Prima Secundae
Lecture 144: Virtue as Habit and the Good Habit

Transcript
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So all that just to found that virtue is a habit, in what sense we say, virtue is a habit. Now, I was thinking of, you know, how Shakespeare says, wisely and slow, they stumble and run fast. And how Aristotle, in the fourth book of wisdom, he spends almost the whole book defending the principle of contradiction, right? That's what a slugger, right? That's what's most known, right? But he's wise and slow, right? And in the fifth book, right, because he's shown in the beginning of the fourth book, that being and one are the subject of wisdom, but they're not said in one way, right? Then he spends the whole book, book five, you know, this distribution is sense of the words, right? Paul's referring to it in the word perfect there earlier, right? And Thomas was talking, you know, about God's will there, right, in the Summa Pantagentiles. And there's an objection, though, to God's freedom there, to God's creatures, right? If he's able to will the twin purpose be or not be, right, then there's some indetermination in God, and there's some potency in God, they get all kinds of troubles, right? And Thomas, of course, solves it by the sense of probable or possible that Aristotle distinguishes, which is not by any power. Well, I said the fifth book, was it? Yes, you know. But these people, they use these words, and they don't, what, distinguish them, right? I remember when I was in graduate school there, I used to go to the library sometimes, and there were, you know, former theses and doctoral theses all there on shelves, right? And if you're interested in the topic of the doctoral thesis, you maybe, you know, just take it down and read a little bit. At that time, everybody was kind of interested in Marxism and so on, right? So I was looking at this one thesis of Marxism, and, of course, the official name for Marxism is dialectical materialism, right? And materialism means that matter is the beginning of the source of all things. Dialectical means that there are opposites that are struggling, right? So this is very essential, the idea of opposites, right? And they even, you know, Marxists, Lenin even quotes Heraclitus, right? War is the father of all things, right? A good exposition of the rudiments of dialectical materialism, he says, right? But they don't distinguish the four senses of opposites, right? That's a key thing in their philosophy, and they're not doing it, right? So this guy, you know, he stops at that point in his thesis there, and he goes, you know, to Aristotle, and he does it in the categories, the four opposites, and he does it in the fifth book of Wisdom, right? But it's just such a basic thing, you know, I mean, for, if this is the fundamental thing in Marxism, you know, you think they would, you know, and that's what Thomas is doing here with the word virtuos, right? I mean, that's the fundamental word in this treatise, and he's stopping, right? Wouldn't find anybody else doing that, you know? But he's, except for Aristotle, right? Aristotle saw the need to do this, right? It's kind of marvelous to see. And Thomas has a great deal of respect for Aristotle, you know, when he sings. But he uses it in theology, right? It's one of the marvelous examples of that. In what way, I'm just thinking of what quote you had long ago from Heraclitus, because this explains why St. Thomas does this, because the wise man is strong in what is common. And these words are common. If we don't understand them, we can't be wise. Yeah, yeah. We're not strong in it. Yeah. And it's a good example. Wisely and slow, they stumble and run fast, right? People run in using these words without even stopping to understand them, right? So if a man doesn't know the meaning of the words that he's using, right, and mixing up the meanings of the words he's using, then he's in deep trouble. And that's the most common source of mistakes Aristotle says in the book on system reputations, right? We're really kind of saying, well, that wouldn't be a bad reduction in metaphysics to make them do the fifth book, you know? Yeah. You know, clear it up, you know? Okay, article two. To the second one proceeds thus, it seems that it is not of the, how should I translate, ratione? It's always a hard thing to do in this way. The notion of human virtue that it be a, what? Oppertive habit. What? Being essential. You know what? Some sort. I just remember the student asking in chapter one, how do you translate raps? You should realize I don't know how much the question it was. I was asking this. For Tully, that's Cicero, right? You know how when Thomas is coming in scripture, you know, it seems that sometimes the same man has more than one name, right? Sometimes he's called the one name, the other name. But this happens here, right? He's always called him Tully, you know, and I'd rather call him Cicero, right? But it's the same guy that is that. It is Tuscaloom questions. That's from Tuscany, I guess, huh? He was drinking a good wine there. He had Tuscaloom. I had a Tuscaloom. I had a Tuscaloom there with the... I was going to say, a Chianti. It looked the... It's like a Carboné Sauvignon. Yeah. Kind of like this dry wine. Well, I think, you know, my brother Marcus gave me my first instructions in wine, right? He says, the world's two greatest red grapes are Carboné Sauvignon and Pinot Noir, right? But after those two, I put Sangiovese, right? And the great, you know, the varieties of it, you know, the great Barolas too, you know. Don't be much broad. It's about $40, $60 a bottle. Tully says in the fourth book of the Tuscaloom questions, that just as health and beauty of the body, so also virtue of the what? So health, and there's a certain likeness there, right? And nobody use those words in some ways, right? You know, we might say that the virtue is the beauty of the soul, right? And it's a good health of the soul, right? By somebody's advice, I'd say, you're sick. You see? We do. Well, the Pope was talking about healing by preaching the gospel. Yeah. People must be sick. I used to, when I'd taken the three main virtues of the body, so to speak, health and beauty and strength, right? And which one would you assimilate to justice and which one to courage and which one to temperance, right? Well, I suppose you'd think of body strength, you know, in terms of courage, right? Health is more justice and beauty is more temperance. It was time to say that every perfection in the creature is likeness to God, right? That's why I love those lines in Shakespeare's there. To General Rona. Who is Sylvia, that all our swains do commend her, right? Heaven lent her such grace that she might admire her be. It's beautifully said, right, huh? Because the beauty has been lent her by heaven. You know how a woman tends to lose her beauty. She gets older, right? So it's lent her, right? That, you know, prime of her youth, you know? But it's, what? Life is to God, right? The beauty of the body, right? Okay? It's already the beauty of the soul. But, I mean, well said by Shakespeare, you know? He says things very well. He's the master of the English language, yeah? But health and beauty are not operative powers, right? Therefore, there is, what? Virtue, right? Of course, how far was it till you were trying to make that comparison, right? But in natural things, there is found a virtue, not only to doing, but to, what? Being, right? As it's clear through the philosopher in the first book about the heavens. That some things have the virtue that they be, what? Always. Always, right? And other things, not to this that they be always, but for some, what? Parenthood. Yeah, okay? So you can speak, you know, some animals are longer living than other animals, right? And even some human beings live longer than others, right? Okay? I went to the doctor, you know, I had my checkup, but I joke, as you know, I'm 77, I said, now, it's not until I'm 80 that I consider myself an old man, right? And so he said, well, the medical freshman regards 60 as being an old man. So I was telling him, you know, I count the money on Sunday, you know, for the church. And one of the other counters is a medical doctor, I was retired now, Dr. White, you know? And somebody's asking him, you know, about, you know, what is life like in the 60s, right? So he tells him, you know, I'm expecting your 60s. And then, what's life in the 70s, the guy, he asked. And he told him what, you know, life was like. And finally he says, and what is life like in the 80s? And he says, you don't want to know. So I said, the doctor said, of course, the doctor said, you know, he knows Dr. White. He says, he's got a good sense of humor, guy. He's always, you know, he's in the library, they're always kidding each other, you know. And he gives me a little bit, you know, and he says, you know, what have you learned since you're coming here, you know? What was I going to say? He said, how to count, he said. That's the only thing to say to him. He's always saying, you know, you've come a long way, he'll say, you know. He's in stitches, you know, he is funny, so. But just as natural virtue is a natural thing, so human virtue in what? Rational things, right? Therefore, human virtue is not only for doing, but also for what? Being. Being, yeah. I mean, there's a reason why human virtue is kind of used just for doing, because that's something proper to man, right? He's got to control of his actions, yeah. Moreover, the philosopher says in the seventh book of the physics that virtue is a disposition of the perfect to the best. That's theology, right? But the best to which a man can be disposed to virtue is God himself, as Augustine proves in the second book on the what? The moral of the church. To which the soul is disposed by assimilation to him, right? Therefore, it seems that virtue is called a quality of the soul in order to God, right? As it were, assimilative to him, right? Not in order to operation, right? So, by virtue, you're not being disposed for operation, but you're being made like God, right? Right, right? Now, those people aren't kind of addicted, I don't think. It is not, therefore, an operative habit. But against this is what the philosophy says in the second book of the ethics, and this is the definition he gives, that the virtue of each thing is what renders its doing, right? Good, right? Actually, the complete one is he'll say that it's what makes its however good ends operation, but, right? When I was explaining this, you know, when I'd be teaching ethics, I would talk about the virtue of a knife, right, just to, you know, concrete, and say, what would be the virtue of a knife, right? What makes a knife a good knife, and its own act, which is to cut, good? Well, the main virtue is sharpness, right, and what would be the vice of it, huh? Don't. Don't. So, not what's your mind? A moron. A moron. Yeah, yeah. Or Warren Murray had up in his kitchen, I should tell that, he had a little plaque there, you know, much virtue in herbs, little in men, and, well, the virtue of a, what, herb is what makes it a good herb and makes it season things, right, right? But if you have herbs around too long, right, they lose their virtue, right? Okay. I hope that doesn't happen to us. Is that the old thing you get? 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. He's admitting that distinction, right? A power to being, right? And a power to what? Doing. The perfection of both of these powers is also called a what? Virtue, right? But the power to being holds itself on the side of matter, which is being and potency, right? But the power to act holds itself on the side of what? Form, which is the beginning of acting, right? Okay, in that each thing acts insofar as it is in act. Now, in the constitution of man, the body has itself as matter, the soul as what form? So the soul is sometimes defined as the first act of a natural body composed of tools. It's really a substantial form of such a body. As regards to body, man communicates, or is in common, with the other animals. And similarly regards the powers which are common to the soul and the body. Only those powers which are proper or private to the soul, to which the rational ones, right, are of man only, namely the reason and the will, right? Actually, it's a little complicated because it's an active understanding. And therefore, the human virtue about which we now speak cannot pertain to the body, which we have in common with the beast, right? But pertains only to that which is proper to the soul, right? It's what we call human virtue, kind of talking about what's peculiar to man, right? Hence, what we call human virtue, then, does not imply an order to being, but more to what? Yeah. And therefore, it's of the meaning of human virtue that it be an operative habit, right? Clear enough, one? These trees that last so long, you know, it's amazing. Yeah. I've heard that they say that, like, the olive trees in Israel are 2,000 years old. Yeah, yeah. Why do you compare man more to the grass? You know, it's something that's tentative. Yeah. I think Pope John Paul had a poem. I don't know the poem, but I don't think it's, man dies more often than the tree or something like that. Yeah. Because, I mean, there's that ash tree, you go by our neighbor's house, going up the neighborhood, the little cottage on the left that's going up. Yeah. Right opposite, there's enormous ash tree. It's got to be 200 or 300 years old. It's huge. Yeah. It's enormous at the base. And it's still, right to the tree, it's a strong trunk. Well, some of those kinds of trees in California, you know, are really long and lasting, you know. Remember when I was in Sherwood Forest there in England, there, you know, showing this one tree, you know, and talking about it, you know, how far back it went, I forget how long. But they have more virtue to being, right, than we do, yeah. There was a, in Muir Woods, you've probably been there, with the regular trees, they've been in a fire. Yeah. We asked one of the wardens, they were saying, oh, do you have a fire here? He says, yeah, it was in 1845. So trees are still there. You built a house in there, you know, right, in one of those trees. Yeah. Now, what about this first objection there from Tully, right? The first, therefore, it should be said that the mode or way of the action follows the, what, disposition of the doer, the agent. For each thing, as it is, so does it operate, right? And therefore, since virtue is the beginning or source of some operation, it's necessary that in the one doing, there pre-exists, according to virtue, some, what? Disposition. Conformed, right? For virtue makes the operation to be, what? Ordered. And therefore, the virtue itself is a sort of disposition ordered in the soul, according to which the powers of the soul are ordered in some way to each other and to what is on the outside. This is natural, right? And therefore, a virtue, insofar as it is a suitable disposition of the soul, is likened to health, right? Anti-beauty, which are suitable, what? Disposition of the body, right? So there are perfections of the body, right? Beauty and health and strength, right? And strong, but not healthy, as my friend Jim said, right? He was strong. He was a boxer, you know? Not two or three guys down the road he could get, you know? But he had some health problems, you know? One of his lungs collapsed. And by this, or because of this, is not excluding that virtue can also be a principle of what? Operation, right? So he's saying that virtue is a disposition that is suitable to this power, right? Just as health or strength or what? Beauty is a suitable disposition of the body, right? That's what the light just consists, not in its being a source of operation, right? But it can have that in addition, right? That maybe beauty doesn't have, right? Beauty doesn't do anything. I mean, who's us? It does, but in itself doesn't do anything, right? It doesn't do anything. Yeah, yeah. Strength is more able to do something. Now, to the second it should be said, that the virtue which is to being is not private to man, right? Propria has got the sense of what? Private there. But only the virtue which is for the, what? Works of reason, right? Which are private to man, right? People have a problem with how they translate appropriate sometimes, too, you know? I want to translate it properly, but it's not always the best meaning there, you know? Because when you say something's not private to man, it seems like. It's not private to him, right? It's not limited to him, right? If you read enough of these English translations of St. Thomas, you just get used to it. Yeah, yeah. That's what they all just transliterate. To the third it should be said, that since the substance of God, right, is his action, right? That's very subtle. The highest assimilation of man to God is according to his operation. So God is love, you say, right? God is knowledge, right? Whence, as has been said above, happiness, right? Or beatitude, right, huh? Those are kind of synonyms here, right? But their etymology is somewhat different, right? Phycitas comes from the word, what? Fruitful. Okay. But we tend to speak that way, too, about life that's been fruitful, right? It's a happy life, right? But beatitude has the idea, you know, of coming down, right? To which man is most of all conformed to God, which is the end of human life. It consists in somewhat aberration, right? So the beatitude or happiness of man in heaven is seeing God and loving God, right? And that's very satisfactory to find out. It's very enjoyable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thomas says, you know, in seeing God, you will also see everything you've always naturally wanted to know, right? Even though it would be insignificant compared to God, right? Yeah. Would St. Sarah stop praising God or? Say anything again. Would St. Sarah stop praising God or thanking God? I don't think they would, would they? There'd be no reason to stop. You don't get tired. You don't get tired. I remember my kid in high school. Well, I feel like we've been praising God for a few centuries. I mean, don't we get bored when there's something else to do up there? I mean, I never get tired of praising, you know, Shakespeare or Mozart or something like that, you know. I mean, their perfection is very little compared to God, right? Yeah, yeah. I was reading MacArthur's reminiscences, you know, and was Alexander there, the chief military figure there in England, you know, said MacArthur was the greatest general in the war, right? So the end of it. So the end of it. So the end of it. So the end of it. outside, right? And the famous B.H. Liddell cartoon, the famous, the most illustrious, you know, writer of history, right? So MacArthur was the greatest general, right? And MacArthur said, well, some people are annoyed by this, you know. He said, but they're entitled to their opinion, he says. I heard it attributed, I don't know, that she it doesn't sound like she really said it, but it was interesting that when Mother Teresa was in India, when the Hindus used to set up little shrines of her fiction, they'd bring incense to her, like she was a god, you know. And somebody asked her about that, what she thought about that. I think this is apocryphal, I don't know what she said, but she said, man, after all, I've done that, and they treat me as if I wasn't human. I can see you saying that. You see these pictures, you know, of John Paul II who's there at her place, you know, watching her, and going around to see how she, you know. That's kind of beautiful, the way he turns it around there at the third, right, huh? Because God, his substance is also his operation, right? So he's assimilating to God, dear. Most of all, he's assimilating to him by your operation. Yeah, most of all, an act. Oh, gee, I'm still not sure whether it's going to happen yet, I guess. So this guy's awfully slow, you know. You heard that comparison I made with the dumb ox and Niels Bohr, have you read that one? Well, you know, of course, Thomas was called the dumb ox, right? How could it be, you know, because of what Shakespeare said, you know, wisely and slowly, stumble and run fast, right? Well, Niels Bohr, you know, was an extremely influential physicist, right? Because he actually got the Nobel Prize, he set up an institute for theoretical physics in Copenhagen, right? Which was supported with the, he saw a little beer there in Copenhagen and so on. One of the big, big beer places. And, but men came from all over the world to study in the Bohr, right? So Oppenheimer came from the United States to study under him, and Gamal came from Russia to study under him, Heisenberg came from Germany to study under him, and so on, right, yeah? But when some physicist had a new idea, right, he'd often stop by at the institute there, and they'd have a kind of seminar, and they'd sit around a table like this, and the guy would present the new idea, right? And everybody seemed to get the idea, except Bohr. And so then they turned to Bohr and tried to explain to him, and finally Bohr would say, ah, isn't this the way it is? No, he got it wrong. But then after another discussion, he realized that Bohr had it right. So the last guy to get the new idea was the first guy to get it, what? Right. Right. See? Isn't it interesting, right? A little bit like Thomas there in the dumb ox, right? Because someone, they're just like, they're trying to help Bohr, you know? You know, we're going to explain it to Bohr, right? And he's just gradually assimilating the idea, right, and getting it right. And then somebody came to try to help Thomas, you know, and then they realized how far behind him they were, right? You know, rather than needing to help him, he could help them, right? That kind of beautiful, though, huh? Wise and slow. I said, fire and run, says very wise. There's two remarks about stumbling, right? They stumble and run fast, and then later on, revolts through true birth, stumbling and abuse, right? And so on, right? Building more, pushing for, you know what. Okay, so what did I go on this little way, you know? Okay, so what did I go on this little way, you know? Okay, so what did I go on this little way, you know? Okay, so what did I go on this little way, you know? To third, one goes forward thus. It seems that it's not of the meaning of virtue that it would be a good habit, right? For sin is always taken in after something bad, right? But even of sin, there is some, what? Virtue, according to that, of St. Paul in the Epistle to Corinthians. The, what, virtue of sin is, what? Wow. To death, I think. Therefore, virtue is not always a good habit, right? Of course, you know, I mean, St. Paul calls, what, concubisence there, too, that law, right? The law of my flesh, right? That's kind of an extended use of the word, right? Quasi metaphorice, metaphorically said, huh? Okay. We'll see what Thomas says, huh? Moreover, virtus corresponds to what? Power, right? But power is not only in regard to the good, but also in regard to the bad, right? According to that of Isaiah chapter 5, huh? Woe to you who are potent in drinking wine, that's directed towards me, I guess. And strong men to what? Mixing. Mixing. What? Drunkenness. Yeah. Therefore, virtue has itself to put into bad, right? And what did you say? You're no more powerful than the devil, right? Moreover, according to the apostle, 2 Corinthians, virtue is made perfect in infirmity. What a contradiction, right? But infirmity is a certain evil, right? Therefore, virtue not only adds itself to the good, but also to the bad. See? I wonder how long he had to think up, to think up his objection. But again, this is what Augustine says in the book on the morals of the church, right? No one would doubt that what? That virtue makes the soul best, right? And the philosopher says in the sense of the ethics. This is the equating now to hold the whole text. Virtue is, quae bonum facet abendum, makes its haver good, right? And his what? His work. Good, yeah. So I used to talk about my two eyes, you know. And if I look at you, you know, my right eye, you're kind of blurry over there, you know. And my left eye, it's more clear, right? So my left eye is my virtuous eye, and my right eye, I'd say, is my, what, vicious eye. I don't mean to look at the girls with my right eye, they said. But, you know, what's the eye's, what, own act, right? Yeah, yeah. So if you have a 20-20 version, then you, what, it makes the eye that has that 20-20 version good, right? And it sees good, right? Okay. So my left eye is more virtuous than my right eye, right? I'd say, by the virtue of the eye. And I think you kind of, you know, do that, because it kind of makes people realize what a virtue is, right? Why would you want a knife that isn't sharp, right? Why would you want an eye that, you know, can't see, you know? It's like a brief comment, pointing out how the text of Genesis is phrased. Yeah. It says that God looked upon Cain and his offering. Yeah. And Abel and his offering. So he looks first at the man. Yeah. And then he looks at his work. Yeah. So if the first thing is the second one, you can't have the second one making the first one. In fact, mm-hmm. You didn't put the body back going on? Mm-hmm. And the answer should be said, as has been said above, virtue implies the perfection of a power. Whence the virtue of each thing is determined towards the last thing that the thing is, what? Capable, right? As is said in the first book, De Celo. But the ultimate thing that each power is able to achieve is necessarily something that is, what? Good, right? Mm-hmm. For everything bad implies some, what? Defect, right? So my ability to be mistaken, you know, that cannot be the perfection of my, the virtue of my, what? Reason, right? Mm-hmm. But that, whereby I know the truth, then. Whence Danesius says in the fourth chapter of the Divine Names that everything bad is infirmal, right? Right, huh? There was Thomas in his prayer there for communion there beforehand, right? What does he mean by infirmal, you know? He's praying to God the Father. Infirmalus out in Hoseaville. Yeah. Not in Vitae. Yeah. An account of this is necessary that the virtue of each thing be said in order to something, what? Good, right, huh? Couldn't say, as far as I can do is an error, huh? Well, that's pretty, that's pretty bad, right? Whence human virtue, which is a doing habit, right? He said in Article 2, is a good habit and doing of something good, right? Opportunity of something good. Now, to the first it should be said that just as perfect, so also good is said metaphorically in bad things, huh? 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Yeah. It's almost like, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, yeah. So, it's like Hitler, you know, really, in the last prior war, the Holocaust really got going, you know, and then he's kind of, you know, going to the, you know, complete, complete wickedness, yeah. Complete. Tolkien didn't like Hitler at all, you know, in terms of his understanding of German myth and so on, and I just, it got all wrong. Really? Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. I think that in, uh, Pierce, you know, that he talks about, took the end of it, yeah. I said that Ed O'Donnell had a chip on his shoulder against the Germans because, uh, he's, then they never got over Aryanism. That explains German idealism and everything, that explains it. story that he tells about the saint, somebody, and the devil, and he's got the devil by the nose, and he's taking him around and around, and the devil breaks down and starts cursing and starts cursing in German, which is his native tongue. Is it some novel or something where the devil, was it the antichrist, shows up, and he's a scripture scholar at Chibia? Mark Twainy makes fun of the German language, madman invented, you know. I guess the German language has got this kind of word order, you know, this kind of thing. Warren tells me a funny story, one of these national things there, somebody's translating as the guy goes along, right? The guy's translating in French, right? It's not until the end that you find out what this man's supposed to be, you know, might just, you know, stand down and stop translating and walk out of his booth, you know. Kind of funny, you know. Ridiculous language, yeah. To the second, it should be said something like the first one, right? That the evil of what? Drunkenness, right? Or too much? Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. To the fourth one goes forward thus, it seems that it is not a suitable definition of virtue which is accustomed to be assigned, that virtue is the good quality of the mind by which it lives rightly, which no one uses badly, which God works in us without us. For virtue is the goodness of man, and that definition comes from Augustine, by the way. Okay, okay. Virtue is the goodness of man, right? For it is virtue that makes the one having it good, right? That's part of Aristotle's notion there. But goodness does not seem to be what? Good. To be good, yeah. Just as neither is whiteness white, right? Okay. Therefore, unsuitably, is it said that virtue is a, what? Good quality, right? Not goodness itself, but that by which you are good, right? It's a little hard to get it first. But is health healthy? It's not healthy. But you see, it'll probably mean, you see, is health that by which the body is healthy, right? Health is not that by which health is healthy, right? But it's that by which the body is healthy, right? Well, same thing with virtue, right? Okay. And, well. Moreover, Augustine says in the, excuse me, Moreover, no difference is more common than its, what? Genus, right? Since it is divisive of a genus, right? Divided genus. But good is more, what? Common than quality, right? For good is convertible with being, which is said of all, right? Therefore, good ought not to be placed in the definition of virtue as a difference of quality. Now put that in your pipe and smoke. Moreover, as Augustine says in the Twelfth Book of the Trinity, where first there occurs something that is not common to us in the beast, yeah? That pertains to the mentum, right? The mind. The mentum, you know, kind of has, meaning just the reason, right? It means the will, right? But there are some virtues also of the irrational parts, right? That didn't kill us more than last about the time, right? As the philosophy says in the Third Book of the Ethics. Therefore, not every virtue is a good quality of the mind, huh? But maybe they partake of reason, right? Of course, it's a question of how you exactly use the word mentisa. Goes back to the idea of measurement, huh? Reason of measures. Moreover, rectitude seems to pertain to, what? Justice, right? He's considering now this part of the definition, recti vivita, right? By which one is recti. For the same are said to be... Justice. Yeah. But justice is a species of virtue, right? Therefore, you don't define the genus by the species, right? Therefore, unsuitably is right put in the definition of virtue when it's said by which one lives rightly. I think he took pleasure in coming up with these virtues. Whoever takes pride about something uses that thing badly, right? With many superbiote virtu de him. Many are proud of their virtue, right? Well, Augustine says, you know, about the chaste versions of his time, they were proud, they'd be better if they'd throw him to sin, right? Then they had this pride, right? So, for Augustine says in the rule that pride, which is even into good works, right? That they might perish, right? That's the thing I hope with him about pride, that it can arise even from something, what? Good, huh? Yeah, that's a famous passage, it's from a letter, it says down here, where he says the three most important things in the spiritual effort, first humility, second humility, third humility. The reason is because pride can insinuate itself in every good work we do except humility. Yeah. That's the reason why. Yeah, but see, Dion said that he always had to watch for pride because he understood Thomas better than anybody else, so that there's an occasion of pride for him, right? Right, huh? So, it's false, therefore, that no one uses virtue badly, right? The pride uses virtue badly. Mm, that's a subtle one, right? Yeah. Moreover, man is justified to virtue. But Augustine says, upon those words of John, you would do greater things than these, right, huh? Who created you without you will not justify you without you. Therefore, unscathedly, as it said, that virtue is worked by God in us without us. There's a large number of objections for the Summa, right? You should have about three objections, huh? He's getting carried away. Yeah. He's getting too much fun. Yeah. This is why some of us are more fun than a human being allowed to have. Yeah. But against this is the authority of Augustine, right? From whose words the force of definition is collected, and especially in the second book on free judgment. Who is Thomas quoted in these things, you know, besides Aristotle and Augustine mainly, you know? His sister comes in a little bit, you know? But it's mainly Augustine and Aristotle. I answer it should be said that this definition perfectly gives us the whole meaning of virtue, right? For the perfect meaning of anything is gathered or brought together from all its, what, causes, huh? Now, the for-said definition comprehends all the causes of virtue, huh? Now, the formal cause of virtue, just as of anything, is taken from its genus and from its difference, huh? And so you get the formal cause when he says qualitas, what? Bona. For the genus of virtue is quality, and the difference, what? Good, huh? It would be nevertheless more suitable to be a definition if in place of quality took, what? Habit. Habit, I don't know what it would have gotten to get away with that, huh? Very, very, very, very good stuff. A modest suggestion. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When Thomas disagrees sometimes with Albert the Great, you know, he says, some have said this, you know, but he doesn't mention that it's Albert who said it, right? If in place of quality, habit was placed, which is the genus propinquam, right? Yes. Okay. It's like defining square as a plain figure or a rectilineal figure, not defining it by quadrilateral, which is its genus, right? It's its proximate, proximate genus, huh? Okay, we'll get to gusting there with a little defect. Virtue does not have a material ex qua, from which, right? Just as neither other, what, accidents, huh? But it has a matter about which, and a matter in which, to wit, its subject, right? Now, the matter about which is the object of virtue, right, huh? And this could not have been placed in the force of definition, in that by the object is determined the species of the virtue, right? Here, however, is assigned the definition of virtue in general. Whence there is placed the subject in place of the, what, material cause, when it is said that it is a good quality of the, what, mind, right? Now, the end of virtue, since it is a operative habit, will be the operation itself, huh? Now, it should be known that... of operative habits. Some are always for the bad, as vicious habits, right? Others are sometimes toward the good and sometimes towards the bad, as opinion has itself to what? True and false. Thomas, in his commentary in the sixth book of the Ethics here, he says opinion and suspicion are not virtues, right? Because sometimes opinion is what? False. And even more so, it's an suspicion, nothing. False, right? But virtue is a habit simpler, always having itself to the what? Good, huh? That's, of course, being understood per se, right? So my wisdom as such is always what? For the good, right? Proud of my wisdom or something like that, right? And therefore, that one might discern virtue or distinguish virtue from those things which always have themselves to the bad, he says, qua recti vivitur, by which one lives, what? Rightly, huh? That although one might discern it from those things which have themselves sometimes to the good, sometimes to the bad, he says, which no one uses, what? Badly, right? Well, this is separate virtue from the power, too, right? Because you can use your power badly or, you know, as well as well. Now, the efficient cause of the infused virtue, about which the definition is given, also he says they're virtues infusing, right? So he's not talking about the virtues that Aristotle talked about in the ethics, right, huh? Because they're not infused virtues, right, huh? The English philosophers, you know, objectives that were infused, right? They're too sensible, right? They'll pour it in, you know, you know, yeah, this is an infused virtue, right, you know? Well, if it was wine, it would be a real infusion. Yeah, yeah, a little bit of virtue, yeah. And the kind of which it is said, which God in us, without us, works, right, huh? Which part of the definition is to be taken away, the rest of the definition would be common to all virtues, right? To both acquired and infused, right? Now, let's go back to the first objection. To the first, therefore, it should be said that that which first falls into the understanding is, what? Being, right, huh? Whence to each thing grasped by us we attribute that it is being, right? That's something, right? And consequently, that it be one and good which are convertible with, what? Being. Aristotle in the, what, fourth book of wisdom, right? It shows the convertibility of being and one, right? But then, you know, in the ninth book he puts out the thing about the good, right? Whence we say that the essence is both being and one and good, right? And the unity is both being and one and what? Good. Good. And similarly about goodness itself, huh? But this does not have place in special forms as, what? Whiteness and health, like an example I was giving there, right, huh? So we don't say that health is healthy, right? That the body is healthy by health, right, huh? For not everything that we grasp do we grasp under the notion of white and healthy, right, huh? But nevertheless, it ought to be considered that accidents and forms that do not exist by themselves, right, are not subsistent, are said to be beings not because they have being, but because by them something is, right? So also they are said to be good or one, not by some other goodness or unity, but because by them something is good or what? One, right? So wisdom is good because by wisdom I'm wise. If I wasn't wise, the wisdom wouldn't be really good. Thus, therefore, a virtue is said to be good because by it something is what? Good, right? Now, to the second, it should be said that good that is placed in the definition of virtue, this is the objection that said, hey, that's too common, the difference can't be more common than the, what, genus, right? Well, Thomas solves it by saying that it's not the same good we talked about there. The good that is placed in the definition of virtue is not bonum commune, right, the one that is convertible with being and is in more, it's said of more, right, huh? It's a common way of saying et in plus, right? It's in more, right? It's said of more than quality. But it's the good of what? Reason, right, huh? According to Dionysius says in the fourth chapter of the Divine Names, that the good of the soul is to be in accordance with reason, huh? That's a very solid thing, huh? Dionysius says that, huh? And I actually say to students, you know, what's a good human act? What does that mean? Caring. A good human act is a reasonable human act, right? That's what it is. You want to say it in one word, right? What's a good love? It's a reasonable love, right? What's a good fear? A reasonable fear, right? Something you should be afraid of. You're afraid of suicide, huh? Yeah. And it can be a good anger, right? A reasonable anger, right? There can be unreasonable anger, right? This is what Dionysius is teaching us. But Aristotle teaches us that too, right? Mm-hmm. And that's what you come across, and I first heard the Nicomachean Ethics as a boy, you know, I was convinced, right? So impressed. I remember memorizing the passage there from the Nicomachean Ethics there, about living in the coins of the reason. My father said, what are you doing? And my father came by. And I was very excited for him. He said, oh, okay. It's not okay to hear me now. My cousin, who was a philosophy major too, you know, taught philosophy, but he and my brother got the, Uncle Jim, you know, who had ever been to college, you know, to read the Nicomachean Ethics, you know, you thought it made sense, you know? It's not, you know, inaccessible to the, you know, good-minded. You went to college, you probably have an impediment to reading a kid. It's too much common sense, right? Stuff about, you know, homosexual marriage and so on. It's supposed to common sense, right? But they care about each other. They care. That's my, somebody was writing to me the other day about that. We shouldn't try to make the gay people straight, you know, and I said, well, we should try to make them Christian first. Exactly. You should try to make a Christian first. The rest will take care of itself. Now, what about the third objection there? That's in terms of, what, being in those powers that are in common, right? Some virtues are of the irrational parts, right? But the famous distinction there between the part of the soul that is essentially reasonable, right? And the part of the soul that is not essentially usable, but can partake of, like, of reason, right? I started up to Quebec one time, and a new car, you know. And I said, I think I'll take a little different route because I'm going to go to Maine, you know, and so on. Get to the Canadian thing there. The route to President Kennedy, right? The route to President Kennedy. So I'm running boot. Well, it was a very bad road, and there were popples, you know, so I was going kind of, what, slowly, right? So you get one of these crazy French drivers behind me, you know, who didn't like the fact that I was going slowly, you know. So finally, he gets so disgusting. He roars by me, you know. And of course, he kicks up a stone. I could hear it hit the side of the car. I knew that it was going to be a nice little mark there.