Prima Secundae
Lecture 231: Law as Ordered to the Common Good

Transcript
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but they're not in the same order. And one time I gave a talk on this, and I didn't think one should try to say that one order is better than the other, right? But you should point out the difference in order, right? And then show what is brought out in one order that's not brought out as well in the other order, and vice versa, right? And it's really beautiful what Thomas does in those two places, right? I'm not sure why he does them, but each order is very illuminating, and something comes out better in one order and something better in the other order. I wouldn't say that one is better than the other, right? But you can do both, right, huh? In the Gospel of, say, Matthew, Thomas divides that into what? Three. But the Gospel of John into what? Two, yeah. That first chapter is really divided. Yes. Against that, huh? Let's look at the second article, right? What is this end to which the law should be, what, directed, right? Was it the good of the king or the good of the ruler? Or it should be ordered to the good of some part, huh? Okay. Now it's talking about the bad forms of government, right, huh? Tyranny, right, and oligarchy, and democracy in the pejorative sense, right? But you're aiming at the good of a part, right? Either the ruler himself or the rich, right? Or the mob, or the multitude, right? And each case is something unjust here, right? Unjust. Well, then I said, how is it possible that one part can direct the whole state to its good? Well, they must be more powerful in some way than the rest of the city, right? Well, how can one part be more powerful? Well, by military force, and that's a tyrant. Or by wealth, and that's the... Oh. Or by simply by numbers, and that's the... Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just heard there, Obama lost his marbles, you know? Went crazy. Yeah. He had the Pentagon release a classified document on the atom bombs of Israel. See, Israel has never admitted they had the atom bombs. Everybody kind of knows they do, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he's used to it now. And it was sort of picket, picket. This is really going to cause trouble, you know? And Israel, I mean, ironically, we have a right to him, and so on. I know, but this is really terrible. I mean, he's really lost his marbles, you know? Yeah, he's like, yeah. Yeah, yeah. See how much trouble he can do before he gets pretty out? What are you doing? He should be impeached, but I don't think they'll do it. Yeah. Not enough of it, anyway. Anyway, okay. To the second one proceeds thus, it seems that law is not ordered always to the common good as to an end. For to law it pertains to command and to what? Prohibit, right? But precepts are ordered to some singular what? Goods, right? And therefore not always is the end of law the common good. Moreover, law directs man to acting, but human acts are in the particular, and therefore also law orders to some particular good. I can answer these objections, my goodness. Moreover, Isidore says in the book on etymologies, right, that if a law stands by reason, right, that would be a law, whatever is what? Constituted by reason. But by reason, it consists not only of what is ordered to the common good, but also what is ordered to the what? Private good. Therefore, law is not ordered only to the common good, but also to the private good of each one. But again, this is what Isidore says, quoting him again now, in the fifth book of the etymologies, that the law is in no way, what? Yeah, useful to something private, but it is written down for the common usefulness of the citizens, right? Well, what does Thomas say, huh? I answer you, it should be said, that it has been said in the first article, that law pertains to that which is the beginning of human acts, from this that it is the rule and the, what? Measure. So also reason is the beginning of human acts. And that also, in human reason, something is the beginning with respect to all the, what? Others, huh? Whence to this is necessary that chiefly and most of all, law, what? Pertains, huh? Now the first beginning in things to be done, of which practical reason is concerned, is the last, what? End, huh? Now the last end of human life is felicitas. Felicitas or beatitude, huh? Now felicitas comes from the Latin word for what? Fruitful. And we kind of speak the way, don't we? If a person who's had a fruitful life, right, huh? Come to some, or beatitude, huh? They've been blessed, right? There's thousands. If anything comes to us in the gods, it would seem, you know, especially happiness, right, huh? Beatitude, huh? Whence is necessary that the law most of all regard the order which is to, what? Beatitude, huh? Or to happiness, felicity. That's when I first picked up the Nicomachean Ethics in my last years of high school, right, huh? The idea of going to find out the purpose of life, you know? If you don't know the purpose of life, you can't aim at it, right? It's like a man out there shooting his arrow without even, you know, if you look at the target, you might miss it. But if you just shoot your arrow without aiming at the target, you're going to miss it, obviously, right? You know? So if you don't know the end or purpose of human life, huh? So rest, I want to have a great effect upon life if you actually know what the purpose of it all is. Then you find out, as Thomas says, that virtue is the road to happiness, and vice is the road to, what? Misery, right? There's always somebody, there's an example of someone taking the road to misery every day when you pick up the newspaper, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Whence is necessary that law most of all regards the order which is to, what? Beatitude, huh? Or happiness, felicity. Moreover, since every part is ordered to the whole, as the imperfect to the, what? Perfect. One man is a part of the, what? Perfect community. It's necessary that law properly regards the order to the, what? Common happiness, huh? That's my friend George Washington who was looking for his country, right? And who was the English? Was the English king who said that? If he doesn't make himself dictator, he'd be the greatest man ever. There's someone wanting to convince, you know, Washington to make himself the king, the new king, right? Yeah. He wouldn't listen to him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, once a philosopher in the four-said definition of legal things mentions, what, makes mention of both felicity and the, what, political communion, right? So even the guy in the ethics, he talks about this as being, what, the elements of political philosophy. He says in the fifth book of the ethics that legally, what, just legal things, we say things that are, what, productive of and that preserve happiness, right? And the parts of it, huh, in the community that is political, right? For the perfect humanity is the city, as has been said in the first book of the politics. So political philosophy gets its name from the polis, or city, right? It's about only to rule, right? I was in the car with my old professor at the Surik there when I was in college, and I said to him something like, I wish I knew what was going on in Washington. And he said, that's a laugh, he says. They don't know themselves. They talked about how St. Paul is in my hometown. It's almost too big for somebody to make sense of. Now, in every genus, huh, that which is said most of all is the, what, beginning of others. That's a famous principle, huh, so it's a hard time to understand that. And others, they said, according to their order to it, huh? In the old standard example in the old physics, just as fire, which is most hot, right, is the cause of heat in mixed bodies, huh? Which, to that extent, are hot insofar as they partake of, what, fire, huh? Let's take the example, then, of the, what, the fire burning in the, what, fireplace, right, that's warming the whole room, huh? And as you approach the fire, it gets, what, warmer, right? And then you see that the source of heat is what is most, what, hot, huh? Whence is necessary that the law, most of all, be said according, most of all, he says maximally, right? Not as if it's a loan, right? As if there's not some law that is talking about some part of the city, right, huh? About the uniform court of military justice, right? Okay, well, you need that, you know, if there's a traitor here, he's going to be sentenced, I guess. Because, ah, the one that moved into Obama, substituted five hardened criminals for, for a guy who's, you know, could be put away for life. Whence is necessary that since the law, most of all, is said according to the order to the common good, any other precept about a particular, what, work, does not have the, what, character of law, except according to its order to the, what, common good, huh? And therefore, every law is ordered to the, what, common good, huh? So is geometry part of philosophy, huh? It's got to be ordered to, what, wisdom, right, which is, you know, the wise man most of all knows. Somebody was writing me from Rome there, and he's working on some doctoral thesis, I guess, and he's talking about how, he's trying to see how the, the wise man judges the axioms, right, huh? You've got to be very careful about that, though, because natural understanding knows the axioms, too, right? So I said you've got to distinguish between the way that natural understanding judges them, right, and the wise man does, right? And in general, you've got to see that in a way that they both judge them or know them is similar, right? Because the way natural understanding knows that a whole is more than a part is by knowing what a whole is and what a part is. And the way the wise man knows that the whole is more than the part is by knowing what a whole is and what a, what, part is, right? So we have two judgments here, why? Because they both judge in the same way, right? So why, why are there two judgments here? On what way is the wise man's judgment of the axiom superior to that of every man, huh? Because Boethius says, huh, that the axioms are the statements known to themselves by all men. So what do you need the wise man to judge the axioms, huh? Or why is the wise man got more superiority in his judgment of the axioms than every man has through his natural understanding of them? Yeah, yeah. The wise man knows that the words and the axioms, like whole and part, right, are equivocal by reason, huh? And the man of natural understanding only doesn't know that, right? And further, the wise man distinguishes the central senses, the chief senses of these words, and thinks out their order, right? And therefore, he knows more distinctly, more universally, you might say, the axioms. But he can also defend them against the, what? Yeah, yeah. And I used to use, you know, the most common, sophisticated argument is the one for equivocation, right? So I used to, you know, I've given you an example of how I used to lead the students, you know, to think that maybe it's not always true that the whole is more than a part, right? You heard me say that, huh? And in that sense, the why, the man of mere natural understanding might be taken in by this argument and say, and think he doesn't know what he does know, right? That's a very subtle thing, right? Can a man think he doesn't know what he does know? Well, it's a very subtle thing, you know, to say, if you know something, right, it's the same thing to know something and to know that you know it. And they're connected, but they're not exactly the same thing, right? So you might know that the whole is more than a part, but because you can't answer this objection, you might think you don't know it. And that's to be in a bad, what? State of mind, right, huh? Christel talks about this possibility in the second book of the Physics of Natural Hearing, where he says those who wanted to prove that nature exists, right, act as if they didn't know what they do know. He says it's such a state of mind possible. Well, he shows it's possible by taking the opposite, which is to think you, what, know what you don't know. And Socrates had made that perfectly, you know, well-known that people are in that state of mind. Well, if you can make the mistake of thinking you know what you don't know, it's because you can't always separate what you know and what you don't know. Well, you can go either way, right? So I'd say to the beer drinkers in the class, you know, if someone could make the mistake of thinking that Miller's is Budweiser, then someone could make the mistake of thinking that Budweiser is Miller's, right? So the wise man doesn't demonstrate the axioms, right? He doesn't know them that way, but he can defend them, you know? And when the wise man, say, demonstrates, though, that they're immaterial things, right? Then he would realize that those who think that whatever it is must be somewhere, in some place, are in fact, what? Mistaken, right, huh? But someone might take that as being obvious, that if something exists, it's got to be somewhere. You know, when the Russian astronauts are up into the sky, there's no God up here! The message is coming back from the heavens. The heavens declare the glory of God, and they're up there. And Boethius says this is per se known to the wise, right? Not to all men. So you might think that's an axiom, right? So the wise man knows what is and is not an axiom, right? And can see this, which is better than what the mere natural understanding is. So if you can't tell what you know and what you don't know, how can you proceed from what you know to what you don't know by discourse, right? Terrible, terrible, terrible situation. I was talking to the students there last Tuesday night there. We're in the sixth book of natural hearing, right? And I was touching upon something that comes up later on, that there seems to be a contradiction in becoming, you know. Chris Hegel says it's there, right? So they think they don't know the principle of contradiction. Something cannot both be and not be at the same time the same way. He thinks that what? But yeah, yeah, this is what becoming involves. But it's hard to solve that argument, right? You kind of get the beautiful article there on the paradox to devenir part of contradiction. And he points out even in the Middle Ages, you know, they had a hard time with the Eucharist because of this. And so, is the hole for the sake of the part or is the part for the sake of the hole? Yeah. Is the chair for the sake of the arm or the seat? Is the arm and the seat in the back here and so on? It's all for the sake of the what? The chair. Yeah. The whole chair is ordered to it. It's sitting, obviously. But the part is ordered to the what? Hole. Is the hole for your dinner for a part of your dinner? Well, if you say the part is for the sake of the hole, then the hole has the character of a more ultimate end than the part, right? So if everything is ordered ultimately to the last end, then the part has to be ordered to the hole. And therefore, the law has got to take into account that priority, right? And when you do something about the part, it's for the sake of what? Yeah. Got a chair in the house there where one of the arms is falling off. I'm going to have to have a grill of glue or something to get that thing to stay, you know? But, so I'm going to do something about a part, right? It's for the sake of the whole chair, you know? People are tired of having that arm fall off, you know, if it's falling off. At least it's that way. Yeah. You used a constant chair for a while, you know? You see some, watch their embarrassment as the arm falls off. No, I'm not quite that mean, but I'm tempted to kind of find some use of the chair in this prison condition. Okay. What about the first objection here, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that a precept or command implies the application of the law to those things which are ruled from the law, right? But the order to the common good, which pertains to the law, is applicable to what? Singular ends, huh? And according to this, also precepts are given about some particulars, right? So, can I practice medicine without a license? No, but they might make a law about not practicing medicine without a, what? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Or the court of, you know, the universal, what do you call it, military justice, right, huh? You know, this guy's going to be tried by the dead, they're solved. Well, they actually have a set up train, can you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, they had the military man on the thing they're talking about, the law they implied. The guy that was traded for five top agents, okay. They knew he was, you know, he was a traitor, and he had, but anyway. I guess if a man, you know, they're trying to find him, you know, but if someone got him killed trying to find him, then he's subject to death, you know, in the uniform military code. As it is now, he could be subject to imprisonment, you know, for life. I don't know what they would do, but, you know, Obama's calling him a hero. He wanted to get credit, you know, for bringing somebody back, you know. He's, these losses are marbles, you know. Anyway, he had him in the beginning. The second, it should be said that operations, right, are in particulars, but those particulars are able to be referred to the, what, common good. Not by a community of genus or, what, species, not a universal, in predication or being said of, right, huh. But by the community of a, what, final cause, huh. According as the common good is said to be a common, what, end. Now, the third objection here, right, takes some of the Isidore out of context, maybe. To the third, it should be said that nothing is firmly, what, according to speculative reason, except by being resolved to the first beginnings and demonstrable beginnings, right. That's why geometry is kind of like most certain for us, right, because you can see very clearly how it goes back to the first beginnings. So, when Aristotle introduces a topic of axioms, he gives example in geometry, you know, where the axioms are very manifest and things are very much known by that, huh. I mean, what, what, I always take a simple example, you know, when straight lines intersect, the opposite angles are, what, equal, right. It goes back to our previous theorem that when a straight line meets a straight line, it makes either two right angles or angles equal to two right angles. It's not too hard to see. Well, then you say, what, this angle and this angle are, what, two right angles in the same way for this one here and this one. And quantity is equal to the same, right. If it equals added, equals, it's also equal, right. Then you take the one that's common to, and then they, you know, but you're using the axiom very clearly, right, huh. Very, very simple theorem. Even I can get that into my dim, wet head, right, okay. But it goes back to these very obvious things, huh. Aristotle's always comparing the beginnings, huh, and the axioms with the, the end in practical matters, huh. The end is like the beginning, right, okay. Interesting, when Aristotle, you know, in the fifth book of wisdom, he talks about the word beginning, and that's the word he begins with, right. Then later on, he talks about the word end, right, and of course, Aristotle says, well, we first of all think of the end as being the opposite of the beginning, right. But then he says later on that sometimes the word end, though, is used to cover, what, both. So we might speak of a line there as the end points, right, yeah. But also the beginning, the end can be called a beginning, too, right, and the beginning and end, right, huh. In a way, the beginning of the road is the end of the road, isn't it, going one direction, right. Right, but then the end is the beginning of action, right, because for the sake of some end that you act, right. And so the end is the beginning, huh, so, but they're two different words, right. So this is, this is a proportion, right, huh. So he's saying that the end, the last end that you're acting for, and the, what, axioms, right, are inelegates, right, huh. To the speculative reason, you've got to go all the way back to the axioms and be in harm. with them to be sure right and everything's got to fit in to the what ultimate end and be judged by by that he says just as that's a comparison here nothing stands firmly according to looking reason don't use that word speculative reason theoretical reason you know seeks to use the word looking right because i noticed in aristotle talks about you know the reasoning to use the word theoretica you know that it's looking you know that's what it means in greek yeah gotta move these words right once he says he can't this guy can't move the word and people are liked all the time right and that's what they use these words right they swear i see the horrible use of the word metaphysics there and i saw the news magazine yeah it doesn't have nothing to do with the with the origin of the word right so just as according to looking reason nothing is what stands firm except by what being led back to the first indemonstrable beginnings like the whole is more than the part right so likewise nothing stands firmly by practical reason except by being ordered to the what last end which is the common good whatever however in this way stands by reason has the aspect of law right so now we know two things about what law is right we're not yet able to define it right huh it's something what a reason for the common good right distinct two parts of it huh now can just anybody make them all just anybody make them all just anybody make them all just anybody make them all just anybody make them all just anybody make them all That's what Obama thinks. We won. If you look at the Constitution, the legislature's put first, right? Of course, the legislature gets its name from what? Yeah, they make the law, and then the executive is supposed to carry out the law. He not only doesn't carry out the law, he makes the law. It's just maddening. He is, I think, a little bit, yeah. The church he belonged to in Chicago, you know, they've heard a little more about what their rules are, you know. It's crazy. Nothing, nothing, not really Christian. To third, then, one proceeds thus. It seems that the reason of anyone can make law. Let's see how he can argue for that now. Four, the Apostle says, huh? So by Antonia Messiah, we call St. Paul the Apostle, right? John, Paul II used to call Peter and Paul the princes of the Apostles, right? So they're called Apostle by, I noticed in some of these Latin texts, they don't have the word Apostle. They're capitalized. It should be capitalized when it's used by Antonia Messiah. The same way they quote Aristotle some things. The philosopher says, well, it should be capitalized if you're using it by Antonia Messiah. For the Apostle says, in the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 2, that the, what, Gentiles, who do not have the law of Moses, right? When they do those things naturally, which are the law, they are to themselves a law, right? Be careful about being to yourself a law, that way of speaking, but I mean, you're talking about the natural law there, right? But this commonly is said about what? It can be said about all. Therefore, each one is able to make a law for himself, huh? You see, this natural law, did we make that law? He's talking about the natural law. Did we make that? I don't think so. Where's he seeing it? Yeah, it was Aristotle saying, you know, if a man doesn't love his father, honor his father, he's going to need a punishment. You know, it's kind of obvious. He doesn't need an argument. Yeah, he needs a punishment. Yeah. It's not a thing you ask whether I should honor my father or respect him. I mean, you're a father of your country, too. Moreover, as a philosopher says in the second book of the Ethics, the intention of the lawgiver is that he might lead men into what? Virtue. You wouldn't know that in America these days, would you? To lead them into vice, huh? But each man, or every man, any man, can lead in to virtue. Therefore, the reason of any man is productive of law. Yeah, next law. Moreover, just as the prince, you see, that's what it is, the word principium, right, in Latin, right? And you can see it with the word principle, too. That's what it is, the word principium, huh? But just as the prince of the city is the governor of the city, so each, what, father, right, is the governor of the house, huh? I was reading there, the little guy to Spain there, you know, you have to find all these little strange habits they have, right? And there's one city there, you know, where the newborn babies are laid out in a blanket in the street, and the gotcho, he jumps over them. It's absolutely crazy, because if he slips, he'd come down, and who kills up the baby? And the gotcho is supposed to be, you know, fleeing the Eucharist out of fear, you know, he's kind of a devil, right, huh? So what an odd guy, you know? And then in the same little part of Spain there, on the feast of St. Agatha, right, they elect two women to be mayors of the city for a day or whatever it is, because Agatha, I guess, is the patroness of married women, I guess, that's what they say. But they have one of these replicas, a straw man, you know, and they burn it, you know. So I said, they should tell that to the feminists over here, you know, get a replica of a man, they burn it, you know. That's part of the ceremony, you know what I mean, being in St. Agatha, you know. So I was telling Warren on the phone, you know, he said, there's some crazy customs there in Spain, in these little countries, you know. Is this Washington, Irving? No, no, this is my guide to Spain, you know, I have a guide to Spain, you know. And they had a picture of the Galacho, you know, jumping over, you know, the babies, and I said, my God, it didn't look like he was going to make it. He's starting to jump, you know, they say, you know. And the nervous parents, they say, what? Yeah, he's a man, yeah, yeah. And this is something else about the woman they wear. There's another item there in another little place. But the prince of the city can, what? Make law for the city, right? Therefore, each father can make law for his own household. Well, that's what I think, yeah. Okay. But against this is what Isidore says in the book of Etymologies and is had in the, what? Yeah, my text says Gratian, huh? Gratian. Law is the, what? Duition of the people according to which those, what? Together with the people sanction something, right? Therefore, it is not of just anyone to make the law, right? Thomas says, I answer you, it should be said that law properly first and chiefly regards the order to the common good. It's on the previous article. But to order something to the common good belongs either to the whole multitude, he says, or to someone taking place, you might say, of the whole multitude, huh? And therefore, to what? Constitute a law either pertains to the whole multitude or it pertains to the public person who has care of the whole, what? Multitude, right? For in, as in all others, to order to the end is of the one to whom is, what? Proper that end, huh? So the general in charge of the army, right? He makes the laws, so to speak, right? Because he's, what? In charge of the whole. Okay, to the first, therefore, it should be said, this has been said above, law is in someone not only as in the one ruling or making the rule, right? but also it's in someone by participation as in the one, what? Ruled. And this way, each one is to himself a law insofar as he pertakes of the order of someone ruling. And this would be God in the case of the natural, what? Law. Wisdom is to speak the truth and to act in accordance with nature, giving ear thereto, right? So who are you listening to? Yourself? No, you're listening to nature, right? Right? Whence it is subjoined there, huh? Who show the work of law written in their hearts, right? They didn't write it, no. Yeah. Sometimes they call it a written law, too, though, you see, but written in your nature. Remember one guy there at the counting house there, you know, you get these horrible things coming out with the terrorists there, you know, burning people and... so on, you know. You know, I still think there must be something in their mind that tells them this is not right, what they're doing, you know. But it's so clouded over, you know, by their habits and their upbringing. Saturday I went to the session there of the Messages for Citizens for Life, right, you know. And so, you know, they have, you know, three or four different speakers and so on, you know, and they, actually, first it was set up, you know, like with the chairs, you know, and then they, what they did was to put them around tables, right, and that's the more friendly and the more relaxed, you know, and people open up more, you know. But there's a woman sitting with Rosie and I, you know, and she was talking to her, you know, and so on. Interesting what these people have been through, some of these people, you know. And I guess she was molested when she was young, you know, and she got pregnant, you know, with this older man, right, and she didn't know what to do. And then there was some, you know, talk about abortion or something like that, you know. But she went to the library and she read about the, even the baby's heartbeat is there. She said, I'm not going to go through with that, you know, and so she had the child, you know. And she wasn't telling these things, you know. And when she got married finally and she had five children and then the husband left her and she had to raise the children herself. And, but now, now those children, you know, are married and you've got a lot of grandchildren and so we've got a lot of nice, you know, but interesting, the stories of these people and what they've been through, some of them, you know. Kind of very, must be a strong woman, you know, to put up with all this nonsense. But then she saw the heartbeat there, she said, I'm going to go through with that. That's what she interested in, I guess, in the Masters of Citizens for Life, you know, she got, you're on the right side, you know. But the speakers do, I wouldn't go through it though. They've been through, but it's just, it's terrible. So when you say, ipsi, sibe, sunt, lex, right, you've got to understand that properly, what we mean, right, huh? This law that's written in us by nature and ultimately by God, huh? Now, second thing here, any man can, that's true, right? I mean, to the second it should be said that a private person is not able to, what? He is efficaciously into, what? Virtue, huh? Who is able only to, what? Yeah. And if his munition is not, what? Received, it does not have the vim coactivum, huh? The forceful one, right, huh? Which a law ought to have, right? So that he can efficaciously lead one into virtue, as the philosopher says, huh? Yeah. Remember, my mother's saying, you know, you're getting really out of hands, you know, then you're out of the hands of your parents and the state comes in and it scares the wits out of you. But the multitude or the public person, right, huh, has the, what, quack, the forceful power, right, huh? Yeah. They can inflict, what, punishments and so on, knows, to be said later on, right? And therefore, of him only is it to make, what, laws, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay. He's not denying here now, you know, I mean, that someone can have good influence upon you, you know? That's why parents, you know, they're especially concerned that their children have the right friends, right? That's a great deal to do with them. Yeah, yeah. So, well, you said, don't tell your kids, don't they? Yeah. Avoid the drug addicts. See, my kids went to trivium school, you know, and they were very strong, Catholics, you know, and so the children were pretty, would be better than I think in the average high school, you know, and that gives them a good background, you know? Same way some of these non-Catholics, you know, go to TAC, you know, Thomas Aquinas, they get, you know, converted, you know, because of the good moral thing. You know, what goes on in most colleges, I mean, it's not too good, you know? And you get into that spring break, you know? It was an expose of that on Fox News. I didn't see it, but Hannity was doing it, you know, and it's just, yeah. Hmm? The whole world, you know, the Daytona Beach, it's pretty great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sex drugs and rock and roll, that's all they do for two weeks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To the third, it should be said, just as man is a part of the house, right? So the house is a part of the, what, city, huh? But the city is the perfect community, right? It has everything necessary for the good life. So I didn't have a Euclid in my family, you know? Didn't have a Shakespeare in my family, didn't have a Mozart in my family, didn't have an Aristotle in my family, didn't have a Thomas Aquinas in my family, you know? And therefore, just as the good of one man is not the last end, but is ordered to the common good, right? So also the good of one house is ordered to the good of one, what, city, which is the perfect community, right? So sometimes you might draft the father of a family, right, huh? Which is not good for the, but he's necessary for the good of the, yeah. Whence the one who governs some family is able to make some precepts or what? Statutes? Not however those which properly have the ratio of law, huh? You know, if you go back to practical philosophy, right? You have these three parts of practical philosophy, right? The one they call monastic doesn't mean monastic, it means from one. You know, the ethics, right? And then you have the thing in the family, and then you have the thing in the city, right? So coming down from Aristotle, the school of Aristotle, you have those three books, right, huh? You have the Nicomachean Ethics and the Eudemian Ethics and the Magna Moralia and so on. Then you have one in the family, right, which may not be by Aristotle himself, but it's in the school, right? And then you have the politics, right, huh? Aristotle would do the greatest, right, huh? So he maybe would write the one in the politics and someone else would write the one in the family. We talked about the family there in the beginning of the politics, right? Just like he did zoology more than botany, right? Somebody else in the school did the botany. Okay. But you know, Thomas gives the reason why you have these three, huh? You know? Because not every action of the white individual is an action of the family. So I see the example in class where I'd say, you know, that I'm going to do this evening, you know, huh? I consider the good of Dwayne Berquist, I would read Shakespeare, right? Being at these little ones in the house, I'm going to read some fairy tales, right? See? That doesn't include so much for me as Shakespeare would, but I'm considering now the common good of the family, which is the little ones, right? And so I read these fairy tales or C.S. Lewis's little stories of them and so on, right? Donald's. And, okay. But some things I do, I might do just for myself, right? So I'm going to read Shakespeare, right? This house is quiet now. What am I going to do? Well, what's good for Dwayne Berquist is Shakespeare or Euclid or Thomas Aquinas or something, right? And the other things I do as a father, right? I might say, you know, I'm going to live in this neighborhood or something. I might buy a house in this neighborhood, right? Or somebody which I wouldn't want at the end, you know? So, but then when I go to vote, I'm doing so as part of my community and I'm trying to think of not the good of Dwayne Berquist so much, in particular, or the good of my family, in particular, but the whole country.