Prima Secundae
Lecture 102: Sadness and Contemplation: Articles 5-6

Transcript
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Now, what about contemplation, right? Is any sadness opposed to that? To the fifth one proceeds thus. It seems that to the pleasure of contemplation there is some sadness contrary, right? For the Apostle says in the second epistle to the Corinthians that the sadness which is according to God, right, works, what, penance to a stable, what, salvation. But to regard, what, towards God, right, pertains to higher reason, as Augustine calls it, to which it belongs to, what, yeah, according to Augustine in the twelfth book on the Trinity, right? Therefore, to the pleasure of contemplation is opposed, what, sadness. So it's a difficult objection there because you've got to know what higher reason is and so on. Moreover, of contraries, contrary are the effects, right? This is the only one, if you're to say speaking, right? So, in pedicure you start that, right? Love and hate, right? Because sometimes earth, air, fire and water come together and sometimes they separate, right? It's like we do with magnets, right? Sometimes they clap together, sometimes they, what, push each other away, right? It must be contrary forces, right? Because the effects are contrary, right? If, therefore, one of two contraries contemplated is a cause of pleasure, the other will be a cause of, what, sadness, huh? So I like thinking about virtue, I shouldn't be sad thinking about vice. And thus, to the pleasure of contemplation is a contrary, what, sadness. Is that going to be overcome by the same knowledge of opposites? However, as the object of pleasure is the good, so the object of sadness is the bad. But contemplation can have the aspect of something bad, huh? For the philosophy says in the Twelfth Book of Metaphysics, that some things it's unsuitable to think about, to meditate on, huh? Therefore, to the, what, to the pleasure of contemplation, there is able to be a contrary, what, sadness, huh? Well, as Thomas says, there's an unusual number of rejections here, right? Three is kind of the average there in the Summa. Moreover, any operation, as it is not impeded, is a cause of pleasure, as is said in both the Seventh and in the Tenth Book of the Metaphysics. But the operation of contemplation can be in many ways impeded, that's for a dark answer. So that either holy did not be, right? Or they'd be with, what, difficulty, right, huh? Therefore, in contemplation, there can be a sadness contrary to what? Moreover, the affliction of the flesh is a cause of sadness, huh? But as is said in Ecclesiastes, last chapter, I guess, Frequens meditatio carnesis afflixio. It's an affliction of the flesh. Thinking about it, right, huh? It tears you out, huh? Therefore, contemplation has a sadness contrary to pleasure, right? But against this is what is said in Wisdom 8, verse 16, huh? That the, what? Yeah. I'll get the wisdom, that is to say, has no, what? Bitter. Does not have bitterness, huh? Nor, what? Warriness, but laetitia. Doubting joy, right, huh? This is what Thomas quotes this in Summa Gaia Gentiles, right? He has a little part there in the opening chapters there, the prologue, where he says that no study, you know, is more, what, perfect or more sublime, huh? More, what, useful and more joyful, right? Than that wisdom. Then he has a scriptural quote which is one of those four things, right? This is the one he has for joy, right, huh? But Thomas says, I answer, it should be said, that the pleasure of contemplation can be understood in two ways, huh? I guess he means what? That, that phrase, right? Delectaxio contemplationis, huh? The pleasure of contemplation has, what? Two different meanings, at least, right? In one way, that the, what? Contemplation is the cause of the pleasure, right? And not the object itself, right? And then the pleasure is not about the, what? Contemplation. But about the thing contemplated, right? It's something like the fusion, isn't it, the text? Yeah. In one case, it's the object that is causing you, what? Pleasure, right, huh? And in the other case, it's the, what? Maybe that's the, what? The contemplation, huh? It says, unumoto and then. So I think maybe it's, on the one hand, it's one way, and then the second sentence, I don't tell the thought, it's on the other hand. Yeah. And so sometimes the pleasure is not about the contemplation itself, but about the thing contemplated, right? It can happen that one contemplates something, what? Harmful. Harmful and causing sadness, just as something suitable and, what? Pleasing. Pleasing, right? Whence if pleasure is thus taken in, what? Yeah. Nothing prevents, what? To the pleasure of contemplation that there is a contrary, what? Sadness. That's on the side of the, what? Object, I guess, huh? In another way, one can speak of the pleasure of contemplation, because the contemplation is its, what? Both its object and the cause. As when someone delights about this very thing that he, what? Yeah. And thus, as Gregory Nyssa says, and in my footnote there, it says the other guy. The other Gregory, right? Yeah. Inesius. To that pleasure which is, to that pleasure which is according to contemplation, there is not opposed any, what? Sadness, right? It's according to the authority there. And the philosophy says the same thing in the first book of the Places and the tenth book of the Ethics, right? But this should be understood, what? Per se. Speaking per se, huh? The reason for which is because sadness is what? As such. Yeah. Per se is contrary to the pleasure which is about the, what? Contrary object, huh? Just as to the pleasure which is about, what? Heat. It's opposed to sadness which is about, what? Cold. Coldness, huh? It's going to have too much heat in those days, I guess, huh? In the monasteries. In the califactory. Now, to the object or ever of contemplation, nothing is, what? Contrary. And this is the famous reason, huh? Because the reasons, definitions of contraries, according as they are apprehended, are not, what? Contrary. But one contrary is the reason for knowing what? The other. So my knowledge of what virtue is doesn't, what, isn't contrary to knowing what vice is, but my knowledge of what virtue is contributes to my knowing what vice is, yeah, okay, same knowledge of contrary, so. Advice person. What? Advice person. Yeah. And it used to be used as an argument there, you know, for saying that reason is immaterial, unlike the matter of the body, right? Because in the body, one contrary, what, excludes the other, right? So health excludes sickness, right? Beauty expels ugliness, right, huh? Vice versa. And strength, weakness, and weakness, strength, right? But in terms of knowing, right, knowing what beauty is helps you know what ugliness is, right? And even, I suppose, knowing what ugliness is, helps you know what beauty is, right, huh? Okay? So it's kind of a sign that the mind is, what, immaterial, the way opposites are in the mind. It's opposed to the way they are in matter. It's a very convincing argument, you know, about the immateriality of the understanding, huh? The reason, huh? So he says, to the object of contemplation, nothing is contrary. For the reasons, huh, of contraries, according as they are, what, grasped, are not contrary. But one contrary is the reason of knowing the, what? The other. Whence to the pleasure which is in contemplating, there cannot be, hearsay speaking, some contrary, what? Sadness, huh? But neither does he even have a, what? Sadness joined to it, huh? Just as bodily pleasures, right? Which are as medicines against certain, what? Molesting things, right? Just as someone delights in drink from this, that he is suffering under thirst, right? And when the thirst has been, what, repulsed, then the pleasure of drink seizes on. My brother Mark said the first sip of the beer is the best. And the first beer is, in fact, it's only the first sip of the first beer that's good, it says. Yeah. For the pleasure of contemplation is not caused from this that excludes some, what? Knowing, sir. But from this that it is by itself, what? Pleasant. Pleasant, right, huh? For it is not a generation, like in the bodily thing, but it's a perfect, what, operation, right? For that case, it can be found even in, what, God, right? It's a perfect operation in God. Now that terrible paratchitan song you can't avoid. Paratchitan song, there is mixed, what? Sadness to the pleasure of, what, of grasping, huh? Now, how is this, what, takes place, he says, in two ways, huh? In one way, on the side of the, what, organa. In another way, from the impediment to, what, grasping, right? Now, he said on the side of the organ, there is mixed sadness or pain with apprehension. Directly in the, what, grasping powers of the sensitive part, because they have a, what, body organ, right? Or from the object of the sensible, the sensible object, which is contrary to the suitable disposition, complexion of the organ, right? Just as the taste of a bitter thing, right, huh? And the smell of a fetid thing, huh? Or from the continuity of a suitable thing that is suitable, which, through the, what, continuous, right? Makes a, what, excess of the natural habitude, right? Or comes a side to side above. And thus, the sensible grasping, which before was pleasant, now becomes, what, weary, tedious sound, okay? But these two directly, in the contemplation of the mind, do not have place, because the mind, the reason, huh, does not have a, what? Yeah. Just use the word mens here, right, huh? The word mens is related to the word, what, mensuring, right? And the mind is what measures things, okay? Both in the narrow sense, the measure, right, the quantitative sense, but also in the higher sense, huh? Where Plato says that God is a measure of all things, huh? Whence it has been said in the authority induced, and that's the one that he says in some God Gentiles, too, that the contemplation of mind has neither, what, bitterness, right, huh? No weariness, huh? Now, meritudium is opposed to, what, what, the senses can have something that's disagreeable to them, right? Okay? Or cadium, I guess, because it's prolonged, right, huh? Assiduous, as it says, right, huh? But because the human mind uses in contemplation, right, the, what, sense, knowing, grasping powers, in whose acts there is, what, lassitudo, right? Therefore, indirectly, there is mixed some affliction or sadness to, what, contemplation, right? So now there's a student there at the College of St. Thomas there, you know, we had a special reading room there with some famous paintings on the wall, right, or copies of famous paintings, and get tired, you know, reading this black and white page here, you know, and sit back and look at this and look for a few minutes at the beautiful painting. Or, you know, if you have a beautiful scenery or something, right, you can look up, you know, and so on. I first moved as a bachelor into Worcester there, I had a room and had a sleep of windows like that, so I put the desk right in front of my sleep of windows, and it looked out beautifully, you know, but then I thought I was being distracted. So I put the desk in front of the blank wall. It's probably like, how much of concentration, right, you know? So, but in either way, right, he says, is the sadness, right, joined Parachidans, right, to contemplation, is it contrary to its, what, pleasure, right? For the sadness which is about the impediment of contemplation is not contrary to the pleasure of contemplation, but it more has affinity or agreement with it, as is clear from the thing said above. But the sadness or affliction which is of the bodily weariness does not refer to the same genus, right? But it's wholly disparate, huh? And this is manifest that to the pleasure which is about the contemplation itself, no sadness is, what, contrary, nor is it joined to it some sadness except, what, Parachidans, huh? So now that should encourage you to study more, huh? Your cell, right? A little advice to your comments, if you want to be wise, you know, enter to your cell, close the door, right, and so on. Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that that's sadness which is according to God, right? I don't know how the church fathers and the spiritual writers, you know, warn about certain kinds of sadness as being bad, right? But there is a sadness which is secundum deum, as he says, right? It's not about the contemplation of the mind, but it's about something that the mind contemplates. To it about what? Sin, right, huh? Which the mind considers as contrary to the love of what? God, right, huh? You should be sad about your sins, right, huh? Not rejoicing at the Aaron there in the Shakespeare's play there, huh? Rejoice isn't evil, he's done, huh? He's mad, isn't he? And all the evil things he planned, right? Now, what about contraries having contrary effects, right? Well, they're not really contrary in the mind, right? Virtue and vice are not contrary in the mind, huh? As objects. To second, it should be said that those things which are contrary in reality, huh? In verum natura, according as they are in the mind, do not have, what? Contrary, huh? For the, what? Thoughts of contraries are not, what? Contraries, exclude one another. But more, one contrary is the reason of knowing the other, huh? In account of this, there is one knowledge of contraries, huh? That's what Plato and Aristotle both insist upon all the time, huh? Pointing that out, huh? So it's not one ethics about virtue and another ethics about vice. It's the same one about virtue and vice. And it's the same one about this virtue and vice as opposed to this, what? And logic is supposed to be both about, what? Correct reasoning and incorrect reasoning, which we're studying in another vocation. And, uh, I told you what the student they had at St. Mary's, you know, said we shouldn't be teaching ethics, right? Because you learn both how to be good and how to be bad. You learn my virtue of advice, and people are inclined to be bad, so you make them worse. That's a darn good argument, you know? The call in question is teaching of ethics, right? But can you teach someone how to be good, how to teach them how to be bad at the same time? What did you say, Father? You can tell them which way you should love. It wasn't that what they ever believed did? They wanted to know what, they didn't have to know what was bad. Well, of course, you know, they think that they, uh, they wanted to know the future contingents, right? So they could guide themselves and would require any, what, direction from God, right? So it's a very intellectual sin, right? Because they didn't have the sort of, you know, sense appetites like we have, but they had a good sin of the, what, of pride, right? And they wanted to, you know, be able to direct themselves even in these, what, things that they can't really foreknow, right? Just foresee the results of doing what you want to do, right? Well, a lot of times you can't foresee what's going to be the result of doing this or that, right? The soldier knows what's going to happen when he goes this way or that way. He doesn't know, right? Might be the end of him, right? Might be victory, yeah? So it'd be nice to know that it's going to be a good or a bad result of doing whatever you do, right? But sometimes you don't, right? You know, there's great tragedies. These great tragedies are about what? People who don't foresee what's going to be the result of their actions, right? Aedipus is trying to do something good to, you know, help Athens, right? But horrible things he brings down upon him, right? A crayon thinks he's doing good, right? You realize that tragedy and comedy arise because man has fallen, right? And sometimes they're really about mistakes, tragedy and comedy, yeah? But in tragedy, the mistake you make, you know, makes this worthy of pity, right? And when the fellow thinks that his wife is unfaithful, right, he kills her, right? And then shortly afterwards he discovers that he's been deceived by Iago and so on, huh? It's very pitiful, right, huh? But then in the comedies, the mistake is what? He's laughable, right, huh? He doesn't really do any harm, permanent harm, right, huh? And it's kind of funny to see the mistakes, right? But whether they're tragic mistakes or comic mistakes that we make, the mistakes we make because we're fallen, right? So, I don't know what humor it would be like in the Garden of Eden if I've not fallen. Some of these late English comedies there, they have kind of an unreal situation, but that's where the guy's going to marry a nice-looking girl, right? But he says to another girl, right? When they have the veil on and so on. And then after he gets married, of course, he wouldn't really be married, right? But, you know, and the one character says, he was going to stick between me and happiness, right? But God has, you know, decided to put a little purgatory in between. He's going to this very plain-looking young lady here. So, Mel Veldon, Mel Veldon, the trick they play upon him, you know, it's kind of outrageous. It's humorous, nevertheless. He writes what seems to be a letter from his mistress, right? I mean, the lady in charge, you know, as if she falls in love with him, you know. He starts to put on airs and all kinds of things. Anyway. Now, what about this thing that Aristotle touched upon there? Well, you need Thomas' commentary, by the way, to understand what he's talking about there, and he's pushing what God's knowledge is about, right? To the third, it should be said that contemplation, as such, never has the notion of something bad, right? Aristotle says something like that, too, in the beginning of the Dianima, right? That all knowledge, as such, is what? Good, right, huh? I told you, I used to, kids, and I'd say, which is better, knowledge or love? And the kids would always say, you know, at least the girls, love, right? I said, yeah, but all knowledge is good, as such, right? But is all love good? No, you see. So love is sometimes good, sometimes bad, but knowledge, as such, is always good. It's ignorance or error that is bad, right? So knowledge is better than, and then, of course, it's the love that is directed by knowledge, right? That is good, right? So it gets as good as from knowledge. So knowledge is obviously better than love, huh? And they fumed down there, you know? They couldn't do anything about it. For contemplation is nothing other than the consideration of true, of the true, which is the good of the, what? Understanding, huh? But prachidams only can it be, what? Something bad, insofar as the contemplation of the, what? Vile, right, impedes the contemplation of the, what? Better, right, huh? So people, you know, slouch down in front of a TV set, you know, and then they, you know, spend several hours in front of a TV set, and they go, what did I spend all that time, you know, with that dumb stuff, you know? So the contemplation of something vile, right, that prevents you from the contemplation of something better, right? Because it needs to be real Shakespeare, right, if you can't get up to the level of the thumbs, huh? So, that's kind of the choice you make, though, when you go into college or something like that, right? But you're going to study, right? Study the better things or the lesser things, right? And you study the lesser things, what's going to prevent you from studying the higher things, right? Time-wise, at least. Or it can be on the part of the thing contemplated to which the appetite is, what? Disorderly affected, huh? Now, to the fourth, it should be said that the sadness, which is about the impediment of contemplation, is not contrary to the pleasure of contemplation, but it is, what? There's an affinity to it, as has been said, right? I don't know if that's referring to the sadness I have when I can't understand something. That makes me want to, what, study more, right? Try to understand it. So, I say to myself, I've understood that a little bit, but not fully. Maybe the next time I read it, I want to understand more. I'm not going to make a cause, so I'm here, this thing, you know? I think this is as far as purposeful get, huh? This understanding, huh? That made me like when your students, when you told them that knowledge is better than love, they were sad, so they wanted to study more philosophy to see if they could refute you. I told you, the student I had in California, you know, he was always thinking of some objection, he thought he was going to get me today, you know? Well, I hadn't heard all these objections because they were already in the text, you know, and so on. So, you know, but he'd come for it like this, you know, he'd pose his objection, you know, and then he saw me answering, and he kind of would act like this, you know? He'd be like that quiet the rest of the class. And after the whole course was over, you know, he said, you know, I'd come in every day, I thought, I'm going to get him today, you know? But you don't realize how, you know, most of these objections you've heard, you know, and you can, sometimes I'd take the guy's objection, but he can state it, oh yeah, that's, that's wrong for this, you know? I was like, De Connick, you know, would be at these, you think for a Marxist who's speaking, you know, and there'd be a question period afterwards, and someone asked a Marxist, what did Marx say about this? And sometimes he'd say, I wasn't too sure, you know? And De Connick would, you know, volunteer with Marx, oh yeah, that's what he would say, yeah. Then it's wrong for this reason. But once he knows better, you know, the guy than the guy who's presumably defending him, right? He's got a little, you know, he's in a position there to be listened to with authority, you know, and he says, what's wrong with it? The affliction of the flesh is what? Perachidans, right? And indirectly he has itself to the contemplation of the mind, huh? So Kosurik used to say, you know, you go out and have a good meal now, huh? To reward your tongue, which has been your slave in your lecture, right? So your mouth gets kind of dry, you know, and you're tired out and so on. And then you refresh the tongue, right? With the wine and the meal, right? But with Shakespeare or Homer, right, you refresh the, what? Imagination, right? Imagination is tired, right? Because imagination is the slave of reason and philosophy, right? And so imagination being a body organ gets tired, right? So you refresh it with a little bit of Shakespeare, you know? Scene or two of Shakespeare, you know? A little more. Especially some of those curses of Richard III. Right? They're great. Look up at the play there, I think I have the one. Richard III, huh? Lawrence Olivier? Yeah. He plays Richard III. Okay, should we take a break now? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So, now this is interesting, Article 6 here, huh? Whether pain should more be fled than what? Pleasure desired, huh? To the 6th, one goes forward thus. It seems that sadness should more be what? Fled from than what pleasure should be desired, huh? It's an interesting question, huh? I don't know what Thomas' table talk was like, huh? To the 6th, one goes forward thus. It seems that more should be what sadness should be fled from than pleasure should be what? Desired, huh? For Augustine says in the book on the 83 questions, huh? That there's one who does not what? Flee more what? There's no one who doesn't more flee what? Pain than he desires what? Pleasure, right? Okay, so, you can't turn on your TV without having some remedy for pain to be advertised, right? So, I think there's more advertisements on TV to get rid of pain than to please you. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of a, you know, if you're in pain, you want some immediate relief, you know? Now, that in which commonly Nemo, right? All consent would seem to be what? Natural, right? Therefore, it is natural and suitable that one please sadness more than one desires what? Pleasure, huh? Moreover, the action contrary makes for what? Swiftness and intensity of emotion, huh? For hot water is more quickly and strongly what? Frozen. Frozen, as Aristotle says in the book of Neurology. I don't know what kind of science that is, but... But the flight of sadness is from the contrariety of the, what? Thing that is causing the sadness, right? But the desire of pleasure is not from some contrariety, but it more proceeds from the agreement of the thing to light in one. Therefore, more should be fled to sadness, right? And there's contrariety than the desire of pleasure, right? Moreover, the more something is, what, repugnant, according to reason, to a stronger passion, the more it is, what, praiseworthy and, what, virtuous, huh? Because virtue is about the difficult and the good, huh? So Thomas always recall when he talks about the virtues and say, you know, if there's a special goodness here, there's a special virtue. If there's a special difficulty, right, then you require a special, what, virtue, right? And he gets down to the details of these things, huh? It's kind of interesting, you know, if you look at these distinctions and to whom does it belong to see these distinctions, right? Well, if you're talking about the distinction of the powers of the soul, which Aristotle calls the parts of the soul, right? That really belongs to the dianima, right? So to distinguish between the senses, say, and reason, right? Or between the will and the sense appetite, right? Now the distinction of the, what, virtues and the vices belongs to ethics, huh? But where does the distinction of the emotions that we're going through right now, where does that belong, right, huh? Rhetoric. What? Rhetoric. Yeah, well, you see, it's interesting that Thomas, when he gets into these details about the emotions, he sometimes quotes the rhetoric, you know? There are some things I've said in the dianima about epithumia and thumas, you know, the kibis is only irascible, but not a great deal of details. I know myself, when I first studied this distinction of the emotions, partly in the summa, but also in the Veritati and so on, I said, hey, this is useful for ethics, because some virtues are about the emotions, so you have to learn the virtues. It's useful for rhetoric, right, because to move the emotions and to sedate them and so on is one of the means of persuasion that I've studied in rhetoric. It's useful for ethics, right, I mean, for the poetics, right, not only because the characters have emotions, but because different types of fiction are moving different emotions, they have to understand these things. So it's kind of universal importance, right? But you say, now, to whom does it belong? The Rhetorization, as you're saying, or to the, you know, moral philosopher, or to the poet, or the poet of art, rather, or the book about the poet of art, or does it belong to the dianima, right? But Thomas seems to have it in this part of moral theology in a more complete way than you find it in the texts coming down to Aristotle. And you find more details in Aristotle, and you see the rhetoric and places like that, where he describes the virtues, but for a particular purpose, right, you know? But here he's kind of fundamental, right? It's useful for ethics, which is the reason why he takes it up here, you know, mainly. But it's also useful for rhetoric and for understanding. You know, when someone says that tragedy moves us to pity and fear, we have to understand how pity is a kind of sadness, and what fear is, and so on. And if comedy moves us to mirth and hope and so on, you've got to know what hope is and mirth is, and so on. So this is kind of a universal foundation for these, all these sciences and art, ethics, rhetoric, weddings, right? So, but the forties and the courageous man who resists, right, emotion by which one flees, what? Pain. He is more virtuous than tempered, right? By which one resists emotion by which he desires pleasure, right? So, you know, there's a medal of honor that we give to people, right, for being courageous, right? And they can win the medal of honor for one glorious afternoon, right? But I can be just all my life. They wouldn't give me a medal of honor. I could even be temperate all my life. It's unusual, unlikely. But that could give me a medal, you know, for, you know, he's never been drunk or he's never been... That could give me a medal of honor for that, right? So this is, you know, and I was reading, as I mentioned, Coriolanus again recently, you know, to purge me from elections. And, but they're praising, you know, Coriolanus because he's, what, courageous, huh? And the guy says that this is considered the greatest virtue, right? Courage, yeah. And, of course, Aristotle in the Nicomagin ethics, he begins to talk about the virtues in particular. The first virtue he talks about is, what, courage, yeah. And, of course, the word virtue itself, or the Greek word corresponded to virtue, they both seem to be tied up with what? With courage originally, right? So that seems to be the virtue, right? But isn't that more, you know, concerned with what? Standing up to pain and sorrow and so on, as opposed to what, temperance, right? It seems to be harder, you know, to go into battle and be brave than to resist a bottle or resist a candy or resist a chocolate cake, whatever it is that you're trying to resist. Good deal, you know. You know, no good hero there resisting the chocolate cake. Now he quotes the philosopher in the second book of the rhetoric, right? Fortes and Justi, right? Maxime honoranta, right? So, if courage is more honored than temperance, right, ladies and gentlemen, this. Therefore, more vehement is the motion by which one flees sadness than the motion by which one desires, what? Pleasure, right, huh? Okay. Against all this nonsense, huh? The good is stronger than what? Bad. Maluma. Because the bad has power only through what? The good, right? Okay. The bad has no power except through the goodness that it might have some part of it being good or some resemblance it has to the good, right? But of itself, it doesn't have any power to move us, right? The good is what all want, huh? If you want something bad, it's because in some way it appears to be good, right? This is also clear. through Dionysius that Thomas respects greatly, right? In the fourth chapter, the Divine Names. There's two famous books of Dionysius, the Divine Names and then the Celestial Hierarchy. And Thomas has a commentary on the Divine Names and today's namesake, Albert the Great, is one on the Celestial Hierarchy, right? Thomas uses Celestial Hierarchy when he talks about the angels, but he doesn't have a commentary on that particular work of the great Dionysius. Of course, you may have thought Dionysius was the Dionysius. Yeah, that St. Paul converted there. Athletes, right? So he became known as Dionysius the Apochite and then he was in that guy. And so he's called the pseudo... The liar. The pseudo. Yeah, so I don't know if he's... But he had a great deal. I think it was Gregory the Great I think brought him back, didn't he? The works of Dionysius from Constantinople. I suspect he was a Syriac monk. And so Thomas, you know, thinks he's far inferior to himself, to Dionysius, right? A lot of interesting things in Dionysius. But pleasure is desirable in account of the good, right? Which is his object. But the fight from sadness is an account of the bad. Well, since the good is stronger than the bad, therefore it's your desire of pleasure than that fight from sadness, right? Thomas is a man who sees, what? The before and after. And therefore he's a man who sees, what? Distinctions, right? And these two most universal kinds of distinctions that you seem to meet all the time in the 14 books of wisdom of Aristotle is the per se, the paratchitans, right? And then the, what? Simply and not simply, right? So Thomas has often seen this. We've seen this distinction being used here before, right? So, if you say, I'm a philosophical grandfather, that's, to be a philosophical grandfather is being of what kind? The paratchitans, yeah. Because to be a grandfather and to be a philosopher happens to the same person, right? So therefore, right? Catholic geometer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now there's a way, I'm a Christian geometer, but there's a way to become a Christian. You get baptized. There's a way to become a geometer, which is to study Euclid, maybe. But there's any way to become a Christian geometer. So did I ever become a Christian geometer? See? It's almost nothing, right, huh? So Aristotle, you know, and he says Plato's not far off when he said that, what, science is about being and dialectic about becoming and sophistry about non-being. Because the chief thing the sophist does is to fallacy of the accident, right? And the accident seems to be almost what? Nothing, right, huh? What is a Christian geometer? It's one thing to be a geometer, another thing to be a Christian. But what is it to be a Christian geometer? Is there such a thing? There's something by which I am a Christian, there's something by which I am a geometer. But is there anything by which I am a Christian geometer? Hmm? By happening. There's nothing by which I am a Christian geometer. You're the same geometer, whether you're a Christian or you're a... Yeah. And there's no way to become a Christian geometer, is there? Yeah, but if you're a Muslim geometer or a Christian geometer, the geometry is the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A Christian is more great still. So there's nothing by which you are a Christian geometer, because there's no such thing as Christian geometry. There's no way by which you become a Christian geometer. So it hardly is, right? Yet Aristotle says, but there's still one sense of being, right? Accidental being, right? You know? It barely is. So I used to joke affirmative actions about accidental being. And so, I mean, in some sense it does exist, right? And if I have a Christian academy and I wanted to hire a Christian geometer to teach geometry, right? I suppose you could find a Christian geometer out there somewhere, right? Right? So in some very diminished sense, they are out there. You know? You know? So. I'm always suspicious of modern philosophers, because I never see them, you know, putting out this distinction, this kind of distinction of the Parisian and the Pratchettians. Have you ever seen that, Joshua? The moderns? No. I see it over and over again in Aristotle and Thomas. There's something vacant there in the moderns. I don't know. Remember, because sir, he could be getting a letter from De Connick. He got a letter from De Connick, he says, he feels like jumping off the bridge. He's been reading the moderns. But you really get, you know, figured out how could this, you know? And so you look at how mixed up their mind is, you know? Because sir, you could say, how are you going to straighten this guy out? You get it? I mean, there's just so many things that he's all mixed up on. But anyway, when you see how, you know, far Greek philosophy got, right? Of course, Homer was the teacher of all the Greeks, huh? And then we had, you know, the English philosophers had Shakespeare, and they got nowhere, you know? I'll show you how corrupt the, you know, philosophy was in the English, right? In the moderns in general, right? We have even a greater man, maybe, than Homer, right? You know, to start off with in our, you know, Shakespeare, but, so it's really a scandal, you know? It's really a scandal. So I answer, it should be said, that per se loquendo, the desire of pleasure is stronger than the flight from what? Sadness, right? The reason for this is because the cause of pleasure is a suitable what? Good. But the cause of pain or a sadness is some repugnant bad thing, right? Now, it can happen that some good is suitable without any what? Dissonance, right, huh? But there cannot be something that is bad, what? Totally, without any goodness in it, right? Without some what? Agreement. Repugnant, right? Whence pleasure can be what? Whole and perfect. That's what I was saying there. You know? Aristotle says whole and perfect mean almost the same thing, right, huh? So it's kind of beautiful to see that. But sadness is always secundum parta, right? Whence, naturally, greater is the delight of pleasure than the flight from what? Sadness, right? Object to the, for example, the abuse of children by some of the clergy. They find that awful. But then they're all in favor of abortion. I say, well, which is the worst child abuse? To kill the child? To abuse? Yeah. Neither is good, but which is worse? Yeah. Yeah, abortion is the ultimate child abuse. Yeah, yeah. Another reason is because the good, which is the object of pleasure, is desired on account of itself, right? But the bad, which is the object of sadness, is to be fleed from insofar as it is the lack of the good. But what is per se, potseus est, is stronger than that which is to another, right? So, now that distinction is not entirely the same, the per se and the prachidens and the per se and the per halia, right? But what is so through itself is always more so than what is so through another, right? So, my salt is more salty than my French fries. So, my salt is more salty than my French fries. My sugar is sweeter than my candy. Because if candy is sweet through the sugar, you may be fortunate you didn't put anything in your coffee there, but if you put a little bit of cream in there or something, still your coffee would not be as sweet as the sugar or the cream, right? Because the sugar is sweet through itself, and the coffee is sweet only through the sugar. When coffee is not sweet at all, you don't put your sugar in there. Not that I don't put your sugar in coffee anyway. Okay. That's a very important thing. It's almost like an axiom, right? What is per se potius est il quasperale, right? So if you know the conclusion of the syllogism through the premises, right, and eventually you know what sometimes the premises through other premises, right? But the first statements, which you know are the statements, would be the ones per se known, right? And they would be known more than the others. And that's what the axioms are, right? One axiom is that the per se is potius. A sign of which appears in natural motions, right? For every natural motion is more intense in the end, right? When it approaches the, what? The term, the limit, suitable to its nature, right? Then in the beginning when it recedes from the term not suitable to its nature. So the stone falls to the ground, as it falls, it goes faster and faster, right? As if nature more tends to that which is, what? Subable to itself, then it flees that which is, what? Bugnant to itself, right? Now what about, you know, I was just thinking about the mind and the reason, right? Does the mind seek truth more vehemently than it flees there? I mean, when you think of yourself as a well-disposed student, I'll give you that benefit. I was saying the argument. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't you think you came to class or you pick up the book of the Master, you know, because you're seeking to know something? Isn't that more, per se, to you, you know, more principle than to escape some errors, right? He said, I picked up Thomas if I want to learn something. I want to come to know something I don't know. I don't pick him up so much because I'm trying to escape some error, I'm sure. That he'll help me to get out of some errors I have, maybe. But that's not my primary motive, is it? Is it? No, I don't think so, is it? Do I listen to Mozart because I want to escape noise? No, I want to hear it because it's beautiful music, right? And it enables me to escape the noise of rock and roll and whisper dances. I told you that I was working at the package store there and I see the guys coming in with, with, uh... Grateful Dead. Grateful Dead. And of course, I don't follow these things, so I didn't know that's the name of a band, right? So I just found some sick slogan, you know, that say, put me out of my misery, you know? I'd be grateful to you. I thought of why I said, what a sick thing to walk around and think of him, Grateful Dead. I'd be glad to be dead, like I said. And I found out... That's modern philosophy, right? Yeah, but I found out it was the name of a band, you know? And they rejoiced it'd be called Dead Hits, you know? They're fans, you know, called Dead Hits. So am I a sickly, more beautiful woman or a fleeing ugly woman? I think I'm a sickly, more beautiful woman, isn't it? Isn't it? You know, when you go to the dance and you try to find a good-looking girl, right? When you go to high school or college, you know, or something, you find someone nice to dance with. Whence the inclination of the appetitive power, per se eloquendo, vehementius, tends in pleasure than in fleeing, what? Sadness, huh? So when Einstein talks about that science, you know, sometimes he talks about fleeing mortem, right, huh? Well, I think it's nothing to do with it, right? You kind of... But isn't it knowledge that you're seeking mainly, you know? More seeking knowledge than fleeing mortem? Mortem is a sadness produced by the lack of an object worthy of your consideration. But perjudice, it can happen that someone flees, what, sadness more than he desires, what, pleasure, right? How can this be, right? And this on account of, what, three things, huh? First, on the side of, what, apprehension, of grasping, of knowing. Because as Augustine says in the Temple of the Trinity, love is more sensed, right, when, what, need produces it, yeah. For from the, what, lack, need of the loved, proceeds, what, sadness, huh? Which is from the loss of some, what, loved good. Or from the, what, coming in, running in of some contrary evil, right, huh? But pleasure does not have the, what, need of the loved good, but it rests in it already, what, achieved, huh? Since, therefore, love is the cause, both of pleasure and of sadness, right, the more one flees, what, sadness? To that extent, one more flees sadness, the more one senses love from the fact that something is contrary to the love, right? Secondly, on the part of the cause, causing sadness, right, or inferring pain, which is more repugnant to the good, what, loved, than, what? Which one takes delight, huh? For we more love the, what, natural consistency of the body than the, what? Food. Food, yeah. And, therefore, the fear of pain, which comes from whips, right, nothing of this sort, which are contrary to the good, what, consistency of the body. In order to, what, avoid that, right, we, what, dismiss the pleasures of food and other things of this sort, right? So, can you even get the dog off of the whip, maybe you have a piece of meat, huh? And, third, on the part of the effect, insofar as sadness impedes not only one pleasure, but all, right, huh? Okay? If your body's in pain, you can't enjoy anything, right? Okay. Let's see how he handles these sections, yeah. To the first, therefore, it should be said that Augustine says that pain is more, what, fled from, than pleasure is desired. That's true, what? Correct. Perchidance, huh? Perchidance. And none per se. And this is clear from what he adds. Sometimes we see the, what, most unmanly piece? Yeah. Or the risk of the one more. Yeah. To abstain from the greatest pleasures by the fear of, what? Pain. Pain, yeah. Which is contrary to life, which is most of all, what? What? Loved, yeah. Now, what about this here? Swiftness of the thing. The second should be said is different in the motion which is from the inside, and other in the motion which is from the outside. For the motion which is from the inside, more tends in that which is suitable than it recedes in the contrary. This has been said above about the natural motion, right? But the motion which is from the outside, intends more from what? Sky. Yeah, it's more intensified, right? Because each thing in its own way strives to be. To resist the contrary, right? As for the conservation of itself, huh? When, say, violent motion, it's just the reverse. It's intended in the, what? Beginning and mid and the end, huh? So when I throw, you know, the rock up in the air, it goes slower and slower until it stops and then comes down. Then it goes faster and faster. So just the reverse, right? So the violent is something, what, outside the nature. It's not the nature of the rock to go up, but to go down, right? Now the motion of the appetitive part is from the, from within. Since it is from the soul to what? Things. And therefore, per se, loquendo, more is pleasure desired than what? Sadness is flat. But the motion of the sensitive part is from the exterior. As it were, from things to the soul, right? That's kind of the contrast to Aristotle makes me knowing, you know, and desiring, right? Whence more that is sensed, which is more, what? Contrary. So I'm sticking to the pen, you sense it more than you, you sense the air you're acting upon you now, right? It's more contrary. And that's also parachidens, insofar as the sense is required for, what? Pleasure and sadness, right? When more flees, what? Sadness than pleasure is desired, I think it's more sensed. To the third, it should be said, that the courageous man is not praised from this, that according to reason is not conquered by, what? Pain. Pain or sadness, but from that which consists in the dangers of, what? Death, right, yeah? Which sadness is more fled from than is desired, the pleasure of, what? Food or venereal things, about which is temperance. Just as life is more, what, loved than food or coition. But the temperate man is more praised from this, that he does not, what? Pain. Pleasure and touch. He does not pursue the pleasures of touch, than from this, that he does not flee the contrary, what? Pains, huh? This is clear in the third book of the Ethics, right? He's more praised for his not, what? Pursuing the pleasures of touch, than he is from not fleeing the sadnesses of the contrary. I've got to go up to the tribune tonight, maybe there at 7 o'clock for the Board of Trustees, so I'd better take off, because it takes an hour and a half to get, an hour and 15 minutes to get home.