De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 12: The Soul as Substantial Form: Three Divisions

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of sensing and understanding and so on, and reasoning and defining and so on, that this is not the kind of activity that goes into something outside of itself. It's not the transitive activity. It remains within the doer, right? And one seeing, or one understanding, or one defining, or one syllogizing cannot be shared partially by two different men, right? Do you see that? If I see the major premise but not the minor premise, and you see the minor premise but not the major premise, together we can't syllogize. But if you help to get into my head the premise you have that I don't have, then I can syllogize, and if I do the reverse favor, then you can syllogize, right? So if man is a substance, and a dog is a substance, right? And men and dogs come into existence, right? And men and dogs go out of existence, there's clearly substantial change, right? And then we saw back in Book 1 of the Physics, Book 1 of the Natural Hearing, that when a thing changes, there's something that, what, remains throughout the change, right? The underlying matter, or the underlying subject, right? And there's something that is, what, acquired, right? And that is called the form, the act, that's acquired. So if you put those two things together, right, then everything that changes inwardly, right, there's matter and form, and then that there is substantial change, then there must be in substance matter and what? Form. Okay, do you see that? Okay? You remember the problem, I just recall this from natural philosophy. Here's the problem that you have in the current contradiction. Suppose the hard becomes soft, right? Or the healthy becomes sick, right? Well, there's an apparent contradiction when you say the hard becomes soft, right? Because what does the word becomes mean? Yeah. So if the hard comes to be soft, then the hard would be soft, right? Which is impossible. Because if it was both hard and soft, it would both be and not be hard. Because it's hard, it would be hard. And because it's soft, it would not be hard. The same way here. If the healthy becomes sick, or if the other is sick, become healthy, there's an apparent contradiction, because you're saying that one opposite comes to be the other. So if the healthy came to be sick, then the healthy would be sick. And therefore, the same thing would be healthy and sick, and therefore healthy and not healthy, and sick and not sick, right? Now, on the other hand, you say, well, like Promenity says, change involves contradiction, as you can see. The healthy cannot be sick, and the sick cannot be healthy. So if you're healthy, you're going to what? Always be healthy, right? And if you're sick, you're going to always be sick, too bad, right? And if the butter is hard, if the thing is hard, it's going to always be hard. And if it's soft, it's going to be always soft. Well, how did we untie that apparent contradiction? One way we solved that is by saying that there's a third thing besides the two contours, right? So in the case of hard and soft, there might be something like butter, right? And the butter is the subject of hardness and softness, but not both at the same time. But it's able to be both, right? It's in potency to both, right? But it's not able to be both at the same time. And so when it's actually hard, the butter is able to be soft, and when it becomes actually soft, it's no longer hard, right? The same way down here. There's something like the body, let's say, which is able to be healthy and able to be sick, but not at the same time. Now, another way of looking at this is to say, well, this word healthy, as we learned in the beginning of the physics, like a name, it signifies in a confused way, right? And when I say healthy, I don't distinguish between the health and the subject in which the health is, namely the body. And it's not the health in the healthy that becomes sick. Health itself could not be sick, could it? But it's the subject, the body, that becomes what? Sick, right? And it's not the hardness that becomes soft, but that in which the hardness exists, like the butter. Remember that, no? See? So, in the same way over here, right? You have the sickness and the body, which it is. And the softness and the butter, let's say, which it is. So, the thing that changes must be what? Composed, huh? It's composed of two things, one of which is in what? Ability to be the other, right? Potency, you see both words sometimes. And then the other is as what? Act or as what? Form. So, if there is such a thing as substantial change, that the man becomes a lion, huh? In the Coliseum, right? Then there must be something as matter and something as form in the very genus of what? Substance, right? Okay? So, he's saying, now, the soul is in the genus of substance. But in substance, because of substantial change, we recognize there's something as matter there, something as form, and then there's the what? You can pick up the composition of the two, right? So, is the soul, right? As matter in the genus of substance? Or as form, right? Or as the composite of the two, huh? Okay? And he's going to conclude that it says, what? Form, right? Okay? And therefore, as act, huh? So, that's the second division still in 1.12. We say, then, that substance is some one genus of being. Of this, one is as matter, which according to itself is not a this something, that's being an individual or complete substance. While another is the form and the species, according to which right away this something is said. It's actually some individual substance. And a third is what is from these, huh? The composite of the two, right? And then, like we saw, going back to the first book of physics, that matter is as, what? Potency or ability, right? And the species as actuality or act, huh? Now, because he's going to conclude that the soul is as form or act, then he gives a third distinction, which is a distinction between what they call sometimes first act and second act. He doesn't use those words here, but later on he's going to use the word first act in talking about the soul. Now, what is that distinction between first act and second act? Okay? So, notice what he's doing. He's calling the first act some kind of form, right? And he's calling the second act the operation of the doing, right? And he exemplifies it in something more known to us, right? He takes the example of the geography, right? To some extent, my mind is formed when I've learned geometry. But after my mind has been formed by geometry, I can now think, much better than I could before, about angles and figures and so on. And that's a second act, right? Okay. So, it's interesting. In what sense of first and second is he using the words first and second here? Second, before, one can be without the other, but the other can't be without. That's to some extent true. Also in the first sense though, right? In generation, right? I had to learn geometry before, in time, right? Before I could think the way I now do about the geometrical things. But in terms of the third sense of before and after, which would be first, which would be second? The second would be first and the first would be second. Yeah, the operation. It shall be last and the last shall be first, right? Okay. Christal will point out, in the Ninth Book of Wisdom there, when he talks about act and ability in general, right? That the word act seems to come from operation or from motion, and then to be applied later on to what? Form, right? And usually when we use the word act, let's say, in English, we'll think of something like a doing or an operation or a motion, rather than a form, right? Kind of carried over and applied to the form, right? But here he's talking about kind of the order of what? Generation. Maybe something, as you said, of the order of being, right? Okay. But the order of knowing would be the what? Reverse, huh? This first act, I don't think it's right, but it sort of seems to me, it sort of seems like it's an ability to act. Yeah, yeah. Is that true? But it's an act of ability. Thank you. It's an ability to do something, right? Yeah. Okay. As opposed to the ability of matter, the ability which is matter is an ability for what? Form, right? Oh. But the ability of form is an ability, what? Not for form, but an ability to do something, right? So the baby, I guess, you know, when the baby's in the womb, even to some extent the baby comes out of the womb, they're not able to see very well, right? They acquire the ability to see, and then they start to see, right, huh? Or they acquire the senses, huh? Or they acquire the ability to digest, and then they start digesting things, huh? Okay? So we can't give a newborn baby a steak, you know, apart from the problem of chewing it, right? The baby couldn't, what? Digest it, right, huh? So when a thing has its form, its nature in that sense, right, then it's able to do what that kind of thing can do, right? And that's the further act, right? So they call that second act, huh? Okay? So that distinction between first and second act will come up again when he talks about the abilities or powers and their, what, operations. What's relevant here now is the soul, right? If the soul is an act, is it an act in the sense of an operation or a doing? Or is the soul an act in the sense of a, what, form, right? But form in its unusual sense of a substantial form, right? Okay? So notice how these three divisions, in a way, are, what, ordered, right, huh? Is the soul in the genus of substance or quantity or quality or relation, right? Okay? And then if it's in the genus of substance, is it as matter in the genus of substance or as form in the genus of substance or as a combination of the two? And if it's as form or act, right, in the genus of substance, is it as a first act or a, what, second act, right? Okay? But notice that's not exactly a subdivision, is it? A form in the genus of substance, because operation would not be in the genus of substance, right? Okay? But it is, in a way, a subdivision of what? Act, right, huh? There's a distinction about act, huh? Okay? So he doesn't give here any reason for it? Well, again, it's going to be clear that the animal is sometimes, what, asleep and not doing things, right? But the animal is not dead when it's hibernating, is it? See? So that's a sign that the soul is as, what, first act, right? Rather than second act, huh? In form as opposed to matter. Well, again, if you go back to the idea that the, that the, how does the living body differ from the nonliving body, right? You remember my simple comparison there, right? I said, is the living body different from the nonliving body, like the word cat does to the word dog, huh? That basically, you have a different matter altogether in the living body from the nonliving body? Or does it differ like the word cat and the word act, huh? That's only, you know, an analogy, right? It's a different substance. Now, if you say it differs as cat to dog, then you couldn't, what, take nonliving things like water and so on, and minerals and so on, and build them up into the living thing. And vice versa, you couldn't break down the living thing into something that you find in the, what, nonliving world, huh? So the difference seems to be like cat and act, right? So if the soul, as the word means, huh, is the cause of life with the living body, right? It's going to have to be not as the matter, but as the, what, form, right, huh? Okay. So when the living body becomes dead, or vice versa, the matter would seem to remain, right? But in a different, what, form, huh? So the soul is going to have to be his form, huh? Okay. So these three divisions are leading to the idea that the soul is a substantial form, huh? Or it's a first act, right? Of something. Or is that something? Well, he approaches that now by three divisions in 1.13. And of course, as we know from the meaning of the word soul, that's the cause of life within living bodies, one investigates somehow the body, right? Of which the soul is a substantial form. The body of which the soul is the first act, right? And so, first of all, the bodies seem to be what? Substances, right? Most of all. Okay. And when Aristotle gets into even metaphysics, right, he starts to talk about the questions of wisdom. One question is, are bodies the only substances there are? Or are they also immaterial substances, right? And it's clear to everybody that material substances exist. And bodies are what we mean by material substance, right? Okay. And of course, the question is whether there are these immaterial substances as well, right? There's this guy. Anaxagoras, and this guy Plato, and other people have some reason to think there are, right? Okay. So he says, bodies seem to be substance to most of all. He means to us, right? To us, in the beginning, we kind of identify body with what? Substance, huh? That's why in the fourth book, when Aristotle takes up place, he quotes a common opinion of the Greek philosophers. Whatever it is, must be somewhere. If it isn't somewhere, it doesn't exist. Now, to be somewhere, to be in place, is a property of a, what? Body, right? So they're identifying what is with what? Body, right? Okay. And, you've got to be careful, you know, sometimes Thomas, following Avicenna, you know, will say, being is what our mind first understands, right? Okay. And some people misunderstand that as meaning being, in the way the wise man talks about being is being, where he sees being as something common to material and immaterial things and so on, huh? But Thomas, in other places, would he be more precise? He says, being considered immaterial things, right? Okay. Our Kajetan, in his scholastic jargon, says, ends concretum, in quiditatis sensibidae, right? Being concrete, right? In a, what? Sensible, what it is, right? Okay. But, you know, take some of the mystery out of those ways of saying it, right? Let's go back to that common, what? Thinking of men, right? Whatever it is, must be somewhere. Does everybody kind of think that, at least that it's part of their life, right? Or is it, right? Well, the kids ask, where is heaven, right? Or where is God, right, huh? You see? And God, or an angel, is not in some place, huh? In the sense of being contained in some place. That's why I say, in wisdom, to some extent you have to rise, right? From the particular to the general, huh? You have to rise from seeing substance as the same thing as body, really, to substance as something more general than body. And body being one kind as substance, material substance, huh? Okay. So he says, bodies seem to be substances most of all, right? And then, he's implicit here, the distinction between the natural body and the, what? Artificial body, right? And the natural ones are more seen to be substances than the artificial bodies. Okay. So the soul is going to be something of something substantial, but something of a, what? Body, right, huh? And something of a, what? Natural body, not an artificial body. A living body is a natural body, right? And then the last division. Of natural bodies, some have life, while others, what? Do not, right, huh? And notice, he's not defining life here, but he's kind of exemplifying the lowest grade, you might say, of life that's common to all living bodies. That they have some kind of, what? Ability to nourish themselves, right? And ability to grow and to shrink, huh? Okay. See, I see her nature, she's like shrinking. So the soul is something of, what? A body, of a natural body, of a natural body that is, what? That has life, right, huh? Okay. Okay, now he starts to gather from these two sets of divisions the definition of the soul. I'm sorry, his last thing when he talks about life. Yeah. Where he says we call life self-nutrition and growth. Yeah. That's not really a definition of life, right? But he's taking the lowest common denominator, you might say, right? The life that all living bodies share, right? They all take in some kind of nourishment, right? And nourish themselves, feed themselves, right? And they all, what? Grow, huh? Okay. Later on, you talk about reproduction, but, okay, but these are very, from the very beginning, right? You see this nutrition and growth, right? And so, man, as well as the animals, and even the plants, right, have at least this amount of life, right? Okay? I'm sorry, why diminution? Well, because that's what happens. I didn't get to find out. I always, you know, I've always put down my height is 5'10". I guess it was 5'10", you know. But I noticed that my driver's license is 5'8", and I got a little annoyed at that, you know, because it makes me a little shorter than I want to be. Maybe I am, actually. Getting shorter, I don't know. But the body does, you know, the animal body, right? It starts to crumble, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, self-nutrition and growth, huh? Well, that's enough to see what he means, huh? Now, whence all natural bodies, sharing in life, now, 1.14 there, will be substances, huh? Substance over, thus, as composite, put together. Now, and I'll get it clear there, because sometimes we use the word body there for the, what? Composite, right? So, if you say that body is one kind of complete substance, then body is the composite, and then we have form and matter, right? But sometimes we use the word body for the, what? The matter, right? Okay. And when he defines the soul, this is the way Thomas explains it here, he's using body more in the sense of, what? One part of the living body. Okay, it's a little confusing, right? Okay, but it's equivocation there in the word body, right? Why I'm out of here, take a little example of a equivocation comes up sometimes. Sometimes Thomas will say that the human soul is not a material form. He'll say something like that. Well, the other substantial forms are material forms, even other souls, other substantial forms are material forms. Now, what does that mean? What does it mean to call form material? It exists only in matter, right? Okay. But now we speak of, we divide substance, let's say. We divide it into material substance and the immaterial substance. Now, material means the same down there, as it meant up here. We divide it into material forms, let's say. We divide it into material forms, let's say. We divide it into material forms, let's say. We divide it into material forms, let's say. We divide it into material forms, let's say. We divide it into material forms, let's say. We divide it into material forms, let's say. We divide it into material forms, let's say. The form of the form. Would it also be the ability of the act? Well, see, this example here, right? The word cat is made out of different letters than the word dog, right? Okay? The word cat is made from C-A-N-T, and the word dog from D-O-G, okay? Now, the word cat and the word act are made from the very same letters, right? So the letters are like the matter of which the thing is made, right? Well, how does the word cat differ from the word act? In this case, you say the order of the letters, right? And the order would be considered not as the matter of which the word is made, but as the form, right? In this case, huh? Okay? Now, there's a different order in the two words, isn't there? The order of the letters is different. But now, is that order of the letters, those two orders of the letters, are they made out of those same letters? Well, now it's probably the end. If you said that the two different orders are also made out of those same three letters, as the words are made out of those same three letters, right? Then how would those two orders differ being made out of the same letters? You have to have a form within that, right? And then you ask the same question about that form. Was that made out of those letters, right? And it's made out of the same letters, but how is it different? Or, and yet they have a form, a form, a form, and so on in them, right? So, it's much simpler to say that the order is not made out of the letters, right? Even though it exists only in those letters, right? So, you speak of material substance, you're talking about something made out of some matter, right? When you speak of material form, even here, you know, I'm not speaking of a form that is made out of matter, right? But a form that exists only in matter, right? Okay? That's a different distinction than the one I'm talking about over here. But the word body, right, huh? Can be used in what? To name the composites sometimes, right? Or body can be what? A part of material substance, huh? There's another word that I like that in English. It's kind of interesting. Okay, coming back to this example here. You could say, body, in one sense, is a subject part of substance. In the other example, it's a composing part of substance, of material substance, huh? I'll give you another example of that that I think I've touched upon before. Another word. If someone asks me, what is philosophy? They'll say, no, the G is the philosophy. Sometimes I will say that philosophy is a reasoned out. Other times I'll say it's a reasoned out understanding. There's a reason why I use both of those at different times. When I'm talking about the proportion of boethius, right? That understanding is to reasoning, or reasoning is to understanding as emotion is to rest, right? I'll emphasize the word understanding because it becomes the word to stand, therefore from rest, right? And just as rest can be before or after emotion, right? So understanding can come before or after what? Reasoning. And philosophy is understanding that comes after reasoning. So it's a reasoned out understanding, as opposed to this natural understanding we have before reasoning. But, sometimes we use the word knowing in a broad sense, where sensing is one kind of knowing, right? Okay? So I know the taste of licorice. I know the taste of chocolate, right? I know the taste of wine. I know the taste of all kinds of things, right? But that's my, what? Sensing, right? You see that? And what would you use, though, for the knowing of reason? Yeah, understanding. Like Wafi says, a thing is singular and sensed, and universal and understood. So their understanding is a, what? Subject part of knowing. Okay? It means, what? It's a subject, and it's a predicate, right? Knowing is set. Sensing is one kind of knowing. Understanding is another kind of knowing. It's one thing to see or imagine, let's say, a triangle. Another thing to understand, a triangle is. So, in this example, then, understanding is a subject part. I'm not going to say part subjektiva, but it's the only new subjective part that sounds stupid. We should watch, you know, it is. Subjective is so much misused, right? So, it's a subject part, right? It's a subjective part, right? But sometimes, we'll see in the third book, sometimes you divide knowing into two parts. There's grasping and what? Judging. So, you're dealing with the thinking of some philosopher. It's one thing to grasp, to understand, some things say, right? What he means, right? And another thing to judge whether what he says is true or false. So, sometimes you use the word understanding there to mean what? Grasping, right? Now, the perfection of knowing is not in understanding what is being said. Well, that's part of it, right? But in judging it to be true or false, huh? So, Thomas will talk about that when he gets to the third book when Aristotle starts to talk about the reason, right? So, sometimes we use understanding to mean the grasping of the mind, right? I understand what you're saying. I don't know whether it's true or false, right? You know, my complaint about the modern philosophers sometimes and other people in their obscurity, right? You spend so long trying to understand what they mean, but you have no time to afford to really judge it. Or if a guy comes out and says, what is the beginning of all things? I think I understand that. Now you're going to talk about what that's sort of out there. But it says that the proportion is all wrong. The ratio is all wrong, right? You should spend most of your time trying to judge whether something is true or false. Now, what does that mean, right? You know? I'll just take an example of my colleague out there at St. Murray's College. I came out there, you know, to teach there three years with my brother Mark and Ron. Joe there was trying to figure out how do you have it by beating, right? Three years, I don't know. He's talking about what he needs. So, I mentioned that. Professor, there were Danish. Brother Richard had a particularly large vocabulary, right, that even exceeded those of most professors, right? So he would slip into some of his big words and no one could understand what he's saying. And they don't want to ask him what the word means because that looks kind of, you know, one-upmanship, you know. And how can you attack, you know, what that means, right? And anytime you try to attack these people, they say, well, you misunderstood me, you know. So, the next understanding is only a part of knowing, right? It's an integral part. It's an integral part, or a composing part, right, of knowing. But actually the inferior part, huh? It's just by the light of reason that we judge, huh? That's the perfectionism, huh? That's why we speak of the wise men most of all by judging them. So, sometimes, I'll say reason of understanding, philosophy is understanding, but then using understanding as a, what? Subject part of knowing, right? Other times, because we often use the word understanding, right, to mean, what? Part of knowing, a composing part. Then, I call it reason of knowledge, huh? Because philosophy involves, not just grasping, but more so, judging, right? You see why I do that? So, I use both, huh? In other words, philosophy is not primarily about what people mean. Yeah. I know it's necessary to understand what people mean, at least some people, but some people we can dismiss as there, as Thomas says there, about the theological poets, right? Uh-huh. No one could know exactly what they were trying to say, right? Since he despised us, he said. Uh-huh. Okay? And that seems to be what most philosophy courses are out there, is, in this whole sense of sort historical study, all you want to know is just trying to understand what they mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's right. Okay, yeah. Well, the same way, um, the word body, huh, sometimes is taken as meaning, what? Material substance, right? The complete substance, right? And then would be a species of, what? Substance, right? Like, if I was to divide substance into bodies and angels, let's say. Okay? Then body would be a species, huh? A subject part of a substance, right? But then you can, what? When you speak of, say, man is being composed of body and soul, right? Well, then body doesn't mean the subject part of substance, but a composing part, right? Okay? Yeah. The word body, when I say that, um, there are two kinds of substances in the world, right? Bodies and angels, right? Okay? A body there is a subject part, right? A substance. A species of substance. A species of the genus, right? When I say that man or a dog is composed of body and soul, right? Then body is being used in a different meaning there. Body there is a, what? Composing part, right? Of material substance, huh? Okay? Now those two meanings are connected. It's not purely equivalent, right? But, um, those are different meanings, nevertheless, huh? Now, as if, as if the body in that sense is like the matter, right? In the genus of substance. And not a complete substance in the second sense. Something imperfect or incomplete, right? Remember when I was talking about, about whether nature acts for an end? Remember that? Right? And we wanted to consider the arguments for and against, right? And the way the arguments and so on. And that was to prepare us to judge whether an end is or is not a cause in the natural world, right? But I mentioned how some people deny that nature acts for an end because of custom. Remember that? Okay? And some men deny it because they misunderstand what it means. Okay? And they said, um, that's not really an objection. And they checked the right end. But it does influence people's thinking about this thing, huh? Okay? Well, their misunderstanding was opposed to what? Understanding of which of these senses. Yeah, yeah. They don't understand what is meant by this, right? Okay? And, uh, do you see that distinction there with the two meanings of understanding? Okay. Well, that's the same kind of distinction I'm making here, with two meanings of the word body, right, huh? Okay. And, of course, to some extent you could say what the soul is in reference to body in a sense, right? Okay? You could say, for example, if you take the term living body, you say man is a living body, right? The dog is a living body. The tree is a living body, right? And a living body there is naming the what? Matter, form, or the composite of the two? The composite of the two. The composite of the two, right? Okay. And I could say that the soul, right, is the form in that composite, right? And sometimes in our text, you know, where Stout or Thomas maybe speak that way, right? That's the way of kind of identifying what the soul is, right? Okay. But, as he says in the commentary here, we don't want to define maybe the soul by that, by saying it's the form of a living body, right? Because then we're in a way to define the soul by itself, right? But, like saying, you know, the spherical shape is the form of a spherical body. Or, if I should say, health is the form of a healthy body. In a healthy body, body is the subject and health is the form, right? Exemplate form in this case, right? Okay. And so, I might say health is the form in a healthy body. That's true, right? And in a way, it points to health, right? What it is. But it would seem to maybe be, in some way, defining health by itself, right? Because in healthy bodies included health, right? In the meaning of healthy body, right? So, if I say health is the form of a healthy body, then I'm in a way defining health by itself, which seems to be circular, right? Nevertheless, there's some reasons to point out that health is the form of a healthy body, right? Because healthy body, the composite, in a way, is more known to us than the parts. We have to distinguish the parts, one of which is as subject or matter, and the other as form, right? And in that composite of subject or matter and form that we call the healthy body, healthy health is the form, right? The body is the matter, right? Okay? You see that? The body is the matter, right? The body is the matter, right? The body is the matter, right? The body is the matter, right? But now you can also take the body in its other sense of being a, what, composing part, right? Then you're thinking of the body more in the sense of the matter in the genus of substance, huh? And you say, well, isn't the matter in the genus of substance pure ability, right? How can you call it a body, right? Okay. Well, this is something, again, that's often misunderstood. In the sense of how that's explained here. When we say that the first matter, right, that we learned in the physics there, the first matter is pure ability. It's an ability to all these substantial forms. As Stahl sometimes points out, and Thomas more explicitly, it's an ability for these forms in a certain, what, order, right? Okay. So there's matter we see as one form. Let's say, to take the simple order of science, right? That matter under the form, let's say, of earth or air or fire or water, is in potency to what? The form of a compound or a mixed body, as they would call it. And under the form of a mixed body, it's in potency to maybe being a living body, right? Okay. Okay. So, you want to bring out what the soul is, or what's private to the soul that distinguishes it from other forms. You want to bring out that last perfection that it brings, right? That's unique, huh? To it. That's hard to understand, right, huh? Okay. It's a little bit like if I was to say, to go back to this comparison that Plato started in Aristotle follows in the 8th book. That forms are numbers, huh? Okay. So what is something able to be something? I'll take a simple example here. I'm able to know what a square is, right? And I'm able to know what a cube is, right? You can take somebody and teach them geometry, right? But are they able to know what a cube is before they know what a square is? I might want to, you know, group a little bit about that, right? Because I've got a newborn son there, huh? My grandson, I should say. And is he able to learn what a cube is? I hope so. You see? But in the strict sense, he's not able to know that before he knows what a square is. So he has an ability to know what a square is, an ability to know what a cube is, but in a certain order, right? And his ability to know what a square is must be made actual in his little head, right? There that takes place. Before he will really be able to know what a cube is, right? So in the strict sense, you can say he's not able to know what a cube is before he knows what a, what? Square is, right? Although in some loose sense, you might say he's not able to know what a cube is, right? But it's a very remote point he has right now, right? But the more important point to make is that he's in ability to know these things in a certain, what, order, right? You see that? That's why you have to learn these other parts of philosophy before you can learn, what, wisdom, right? Are you able to learn wisdom? Yeah, yeah. But if you don't know any logic and don't know any natural philosophy and so on, right? Then you're like that baby boy, able to know what a cube is, but doesn't know yet what a square is, right? Strictly speaking, you're able to learn wisdom once you've acquired the, what? Some natural philosophy, some logic, and geometry, and so on. Yeah. That takes a thought. So it's last in the order, right? Yeah. Well, when Aristotle talks about ability to stick sense, you're an ability to do something when you're one step away from it. You see that? So, it's the same way it numbers, right? Two is able to be what? Three. After it becomes three, then it's able to be what? Four. That's the way forms are, right? There's an order among the forms, right? And the higher form gives what the lower form does, but something more, right now? Okay. So I might say that four is what? Three plus one, yeah. And then I'm looking at three as a different number from four. Is four a three? But three is like what? The matter, so to speak, right? The subject, which is able to be a four if you add one to it. I'm kind of looking at what? Four, in the sense, being composed of three and one, right? And three is what is able to be a four, and the one makes it be actually a four. As opposed to what? Looking at three as a complete different kind of number than four, right? See what I mean? It's like that, huh? So, in trying to understand the soul as a form, right? It gives what the lower forms give, but something more, right? And the corporality that it gives, right? It's three-dimensional and so on, right? That is still something in ability to the form that is the soul, but it has above, right? Okay? You see that a little bit? It's difficult to see, right? But there's a little, let's see, equivocation there in the word body, right? So the body, and sometimes the durability, and sometimes the form of matter, which is next? Well, you see, it doesn't ever name exactly the pure ability, right? But the pure ability is an ability to be the soul, right? In a certain order. And that's what the word body is bringing out, right? Okay? Yeah, but matter would more name, wouldn't tend to name it all, the complete substance, right? Okay. Well, we could use the word body to name one of the species a substance, right? So sometimes, you know, when they divide the category of substance, you might divide it into material substance and immaterial substance, right? Okay, because you tend to divide by opposites, right? So you have material substance and immaterial substance. But you could also have, as a name for material substance, you could call it what? Body. Body, right? And immaterial substance, well, you might borrow the word that we have from theology, right? Okay. But usually in philosophy they call them separated substances, right? But separated from matter, you understand? But if you want to avoid a phrase like that, right? We might call them what? Angels, right? So, then we can subdivide these, right? Three hierarchies, nine orders of angels, right? And divide these into what? The living body and the nonliving, right? And then into what? Animals and plants, right? But notice, in this whole division and subdivisions you have a genus and species, right? And you know, for logic the same thing can be a species of a higher genus, right? And a genus of a what? Lower species, right? So body, in this sense here, is a subject part, a species, huh? A particular kind, right? Of substance, right? Okay? And, you know, he seems to be almost starting from that notion there when he says bodies seem to be substances most of all, right? Okay? And of these are natural ones, right? Okay? But when he gets into defining it, he seems to be using the word body in the sense of a what? Composing part of the living material substance, right? You see? As I say, part of the reason why he uses the word body here to name that, rather than the word matter, right? Because if you just say matter, you're thinking that pure ability we talked about in the first book, right? Well, that's impotency in a very remote way to the soul, right? It's impotency in a certain, what? Order, right, huh? Okay? But strictly speaking, it's not until it has some, what? Perfection, right? That it's capable of the soul, right? In the same way, when a man dies, his body doesn't go down to pure matter right away, does it? It breaks down, huh? Now, it seemed to Aristotle, and I think it's probably true, right? That when in the generations, say, of a man or a dog, right? What you have, first of all, is only something like growth in the fertilized egg, right? You don't seem to have sensation at first, right? Then later on, you have sensation, right? And finally, you know, reason seems to develop, right? It's hard to say exactly when sensation begins. It's when it begins in the womb, right? So you see kind of the order there, right, huh? The one that presupposes the, what? The other, right? So this is something that sometimes is misunderstood in the position of Aristotle, you know, apart from the truth or falsity of it now, right? As if the first matter is, as we're ex-equal, right? Equally in potency, right? To all of these things, huh? It's a little bit like, you know, we sometimes say, you know, some people imagine you and the mind could be like the center of the circle, right? And everything we can know is out here in the circumference, right? And we can go off in this direction and know that, or go off in that direction and know that, or that. As if our mind is, what? Equally related to knowing all these things, right? So, you know, you can say this sign, so I'll say that sign. No, no, right? That's not the way it is at all. No. You know, when you call metaphysics, meta-ta-phusica, that's in some ways a very precise name, right? If you understand it. Meta means after-ta-phusica, right? We like to call it solid geometry. Meta-ta-plane geometry, right? Huh? After-plane geometry. Right? So, we're in ability to know all these sciences, but it's just an order, right? And you see that sort of thing, you know, when you talk about love and friendship there, huh? And, well, take for example, have you ever seen St. Bernard of Clairvaux, that little piece on love he has? There's that one? It's in that, I guess it's in the Cistercian series, but anyways. Next little word. I used to have the students, you know, one of the things they could write on, you know, for their papers on the love and friendship course. Now, if I remember correctly, huh? St. Bernard of Clairvaux, he distinguishes four stages in our love, huh? And he says, in the first stage, we love ourselves. We don't love God at all, right? But then we develop, become aware of all kinds of needs, right? And our insufficiency, right? And then we turn to what? God, right? And we see Him as being, what? Useful. Helpful. Okay? So you love God, then, as being useful for us, right? Which is not really charity, is it? We're not loving Him for His own sake, but as, what? Helpful or useful to us, huh? Necessary for us, huh? Which is like what we call useful friend in ethics, right? It's the lowest kind of friendship, as Aristotle says, right? Okay? We all have needs, right? That we can't satisfy ourselves, right? And therefore we need other people, right? Huh? Okay? And sometimes you even see that expression, need love, right? Huh? Okay? That's not the highest kind of love, right? But it's the kind of love that comes, what? First, huh? Okay? Then, what happens is that we turn to God in prayer, because we need His help, right? And then we become somewhat familiar with Him, right? Acquainted with Him, so to speak, right? See? And as we become acquainted with Him, and His goodness, and so on, then we begin to, what? Love Him for what He is, and not for what He can do for us. But we have to love Him for what He can do for us first, before we can, what? Become familiar enough with Him, right? We have to turn to Him in our need, and it's not until we become familiar with Him that we begin to realize, you know, He's lovable apart from what He does for us, right? Okay? That's another stage now, right, huh? And the last stage, He says, where you, what? Love yourself for the sake of God, which He says is hardly ever fully realized in this life, right? In this life, right? So, we have this need love of God, right? This love of God is a useful friend, a helpful friend, right? It is a lower kind of love than to love God for His own sake. To love God for your own sake, for your good, is a very imperfect love of God, right? But we have to go through that first, as Brent tells us, huh? You see? Until we can rise to the, what? Higher pains of love of God, right? So, we're in potency to these things in a certain, what? Order, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And it would be a mistake to think that you could love God for His own sake, you know, without any reference at all to your needs, to begin with. Yeah. You see? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. My favorite psalm of mine, at least the way, the translation I have that I memorized years ago. But it says, enter His gates with thanksgiving, His courts with praise, to thank Him and bless His name for His good. But it struck me, you know, I don't know if translations are perfect or not, but it struck me, enter His gates with thanksgiving, His courts with praise, as if one was entering in through thanksgiving, and then when one got fully into the court, one praised God, right? Mm-hmm. You know, sometimes they distinguish three or four things that you pray for, right? But two of them are things where you pray for like in the Our Father, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.