Prima Secundae
Lecture 215: Virtues, Passions, and the Geometry of Knowledge

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Mildness, right, which is a virtue of concern with anger, right, what virtue does he attach that? Temperance, yeah, yeah. Because the desire for food or drink or sex, something like that, needs to be, what, refrained, right? Why, in the case of courage, you know, you have to be kind of pushed into it, right? You know? You have to go forward, even though the fact, you know, and a lot of people get up to speak in front of an audience, and they kind of freeze, you know, and they have to be, what, they have to practice this in a sense, huh? See? But in the case of anger, it's something that needs to be, what, more restrained, right? So it's like, you know, these strong emotions, right? And so, given the strength of it, maybe he doesn't want that here, but he doesn't secundi, secundi, right? And Shakespeare doesn't have metaphor, right, in the very wrath of love, I mean, how can we compare, you know? And in the very wrath of love, he says, clubs could not part them. I mean, you know, you part dogs with the club, right, and maybe you had angry people, in a sense, but certainly dogs, that was the kind of way to do it, you know, in London there, you know? And so, parents have to kind of separate the young lovers too sometimes, right, huh? So it makes a pun, huh? So they're in the very wrath of love, clubs could not part them, right, huh? So the idea is to get them married off quickly, you know, because that's what they do, you know? And London says, to see happiness through another's eyes, you know, it's a terrible thing, you know? To see, love through another's, happiness through another's eyes, right, you know, to somebody else, you know, and then, of course, you know, if you don't play their age, you'll like it, you know? But, I mean, that comparison, right, I think it's something about why anger is a principle of passion, right? Because, just because of the strength of it, for one thing, right, huh? But something could be developed a little bit more here than the master does it right here. That's what he says, there's a special reason of a repetitive motion, as one, what, fights against the good of another, right, under the notion of something, what, yeah, yeah. And also how different that is from, from what, envy, right, because envy is kind of a thing that people don't want to admit that they're envious of somebody, right, because that makes it worse, right, huh? You know? Funny examples of that, you know, but the girl's running up and down the street there in the bike there at home, and I'm out there mowing the lawn, you know, and she's having a good time running by, you know, don't you wish around, trying to rouse envy, you know? It's the last person I want to be with, you know? Kind of funny, though. But envy's kind of an insinuating thing, you know, people, you know, are envious, right? One girl's getting all the attention, the other girls get kind of, what, envious, you know, and they start saying bad things about them. Yeah, they start talking, the first thing they do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you see that in the academic world, too, you know? They say bad things about somebody, you know? They take too much attention or something. They both comment on that one of the illnesses among the clergy, too. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. I'm, you know, reading Euclid a little bit, you know, and Marvists, Marvists' Theorums, right? I'm thinking again about the Amino of Plato, right? And, you know, in their particular thing, Socrates says, you know, that, I heard it said, you know, that we were, our soul existed before us in the body, you know, and we picked up all this knowledge. And if you could only recall it, we'd be all set, right? And Mino says, well, that sounds interesting, but you got any evidence of what you're saying? And that's when he has a conversation with the slave boy, right? And, of course, Mino will testify that the slave boy has never studied geometry, right? So Socrates says, I suppose you have a square and you want to get one twice as big as that. What would be the side of the square twice as big? And the slave boy says, twice as long. And, of course, that would give you a square of what? Four times as big, right? So Socrates, by asking the slave boy, you know, simple questions, right? I mean, he might say, you know, what if the square was two by two, right? If you double the side, it would be four by four, and four by four would be sixteen, and two by two would only be four, what? Sixteen would be, even the slave boy could see it, you know? So then Socrates said, well, suppose you took this square and you put another little square next to it, you know, another one right down below the other one, and one like that, and you had four squares making up a bigger square. How many times big would that square be? Four times, right? Now, suppose you write the diagonals, right? And so you end up with four halves of those four squares, right, to make up a square, and that's actually the diagonal of the original square. That's a marvelous thing, right, huh? I see, what I wonder about in geometry is sometimes the simplicity of these things, right? So you've got a square here, give me this side of a square twice as big, just take the diagonal. I mean, wow, that's something, right? And so it's wonderful because it's simplicity, right? You know? But then I kept thinking about it again, what a wonderful thing that is. And the thing I thought of years ago was, of course, the fact that you have the Pythagorean theorem here in a particular way. Because here you have a right-angled isosceles, and you say that in an isosceles right-angled triangle, the square opposite the right angle will be equal to the squares exactly on the two sides containing the right angle. I wonder if there would be two other triangles, right? And then later on, of course, if you said Euclid, like in the 47 theorem of Book 1, you'd find it's true about all triangles, right? And this is the way some of these things were discovered, right? They'd be seen in a particular way, right? A particular kind. And then later on, they'd see the universal one, right? I was looking at it again, and I said, gee, what a dummy I am. There's something else marvelous about this, right? Because if I said, you know, we've got a square here, right? And we want to make that square four times as big, right? What's got to be the side of that square four times as big? And you say, well, two times, right? Okay? Okay, then you say, what would be a square just twice as big, right? What could you multiply the original one by, see? Well, you couldn't multiply it by two, you can't by one. You could multiply it by something in between the two, right? You say, well, let's see now. Let's say it was a foot by foot, right? Well, let's divide it into 12 inches now, right? Okay? Now, how many inches does it have to be if you're going to make it just twice as big? Well, you couldn't say in inches. 12 times 12 is what? 144. Half of 44 is 72. But 72 is not a square number, right? Okay? Well, I got to get something smaller than an inch, you know, to measure it with, right? But no matter how small you went, you would never, ever find something that would measure it. So you couldn't give something like you could for the square four times as big, right? Or you could say multiply by this, right? There's nothing you could multiply it by that would give you one twice as big. Oh, my God. Well, how could I ever find the side of a square that's twice as big? Well, it can only be done geometrically. You can't do it like you would with the one four times as big, right? And, of course, it's diagonal, right? In a very simple way, something that would amaze you, you know, you can't do it. Arithmetically, you might say, right? See? I'd like to say when it begins, you could double the thing, right? To get one, but that would be four times as big, right? But how would you multiply it to get one just twice as big? There's nothing you could multiply it by. I don't believe that. How could that, you know? And that's the thing that Aristotle takes as an example of wonder, right? See? Because one would think you must be able to take some unit small enough that you could, say, what you could multiply it by, like how many inches or some part of an inch or something, you know? And you can't, right? And they'd say, what a marvelous example, Sackler. I mean, Plato, my master there, took, you know. That's amazing, right? Now, I was, we were talking about the natural law, because my brother Richard was writing something in the natural law. We were giving the awards there, you know, the pro-life committee there in the parish there. They sponsor an essay thing for the 7th and 8th graders, you know, and then we give actually financial rewards, right, to the four top papers, right, the sending order. We've got to read all these papers and read them, you know. So I was stuck there with three ladies there, my wife and two other ladies from the pro-life committee, you know. Trying to decide which are the four best in the 7th grade and the 8th grade, and then if it's one of those four, which is one, two, three, four, and so finally do it. Anyway, the ladies there who was there, she says, well, what's the natural law? She asked me, right, you know, because, you know, I haven't been a professor, you know, so I told her a little bit about the natural law, right, and we see. But how do you lead somebody to admit that there is a natural law, something naturally known, right, and? But if you go back to this beautiful example in the Mino, Socrates, of course, is maintaining that we naturally know the whole geometry. But we've forgotten it because we've been struck into this crazy body, you know, that distracts us and so on, right? And so that learning is not, is really recalling what we already know, right? And he gives the appearance that the slave boy is recalling geometry because it's out of the answers to the slave boy that comes the answer to how to double a square. That's going to be the diagonal, right? So Socrates says, I didn't teach him that or give him that, and it came out of what he knew. So he was recalling it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, said Mino, right? So Socrates has given an example, right? And, but did the slave boy really recall how to double a square? In fact, when he first asked him how to double it, he said he doubled the side, right? He was, even worse than not knowing it, he was mistaken about it, right? And, but, Socrates has hit upon a very important truth, right? That what you're doing in geometry is you're learning a new theorem. You have to recall, right? You have to recall something you already know, right? Okay? So that you are able to know the new theorem of which you already know. But to be able to know is not the same thing as to actually know it. So you have to put these things together and see what follows from them, right? Before you actually come to know, right? So he's not really recalling how to, what, double a square, right? But he's coming to know it by recalling things he already, what, knows. Well, where did this all begin then? He had to recall something that he didn't come to know by recalling something else. So much of it is something he naturally knew, like the whole was more than the part and so on, right? If you kind of begin to realize that there's something naturally known, right? But in Socrates' kind of exaggerated view of this, you naturally know the whole geometry, right? Well, you actually know just the very beginnings are naturally known, right? And the quantity is equal to the same between each other. We naturally know that, right? If I'm the same height as you and he's the same height as you, then we're the same height, right? This table is the same length as that one, and that one is the same length as that one, and this one is the same length as that one. And this one is the same length, you know? That's very important, right? Because people usually want to admit something that's naturally known, huh? I was looking at Aristotle's account there of the positive law and the natural law and the rhetoric, right, huh? Because he begins with the positive law, right? And then you go on to the natural law, right? Which is a natural order, right? And sometimes, you know, people who know Thomas, you know, they'll take the Summa, where he talks about the natural law and the positive law. Well, but you talk about the divine law, but Thomas is proceeding in theological order there, right? So the natural law might be defined as a partaking of the divine law, right? But that's kind of the way you proceed in theology, where you start with God and see other things in light of God, right? But Aristotle proceeds in the opposite order, right? My old teacher, Kisurik, you know, used to have a meeting with the lawyers on St. Paul, right? And they had a dinner, and then they discussed the treatise on the law, you know? You find the difficulty they had in understanding any notion of law except the positive law, right? The law that is on the books, right? You know, there's all the law that is on the books, right? And so you've got to begin with these guys, right, huh? And when Aristotle kind of hints that there's no law, he quotes, what, Sophocles, right? In the plays, right? What? Escalus, not Sophocles. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is the one, what's your name? Antigone. Antigone, yeah, yeah. Where he's passed the law that somebody should not be buried, right? Well, that's against the natural law, right? Yeah. And she goes out to the start of the spirit, right? She appeals to the natural law, right, huh? It's kind of a beautiful thing, you know, but Socrates is already douching today. There's something natural there. Something you naturally know. Marvelous, these guys, huh? Marvelous. Started to look at the fourth book there, you know, where you're inscribing circles inside of squares and triangles and vice versa, you know, and so on. But, you know, if you had an equilateral triangle, you'd kind of guess that the three points, right? You could draw a circle through them, right? But to get an odd-looking triangle, you know, the odd sides and so on, could you always draw a circle that would go through those three points? Well, he shows that in that book there, right? You know, kind of marvelous, you know, just kind of a marvelous little thing, you know? But I should envy him, right? He's so far ahead of me, right? Marvelous things he sees, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People are studying him. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, he's paying attention to me. Yeah? You should write a book about Berkwish, Ellen. I guess at one time, when C. Dionne was a censor of the billboard, you know, for the diocese up there, you know. He was detecting things left and right. No, here it needs to be printed. That's true, you know. Most of the stuff, you know, it's just cluttering the, you know, it's just too many books being published, right? You know, that shouldn't be published. Kitchen people and wasting their time, you know. Oh, and so on. Inane glory, right? My book published. To the fourth, it should be said, right? That pride is said to be the beginning of every sin, according to the notion of a, what? End, huh? And according to the same ratio, one takes the, what? Principality of the capital vices. And therefore, pride is where universal vice, huh? Is not numbered among them, but is more laid down as the, what? Queen of all the vices, as Gregory says, huh? What a splendid, huh? Queen there, right, huh? You know? But look at her, her, all the people doing her service and carrying out her wonderful wishes, huh? But avarice is said to be the root according to another ratio, right? Kind of like the, what? Supplying it, huh? Feeding it, yeah. Now, the fifth one is a different kind of objection, right? Saying, well, don't sometimes, are there other ways that sins arise, right? To the fifth, it should be said that these vices should be capital, because from them, would frequentius, right? More often, right? Others arise, right, huh? Whence nothing prevents some sins, sometimes, to rise from other, what? Causes, right, huh? Okay. And, of course, the objection was talking about ignorance in particular, right? It is able, however, to be said that all sins that come from ignorance can be reduced to what? Achidia, right? In Baltimore, they translated laziness, but that was a little too broad, right? Because laziness could be what? Yeah, done that during your work, you know, during your exercise, what it was. You know? To which pertains a negligence for which someone, what? Recuses himself, as they say nowadays, to acquire spiritual goods on account of the what? Yeah, yeah. Am I supposed to read the Bible? What do you think? Without exception? Remember my old teacher there, Kasurik, there, you know, saying, you know, he's talking to somebody, the guy says, you know, I don't think God's going to send me to hell, you know, for not going to church, you know. And Kasurik says, well, I think you better think about that again. Yeah. For the ignorance, right, which is able to be a cause of sin, right? Can't be invincible ignorance, right? But the one that comes from what? Negligence, right? So some people don't want to learn logic, right? That stuff, you know, plug through that, A, B, C. That someone commits some sin from a good intention would seem also to pertain, right, to ignorance, right? And so fun, as far as one is ignorant, that one ought not to do evil things, that good might come, right? You see, notice how you don't put down something like murder here as a capital sin, right? Because murder is what? Too obviously bad, right? It's got to rise in something else, right? I suppose, you know, lust has something to do with the fact of abortion or something of this sort, right? Why did they kill Christ? Why did the, what? Yeah, yeah. Pilate and Lord. Yeah, yeah. See, you know, how envy gives rise to really some tremendous, what? Sins, yeah. Well, take a little break here. I don't know. Take care. then we're not to consider about the effects of sin if you're missing Tope you'll be especially enjoying this part coming up and first about the corruption of the good of nature secondly about the stain of the what third about the what obligation for punishment right the first part is what do you want to find out about this about the first six things are asked first the good of nature is diminished by sin if you late comers here I told you that if you're a misanthrope you'll enjoy this part a lot so time with the effects of sin and first about the corruption of the good of nature secondly the stain of the soul third the obligation for punishment I guess but what yeah about the first six things are asked first whether the good of nature is diminished by sin secondly whether it can be taken away entirely third about the four wounds which bead plays down and by which human nature is wounded on account of sin fourth with the privation of mode species in order is an effect of sin fifth whether death and other body defects are effects of sin and six whether they are in some way natural to man the first one goes forward thus it seems that sin does not diminish the good of nature first because the sin of man is not more grave than the sin of the demon I think that would you but the natural goods in the demons remain integral or whole after sin as Dionysius says in the fourth chapter about the divine names therefore sin also does not diminish the good of human nature moreover the afterwards being changed right does not what changed before but for substance remains the same even with the accidents being changed but nature exists before voluntary action therefore a disorder being made about the action of the will who sin would not go into what change the things before on account of this nature that's that the good of nature diminished moreover sin is a certain act but diminution is a passion or an undergoing but no agent from this that he acts undergoes it can be happen however that what what he acts in one and is what undergoes from another therefore the one who sins does not diminish the what good of his own act okay moreover no accident acts upon its own subject because what undergoes is a being in what ability but what what is subject to an accident is already an act of being according to that what what accident accident but sin is in the good of nature as an accident in a what what subject therefore sin does not diminish the good of nature because to diminish is a certain what acting upon but against this is what that is just as what is said in Luke chapter 10 the man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho that is into the what that is into the what defective sin was deprived of his what gratuitous goods and wounded in his natural things so not just exfoliator gratuitis but wounded in his what natural things as Bede said what a guy this Bede isn't he you read his history there 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 I don't see sure he does have better eyes yeah first those very beginnings of nature from which nature is constituted huh and the properties caused from these as the powers of the soul right that follow from this so now this is this sort secondly because man by nature huh has an inclination to what virtue as was had above and this inclination to virtue is a certain good of nature and the third way that can be said to be a good of nature the gift of original justice which was given to the first man to be given to yeah what happened to the original justice Adam the first therefore good of nature is neither taken away nor diminished by what sin now what is that that's the principles of nature which nature is constituted and the properties caused from them as the powers of the soul so am i missing some of the powers of my soul the first therefore good of nature is neither taken away nor diminished by what sin the third good of nature is wholly what taken away through the sin of the first parent that's the gift of original justice huh which is kind of gratuitous on God's part right there's some probable reason to be given why he would give this to us in the beginning but the middle good of nature to wit the natural inclination to virtue we're all good is diminished diminished by what sin huh because to human acts there comes to be a certain inclination to similar acts it's necessary that from this that someone is inclined to one of two contraries right there be diminished inclination of him to what the other contrary huh when since sin is contrary to virtue from this very thing that man sins there is diminished that good of nature which we said was the inclination to what virtue huh so Thomas distinguishes what a three-fold good of nature right and one he says is not affected by this right one is entirely taken away right and the one in the middle right inclination to virtue that is in some way natural is partly taken away it's diminished right huh could my inclination to geometry be diminished from this I wonder so yeah sometimes I'd when I was teaching you know about logic you know I would give a few things from geometry there you know you know and the students are complaining about that I don't want to learn geometry very clear you know funny funny funny funny funny funny funny Now, to the first, it should be said that Dionysius speaks about the first good of nature, right? Which is to be, to live, and to understand, as is clear to the one looking into his what? Words, huh? That's what Dionysius said. He's talking about the angels, right? To the second, it should be said that nature, although it is before voluntary action, right? Nevertheless, it has an inclination to a certain, what, voluntary action. Whence nature itself, right, as such, is not varied according to the variation of voluntary action. But the inclination is varied from that part by which is ordered to its, what, end or limit, huh? To the third, it should be said that voluntary action goes forward from diverse powers, one of which is active and another, what, passive. And from this, it happens that through voluntary actions is caused something or is taken away from man, thus acting. As has been said above, when we tweeted of the generation of, what, habits. Well, you all remember that, of course. It's like you can pull a theorem out, you know, from two books away, you know, and all of a sudden apply it to some odd theorem that he's trying to prove, you know, and you say, yeah. It's like you think it's back to the theorem, you know, the number there, too. Look it up again, huh? To the fourth, it should be said that an accident does not act like an efficient cause, huh, in its subject, right, huh? It acts over, or is said to act, formally in it, in that way of speaking by which it is said that whiteness makes white. And thus, nothing prevents that sin diminishes the good of nature in that way, nevertheless, in which it is a, what? It's a diminution of the good of nature insofar as it pertains to the disorder of the, what, act. But as regards the disorder of the agent himself, it is necessary to say that such disorder is caused from this, that in the acts of the soul, there is something active and something, what, passive, just as a sensible moves the sense power, and sense desire inclines the reason and the will, as has been said above, huh? And from this is caused disorder, not that the accident acts in its own, what, subject, but according as the object acts on the power, and one power acts on another, and what, yeah, a little bit involved there, right, huh? So you're watching, what, TV there, and you're, since they're being acted upon, and then they're disordering the other faculties of you by what you're seeing, right? What? Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah. But, you know, all the things, the movies and so on, you know, they're kind of pornographic, you know? I mean, and things are taken for granted, you know, huh? I remember a conversation a number of years ago, and someone said, I went to the movies, and I said, oh, things are showing, you know? And they said to the other person who had been going to the movies regularly, oh, I didn't notice, you know, that's been going on for a long time, you know? Some person had been to the movies for a long time, kind of shocked by the looseness of them now compared to what they were before, right? Things would never show, right, huh? Yeah. Even in the old days, the men wouldn't go to the bedroom there, you know, they'd go to different beds, you know, in the old movies, you know? Now they do much more than to go to the same bed, I mean, they go all the way. So at least they act upon your senses, and then they act upon other powers, right, huh? Your emotions, and these effects even your will, right? So one power is, what, acting upon and disordering another power, right? So there's all kinds of what? And then there's acceptance of all of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the amount of people living, you know, before marriage, right, and so on. At least they've taken it for granted now, huh? But unless you are acquainted and absorbed in the teaching of the Church, right, huh? Yeah, there's so much going on, you know, between your fallen nature and the corruption of the movies and everything, that they can hardly, most of them go astray, you know, it seems to me. Yeah, they don't have to be able to judge for the men or anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The girl at her wedding, coming down here. Yeah, yeah. Wait, what does that white dress signify? Does it mean anything to you? It's just that really nice white dress? Does it mean anything? You know, they don't get it. I know the priest who married my brother Richard and his wife, you know, and it's always been discouraging him marrying people because he didn't think they were going to last these marriages, you know. You think, you know, half the people, you know, I thought for my brother Richard and them, they would stay together, you know. It was kind of a, I mean, he thought most of these were not going to last the way he saw them. When somebody took a survey about clergy in some big dioceses, what they disliked most, and they also had weddings, because the preparation or whatever, they said it's like so depressing to see these people, and they know that they're not formed, they're not interested, they just want the ceremony, and that, and that's it, that's all. And so it's kind of really depressing the priest to go through the motions. Of course, they can always refuse and say, go to my J.P. Very disordered. So the wedding, where it was supposed to be a Catholic family, but there were no priests involved, the justice of the peace, dressed up, I'm not kidding, as a merlin and magician. So the marriage lasted, I think, three and a half months. It was a travesty, it was embarrassing. Well, at least it wasn't a real marriage. Did I have another winter or not? This is kind of a long way. Yeah, probably a week ago. Yeah, okay.