you know, it might be reasonable to get a little bit angry about that. Okay? The guy was telling me about the neighbor's kid came over and there was a flowering plant there in the pot, right? And the kid, you know, looked at the guy and he pushed the thing off and broke it. Right? Pow! Yeah. The car's a little bit of anger. There he is. But this does not take away or remove that they can be, what, praiseworthy or what? Blameable. Yeah. According as they are ordered by, what, reason or not. Once he adds that they are not praised or, what, blamed who simply fears or is angry but qui aliqualitae, right, in some way. That is either according to reason or, what, outside of reason. Exactly. There's a story I heard about Leonardo da Vinci. He was just a little boy who sat next to his grandpa and his grandpa had something very important to tell him he wanted to remember. So, he just said my mind is open and I told him, wham! He knocked the kid by 10 feet and then the kid comes back and I'm like, what, what, what are they doing? He said, I want you to remember this. The rest of his life he remembered this. Whatever it was. I had a great demonic device. I just had a positive feel that when he threw people on the confessional he had an external sign of anger sometimes when he was upset. He showed the world. Put the fear of God in us. Do you have to do that with him before we take our break? Okay. Whether every passion I don't know. It is bad morally, right, huh? Okay, this is because of the confusion in the stoics, right, huh? This question arises. To the second one proceeds thus, it seems that all passions of the soul are bad morally. For Augustine says in the ninth book on the City of God that the passions of the soul, some call, what, sicknesses, right, and disturbances of the soul, right, huh? But every sickness or disturbance of the soul is something bad morally. Therefore, every passion of the soul is morally, what, bad, huh? Shouldn't be disturbed, huh? Yeah, it's okay. Yeah. Robert Damascene says that an operation which is, what, according to nature is emotion, but a passion is something apart from nature, right, huh? But this, that, what is, aside from nature, apart from nature, the emotions of the soul, has the notion of a sin and of a moral evil, right, huh? Well, it's from true birth, stumbling on abuse, huh? When he himself says elsewhere that the devil was turned from that which is in accordance with nature to that which is, what, outside of nature, right? Therefore, these passions are bad morally, huh, speaking. Moreover, everything that leads us into sin has the notion of something bad. But passions of this sort, it is into sin. Once Romans 7, they are called the, what, passions of sin. Therefore, it seems that they are bad, but morally, right, huh? But again, this is what Augustine says, again, in the 14th book on the City of God, huh, that right love, rectified love, right, has all these affections rectified, huh? They fear to, what, sin? They desire to persevere. They are sad over their sins. They rejoice in, what, good works, huh? Just because our love is rectified, huh? Okay, I'm not asking you, kind of, background of where this difficulty arises. I answer, it should be said that about this question, other or diverse was the position of the Stoics and the peripatetics, huh? Now, the Stoics are, the peripatetics are the fountains of Aristotle, right? For the Stoics said that all passions are, what, bad, huh? Yeah, yeah. They're Stoics, huh? They have some character. Yeah. Um, the peripatetics said that moderated, right, passions, right, are, what, good, right, huh? Which difference, although it seems great, secundum vocem, right? Words, right? Nevertheless, secundum rem in the thing itself is either nothing or small, right, huh? If one considers the intentions of both, right? For the Stoics did not discern between sense and, what, understanding, and consequently neither between the intellectual desiring power and the sense desiring power. Whence they did not discern the passions of the soul from the motions of the will, according as the passions of the soul are in the sense desiring power, okay? But the simple motions of the will are in the understanding partner. But every rational motion of the desiring power they called, what, will, and they called passion every motion proceeding outside the limits of reason, right? And therefore, following their, what, opinion or their position, Tullius, that's Cicero, right, in the third book of the Tusculum questions, right, calls all passions, what? Sickness. So, yeah. From which he argues that those which are, what? Sick. Yeah. And those which are not healthy are, what, foolish? Foolish. Foolish. Whence the foolish he calls, what? Insane. Insane. That's strong words, right? Yeah. But the peripatetics, huh, call all motions of the sense power passions, right, huh? Whence they estimate that they are good when they are moderated by reason, right? Bad when they are outside the moderation of reason, right? Whence it is clear that Tulli, that's Cicero, in the same book, right, huh? Inconvenienter, right? Unsuitably. Disproves, you might say, or disproves, right? In the position of peripatetics, who approve of, what? The meanness of the passions, right? Saying that everything bad, even mediocre, even a little bit, right, should be avoided, right, huh? For just as a body, even if it'd be a little bit sick, it is not, what? Healthy, right, huh? But this medium of the sicknesses or passions of the soul is not healthy, right, huh? But the passions are not said to be sicknesses or disturbances of the soul, except when they lack the, what? Moderation of reason, right? So it kind of results from the Stoics with not understanding the distinction between sense and understanding, right? And then between sense, desire, and rational desire, right? Partly in the words, but partly in their understanding of things. And so you can see what the way of speaking here in the text that Augustine is referring to, he's not saying that to himself necessarily, not to the second about it being something outside of nature, right, huh? That in every passion of the soul, there is added something or diminished from the natural motion of the heart, insofar as the heart more intensely or more remissly is moved, right? According to... The systolic and the diastolic. Yeah, what do you know about that stuff? Really? Okay? Systonia they give here as contraction, right? And the other is dilating, right? And according to this, it has the notion of a passion. Now, however, is it necessary that a passion always decline from the order of natural, what? Reason, right? And then the answer to the third objection, right? That the passions of the soul, insofar as they are outside the order of reason, they incline to sin, right? And insofar as they are ordered by reason, they pertain to what? To virtue, right, huh? It's interesting. The tragedy is supposed to, what, have a catharsis of pity and fear, right, huh? And pity seems to be, what, kind of a good emotion, right, huh? Why should there be a form of friction that would induce envy? Make men envious? If Karl Marx wasn't fixing it, you've got to get it. Or if there is a form of fiction that made men melancholic, comedy kind of purges melancholy, right? You get this, you read the great comic poets, right, that they're trying to purge melancholy, right? Drive it away. The comic is the example that one time he was reading, you know, I guess you read the moderns for how long you get depressed about it. I remember my teacher, who was talking, I got a letter from the comic, he says, he feels like jumping off the bridge, he says, you read the moderns. And so, but one thing, you know, a lot of the moderns think, you know, that the computer is the same thing as the human mind, right? And, you know, they're really serious about that, huh? I told you one time I saw it, and what was his name there on TV? He was interviewing a big computer expert, I'm sorry, you know, and the guy was telling him how many years it would be before the computer, you know, went beyond our reason. And Charlie Rosen, he injuries big people, right? I mean, poor people, you know? You know? Now they're like, you know, this is something. He's taking this in, you know, huh? So, you know, he's a little depressed after I had the kind of greeting on this gentleman. And then I guess he saw something in Punch, you know, but he's two guys in front of the computer, there's a printout, and one guy's looking very positive, and he says, what does it say? It says, I think, therefore I am. So that was kind of like a catharsis, you know? All the time, is it? But, you know, they say that, like, a catharsis is pity and fear, you know? That you have pity for the misfortune of another, right, huh? But it doesn't get too sentimental, because you have, what, fear that they say that could happen to you, right, huh? You know? There's kind of a balance there, you know? a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there, you know, there's a balance there So, Article 3 now. To the third one proceeds thus. It seems that a passion whatsoever always diminishes the goodness of a moral act. For everything that impedes the judgment of reason upon which the goodness of a moral act depends diminishes, consequently, the goodness of the moral act. But every passion impedes the judgment of reason. For as Salas says in the Catalina Nario, is that the thing on Catalina? All men who consult about doubtful things, right? They ought to be, what, empty, I guess, of hate, anger, friendship, mercy, right? Therefore, every passion diminishes the goodness of a, what, moral act, right? So, as Salas says, if you allow the guy in the court to, you know, move the emotions of the jury, right? It's like warping the ruler before you measure. So, if I'm angry, it seems worse what you've done, right? If I'm feeling pity for you, it doesn't seem so bad what you've done, right? You know, it seems bigger or smaller than they really are. It could be passions, right? Moreover, the act of man, the more it is like God, the better it is, right? Whence the apostle says in Ephesians chapter 5, Be imitators of God as, what, most dear sons, huh? But God and the holy angels punish without anger, and they aid without the compassion of misery, right? As Augustine himself says in the ninth book on the city of God, Therefore, it is better to do what, these good works, right? Without the passion of the soul than with the passion, right? So you should give me a glass of water without any feeling sorry for my thirst. No mercy, just water. Moreover, just as the malo morale, the bad moral badness, badness is noted in order to reason, so also the good, right? But the moral badness is diminished through passion. For less does he sin who sins from passion than the one who sins from, what, industry, right? Therefore, a greater good, right, he does who does the good without passion than he who does it, what, with passion. But against, this is what Augustine says in the ninth book on the city of God, that the passion of, what, pity, huh? Serves, what? Reason. When thus the, what? Mercy. Mercy. Yeah. Prebate or it. Offer, it's given to somebody. Yeah. So that justice is conserved, huh? Or when it is, what? Whether it's given to someone in need, right, huh? Or when, what? When forgives, I guess? Mm-hmm. Yeah. When penitent. But nothing that serious reason diminishes the moral good, right? Therefore, the passion of soul does not diminish the good of moral. Mm-hmm. And I get those troubles of those Stoics, right, huh? Of course, Shakespeare kind of calls them a stock, you know? It kind of makes it think of Stoic and stock, you know? Mm-hmm. And you can beat the, the, the, the wooden thing there, and it just stays here and takes it, right? And that's the way, you know? So if they're, take your wife and children and torturing them or something, you know, you can't do anything about it, well, you don't have any emotion because this is outside your, you know, this is inhuman, right? There's something of that in the Japanese, I believe, is what I picked up from Brother Francis, and he said about the, their attitude about, like, the disaster, the earthquake and the nuclear and so forth, and everybody's attitude is, well, it's something we can't, we can't do anything about it. It's like they just go on as if it didn't happen. Yeah. As if it's meaningless. There's nothing to do about it. So, that's kind of Stoic. The answer, it should be said that the Stoics, just as they lay down every passion of the soul to be bad, right, huh? So, consequently, they lay down that every passion of the soul diminishes the goodness of the act. For every good from the mixture of something bad is either taken away entirely, or at least it comes to be a lesser good, huh? And this, to be sure, is true if we call passions of the soul only, right, those disordered, huh, motions of the sense-desiring power, insofar as they are disturbances, right, or sicknesses, right, huh? But if we name or call passions simply all motions of the sense-desiring power, thus it pertains to the perfection of human good, huh, that also those passions should be moderated by what? Reason, right? Because since the good of man consists in reason as in a root, huh, that's nicely said, huh? To that extent, a good is more perfect the more it, what, belongs to many things that belong to man, and so it can be derived, right, or extended to many things that belong to man. Whence no one doubts but that to the perfection of moral good it pertains that the acts of exterior members, the hands, I guess, and the feet, be directed by, what, the rule of reason, huh? Whence since the sense-desiring power is able to obey reason, as has been said above, to the perfection of, what, the moral or human good it pertains, that the emotions themselves be regulated by reason, right, huh? So I've got to continue listening to Mozart, right? So the sir used to ask me now, do you find you can control your emotions a lot better? He was curious about being true. Thus, therefore, just as it is better that man, what, both will the good and that he acts by the exterior act, right, so also for the perfection of the moral good it pertains that man is moved to the good not only by the will, but also according to the, what, the titan? According, as it is said, now, this is very interesting, quote, in Psalm 83, huh? Cor meum, my heart, and caro meum, my flesh, exalt in the living, what? God. Where cor we take for the intellectual appetite, right, and flesh for the, what? So if your core in your caro, hope, exalts in God, that's better than just your core alone, right? You know, that's the main thing, maybe, huh? Now, in applying to the first objection, he brings in a distinction there. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the passions of the soul, emotions, in two ways can have themselves to the judgment of reason. In one way, antecedently, right, coming before. And thus, since they, what, crowd the judgment of reason, from which depends the goodness of all act, they diminish the goodness of the act, huh? For it is more praiseworthy that someone does a work of charity from the judgment of reason than if he does it from the, what, only the passion of, what, mercy, right, huh? But another way, it can have itself consequential. there, right? Thomas must look before and after, that's all I can say. And this in two ways, right? In one way, by way of overflowing, redundancy. Because when the higher part of the soul is intensely moved to something, right? There follows a motion also in the what? Yeah. It follows its motion in the lower part also, right? And thus the passion existing consequently in the sense, desiring power, is a sign of the intensity of the what? Will. And thus it indicates a greater moral goodness, huh? In another way, by way of choice, huh? When a man from the judgment of reason chooses to be affected by some what? Passion. In order that he might more what? Promptly do something. Yeah. The sense, desiring power, cooperating, right? And thus the passion of the soul adds to the goodness of the action, right? He's simply saying that all aniseed and passions will receive judgment, right? So... He says to some extent they cloud the judgment of reason, right, huh? So, if all aniseed and passions call them the reason, so, you know, the kid picked the Paul, the porch there, whatever, and obviously the anger is going to cloud his reason. So, would it be better if not to feel anger? And then, out of reason, you know, aniseed and passion, and then anger will follow? It sounds kind of irrational, but it's not the way things work. Well, no. You lead somebody by their emotions, right? It's because they're not reasonable enough to be led by their reason, right? And so, it's maybe better to move them by their emotions if they can't be moved by their, what, reason. Yeah. But, I mean, the... So, if all aniseed and passions call the reason in some way, then is the more perfect man one who doesn't have aniseed and passions? You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Is that possible for a man? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It seems... In other words, it would be more perfect if the man, you know, you watch the kid kick off... Well, that was simply saying that the act of reason is going to be more perfect if it's not clouded by the emotion, right? He's not saying to what extent a man can have an act of reason that is in no way clouded by his emotions, right? Because they might come up quickly with his emotions, right? Yeah, that's... I know Francis Sayle is talking about that because that's something that you see that in some of the most perfect saints. They have what they call the modus primi primi. That was a grace that they could... They had domination over even the first movements of emotions, but most of us never do. We're even the saints, and we don't have that. So that's... I think it's great relief to read Francis Sayle is, don't worry about it. You can't control it. It's not under our control of it. But then once you recognize it, then what do you do? That's when you're in control. But don't... Father, I repeat it many times. Don't be angry because you're angry. Don't have a crisis because you're a crisis. They often quote us at Jefferson's advice there about, you know, if you're angry, you don't count to ten before you... If you're very angry, count to a hundred. It'd be better if it's said, if you're angry, remember the passion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's obscure or something, whatever. The second, it should be said that in God and in the angels, there is no sense-desiring power, right, huh? Nor also are there the bodily, what, members, right, huh? And therefore, the good in them is not to be noted according to the ordering of passions or the ordering of bodily actions as in us, huh? So I'm put together from a body and a soul, right? I have to remember that. Don't forget. Now, to the third, it should be said that a passion tending to the bad, preceding the judgment of reason diminishes the, what, sin. But one fallen upon it in one of the, what, forced said ways increases it, right? Or signifies its increase, right? So it comes over because that's the tendency, right? The overflowing, right, huh? But it alge it if it's some choice, right? I enjoy giving you this glass of water, huh? I choose to enjoy it, huh? You know, as in Francis as a man, he's quoting some saint there about this, you know? You know, you have to, what, choose to enjoy the, what you think is the will of God, even though it's the will of God. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it's Francis still talks about that, too. Oh, no, it's Father Hardin's book, on prayer, he talks about that. Not only that we know what God's love is, how the strength to do it, but enjoy doing it. It wasn't the one, it wasn't the one nun there who was kind of just a real person. And, and... Which one? I don't know which one it was, but, but, uh, in terms of the Sue, you know, the saint she's going to, you know, kind of show her, kind of special. I know. That was the one, yes. And the other nun, I think she asked me, why are you so nice to me? I think it was, actually, I think it was Saint Therese somehow got the impression that this nun didn't like her. And so she decided to go out of her way to give her a special smile to me. And that nun, when she died, that nun commented, she must have really liked me because she always gave me a special smile. She didn't sing to her. She didn't get the trick. Saints or something. Yeah, yeah, you've got to watch them, I think. I saw it. I hope she didn't. Yeah, yeah, I always wondered if that nun ever ended up reading her. Really? Oh, that's what she was doing. I thought, I thought I was a woman or somebody would have been mortified how, in, that way I could break the news to her. Look, everybody's going to know this. The whole world, you know, the whole world is going to know this. So, I've got to tell you. Sit down. Sit down.