De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 25: Two Potencies and Two Acts in Sensation and Understanding

Transcript
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that the soul is in some way all things because by sensing it's things sensed and by understanding it's things understood and so you see something of why the soul is such a wonderful thing to study some way all things not quite in the way god is all things right but you see the soul is more godlike than anything else in this world you know thomas often explains you know when god says to moses or somebody you know i will show you every good and it says it asked myself you know in some simple way god is every it's everything you know but the soul in some way is like god right because by sensing it's all things sense and by understanding it's all things understood it's a very important thing to see but you're starting to approach it a bit here right when you see that the senses are acted upon by their objects and although in the beginning they might be unlike those objects in the end they are what like them now starting at 175 you have another part of this consideration he says now we've talked about the senses of being in potency or ability as i say and they enact and so on but we spoke without distinguishing the fact that there's more than one kind of potency or ability there's more than one kind of what act here okay there's going to be two two kinds of ability here or two senses of ability or potency and what two senses of that okay one must distinguish harvey says 175 however in regard to potency and actuality and i talked again about the word potency i can tell us sometimes because of ability because people are familiar with the word potency i think the word potency in english to some extent is what tied to the active sense okay and so i mentioned words like potent or omnipotent right you know biology we speak of impotent right okay this is an active sense here if i say that's a potent thing you said i mean it's a powerful thing you said right i think potency is a bit in english a bit like the word power in the sense that it's somewhat stuck in the active sense right okay and that's good in a way the fact that these words get stuck sometimes in the active sense um because that shows that that's the first meaning of the word okay right the word ability as they say um is more able to be what extended right okay i don't see in the audience to have that nice phrase you know about somebody you can't move the word and this happens you know to to to thinkers with these words that are equivocal by reason they get stuck on the first meaning and they can't what i don't know who is it who is it you know philosopher are clear about that hobbes there you know he's mocking you know talking about infused virtues right what means what pour it in right yeah originally infused means to pour in right now see and he's stuck in that first meaning of it so that you know i can't understand what it would mean to speak of an infused virtue right okay but notice huh you speak of these virtues as infused you're saying not coming from what the exercise of the power itself right that comes from the outside right it's kind of stuck in that first meaning yeah so um ability i don't think it's more you have to be extended and especially you see that with the verb able there right values of impotency sometimes too you know now aristotle does something very unusual as far as the order proceeding here is concerned in what follows now he's going to talk about a distinction of two abilities and two acts in our reason first right and then he's going to compare the senses to reason in other words he's going to manifest this double way of being an ability in the senses this double way of being an act by the way in which reason right is an ability in two different ways and enact in two other different ways okay now what's unusual about that see what's unusual about that is that generally speaking the sensible is more what known to us than the understandable right the senses and the understanding and generally speaking we you know you can see the words that we use huh we carry words over from the senses and apply them to the what yeah yeah so sometimes we use the word to see to meaning to understand right i'm always quoting my mother you know she used to say when i was a little child i see the blind man but he couldn't see at all but i expected my head and uh everybody can see that the word to see there is being used and for the act of the eye and then for the understanding right and we speak of the beatific vision right that's the vision in the sense of the vision of reason of understanding we take the word like i was using before the word grasp right you know the first act of reason thomas says is simple grasping okay but obviously the word grasp first name is the act of the what hand right and to an act of the mind right and even the word to understand means what comes from the word to stand under right you know so generally speaking we would say we we name things that we can sense and those are the only things we can point out in the beginning but then we carry over some of those words right with a somewhat different meaning giving them a somewhat different meaning but connected with the first meaning and apply them to what things we can't sense um i've explained like a little bit the word to understand for example haven't i you know someone asked me you know what does it mean to understand to understand i want to leave them by the hand from the etymology of the word right i'd say that to understand means to know something that is said to stand under something right it's to know something that is said to stand under or it's to know something by or through what is said to stand under now somebody said well that's kind of strange huh well what does it mean what does it mean to understand a word yeah to know the meaning or the thing right that is said to stand under that word huh Now, see, we speak of putting a name upon something, putting a label upon something, right? In Latin, you'll see the phrase impositio nominis. Impositio means a placing upon. So the Greeks, before the Latin, spoke of placing a name upon something. And so we commonly speak of the name as being placed upon the thing, right? So the thing is under the name. Okay? So to understand a word means to know what is said to stand under that word. Maybe to know the meaning, right? Or the thing that stands under that word. See how clear that is? And it has a contrast between that and senses because when I see or hear a word, right, that's my senses. But if I understand that language and so on, right, then I know it stands under the man's what? Words, huh? It's a little hard to understand the Pope now sometimes, and he speaks, right? He's hearing his words a bit, right? Or else he's very often speaking in the language of the people. He's there, right? So maybe he's speaking in some language you don't know, right? So you hear the sounds, right? You know, he's speaking in Spanish or, you know, Polish or something, right? But you don't understand what he's saying because you don't know what stands under those sounds in Spanish or under those sounds in Polish or whatever the language is that he's using, right? You see that? And to misunderstand the word, right, is to miss what really stands under that word and to get something else, huh? And, you know, as a professor there, you know, the students there, you're always seeing them, you know, on papers, you know, misunderstanding some word, right? And sometimes it's very funny when they misunderstand the word, right? Or sometimes you do that for the fun of them, right? They misunderstand somebody's words, huh? What does it mean to understand an effect? What does it mean? To know its cause. Yeah. Now, do we speak of the cause as standing under the effect? Or we often speak of the, what, underlying cause, right? And as I mentioned before, I think, the native English word for cause is what? Brown. Brown, yeah. I mentioned how Shakespeare has a good sense of language. He's a master in his language. He sometimes puns upon the original meaning of ground, right? You know, they always joke about Shakespeare, you can't avoid punting at very serious moments. And so when the night watchmen find the bodies there at the tomb of Juliet, right? They find, you know, the county Paris, right? He's laying dead on the ground there, right? Romeo, who's apparently in exile, or has been in exile, he's there, dead. And Juliet, who's supposed to have been dead and buried, is freshly bleeding, you know, and so on. And so he says, what? We see the ground whereon these woes do lie, but the true ground obviously cannot without further circumstance, so he's putting up on them, right? But the word ground there fits very much the English word understanding. That's kind of the main meaning of understanding, is to know the cause of something, right? But also to know the substance, right, of a thing. Now, substance has meaning, word meanings in Latin philosophy, but two main means of the word substance. One meaning of substance is what a thing is, and the other, of course, is a thing that exists not in another, right? Well, substance has the same etymology as understand, right? So, it's reason that knows what a thing is. It's reason that no substance, the senses know only, what, quantity and quality, but they don't know the substance of the thing. So what a thing is, seems to underlie everything else in that thing. It's fundamental of the thing, right? What is this? Fundamental. What a thing is, huh? Aristotle said, if being was a house, substance would be its foundation. It stands out there. Everything else, right? So, this is a little side here, but it's good to understand the word understanding, right? Before you try to understand anything else, you have to understand what understanding is. We always follow in philosophy. But in addition now to the natural, what's the second word we always follow? Yes, that's the natural. That's the natural, oh yeah. We'll guess this, which is not understanding. Yeah. One way I state the second road is it's the road from reasonable guesses, right, towards reasoned out to a knowledge, right? Okay. We saw that a little bit, you know, back in the first book of natural hearing. Went through all these reasonable guesses of the first philosophers. And then we saw Aristotle went from those reasonable guesses towards the beginning of a reasoned out knowledge of change. Remember how he did that? Go back there. And in a way, he's doing the same thing here, right? We didn't go through the whole book one there, but in book one, after the premium, he goes through the opinions of his predecessors about the soul, right? And there's some reason what they say, but they haven't really thought out, thankfully. And he's going from that reasonable guesses about the soul to a, what, reasoned out knowledge here about the soul and its powers, right? Okay. Now, another way, perhaps, to state a second road is to say it's the road from thinking about things, right, to understanding them, right? Of course, that means what? Understanding what these things are, right, and why they are, and so on, right? Okay. Now, as I say, in general, as I say, Aristotle follows the road from the senses into reason, as you can see in the word understanding here. In the very way it's named, it's named from the senses, things you can sense, right? Okay. So we either name the act of reason we take a name, like, you know, to see and apply it, right? Or to grasp, or if we have its own name, like understanding, the word itself is derived from standing under, right? You have to, in some way, come to know the meanings of these words through what we can sense. So in general, it seems that what is, pertains to the understanding is going to be manifested to the senses and not vice versa. And so when I was explaining, say, in logic, when I teach logic, and the first act of reason is grasping what something is, and I'll tell students, you know, can I grasp the center of this desk? See, I can grasp this glass, but can I grasp the center of this desk? If I wanted to grasp this part right here, I'd have to, what, cut it out, right? Okay. So in order to grasp something with your hand, you have to separate it from other things. Now there might be water around this, but it gives way, and I can separate it, right? So in order to grasp something with your hand, you have to separate it from other things. So in order to grasp something with your hand, you have to separate it from other things. So likewise, if I want to grasp something with my reason, I've got to what? Everything else. So you can kind of be led by the hand there, right? Literally. They call it monodexio in Latin. Monsignor Dion was always lecturing on what Thomas means about monodexio, and what the monodexio is, this or that. So you're being led by the hand to understand something about what? The mind is grasping something. But here he does the reverse, right? Here he's going to manifest something about the senses, namely the two ways in which we can speak of ability, and the two ways we can speak of act here, by something like that in reason. I think that's interesting, right? But sometimes, right, in some very particular way, the understanding might be what? Yeah, yeah. Now we'll see what he does here, and then we'll come back upon seeing that he... Well, I can ask why. You know? Why is this in some way more known in the case of the what? Of reason than of the senses, huh? Let's see what he says about reason here first. Okay, now the word knowing here that he's got translated 176 by knowing is knowing in the strict sense, kind of scientific knowing, right? Here's the word episteme there. For there is something knowing thus, as if we said, man is knowing, because man is among the things which are knowers and which have knowledge. Well, there is something knowing thus, as we call the one already having the science of grammar and knower. Each of these is not in the same way potential or able, but the one is potential or able because it's a kind of thing, right? And the matter are such, the ability is such. While the other is because he's able to consider when he wishes, should nothing outside prevent him. But the one already considering is being in actuality and is properly knowing this, huh? That's what he's saying here, right? Before the man has learned the science of grammar, right? You can say that he's in ability, right? He's able to learn grammar, right? Okay? So you have here the ability to learn grammar. Or the ability to learn geometry, right? You don't have the ability to learn geometry, right? Even the slave boy is able to learn geometry, right? Okay? The slave boy is able to learn how to double a square, right? You know the Dalai called the Mino, right? You know that at all? But now, after I have acquired some geometry, or I've acquired some grammar, am I always thinking about these things? People think about them, right? Now, is that ability that I have, huh? This ability to think about the things of which I have acquired, let's call it the science here, reason to acknowledge, right? Okay? There are actually two different kinds of ability there, right? There are corresponding to those two abilities, two different acts, huh? One, which you might say, is to actually have the art or science, whatever it might be. And the other is to be what? Yeah, to be actually thinking, right? Thinking of the things pertaining to that art or science. And also, he's doing here, huh? He's saying that there's two abilities to be distinguished here, right? And there's two acts to be distinguished here, right? So, the slave boy, right? When he first is asked by Socrates, then, Socrates says, if you have a square, you know, if you have a square, you want to get a square twice as big. What would be the size of the square twice as big? The slave boy says, well, five places long. Seems to be sensible, right? It's a reasonable sort of business. Yeah, yeah. See? Now, does the slave boy actually know how to double a square? No. In fact, he's mistaken as to how to do so, right? Well, Socrates has really two conversations with the slave boy. In the first conversation, he shows the slave boy that he does not, in fact, know how to double a square. If you double the side, it shows him that you're going to square four times as big. We want a square twice as big, right? But then, there's a second conversation with the slave boy. And there he shows the slave boy that if you take the diagonal original square, you get a square, what? Twice as big, right? Remember how he does that? He says, with this original square, he says, let's put another square exactly like it there, another one exactly like it here, and fill up the square here, right? And now we've got a square that's four times as big. And then he takes the diagonal here, right? He shows that you've got another square here, and this is exactly half of the four squares, so it's exactly twice as big. It's just a beautiful thing, right? You can also know it's a patagonic theorem, but that'd be too difficult. So he's taught the slave boy how to, in fact, double a square, right? So, was the slave boy able to have this knowledge, this part of the science of geometry? Yeah. He didn't actually have it when he was saying that the way to double the square is double the side, right? So, but he was able to know that, right? But now, after he's acquired this knowledge, this part of geometry, something of the science used to geometry, well, every day of his life and all day long, he's thinking about this, this, no. But if he goes out, and another slave boy or somebody, it's in a conversation, he may recall what he's learned, right? And then he's actually thinking about it, right? So, there's two kinds of ability here, right? The ability to acquire the science of geometry or part of the science of geometry, right? And the ability to think about that theorem after he's acquired that part of the science that deals with that theorem, right? Two different kinds of ability, right? And, of course, finally, that he can speak of two different acts, right? The first act, corresponding to the ability to learn this part of geometry, and this part of geometry that he's acquired is an actuality of that ability. And the second act, which is really a complete and full and perfect act, is when he's actually thinking about that way of doubling a square, right? Okay? That corresponds to the second ability that he has, after he's acquired the art of science, but he's not actually thinking but according to it, okay? Okay? So he wants you to see the fact that there are two kinds of ability there, to be pointed out, and two kinds of act, right? And that there's a difference in the way you acquire those two acts. And all of that is not because at this point of the text he's really concerned with understanding, understanding, or understanding reason, right? But he's concerned now manifesting something about the sensing, right, in the light of this distinction. And notice the difference there at the bottom of page 16 there. Each of these is not in the same way potential. But the one is potential or an ability because he's what? The kind of thing, right? That is what? He's a man, right? He's able to, he has reason, right? The kind of thing that is able to, what? Learn geometry, right? And he's the word matter, not that the mind is material, right? But he hasn't yet shown yet that the mind is not material. But it's like matter insofar as matter is able to be, what? Formed, huh? So likewise the mind is able to be formed by some science, huh? While the other, this means now, why after he's acquired this science, he is able to consider when he wishes, okay? Should nothing outside prevent him, right? Okay? So once I've acquired some geometry, whenever I want to, I can think about that, right? See? So, and I can go right now to the board and say, you know, in a triangle, right? If these two ends are equal, these two sides are equal, right? And I can go right away. I want to, right? If nothing, it's very prevents, right? If you're making a lot of noise and checking around, I might not be able to do it. Or I had too much wine to drink or something, I might not be able to do it. You know? Or if I'm very tired or something like that, see? But, you see? But I want to, I can think about why that is so, right? By the way. But before I learned it, I can't just think about these things that I want to, right? And the student, I will struggle there, right? Well, it's kind of pleasant, you know, to think about something you already know. In a certain way, because there's no difficulty whenever you want to. Just think about it, right? Okay. But the other, top of the next page, but the one already considering is being an act and is properly knowing this age. Taking the example from grammar, right? I had to go to higher science than grammar. Well, let's think. Now, in 177, he's going to talk about the going from ability to act, right? It's not the same, huh? Both the first ones, therefore, are knowing, are knowers in potency or ability. But the one is altered through learning. Again, he wants to be careful about altered, right? Because eventually he's going to say that we maybe shouldn't call this altering or alteration. Or if you do, you're using the word in a different sense, right? In the early sense. But it appears to be like it, especially because often you're changing from the contrary state. Now, that's a good example of the slave boy, right? Because the slave boy, in fact, was in the contrary state. He was, in fact, mistaken about how to double a square. He wasn't simply ignorant, not knowing how to double a square. But he thought that you should double a square by a double in the side. And therefore, he's going from a false thinking, right? To true thinking, right? And that seems to be that alteration. Like when something goes from being hard to being, what? Soft, right? If you go back to natural philosophy now, before this. We saw the change was between, what? Contourings, right? So it's a hard that is softened, right? And it's a soft that is, what? Hardened, right? Okay? And it's the hot that is, what? Cool, right? And it's the cool that is heated, right? So, if you are going from being mistaken, right? To knowing, right? From thinking false to thinking truly, that seems to be a bit like alteration. Although, as Thomas points out, it's really, what? Accidental that a man be mistaken before he knows. He could come to know something without being mistaken about it first. But something could hardly become hard without being first, what? Soft. Or become soft without being at first hard. You see that? But it resembles alteration more, right? And especially when you are in the contrary state, as he says, right? And there, I would use more of the word change, because usually when we say change, we're thinking of these contraries. If I thought one thing at one time, and now I think the opposite, I have to change my opinion on that subject, as he said, right? When we use the word change, I think, in English, more when you've, what? Gone from the contrary state. He said, well, if you teach me a theorem of geometry about which I had no opinion whatsoever beforehand, right? Did I change my thinking about this matter? Huh? Of course, you find it very difficult sometimes to change people's thinking, right? He said. But once in a while, you succeed, you know? You know? That's something you more pray for or wish for than expect to happen, you see? Okay? And as one of my colleagues was saying to me the other day, and they, oh, you know? We can do much more with the students' minds than we can with the other professors' minds. Because there are some things about which the students have no opinion whatsoever, and therefore you can more teach them something true about these things, while your colleagues need false opinions, and you really have to change their thinking, right? Okay? But, hardly ever would I say, you know, that when I already know something, I know this theorem of geometry, right? And when I go to the board now, I'm going to show my students this theorem, right? And so I'm actually thinking about these things in a way I was not five minutes ago, right? No one would say that I changed my thinking at this point, would you? But I'm kind of, what? Becoming more actual in what I already possess. Okay? It's like an increase in the same thing, he says. Amidoses, in the Greek word, huh? And a perfective of your nature, rather than a, what? But altering every nature, changing every nature. Now, again, he translates it in there, again, I guess there. Though not being at work, it changes to being at work in another way. But I don't know if you want to so much use the word change there, you know? Because change would imply too much the idea of the contrary, so. But you could say that. Okay, now he's going to distinguish the different meanings there, again, of the word in Greek of pasken, that I mentioned before, right? Okay? Which he translates suffering, right? As I mentioned before, the English word suffering seems to be stuck more on its own. first meaning, huh? So he says, neither is suffering simple. How would maybe translate that? Neither is undergoing simple, right? Take away this more, maybe extend it. But one sort is a certain destruction due to the contrary. Like my being under the weather, as I said before, right? See? Or undergoing a lot, right? Another rather is rather the saving of a being in potency by a being in act. It's really a what? Perfecting of that. By something similar in the way that potency is in relation to actuality. I'm going from an ability to know something to actually knowing it, right? It's like more of the same, right? Okay? All the way up. And now he's saying, you know, one should maybe not call it alteration at all. For the one having knowledge comes to be considering. Which change is either not altering, for the progress is into itself, right? Into actuality, huh? See? In other words, when I have learned this theorem of geometry, and now I come in and want to teach the students, and so I start thinking about this thing actually, I'm thinking about what I already have, kind of a middle state between potency and act, right? My habitual knowledge, you might say, right? And I'm just, in a sense, having this even more so. Right? Okay. I have knowledge of geometry. I have some geometry in my mind in a firm way, right? And what I have there is increased, so to speak, when I actually think about it. It's more of the same. So it seems strange to call it alteration, right? I can say, you know, I've changed from not thinking about it actually, to actually thinking about it, right? But that's really just, what, kind of a flowering of my habit, you might say. Okay? Whence it is not proper to say that the one judging when he judges is altered, as neither is a house builder when he builds, right? So would you say that the cook, when he starts to cook dinner, he's altered, changed? See? No, it seemed kind of strange to speak that way, wouldn't it? Therefore it is just that what leads into actuality from being in potency, according to understanding and judging, not a teaching, but a different name. So, when I go from, what, being mistaken or being ignorant, and Socrates or somebody teaches me something, like Socrates teaches a slave what it is, right? That's called teaching, right? So going from that ability to this, possessing something of the art of geometry and the science of geometry, is a result of being taught, of learning. But when I possess this in an habitual way, and I actually think about it for the time of being, right? Am I being taught? Am I learning? No. That's the thing about teaching, you know. Does a teacher learn when he teaches? Well, Karachi Benji could say so, right? See? But if a man is learning the thing he's teaching, to that extent he's not yet fully a, what, teacher, right? Because one does not teach insofar as he's ignorant of what he teaches, but he teaches what he knows. So it doesn't belong to a teacher such to not know what he's teaching. Now, it may be, you know, professors often say, you know, that they learn something teaching a course, but that means that they were not fully a, what, teacher yet, subject, right? Actually, if I taught, let's say, book one to Euclid, and if I taught that, you know, to five classes, let's say, in grade school or something, or high school, and year in, year out, you know, I probably would not be seeing much more of that book that I've already seen. In which case, I would not be learning at all, but every time I take up a new theorem in class with the students, I am, what, becoming actual in my knowing in a way that I'm not when teaching some other theorem, right? Okay? As I go through the book, right? I'm not really learning anything to go through the book. But I am becoming actual in my thinking about theorem one, and then the next day I'm becoming actual in my thinking about theorem two, right? Okay? So on day one, I wasn't actually thinking about theorem two. And on day two, I'm not actually thinking about theorem three. But when I go the next day to actually thinking about the next theorem, I don't know what you want to call this, but don't call it learning, Aristotle says. So learning is going from what? Ability to act in a different way, right? Than thinking again about something you already know is going from ability to act. So is it altogether clear now that there's two kinds of ability to be seen here in regard to geometry, right? And two kinds of what? Act, right? Corresponding to these two kinds of ability. Okay? Now 180, before he applies it now to sensing, one must either say that the one who from being in potency learns and grasps knowledge by means of one who is in actuality and capable of teaching does not suffer as was said, or that there are two modes of alteration, right? The one, a change to the privative disposition, to the opposite, and the other really to what? Your fulfillment, right? To your nature, right? Okay? The Greek says epitas hexes, huh? So remember what you have for habit, or the having, right? Kaiten fucin, and nature, right? State and nature here. Oh yeah, state. Okay, so state from ability to act. These are these terms. Which one did you say was hexes? The first one, yeah. The state? State, the guy translated state here. State as habit? Yeah, hexes, yeah. And then, hexes in Greek can mean not only a habit in the sense of the first species of quality, right? Yeah. But also, you know, the having of something, right? Okay. You know? And it's kind of contrasted with this privation, right, where you lose something, right? Yeah. Now later on, you see, when we talk a little more about this at the end of the book, when we contrast the way in which the knower receives something in the way that the matter does, huh? if Michelangelo or somebody is going to make a statue of you, let's say, right? You might have a slab of marble here, right? And that slab of marble has got some kind of irregular shape to it. When he gets done putting your shape, Thomas, is that you, Thomas? That marble will lose the shape it had, that irregular shape, and will now have the shape of Thomas as its own shape, right? So you're deprived of kind of The shape you have, right? And you get another shape and place it with them. You're going to make a wooden statue of you out of this table here, right? To carve the statue. I'm like, I can do that. Well, then the wood here would lose the shape it has and acquire your shape as its own. But now when I see you, right? And your shape comes into my eye. It moves to my memory, right? I have your shape in my memory. Has my eye lost the shape it had? Or as I look at you, do you see my eye gradually losing its shape and taking on the shape of Thomas? Huh? Huh? Or if you open up my head, would you find a piece of bone or flesh there that is a statue of a little piece of bone that is no longer the shape it had, but now it's been chiseled, you know, by, you know, Michelangelo there up there in my head? No, I'm kind of, what, I'm having a shape that I didn't have before, right? See? And when I look around this room, I have the shapes of all these things in the room, right? So I'm not, as we're losing something, you know, not being altered in the strict sense, right? But I'm fulfilling my, what, nature by having the forms of other things. Now, he's going to compare this, or rather compare the sensing and what takes place in the senses to what we just saw about the mind, huh? And he says, the first change, however, of the sensitive comes to be due to what generates. When a thing is generated, it already has, like knowledge, sensing. But sensing, according to act, is said similarly to considerate. Now, what is he comparing to what there, right? See? Well, let's spell it out a little. There's a little problem, I think, in the translation here. To have a sense is compared to what in the mind, or reason? Yeah, to have a sense, right? Let's make it more concrete. To have geography, for example, right? To have a science. To have something. Okay. And to sense is compared to what? Thinking about geometry. After you have the thing, right? To be about what you have the science of, right? That's a very interesting comparison he takes there. Now, I have a sense by generation, right? So, if you went into the womb, right? Okay. So you have the fertilized egg and so on, and then you have, you know, cell division, multiplication, and so on, and gradually, right, the senses develop, right? But you're not aware of that at all, right? That's hidden to you, right? So I have no recollection myself of my coming to have the sense of sight. You know, a blind man who's cured by a word, I mean, I have no recollection, right, of my acquiring the sense of what? Sight. Or the sense of hearing. Or the sense of smell. The sense of taste. Or the sense of touch, right? But I am aware of what? My acquiring the art of geometry or the art of grammar, right? I remember, you know, the first thing when I studied Greek, you know, you got rid of the Greek alphabet. Okay? And with the grandchildren, you know, A, B, C, D, E, O, G. You know, you see the little reciting these things and singing them, right? Okay? And very often, you're sort of paying an acquirement art or science, right? So you're very much aware of your acquiring a science, right? The struggle that you had and so on, right? To learn that. Why you had the senses, kind of, right? By nature, right? Through generation. And so it's kind of hidden to us the way we acquire the senses and the way more known to us how we acquire the U.S. Sciences, right? You see why some way this is more known to us, right? Now, this is interesting because it shows the thing. If I go into class, let's say, right? And I'm going to try to teach the students something, right? They don't know. They're going to find this difficult and maybe kind of resist this, you know, difficulty with them and so on, right? And I come into class and say, we're going to show you a movie today. Oh, yeah! Got it! You see? Well, there's no difficulty once you have a sense in seeing something, right? If I was to take the students that's the museum here and show them their pictures, right? You see? You see? Once you have a sense of sight, all you have to do is look at the painting and you see it, right? You see? That's the way I am now compared to at least the elementary theorems of geometry. You know? The greatest of these I go to the board and show you that, you know, these two, size will be equal with these two ones. It's equal, right? But because I've acquired the science of geometry, right, I can go into the second act whenever I want to, right? And it's very easy for me to do so, right? Very pleasant, huh? I know struggle, see? But in acquiring the science of geometry, there is a great struggle. See? Okay? Acquiring, for the Greek, I know. It's struggle. Okay? But here, it's all done for me by teaching the regenerator. And then, right away, in regard to these things here, the sensing, it's something like the man's already acquired the science and who can talk about these things out of the abundance of his knowledge and pleasant for the teacher, in a sense, to think about these things and there's no struggle to think about them again, right? He's already acquired everything they have to do. You see that? It's a beautiful comparison that he makes. So, before, you have the senses, though, right? You know? You have an ability to have the senses, huh? So, when you have, let's say, what we call fertilized eggs or something like that, even after some of the frisk divisions, you don't actually have the senses yet, do you? Okay? So, the fertilized egg, to the best of my knowledge, is not seeing and hearing and smelling and tasting and touching, right? So, you're an ability to have your senses and then you actually have them, right? Well, after you actually have them, you're still an ability to what? A further act, which is to actually what? Sense. Okay? Well, notice, the fertilized egg, as we'd say, is the sort of thing that is what? By nature, able to have senses, right? And will have senses, right? And that's just some defect there, right? Here, of course, you have to apply yourself, right? But nevertheless, you are the kind of a thing that could have the science of geometry than the slave boy could have something, at least to the science of geometry. I think it's a little bit of a thing. Socrates, huh? Okay? He's going to point out the differences between these two, but at this point, he's concerned with showing the, what? Lightness, right? Okay? So in 181, he's talking about this, huh? The first change over the senses is the first change