Prima Secundae
Lecture 97: The Natural Beginning and Pleasure in Ethics

Transcript
================================================================================

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. Deo gracias. Father, enlightenment, Guardian Angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, or to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, pray for us. Help us to understand what you have written. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. I was talking to the students last night again about this phrase of Aristotle that you find explicitly in the beginning of the book on sinistical refutations, that we want to start from the natural beginning. And I'd point out the similar text at the beginning of the book on the poetic art, right? Aristotle again speaks of the natural beginning, right? And so if you're talking, say, about a play, or a painting, right? Or a statue, or even music, what's the natural starting point to talk about such things? No? This is what I talk about. What's the natural starting point if you want to talk about play, plays, and paintings, and statues, and even music? Again, it's a natural starting point. A likeness. Yeah, it's a likeness, right? Or Aristotle said imitation, but you've got to care for the word imitation. It's been degraded because of our commercial use of the word. But it's a likeness, right? And then he says that all these are likeness, but they differ in what they imitate, or what they imitate, or how they imitate, and then he starts to exemplify those things. So you've got the natural starting point, you know, to look to these things, huh? And it's interesting how he gets in that order, right? In what they imitate, before what they imitate. Now you can see why that would go before how they imitate, but why in what they imitate, before what they imitate? Well, you see, when he defines tragedy, he's going to define it as imitation of an action that is serious, he's going to define it first by what it imitates, rather than by that in which it imitates, right? In the definition, right? So he gives the difference, you might say, from the object imitation, right? Before that in which it imitates them. But when he first distinguishes the imitative arts, he does by that in which they imitate, before what they imitate. Well, if you stop and say, huh, you know, you say Shakespeare's written tragedies and comedies, right? But they're both made in words, right? Mozart, you know, the heavenly twins there, the 515, 516, one is in G minor, one is in C major, right? One is in minor key, which is sad, right? And the other is in the major key, which is joyful. And, but it's the same art, right? Or a painter might do a painting of, you know, someone with a joyful expression, someone else with a sad thing after the thing. So the unity is more in art, as far as the art is concerned, in what they imitate, huh? So, for example, a carpenter, I would divide the arts. Do you divide them by, you know, chairs and tables? No, you define those who make in wood and those who make in metal and those who make in plastic, right? And then you can subdivide, say, in wood you can make a chair or a table or a bed, right? In metal you can do the same thing, you can make a desk, you know? But it's first, it shouldn't matter, you know how to work with it. And then, so that's really more fundamental in the state machine arts, right? Well, you're defining an imitation made by one of these guys, right? What's closest to being an imitation is what's an imitation of. I like this, huh? A likeness is a likeness of something. It's a likeness of something in something. But the first thing is, they're beautiful, the order of Aristotle, I have to say, right? So it's important to see the natural, what? Beginning, right? So I was giving them the text from the master there of Aristotle, who was Plato, right? He spent 20 years in the school of Plato. And in the tomatoes there, right, in 29b, Plato says, this is the megastar thing of all, right? To begin, arxasai, right? Katafusim, right? Arcanum. The koin nature beginning, right? The natural beginning, right? That's the greatest thing of all, he says, to do that, right? So I said to students last night, I said, now what would be the natural beginning in ethics, huh? It could be more than one thing, you know, because, you know, in the book on his refutations here, Albert the Grady, the commentary is explaining how Aristotle has got the natural beginning, right? He does a couple of things that Aristotle does there. Okay? He begins with, you know, well, these are arguments that actually deceive people. You know? The honest, that's the natural beginning. They exist, right? Just like in theology, the natural beginning is, does God exist, right? And so Aristotle begins there, right? And then he comes to the goal of the sophist, right? You know, that's the natural beginning to see what he's aiming at, right? Before you talk about how he tries to achieve his aim or goal, right? So Aristotle knows how to begin, right? What's the natural beginning of ethics, huh? Well, even before that, see, because that's something he has to investigate through the whole of book one, right? That means how that point ends? Yeah, yeah. What is man to act? Yeah. But the way Aristotle begins the Nicomachean ethics is by a short induction to bring out that the good is what all want. And so that's kind of the fundamental question, right? What is the good? What is good, right? And if you wanted to introduce people properly to that, you'd do it in the form of a Socratic dialogue, right? Where Socrates asks a boy, what is good? And like other characters in the dialogue, the boy gives examples of things that are considered good. But when you ask him what do these all have in common? Well, all you can think of is that these are all things that he wants, right? He wants, you know, a baseball game. He wants candy. He wants, you know, coke and so on. And that's one natural beginning, right? The good is what all want. And then you can add the natural, what, question, is it good because we want it? Or do you want it because it is good, right? In the whole dialectic, but it proceeds naturally from that, huh? And I was struck, I think it was in the Verreligioni, but one of Augustine's works there, you know, where he begins, you know, quoting the definition of beauty that's like that definition of the good. The beautiful is what pleases when seen. And then right away, like the good platonist that he is, he says, well, now, is it beautiful because it pleases us, right? Our senses? Or does it please us because it's beautiful? He has, I have no doubt, it's the second thing he says, you know? But, you know, that's kind of the key thing, you know? Beauty is not in the eye of the owner. It's in the thing, right? And that's in CESA, right? But you start off with that beginning that beautiful is what pleases when, what, seen, right? And there you see the connection between maybe the good and the end, too, huh? Okay, that's part of the natural beginning, huh? But the other part of the natural beginning is the one that is not as explicit as it could be in Aristotle, but it's in Plato explicitly, right? And that is what is a thing's own act? And Plato defines a thing's own act as what that thing alone can do, right? Yeah? So, seeing, let's say, is the eye's own act because the eye alone can see, or hearing is the ear's own act, or at least, but it does better than other things, huh? So walking is the feet's own act, it's not the hands-on act, at least some guys can get up and walk on their hands, but not so well as someone can walk on the feet as, before it's already true for us, right? you know, and so, and the kids write with a knife, you know, in the wood, but it's not as good as a pen for writing, you know, so writing is a pen's own act, and so on. Well, that's a key thing because, as Aristotle, I mean, as Shakespeare says, that part of philosophy I treat, you know, I consider, the treats of happiness by virtue especially to be achieved. Well, in order to understand happiness or the end of man, I mean, You have to know that a thing's own act is its end or what purpose. And more precisely, the thing's own act done well is its end, right? So the nice own end is, its end is to cut, or to cut well, right? And it depends to write or to write well. And so you have to figure out then what man's own act is, which is not too hard to do. The act involves reason in some way, and so on. And then when you talk about virtue, and vice for that matter, you have to understand what a thing's own act is. Because virtue is the quality that makes a thing's own act what? Good, right? So sharpness is the nice zone of virtue, right? And dullness is a nice, what? Vice. Vice, you see. So those are kind of the natural beginnings, right? So that's kind of a marvelous thing that Plato and Aristotle will see very clearly. You know, Albert sees that very well, too, following these masters, Thomas. So now we're up to Article 4 here, on whether pleasure perfects what? Operation. Question 33, Article 4. To the fourth one proceeds thus. It seems that pleasure does not, what? Perfect operation. For every human operation or doing depends upon the use of reason. But pleasure impedes the use of reason, as it said in the previous article. Therefore, pleasure does not perfect, but weakens or debilitates human doing, human operation. Because that's not too hard to solve, right? You're talking about the pleasure in the body, right? Which in a number of ways, as we saw in the previous article, three ways impedes the use of reason. The second objective is very interesting. Moreover, nothing is perfective of itself or of its cause. But pleasure is a, what? An operation or doing. It's not strictly speaking a, what? Motion, right? Like, Thomas used the word operatio for, like, perfect act, like seeing and pleasure and so on. And I talk about that simple way that Aristotle distinguishes it, too. That in the activity called motion, it's always, by its very nature, incomplete. So when you're walking home, you haven't really walked home yet. And once you have walked home, you're not walking home. So whenever walking home exists, it's incomplete, right? Well, in the case of seeing, right? When I'm seeing you, I've already seen you. Can I see you without having seen you? See? Or as I say to my girl students, you know, huh? You know, love, right, huh? You know? You know? Can I love you? Have I loved you yet? Oh, yes, of course. Well, that's the idea of a perfect thing. But when Thomas tends to use the word, you know, I think operatio, usually for that, for want of a better name, right? For want of a better name in English, I sometimes say doing, right? So, te dictatio is an operatio in doing, which is necessary that be understood either what? Either essentially or causality. Therefore, pleasure does not perfect, what? Operation would be perfecting itself, right? Thomas has a nice apply to that. Moreover, if pleasure perfects operation, either it perfects it as an end or as a form or as a, what? Agent, huh? Unless he takes three of the four causes of him and the three kinds of cause that are based upon actuality, as distinguished from matter, which is based upon this passability. Now he's going to proceed by either or as a soldier, right? But not as an end, because operations are not sought on account of what? Pleasure, but more the reverse, huh? So does the teacher teach the students who enjoy the teaching? Or does he want them to enjoy the teaching so they will what? Learn it better, right? So they will, you know what? Nor again, per modem efficientis, an efficient cause, maker cause, because operation is more the, what? Efficient cause of the, what? Pleasure, right? Than the pleasure, the efficient cause of that. So hearing, I've got to hear Mozart's music before it's going to please me, huh? But I'm pleased as a result of hearing his music. Nor again, as a form, for pleasure does not perfect, what? Operation as a certain, what? Habit, huh? According to the floss in the 10th book of the ethics. Therefore, pleasure does not, what? Perfect operation. But, again, this is what is said there, reading in the 10th book of the ethics, son. That pleasure perfects, what? Operation. Which is a straightforward reply, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now what does Thomas say? I answer, it should be said, that pleasure in two ways perfects operation. In one way, by way of a, what? End, huh? Not according as an end is said to be that on account of which something is. But according as every good that is coming upon something and completing it in some way can be said to be an end, right? And according to this, Aristotle says in the 10th book of the ethics, that pleasure perfects operation as something, as an end coming upon it, right? Over it. Insofar as above this good, which is the operation itself, huh? There comes an addition, you might say, right? Another good, which is pleasure, which implies the coming to rest of the appetite in the good, what? Presupposed, huh? So you rest that, right? So Augustine says that, what, happiness is gaudium de veritate. But it's kind of, what? Not saying what it is essentially, it's essentially the vision, right? It says the vision is the whole reward, right? But coming upon, this reward of the vision itself is the gaudium de veritate, right? It's just kind of like a, what? A, in supervenience, he says, coming upon, right? What I call frosting on the cake. Yeah, that's a little bit of a idea. What's the metaphor in youth? Well, he says it perfects it the way beauty perfects youth, right? Yeah. Of course, what he's pointing out there is that that's not what youth is essentially, that beauty, right, huh? But something that befits it, right, huh? And perfects it in a certain way. Just the way I refer to, I can speak for myself and others also, that the vocation to this monastery, I didn't come here because it was Maronite, but the Maronite liturgy, it's like frosting on the cake, it's beautiful. I didn't come here to become a Maronite, but that's something that's an additional beauty. I'm like, what is that, who came here because he thought it was Armenian? Driscollian. I told you so. I know, it's Driscollian. Secondly, he says, in a second way, on the side of the agent clause, right, strange you to say this, not to be sure directly, because as the philosopher says in the Tenth Book of the Ethics, that pleasure perfects operation, not as the doctor does the, what? Health. Health, but as, what? Health. Health itself, huh? Health. But indirectly, insofar as the agent, who delights in his, what, action, right, more strongly or more vehemently, pays attention to it, right, and more diligently, operates it or does it, right? And according to this, it is said in the Tenth Book of the Ethics, that pleasure is, what? augment, you might say, their own, what, operations, the pleasure that's appropriate to that operation, right? In what? In other things, other... History makes sense? Yeah. Forms. Yeah. You know, Aristotle's a beautiful principal there in the book of the poetic art. He's talking about tragedy, and he's complaining about some people want the tragedy to have a happy ending, right? And, of course, in the 18th century there, in England there, you know, they produced a vision there of, a version, I should say, of King Lear, which is happy, right? You know, and the wedding, too, or something, you know, and that was on the stage for a while, you know, and then finally, you know, Garrick or somebody, you know, had no sense to go back to the Shakespeare, the way he wrote it, right? But Shakespeare says, and as Shakespeare and Aristotle says, one shouldn't seek every pleasure from tragedy, but the pleasure that is appropriate to tragedy, right? And it comes from the catharsis of pity and fear and so on. And so if you want to have a happy ending, you're seeking the pleasure that's appropriate to comedy, right? And regardless of which pleasure is greater or which pleasure is more subtle or something like that, it's not the same pleasure to be sought in these, huh? And, you know, it's a good point, you know, that C.S. Lewis makes in the Preface to Paradise Lost, right? How you should try to read Paradise Lost to enjoy it, right, huh? And the same thing that Joseph Andrews there, the fielding, you know, the novelist, right? Says he's writing a form of fiction that maybe is unfamiliar to the reader, and they should realize the kind of form it is because he may be seeking a pleasure other than the one intended by the author, right? And so I always quote the example of my friend Jim there teaching English in high school there in Minneapolis there, and frustrated, trying to get the kids to enjoy Macbeth, right? And finally telling him, well, it's a mystery story, something like that, you know? But he's kind of giving up the attempt to, you know? You know, it's a kind of pleasure they can't appreciate, right, huh? And it's a little bit like in drinking wine, I think when a person first drinks wine, they're going to find a dry wine, maybe unattractive, or even, you know, they call it bitter. Oh, it's bitter. That drink is bitter. And they can't appreciate the pleasure that's appropriate to a dry wine, right? And so you give them a white wine, and a wine that's a little bit sweet, maybe, you know? And, you know, there's always some sweet wine that's the big cellar now, like, not that Zinfandel Rosé, you know, but the sweet one, you know? And you can't hardly find a dry rosé anywhere in the world. It's hard to find one. And it's sickening wines, you know? And I was at the pro-life day there, you know, the mess, this is my life. Last Friday there, and someone went over and wanted Zinfandel, right? You know, somebody had a Zinfandel. And of course, he had this pink Zinfandel, and said, I don't think I want that. I don't want a red, you know, but didn't have any red Zinfandel. But people will like the white wine first, a deep foul make or something like this, so these are the things, these sweet wines. But after a person has drunk wine for a while, then he starts to maybe, you know, seek a drier wine. He starts to enjoy the pleasure, right? And they get more pleasure, anybody who's experienced the wine, gets more pleasure usually from a red wine than from a white wine, huh? But you have to be kind of, what, accustomed to it, right? I was talking to a young lady there in high school there, and talking about Shakespeare, you know, and I said, would you like this place? Well, she liked the happy place. She liked the staggings, right? Well, I think the pleasure there is harder to, what, appreciate, right? But once you get a taste for it, then you, what, you're hooked, shall we say, and you actually enjoy them more, right, huh? You see? And so Shakespeare has about five comedies, the way I classify them, and ten tragedies, right, you know? I guess in the performances in Greece, they had, like, two or three tragedies, and they'd have comedy, you know? But we always, you know, exemplify the principle here in these simple things. If someone, you know, wants some ice cream, you know, with a steak or something, you know, you know, say, well, he doesn't appreciate, you know, the pleasure is appropriate to steak, right? Regardless of whether the pleasure of steak or ice cream is greater, I think that of steak is greater myself, but even if the pleasure of ice cream are greater, you shouldn't put ice cream in your steak because you're going to, you're going to lose the pleasure that's appropriate to steak, right? I always tell that little story from the newspaper, but I remember you tell it before, you know? You used to have an advice column in the St. Paul paper for teenagers, right? Kind of like this advice column that, you know, the adults read, and so-called adults read. But the little girl was writing in saying, you know, that her problem was that her boyfriend wanted her to wear this candy lipstick, right? But she wanted to wear, you know, adult lipstick, you know? What did I do? Well, the answer was a brief, you know, buy him a lollipop. So in mind, they have this candy lipstick. He's seeking the pleasure of candy in a kiss, right? But the pleasure is, you know, different pleasure, right? And you get the point, right, huh? So you have to get the pleasure that is, what, appropriate to that act, right, huh? I think the music of Mozart is much more enjoyable than this crazy stuff to listen to, you know? But people have to be educated, you know, to appreciate these things, huh? And at first, they won't, what, hear it or appreciate it, you know? You've got to, you know, the men graduate with some, you know, more, you know, obvious music, right? But not so perverse, you know? And graduate with them into the creative things, huh? So he says, They increase The pleasure that's appropriate to that. Now, the first objection, so it's not too hard to answer. To the first effort, it should be said that not every pleasure impedes the act of reason. So enjoying understanding something doesn't impede your understanding things, right? You try to understand them better, right, huh? And your understanding is kind of perfected, too, huh? But it's added in, so to speak. But the pleasure which is bodily, which does not follow upon the act of reason, but is an act of the, what, incubusable, which is increased through pleasure, right? But the pleasure which follows upon the act of reason, fortifies the use of reason, huh? That's the main point that Plato and Aristotle both make, huh, that the multitude can't, have no taste of the higher pleasures, right? And therefore, they, what, maybe tend to access in the lower pleasures, right? And that the reason for the fine arts have a role to play, right, in the education of one's, or sort of pleasure, you might say, right? And I used to, you know, give the little image there, you know, we have a nice room like this, you know, and we serve you a nice meal, right? And we see, you know, if you start to appreciate the nice food I'm giving you, right? And we have the wine that goes at the meal and so on, and I wait until you have many of these pills and seem to appreciate them, the wine, right? And then one night, you know, after your meal, there'll be some music, right? And maybe there'll be a door at the end to open up and there's another room there, right? And there's a string quartet or something, they don't Mozart tonight, huh? And so you kind of, you know, tend to, after this wonderful dinner, you move into the next room there, you hear the beautiful music, right? And then we wait, you know, months maybe, whatever it is. And then some night there's another door at the other side of the music room and there are these beautiful additions of Homer and Shakespeare and so on, right? And let me see if you can appreciate those things, right? But we're graduating along, right, huh? Until finally you come to a room that's got, this guy here. It would be a general shock in the beginning, right? Where's the baby? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the pleasures of the fine arts, you know, as we mentioned before, Ross, we mentioned before, are too high for the beasts, right? And too low for the, what? Angels. Angels, yeah. So that my cat, I can share her appreciation of steak. She seemed to like pork a lot, you know, pork chops. But I couldn't get her to really like Mozart. I'd probably pretend that she liked it, you know, but I think she was just sleeping. Pretending to be contented, you know, with the, you know, purring away at the Mozart playing. But I don't think that was the object of her purring. Sleeping that she enjoyed. Especially after my signal. Yeah. The second thing is interesting, huh? To second should be said, that has been said in the second book of the Physics. It happens that two things can be to each other a, what? Cause, right, huh? This is one of the corollaries that Aristotle gives when he distinguishes the four kinds of causes. And he gives a number of corollaries. And the first one says, there can be many causes as such of the same thing, right? So is wood the cause of this? Or is the carpenter the cause of this? Or is sitting the cause of this? Well, yes, all of them, but in different ways. And even the shape is the cause of it, right? But each of them is a cause in a different way. But they're all causes as such, not by accident, right? And the second corollary is that two things can be causes of each other, but by, what? Different kinds of cause, right? So he says, one can be as an efficient cause, and the other as the, what, final cause of the other. And in this way, doing or operation causes pleasure as an efficient cause, huh? But pleasure perfects operation by a manner of a, what? Of an end, right? As has been said, right? But a supervenience end, right? It's interesting. And the theory, he says, is sufficiently clear from the foreset, right? Now. Let's do it. I was comparing the treatise here on pleasure with the treatise on, what, love? Because they both had a question about love itself or pleasure itself, right? And then a question on the causes of it, and then a question on the effects of it, right? But here you seem to have something in addition, right? It's interesting, huh? Why didn't you have that on love? I used to say to the students, which is better, knowledge or love? Well, of course, the ladies all think love, right? And they say, well, all knowledge is good. And Aristotle himself, you know, the premium to the three books on the soul, says, behold, that all knowledge is good, but some knowledge is better than others, right? Because it's about a better thing or because it's more certain, right? But is all love good? So if I love to torture you, huh? I love to rob the banks, huh? I love to bully the kid in the class, or so on. So all love isn't good. It's a kind of forced admit that all knowledge is good, and some love is, yeah, yeah. And so, but love is good, then, in general. But it's a reasonable love, right? If I love to eat too much, is that love good? So, but the reasonable is sharing for knowledge, right? So you say, to begin with, all knowledge is good, all love is not good, right? And then the love that is good has to partake of, what? Reason of knowledge, yeah. So it's obviously, knowledge is greater than love. They take up stones to cast them. One time, you know, they had this silly, silly thing from the psychology department, right? They were supposed to conduct a test, right? And everybody's supposed to jump up and run out of somebody's class, right? Stupid, stupid thing that the psychology department does, right? So one day, they jump up, run out of my class, right? I said, oh my gosh, now I've really done it. They try to actually, what the reaction of the professor is going to be, you know, to the sudden exit from his class. Come see, psychological tests, you know. Who are they testing, the students? Sounds like a professor. Yeah, but yeah, in fact, what's going on? I said, I guess I really, I really, we lost them now. Unfortunately, so the students don't react to it. This is part of a psychological test. Let's try to see what the reaction would be on the professor. Very well. That's when you go out and get ice cream. Yeah. Well, I guess, I guess, Romney's getting much bigger crowds now, you know, than Obama, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. In 2008, Obama had 50,000 people. And I guess 5,000. And Romney had 10,000 from the stadium there, and the people were trying to get in. Thousands out there. So, I don't know. Let's have to keep our prayers, you know. Yeah. Okay. Then we'll have to consider about the goodness and badness of what pleasure is, right? Why is this so important? Why does he have this? This guy's amazing, this guy. And about this, four things are asked. First, whether every pleasure is bad, huh? I'm thinking that sometimes he needs to be saying this. He must have been Irish who asked this question. I'm not going to have to say that. I'm not going to have to say that. Take pleasure. Second, given that not every pleasure is bad, right? Whether all pleasure is what? Good. Good, huh? I ain't about the first thing in Shakespeare there. Now that you are virtuous, you think there'll be no more cakes and ale? Well, where's that from? No, it's from 1290, I guess. No more cakes and ale. Oh, yeah. So, apparently, some pleasures are going to be bad, and some are going to be, what? Good. Good, huh? Now, it wasn't the English utilitarians, right? They kind of make pleasure, you know, pain, and the measure of good and bad, right? It's like saying that all pleasure is good, right? Just get maximal pleasure. That's the goal, right? Yeah. Not too good at things. I'm curious. I'm curious. Third, whether some pleasure is optimum. The best. Now, whether pleasure is the measure or rule by which one judges, or good and bad, is judged in moral matters, right? Aristotle speaks this way, right? To the first, then, one proceeds thus. It seems that every pleasure is bad. For that which corrupts prudence, or foresight, I'm going to use the English word for prudence. And impedes use of reason, would seem to be, in itself, what? Malo. She couldn't say malo. Because the good of man is to be in accordance with, what? Reason. As Dionysius says in the fourth chapter, Divine Names. So, I used to try to tell the students that a good human act is a reasonable act, right? And a bad human act is an unreasonable act, right? He said, the good of man is to be in accordance with, what? Reason, huh? It's his very nature. But pleasure corrupts prudence and impedes the use of reason. And the more, the greater the, what? Pleasures are, huh? Whence in venereal pleasures, huh? Which are the greatest, huh? It is impossible to understand something, as is said in the seventh book of the Ethics. And Jerome also says, upon Matthew, in that time in which conjugal acts are, what? Carried on. The presence of the Holy Spirit is not, what? Given. This is tough talk here. Even if the, what? Prophets seem to be... I'm not sure what you're referring to there, Tom. Well, it's serving the office of generation, right? Yeah. So, maybe like, was it Jeremiah? Who was it that was told? Therefore, pleasure is secundum se malo, right, huh? And therefore, all pleasure is, what? I don't know. Killjoys, these guys. Moreover, that which the virtuous man flees, right, and the one failing in virtue, or falling short of virtue, pursues, seems to be in itself bad and to be fled from, right? Because, as is said in the tenth book of the Ethics, the virtuous man is as the measure and the rule of, what, human acts, huh? That's the interesting thing about the Incarnation, right? Because, you know, Thomas has kind of a little dialectic there, borrowed from Augustine, right, huh? You know? Man can be seen to be followed, right? But he's not the perfect thing to follow, right? God is the perfect one to follow, but he can't be seen. So, how did God solve this dilemma? He became man, right, huh? So that he could, we have a perfect model to follow, but, and it could be known by us, right? It's kind of, you know, there's a little tendency, a little tension there between Plato and Aristotle, you know, where Plato's emphasizing, you know, that the perfect is the measure of the imperfect, right? And therefore the good itself, right, is kind of the standard, right? Where a style is saying we need a standard that is known, right? So you've got to take something for approximate, right? So that's the human, the virtuous man, right? He's the measure, right? As if, you know, it's like Plato's almost saying, you know, well, God has to be the measure, right? And, you know, at the beginning of the great work, the last work of Plato, the laws, you know, he had a quote there from the big guys who said, man is the measure of all things. And the Athenian student says, no, God is the measure of all things, right? It's difficult to follow God if he's not very well known to us, right? So that we try to imitate God, right? So we imitate somebody around us, so we need a virtuous man to imitate, right? So parents are always looking, you know, for their children to have good friends, right? And to imitate the good actions of these friends, right? But if they have bad friends, you know, they're going to imitate them, and they do as you know, and they're better straight, huh? You can kind of see the reason for the incarnation. Whoever that, okay. Yeah, but the Apostle says that the, what, spiritual man, right? The spiritualist, the spiritual man. Judicatomia, right? He judges all things, right, huh? But boys and beasts, said together, in whom there is no virtue, they pursue, what, pleasures, right? But the temperate man flees them, right, huh? And therefore, pleasures in themselves are bad and to be fled from, right? Moreover, virtue and art are about the difficult and the good, huh? As is said in the second book of the Ethics. But no art is ordered to pleasure, right? How about the art of cooking? There you go. Or what about, you know, the art of the playwright, you know? We'll strive to please you every day, as Shakespeare says, in the epilogues of the plays. Therefore, pleasure is not something, what? Good. Good, huh? Well, those aren't the right answers. Just let me finish the article, you know? Don't leave me alone. Don't shout out. Yeah. This is a hard teaching who can follow it. Reading that in Chapter 6 there. I was like, St. Bonaventure asked about whether we should do bodily penance, corporal penance. And one of his objections, I like very much, he says, well, St. Paul says that the spirit of the flesh or of hope is their enemies to each other. But Christ says, love your enemies and do good to them to take you. Very good. I'll prove that. I was like, well, not going to do it this year. But against this is what is said in Psalm 36. Delight in the Lord, right? Delictare in dominore. Since, therefore, to nothing of the bad does divine authority lead us in the right, reduces to, it seems that not every, what? Pleasure is, what? Bad. I answer, it should be said, that is, it's said in the 10th book of the Nicomachean Ethics, that some lay down all pleasures to be, what? Bad. Bad, huh? The reason for which would seem to have been because they brought their attention only to, what? Sensible pleasures and bodily pleasures, right? Which are more, what? Manifest. Manifest, huh? So what does the common man think of the common citizen think, you know? When they think of the word pleasure, right? They think of something sensible and bodily, right? For also in other things, right, the old philosophers, right, the antique philosophers, did not, what, distinguish the understandable things from sensible things. But they thought that all bodily pleasures, huh? They thought they should all be said, what? Yeah. To be bad. So that thus men who are prone to immodern pleasures, right, would be withdrawn from the, what? Pleasures, right? So that they could arrive at the middle that is virtue, right? The middle of virtue. So, you know, the, you know, in the effigy, you have an example, you know, the piece of metal is bent, and you want it, what, straightened out like that. And then you've got to bend it in the opposite direction, but even you've got to go a little bit beyond there in order for it to straighten out, right? And we'll say that, like some priests or people in the monastery and so on, the ascertains are a bit, what, puritanical, right, huh? In the beginning, right, huh? But maybe that's necessary because you have to bend a bit in the opposite direction. In order to, what? Straighten it out. Yeah, yeah. When you get to be, you know, John Paul II, you can sit down and drink the priest's wine with the priest, right? You know, and somebody made their own wine, right? So you can sit down and talk about various things and sip some wine with him, you know, because he's now in the meaning, right? But maybe before he had to be a little bit puritanical. But there's no certain danger in saying that all, what? Right. Yeah. But this existimazio, this estimate, I can't read estimate from that, but this thinking was not, what, suitable because no one can live without some sensible and bodily, what, pleasure. And therefore, if those who teach that all pleasures are bad, right, are found, what, except some pleasures, right, that seems to be enjoying his meal or something, more men would be, what, proclives, that would be disposed for pleasures by an example of them, because actions speak louder than words, right, and admitting the teaching of the words, right? Well, it's kind of a common thing, you know, examples move us more than the words, right? To who he moves. Faith and not proposing them as a saint, not just for the example of virtue. You kind of try to get them with the, you don't think that John Paul II was stupid, do you? No, well, he believes all these things. And then they can admire his virtue in his life, and they think, well, maybe there's not more to this, because he was such an admirable man. I don't think he was dumb, you know? Yeah, yeah. So, and then the example of the martyrs, most of all, because they laid down their life for the truth of these things. It's kind of, that's a way, I think, that's sometimes more effective with some people. Yeah, yeah. So Thomas, there's a principle there. In the doings, in the, what, passions, human, in which, what, experience, plurimum, volat, most of all is of value. Examples move more than, what, words. That's what they said in the Gospels there, they begin to do and teach, something like that, it gives that order of doing first. It's kind of the same word as the Last Supper, too, right? He did. And then he taught them about it. I actually think that the three parts of the Last Supper there, as kind of what parents have to do, you just have to give the good example, right? And then he taught them about it. And then he taught them about it. And then he taught them about it. to your children, then you have to instruct them with words, and finally you have to pray for them that the example of the words will bear fruit, you know. And I meet people, you know, that we know, get to know who, you know, daily math, you know, some of them have, you know, very nice stories with their children, but some of them have a problem with their children, you know, and even they seem to be good people, but so you give them the example, you give them the words, and then you pray. But you need all three of those things, and kind of in that order, right? That's the thing, is that you can't control, if you want to influence, you can't control. When the kids had some candy, I used to always say, you know, can daddy have a piece? It's like their little bucket, you know, get one, you know. And if you do that regularly, you know, then when they get some candy, they automatically offer it to you, you know, and so they got kind of a good example of sharing their candy, it should be said, therefore, that some pleasures are good, and some are, what, bad. For pleasure is the rest of the sensitive appetite, or power, either, in some good love, right, and following upon some, what, operations in doing, right? Whence the reason of this can be taken in two ways, twofold. In one, on the side, or on part of the good, in which one rests being pleased, right? Now, good and bad in moral matters is said according as it, what, is suitable, or fits with reason, or it is discordant from it, right? Just as in natural things, something is said to be natural, from this that it belongs to, what, or it fits nature, right, agrees with nature, but unnatural insofar as it is, what, yeah, noise, huh? You see, you know, discordant reminds me of what Socrates says in the Phaedo there, where he says that philosophy is the highest kind of music, and he means, you know, the art of harmony, right, huh? So that if your emotions and your will are in harmony with reason, then there's a kind of music in your soul. But if your emotions or your will are not in harmony with reason, then you have noise in your soul, right? That's kind of beautiful the way he says it, right, huh? But, you know, actually there's two kinds of philosophy. Looking philosophy, which in Greek is called theoretical philosophy, in light and spectative, but the English word is looking, looking philosophy, and then, you know, active philosophy, practical philosophy. And looking philosophy is looking or seeking the harmony of truth and avoiding the contradictions, right, that people have in their thoughts, but practical philosophy is aiming at first the harmony of emotion and will with reason, and then later on the harmony of, you know, husband and wife and parent and child and so on, and the harmony of the citizens, right, huh? So, as compared to the musician, right, who knows how to get the instruments in harmony, the symphony, right? So the city should be like a symphony, right, where the instruments and the sounds harmonize one with another. But this word here, discordant, it's a reminder, because a chord is kind of, I mean, we're saying music, right, don't we? Chords, discordant, huh? Okay. C.S. Lewis say heaven, I mean, hell is a kingdom of noise. Yeah, you know, just things that are not, it's going to be, you know, this noise in your soul, but also the noise between you and everyone else, right? You know, all fairness in his ultra, you know, like, in his heart. That describes, it doesn't describe hell, you know. Just, therefore, as in natural things, there is a certain natural rest, which is in that which is suitable to the nature, as when the heavy thing rests down below, right? And a certain rest that is unnatural, huh? Which is in that which is repugnant nature, as when the heavy rests up above, huh? So, it is also in moral matters, that there is a certain good pleasure, according as the, what? The higher appetite, being the will, I guess, or the inferior, being the emotions, rests in that which, what? Reason. And some bad, from this, that it rests in that which is in discord, huh? From reason, and from the, what? Law of God. That's something Newman talks about, when, if somebody's in error about something, meaning that's just specular, but practically, I think, in a certain example, scrambled eggs, eating scrambled eggs is a mortal sin. Well, he's in error about it. But, if his conscience tells him that, and he goes and eats his scrambled eggs, he commits a sin. Not because his scrambled eggs are bad, but because he's out of harmony with what his conscience tells him. So, he says, sometimes, if somebody's determined to do what's pleasing to God, and he's in error about what's pleasing to God, like belonging to the Catholic Church, he says, he's, nevertheless, he's, he's, he calls it, he's prejudiced in favor of the truth, because he wants to do what's pleasing to God. So, he's willing to listen to his conscience. As soon as he discovers the truth, he'll say, oh, that's what I want to do. You'll change, because he's accustomed to wanting to do what his conscience tells him. So, that's kind of what this is, even if he's in error. You know, the man who sees pleasure as such as being good, right, huh? You know, he might, he might admit that it's bad to want to say, let's say, torture people, right, huh? Okay. Because that causes pain, I guess. You know, pain's bad, right, huh? Pleasure's good, right, huh? But to enjoy torturing people, right? Well, that is a pleasure for some people, right? And therefore, it's good for them, at least, right? You see? But, which unites us more to something? Wanting it, or taking pleasure in it? Yeah. So, if wanting to torture people is bad, because the idea is obviously bad, right, huh? Well, then taking pleasure in it is even worse, because you're even more joined to this, what? Bad thing, right? You know? It's good to see that. Another reason can be taken on the side of the operations, of which some are good and some are, what? Bad, huh? This is what I was saying here, huh? That two operations are more, what? Afines, right, huh? They're more, what? Of the same sort of thing, almost, right? Pleasures, which are joined to them, than of desires, right? Which, in time, what? Precede them, right? Whence, the desires of good operations are good, of what? Bad things, what? Are bad, right? Multumaj is much more, like I was saying. The pleasures of good operations are good, and that of bad ones are what? Yeah. So if I want to help those in need, that's good, right, huh? I want to help those in need, I want to help those in need, I want to help those in need, I want to help those in need, I want to help those in need,