Prima Secundae
Lecture 110: Sadness as Good and Evil: Utility and Hierarchy

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that are perverse, right? Which detests the good, right? And therefore, such a sadness impedes the praise or merit of the honorable good, just as when someone with sadness gives alms. I don't want to give it to you. I want to keep the bottle of wine. I don't want to give it to you. Warren tells me about one of his relatives there, I guess, you know, the priest I had not given enough money, you know, and he publicly rebuked him in the church. And of course, the guy stopped him in the church, right? For years, it went off, you know, and finally he came back, I guess. But he was so angry at the, you know, public rebuke in the church, and I don't think it's a good idea for the priest to do that, exactly. Wow, yeah. I can think of other things to rebuke people publicly by. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not bad. To the third, it should be said, huh? Some things come about, what? Present. Which should not come about by God willing them, right? But by God, what? Doing them. As sins, right? Whence a will repugnant to sin existing, either in oneself or in another, is not discordant from the will of God, right? That's interesting, huh? But, you know, punishing evils, right? That happen presently. Also, God, what? Willing, right? They happen to God also willing them. But nevertheless, it is not required for the rectitude of the will that man wills those things, what? As such, right? Which is not contrary to the order of divine justice, right? Mm-hmm. What's he saying here? I guess like that shooting in Connecticut. Mm-hmm. Repudiate that. Mm-hmm. Is a prisoner making things worse by being displeased by being in jail? The person in jail? Well. What? The one in jail should accept God's will for him since that's... To be punished. To be punished. He said, but he didn't have the will, I guess. See, the penance that the priest gives the sinner there in the confessional, is that penance supposed to make him sad? So he should... But is he supposed to experience sadness, though, in fulfilling his... Not over the penance. What? Not over the penance. Over his sins, yes, but not over the penance. I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out how that would come in when he says that... What was the purpose of the penance is that he would experience some, what, repugnancy to what he undergoes as a penance, right? Yeah, that's... So he would hesitate to commit that thing again, right? Unless he gets... That's part of the medicine, yeah. Yeah. That's what, I know, St. Bob Rogers says, if sin is a willful pleasure, then penance is a willful affliction. It's a kind of a willful... Yeah, yeah. So he's supposed to be sitting paid, right? Yeah, yeah. In his denial of where he is, right? Or he's giving money now. Yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to figure this out when he says it's not required for uprightness of will that as such a man will it. Does that apply to the criminal in prison, then, that he doesn't have to will being punished as such? I'm trying to figure this out in terms of that, if that's what that means. I don't know. He said, there's not required for rectitude of will that a man wills these things as such, right? As such, yeah. Yeah. But only that they have to be contrary to the order of divine justice. That's what he has to will. Yeah, he's willing to put up with it. Yeah, okay, all right. Because that's the divine justice required system, right? He doesn't have to like being in jail. Yeah, yeah. I don't think so. Yeah, that's like a fool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Article 3, this mooncast, I'm not upon this, where the sadness can be a useful good. To the third one proceeds thus, it seems that sadness cannot be a useful good. What is said in Ecclesiasticus, chapter 30, sadness kills what? Many. Many, yeah? And there is no utility in that, right? Yeah. Moreover, choice is about that which is useful to some in. But sadness is not, what? Worthy of being chosen, right? For rather, the same thing without sadness than with sadness is more to be chosen, as is said in the third book of places, huh? Therefore, sadness is not a, what? Useful good. Moreover, everything is for the sake of its own operation. As is said in the second book about the universe. But sadness and peace operation, as is said in the tenth book of the ethics. Therefore, sadness does not have the notion of a useful, what? Good, huh? But against all this, the wise men, huh? Sati Sophia. Does not seek except things that are, what? Useful, right? But it's said in Ecclesiasticus, 7, chapter 5, the heart of the wise is where there is, what? Sadness, huh? It's amazing, huh? And the heart of fools is where there's... Sure, yeah. Party. Party. It's like earth. Yeah. Therefore, sadness is what? Useful, right? That's an interesting text, right? Okay. I answer, it should be said, that from a bad thing that is present, right, there arises a two-fold repetitive motion. One is by which the appetite is contrary to the present, what? Evil, right? And from this part, on this side, in this way, sadness does not have usefulness, right? Because that which is present is not able not to be present. The second motion that arises in the appetite is to, what? Flee. Flee, or to repel the bad thing that is sad in the mind. And as far as this is concerned, sadness has, what? Usefulness, right? If it be about something that should be fled, right? Now, something should be fled in two ways, huh? Something is really being fled, right? Two ways. In one way, on account of itself, from its contrariety that it has to the good. As, for example, sin, right? And therefore, sadness about sin is useful for this, that a man might flee, what? Sin. As the Apostle says, 2 Corinthians is the famous text here, 2 Corinthians. I rejoice. Not because you are, what? Sadden. But because you are saddened as far as to put in sin. He's happy about it. I bet you're sad. And as if, I thought, oh, right? Per se, right? I couldn't even say, but because you are saddened to the point of what? Per repenting. In other ways, something should be fled. Not because it is such bad, right? But because it is an occasion of evil, right? As when either a man too much adheres to something through love, right? Or even, or also from this, that he is, what? Felt down into. Something bad. As is clear in temporal, what? Goods, huh? And in this way, sadness about temporal goods can be useful, right? Just as it is said in Ecclesiasticus. Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes, yeah. It is better to go to the house of what? Mourning. Mourning. Than to the house of living up, huh? In the evil. For in that one, the end of all things, a man is what? Yeah. As he says, Abraham was promised the land. Yeah. And his whole life, he never got any of it. Yeah. Except at the very end, he bought the grave for his wife. Yeah. He paid for it. Yeah. And then they say, so he got the promised land, but he entered it as a place of mourning. Yeah. That's how he got into it. Yeah. It was a place of mourning. Oh, that's very wise. If the priest is better to officiate a funeral than a wedding? Always, yeah. Probably get some more selling to read certain. Yeah. You could hope. But nowadays, everybody's getting canonized right out of the box. Oh, poof! I used to bring a birthday cake down the aisle. Poof! Heaven. Ralph Martin has a new book on that. It's interesting. My teachers at the seminary in Detroit. Will many be saved? Yeah, I saw that. You saw it? Yeah, I'm reading it now. It's very well done. But it's a commentary on a particular past in the Vatican, too. That has largely been mis-familated. So, my friends. Fascinating. Fascinating. Therefore, sadness in everything that should be fleed, right? Mm-hmm. Is useful, right? Because it doubles, you say? Looks like it, yeah. Jimmy not there, huh? Because of what? Fleeing, right, huh? For the evil as such should be fleed, right, huh? Mm-hmm. But the sadness as such all flee, right, huh? Just as also all desire what? The good. The good and pleasure over the good, right, huh? Just, therefore, as pleasure over the good makes one seek the good with greater avidity, huh? And greater, uh... Eagerness, right? So sadness over the bad makes one more vehemently. Vehemently. Yeah. One feels it because no one's bad, but because one's sad about it. That's what, that's, these two forms of avidius and vehementius are the comparative forms of the adjective or adverbs here, or whatever. And that's the passage in Vatican II that's often mis-translated. It says how it's possible for pagans or even atheists to be saved. Yeah. And then it says, at sapius, but more often, there's a comparative form, but they generally translate it as either frequently or very frequently. But they never say, more often, or more frequently. There's only one translation I know that translates it correctly, and why? Now, the authority in Ecclesiasticus, the I, I guess. What do they call that now? They call that the book of Sirach, is it? No, no, this is Ecclesiastes. I think, hang on, wait a minute, which one? This is the first objection? Oh, yeah, that is Ecclesiastes. They call it Sirek. Ecclesiasticus. To the first, therefore, it should be said that that authority is to be understood about immoderate sadness, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said that it should be said. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. which absorbs the, what, soul, right? Sometimes you use those words, you know, for the excess, right? You know, a little kid told that anger is one of the sins, right? Our Lord knows anger sometimes, right? So it's not anger, but you mean excessive anger, right? I'm called for anger. Now this excessive sadness immobilitates the soul, right? It immobilizes the soul, right? And it impedes the fight from what? Oh, yeah. My mother had that experience. Not unlike women, I guess, when they're very, very frightened. She spoke one time of a man who seemed to be threatening her. In a situation she hadn't known, she couldn't escape. And she said, she froze. I couldn't even speak, nothing. And fortunately she had the dog on the line, and the dog sensed her fear. The dog came flying through the air with this man. And he took off. The dog saved her life, because the dog sensed her fear. But she said, he could have just taken me by the hand and walked away with me. I couldn't do anything. It could be fear, too, of immobilizing me, too, maybe, yeah. Fear, yeah. That's Charlie Brown. He's in the paintball, you know, Charlie Brown. Big Irish, big English bloodhound. But you see that in Paracletus there in Shakespeare's play, right, huh? He's immobilized by his sadness. Paracletus. Oh, he's immobilized by his sadness, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just finished reading that. That's a great play. Oh, yeah. That's perfect. Truth can never be confirmed enough, though doubts do ever sleep. That's a line I like to hear. Truth can never be confirmed enough. The second should be said that everything choosable becomes less choosable on account of sadness, huh? So something to be fled from is rendered more, what? Leasable. Yeah. On account of sadness, right, huh? And as far as this sadness is useful, right, huh? To the theory it should be said that sadness about some operation impedes that operation, right, huh? But sadness about the seizing of operation makes one operate more, what? Evening. Yeah. So if you get a copy of the TV, say something like that, and don't, you know, operate the way you should. Then your sadness makes you want to deafen. Hmm. Okay, we've got time for another article here before that, right? Whether the sadness or the pain of the body is the summa malam, right? How many times have I asked people? What's the worst thing going to happen? Oh, they'd be killed. That's the first thing they say. He's talking about the pain, though, right? To the fourth one precedes us. It seems that sadness is the greatest evil. That's what the English philosophers would say, right? I suppose the Greens, too, right? Jeremy Bentham and all of that. To the best is opposed to the worst, right? As it's said in the Eighth Book of the Ethics. But some pleasure is the best thing, or some pleasure is best, I guess, which pertains to happiness, right? Therefore, some sadness is the greatest evil, right? Moreover, Beatitude is the greatest good of man, because it is the last end of man, right? I didn't know it was John, I mean, Bentech saying that about the Beatitudes, right? Talking about, maybe I guess in there, I guess I don't know. But Beatitude consists in this, that a man has whatever he, what, wants and wishes nothing bad. It's kind of the famous one of Augustine, which Thomas sometimes quotes, you know, it's kind of the definition of it. Therefore, the highest good of man is the fulfilling of his will. Now, I need to be careful about that. But, you can see that, I didn't say it, right? But sadness insists in this, that it's what? Something happens against one's will, as is clear to Augustine, I think, when I guessed before. Therefore, sadness is the greatest evil in that, right? Inhale that now, huh? Is the loss of the vision... That's the greatest? It's greater than the sadness over the loss of the vision, right? Say it again. The loss of the vision is greater than the sadness over the loss of the vision? More of Augustine thus argues in the soliloquies, right? From two parts we are put together, right? From the soul and the body, right? Of which the worst part is the, what? Body, right? Let's look at Thomas in a text there, he says. He's asking whether the whole soul is in each part of the body, right? And he distinguishes two senses of parts. One is the quantitative parts, right? And the other he calls the essential parts, like matter and, what? Form, right? This part in this second sense that he's talking about in this text here. But the greatest good is the good of the, what? Greater part. The worst evil is, what? The worst of the? The lower body. Yeah. I don't know if that's so, is it? But that is best in the soul, that is what? Wisdom, right? Wisdom, yeah. Ah, he didn't say love, he says wisdom. In the body, the worst is, what? Pain. I think that's the end of the tooth, right? Is that in the confessions there? I don't know, I don't know. For the greatest good of man is to, what? It's to savor, right? To savor. The greatest evil to be said, huh? That's kind of an interesting text, Augustine. Well, against this, huh? Guilt is a greater evil than, what? Punishment. As is had in the first book, right? But sadness or pain pertains to the punishment of sin. Just as to enjoy, for their own sake, changeable things is the evil of, what? Guilt, huh? For, Augustine says in the book on, what? True religion. What is the pain which is said to be of the, what? The soul. The soul. Except to, what? Liable things. Things, I think. Which one enjoys, right? Or to hope to enjoy, what? To be able to enjoy them? To be able to enjoy them. And this is the whole that is said to be bad. That is sin. And the punishment is sin. Therefore, sadness or pain is not the highest, what? Evil. Of man, right? So he's saying that sin is a greater evil, right? Than the sadness, right? Than the punishment, right? Than the pain of punishment, right? Yeah, we did that once. We put that on the board about, we did that once about the virtue and the reward. For the sake of which, which is better. So Thomas says, I am sure it should be said that it is impossible. It's a strong statement. For some sadness or pain to be the worst, the greatest evil of man, right? For every sadness or pain is either about that which is truly bad, right? Or it's about something apparently bad, which is truly what? Good. Now, pain or sadness about that which is truly bad cannot be, what? The greatest evil. For it is about something worse. There's something worse than it, right? Either to not what? Judge to be bad that which truly is bad, or to not what? To reject it. Sadness or pain, which is about the apparent evil, which is truly good, cannot be the greatest evil, because it is, what? It would be worse. Worse to be altogether. Separated from the true good. Separated from the true good, huh? Whence it is impossible that some sadness or pain be the highest or the greatest evil of what? Man, huh? That's what he's saying here, right? Go over again here. It is impossible, he says, for some sadness or pain to be the greatest evil of man. For every sadness or pain is either about that which is truly bad, or about some apparent, what? Bad. Bad, which is truly good. He takes these in separate up now. The pain or sadness which is about what is truly bad cannot be the, what? Supreme bad, worst bad. Yeah. Or there's something worse than it, right? There's something worse than it, man. Not to judge that to be bad, which is truly bad, or not to reject it, huh? Fair as foul as foul as fair. They're both worse than... Yeah. Now, sadness or pain, which is about an apparent evil, which is truly good, cannot be the greatest evil, because it would be worse to be altogether alienated from the, what, true good, right? Yeah. Whence it is impossible that some sadness or pain be the greatest good of man, huh? All right. You can't read some of what Thomas is saying there. Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm Thank you. So to be sad about something that is truly, what, bad, is that the worst thing that could be? Of course, if you didn't know it. If you didn't know it. Yeah, yeah. That's what most of our culture is doing right now. That's what, that's what Ernie Obama, he's weeping about the shooting, I said, more kids were killed in the abortion clinics that day in Connecticut than in the classroom. Right. And he doesn't show any tears over that. Right. Right. The carpet, the kids get killed with a gun, you know, and people get killed in the abortion clinic every day. More dangerous. Rather than putting more gun control laws, they put abortion control laws. Sure. Sure. Don't do that. To the first, therefore, it should be said that two goods are common, both to what? Pleasure and to what? Sadness. Sadness. And that is a true judgment about the good and the bad, right? Right. And? In order. In order. It should be. Yeah. Of the will of proving the good and refusing the bad. And thus it is clear that in sadness, in pain or in sadness, there is some good through sadness. Through the privation of which, there can be something worse, yeah. But not in every pleasure is there something bad through the removal of which it could become, what? Better, huh? Of man. Yeah. When some pleasure can be the greatest good of man, in the way that has been said above. But sadness cannot be the, what? The greatest evil of man, huh? That's what this didn't like. She was alienated from the church. Her family made her feel so guilty by living with her boyfriend before they got married. And I say, well, guilt is a good thing. It's like pain. If you put your hand in the fire and you don't feel any pain, you've got a problem. Yeah. So it's actually good to feel guilty about something. Yeah. But her knowledge, her lack of knowledge, her lack of right judgment about it made it worse for her. Yeah. And if she's just so guilty about it. We were comfortable. I bet you were. The second it should be said that this very thing which is for the will to be repugnant to the bad, right, is something what? Good. Good, right? And account of this, sadness or pain cannot be the greatest evil because it has some mixture of the good, huh? To the theory it should be said that that is worse what harms something better than that which harms something, what? Worse, huh? For the bad is what is said because it harms, huh? As Augustine says in the ingredient, right? Worse is a greater evil, what is the evil of the soul, and what is the evil of the body, right? Worse is not efficacious argument which Augustine induces not from his own, what? Opinion, right? Yeah. But from the opinion of a, what? Of another. Of another, right? Whoever chalces or something. Take a break there between the incubus pool and the irascible, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay, let's look at the premium here a little bit here. I think question, beginning of question 41 is a little premium here. Consequenter, huh? Following the problem is, we're not to consider about the passions of the, what, irascible, right? Notice now the way he divides this. In first, about hope and desperation, right? Secondly, about fear and audacity or boldness, right? And third, about, what, anger, right? And notice the beginning there with hope and, what, fear, right? Despair. Yeah, but I mean, hope is a primary thing, right? And if you look at this, you know, question 40, which is the one on, what, hope, right? Because fear begins in 41. It's almost all about hope, right, except when you get down to the fourth article there, where there's desperation as opposed to hope, right? So it's all about hope mainly, right? Well, hope is one of the four principal passions, huh? Thomas will speak of them as joy, sadness, hope, and fear, right? I mentioned the fact that, when I was working on the definition of comedy, right, huh? I was proceeding through the place of opposites, right? And saying, well, if comedy, if tragedy and comedy are contraries, which they seem to be, right? And tragedy, we know from the part that Aristotle completed, and we know from the prologue to Romeo and Juliet, is about pity and fear, right? A form of sadness and a form of fear, right? Then comedy should be about a form of joy, opposed to pity. And the opposite of fear, which is, what, boldness or audacity, right? And then as I studied more, it didn't seem that boldness was quite that prominent, like fear is in tragedy, right? And then I read the articles of Thomas, where he talks about the four principal passions, and they are joy and sadness and fear and not hope, right, you see? And then I started to say that hope made more sense for comedy, right? And then I was reading, you know, the guy writing on the book of Terence's comedies, right, huh? Latin scholar and so on. He kind of quotes St. Paul, you know, faith, hope, and charity, the greatest of these is charity. But, oh, it's not true in poetry! In comedy, it's hope, you know? Well, it's obviously the theological comedy, just right. But he saw hope as being, you know, so he started getting more and more evidence, right, you know? So, anyway, so hope and fear are the chief, what, passions, right? And you see what he said here, right? He takes up hope first, and of course hope becomes a name also of a theological virtue and of an act of the will, too. And fear, fear of the Lord, and so on, right? But those two are principle, and then anger is put third, right, huh? But you talk a little bit about the opposite of desperation, of hope, and the opposite of fear, audacity, or boldness, right? And if you see kind of the order of the way it is here, right, huh? Now, as Thomas will point out in here later on, contrariety here in the irascible means something a little bit different, right? Because the contrariety in the case of the concubiscible is in the object, right? So, joy is opposed to sadness because joy is about the good, sadness is about the, what, the bad, huh? And in the case of the irascible, right, both hope and despair, which are contraries, are about, what, the good, right? But a good that is difficult to achieve, right? And if you think you can overcome the difficulties, then you have hope, right? If you think you cannot, then you have, what, despair, right? So you have the same object, in a sense, whereas the contrariety comes in, well, because of the difficulty, right? That's why the irascible is because of the difficulties of things, right? And the same way with the, what, fear and boldness are both with regard to the bad, right, huh? But they are, what, when you think you can avoid the bad, when you have boldness, right? But the more natural thing, it's the fear, and then, you know, it's a different kind of contrariety, right, huh? But because the good or the bad are the more fundamental objects, then the irascible emotions arise from the Kikibza ones, and they terminate in them, right, huh? So, now about the first, namely about hope, eight things are asked, huh? Did you know that eight things are asked about this? First, would it be the same thing as desire or kipiditas, right, huh? It's very close to it, right? Because desire involves a, what, emotion towards the good, right, huh? But hope towards a, what, a good that's difficult. They seem to be similar things, though, right? Second, whether hope is in the apprehensive power or in the desiring power. That's kind of surprising, right, huh? But, as Thomas says elsewhere, you know, the irascible seems to be closer to reason than the concupiscible. It's more like getting a reason for something, right, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay? And I remember when I was first doing my investigations of Mozart theory, you know, and I was seeing the prominence of the pianokunschel, right? And the idea that there are assiduals in there, right? So I says to Kisurik, you know, this is more reason, right? Mm-hmm. And, you know, I was working on that balance there of the five last symphonies of Mozart, the 36th, the 38th, there being no 37th, as you know. The 39th, the 40th, and the 41st, right? Well, the 39th, I mean, excuse me, the 36th and the 41st are an imitation of magnanimity, which is concerned with hope, achieving the great things, huh? And the 38th and the 40th are concerned with courage, right? Which is concerned now with fear and so on. And it's in the irascible, too, right? So at least four of the five last symphonies are concerned with the irascible, only the middle one is a little bit concubisable, but not too concubisable, because he uses the E-flat, right? So it's still elevated, right? That's striking, is what Mozart does there, right? In the 36th and the 41st, they're both in C major, right? The 38th is in D major, because that's more the idea of going towards the dangerous, right? And then the 40th is more like patience, you know, maybe undergoing the strongness there, you know? And Mozart, when he does that, I mean, Beethoven sounds feeble compared to Mozart. That firmness of what it has is that, now it is now. And the 39th, I mean, is still somewhat, you know? The E-flat is not, you know, as concubisable as, the concubisable keys in Mozart are G major and B-flat, and that sort of thing, right? G major, that's just a, E-flat is sort of, you know, in between. So you're kind of struck by those things, right? So it's striking that he has this argument where the hope is in the V apprehensive, and that's just, I mean, why does this even arise is the question, right? I don't know, you know, but I'm just kind of reminded of the fact that there's a certain proximity there between, that somehow the irascible is closer, huh? You see this in Plato, right? You have, you know, reason, and then you have the thumax, right, which is where you get the word for the irascible, and then, you know, epithymia, you know, down here, you know? And you've got to use kind of irascible to control the thing, you know? So when he jumped in the bush, right, to, you know, overcome the incusible. That's courage, right? With the hope being the good animals, you know, again, the question, right? Why is that even your question? These are things we have in common with the animals, right? Then put it, to hope is contrary, desperation, right? That's all he has about desperation, you know, officially here in this thing, you know? Firefully the cause of hope is experience, huh? Whether in the young and the drunk, right, hope abounds, right? I can fly!