De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 29: Sight, Hearing, and the Continuous in Knowledge

Transcript
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He says, therefore, first, Aristotle, that sight, secundum se, as such, is better, right? Because the power of seeing, by its apprehension, announces to us many differences of things, and so on. And this is because its object, which is the visible, is found in all bodies, right? Right? This goes back partly to that theory that the sun, moon, stars are not really hot and cold, like the four elements down the earth here, but they are, what, visible, right? Okay? And we may not agree with that particular observation, right? But it is interesting to see, would there be any astronomy at all if we didn't have eyes? We'd be very earth-bound, if we had no eyes. We know nothing outside the earth by what the senses are doing, unless we go there, I mean. I mean, as long as we're on the face of the earth here, we don't hear anything from the moon really, do we? We don't really, you know, feel anything on the moon or the, you know? So this is the kind of universality that the eye has, at a distance at least. For something becomes visible through this that the transparent is illuminated, an act, by a, what, lucid body. In which the lower bodies, right, communicate with the higher bodies. So fire is lucid in the sun, the moon, and so on, the granular event. And therefore, he says, in color, all bodies partake, both the higher and the lower. Because in all bodies there's found either color in its proper notion, as in bodies in which there is the transparent, terminated. Or, at least in them, there are found the principles of color, which are the transparent in light. And therefore, many things are manifested through sight. Now, the thing I wanted to point out in particular is this next paragraph, which is kind of interesting. Through this sense are known more the common sensibles. Now he's making a transition here, right? Because insofar as a power has a more universal knowing power, and extends to more things, so it's more efficacious in knowing. Because every power, insofar as it's more universal, is also more potent. Now he calls what we mean by the common sensibles, as we mentioned in that earlier reading. And those are called common sensibles, which are not known by one sense alone, as the private sensibles, but by many senses. And he gives the same enumeration of them. Magnitude, right? Figure, rest, motion, and number. And he says, the qualities, which are the proper objects of the senses, or the private objects of the senses, are all forms in the continuous. They're all type of continuous. And therefore, it's necessary that the continuous, insofar as it's the subject to such qualities, it loses senses. Not accidentally, but as a per se what? But as a per se subject, and the common subject, of all the sensible qualities. So the surface is hard, right? The surface is colored, right? So the surface is something continuous, and they seem to be based on that, right? But now he makes an interesting point here. All of these things, which are called common sensibles, they pertain in some way to the what? Continuous. Either as its measure, which is magnitude, or according to its division as number, or according to its termination as figure or shape, or according to distance and proximity as motion. Okay. Now, I think I mentioned before how the sense of sight and the sense of touch seem to be the only senses that know the shape, know the form of things. And they also seem to know surface, in the way the other senses don't know it. Now, but since the sight in some ways is more clear than the sense of touch. But notice the emphasis that Thomas gives here, that all of these common sensibles are tied up with the what? Continuous. Continuous, huh? Okay? Now, we made a little study, if you recall, back to the Bible, about the continuous, huh? But if you stop and think about it, huh? The continuous is something very basic in our knowledge. And in the, I think there's the next book there, Memory and Reminiscence, Amaristow says the soul understands nothing without the continuous. And that's because we never think without also forming an image. And all the images are tied with the, what? Continuous, huh? Now, if you stop and look at the basic words that we have in the axioms, and the words that we use everywhere, especially in wisdom, these words are, as we've mentioned before, all equivocal. They have many meanings, right? But they're equivocal by reason. There's an order among these meanings, a connection among these meanings. But you have to start with the first meaning, and then, what? See how the word is carried over to other meanings, by some connection to the original meaning. Now, I'll take my favorite words there from the definition of reason, right? Reason is the ability for a large discourse, looking before and after, right? And we looked at that word before in the categories one time, remember? Okay? Now, that's very key words for a reason, huh? But, what's the first meaning of before that he gives in the categories? Time. Yeah. And time is something, what? Continuous, right? Yes. And to that first sense of before is tied to the before in ocean, right? Which is also continuous. And the before in the road or the distance over which you, what? Travel, right? Okay? So, I'll picture you there in that little newsletter there, right? Looking out there on the road, right? See? He's starting with the continuous, right? Okay? But notice, we mentioned how philosophy is called knowledge over a road, right? And the road is originally naming something like what's out there that's continuous, right? Okay? So, this is a key word before, after, huh? But it's taken from something continuous at first. Now, take the word beginning, very important word, huh? Now, eventually we're going to be saying, like Aristotle says in the Twelfth Book of Wisdom, and like it said in the Apocalypse and so on, I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am the beginning and the, what? End, huh? They're very important, huh? What's the first meaning of beginning and end? Monitude. Like, this is the beginning of the line right here, and this is the, what? End, right? We've got to, if you want to understand, beginning and end, which are, again, words equivocal, right? Because, say, words that have many meanings, but words that are equivocal by reason. We have to start from the first meaning of these words, and then see how the word is carried over to other meanings, huh? And so we start with the first meaning, but it seems to be tied to the, what? Continuous. Eventually we're going to be applying the word before, and the word beginning, and the word end, to God himself, right? Well, we have to come to understand that different sense, which God is a beginning, or an end, or before, starting from the meaning of it, when we speak of it. be what? Continuous, huh? Okay. If you study the word end, the first meaning of end is the end of a what? Magnitude, right? This is the beginning of the table and the end is down there. Okay. Now, God is not a beginning and end in that sense, right? But there's a reason why we carried the words beginning and end over, ultimately, to God himself. So, if you read the fifth book of Wisdom, which we'll look at sometime, maybe, when we're prepared, the first word Aristotle talks about is the word beginning. And it's time to take us to the fourth and the sixth sense that you see the sense which guides the beginning. He follows the meanings over, the first meaning of that. The word end, he takes on, right? In the fifth book, then. The word before he does. Wisdom, you'll find out, is about being in one. And the first meaning of one is the what? Continuous, right? This is one piece of chalk, we'd probably say, right? But if I broke it now, you'd say what? Two pieces of chalk, right? It's no longer a continuous, huh? That's the... Well, we've got to believe that there's, what? One God, right? Kind of a fundamental thing there, you'd find with the Hebrews, right? You know, one path. But what does one mean instead of God? It doesn't mean continuous. Well, that's the first meaning of one for us, right? You see? So he says, just to quote a couple sentences again here. Through this sense, the sense of sight, the common sensibles are more known, right? Okay? And then the second sentence I read later on, all of these things which are called the common sensibles pertain in some way to the continuous, right? Okay? And then you realize that continuous lies behind all our thinking. And even the words we, what? Use, huh? Now, if you contrast that a bit with the private sensibles, the private sensibles, it seems to me, are not carried over and given new meanings. Like these names derived from the continuous. They're used metaphorically, right? So when I say that, taste and see how sweet is the Lord, I mention that in the Psalms. When Thomas explains why God is called sweet, he explains that the word sweet is said of God metaphorically, okay? There's a certain likeness there, right? Distant likeness. But there's not a new meaning of the word sweet. Otherwise, it would not be a metaphor. But when God says, I am the beginning and the end of all things, huh? That's not a metaphor. But it's a different meaning of beginning and end than the first meaning, which is tied with the continuous. Now, we understand nothing without understanding the, what? Continuous, huh? And we never think without the continuous. And in the De Trinitatis there, Thomas coming in, and Voethius says, how do you think about God as not continuous? Well, by thinking that he's not continuous. You know, that's the via negativa in theology, right? So in this life we know God, what? Negatively, right? In the beatific vision we'll know God through God, right? We'll see God through God. Understand God through the thoughts that we have derived from our senses, huh? And we'll see God through God being joined to our reason self. So it would be both what we see and that by which we see. And that's the only way we'll see him as he is. But in this life we see him as he's not. Not in the sense that we see him falsely, but we see that he's not a body, that he's unchangeable and so on. I think it's kind of interesting what he says there, huh? If you see that the sense of sight especially makes known the common sensibles, the common sensibles all are type of the continuous, and the continuous is so basic in all of our, what? Our knowledge, right? And in our naming, huh? Then he goes on to point out how the sense of hearing doesn't know, right? So many things as the sense of sight does, right? But then he says in the next section here, Aristotle manifests how hearing, grotidens, is better for the understanding, huh? Okay? In some way. And this is grotidens, he says, because speech, which is hearable, is a cause of learning, not as such, that is according to the very differences of sounds, right? But accidentally, insofar as the names which speech is, that is, speech is composed, are symbols, huh? That is signs of things understood, huh? And consequently, of things. And thus, the teacher teaches the student, insofar as through speech he signifies to the student the conception of his own mind, right? And more is man able to know by learning from another, right, to which is useful hearing, although pratchett ends, than he could find by himself, to which sight is especially useful. So he's saying, you can learn more from the, what, teacher, right, through the ear, even though sounds as such are not teaching you, right, what they signify, than you do through, what, the eye, where you have to find out everything for yourself, huh? Now he makes a point here, and I don't have enough experience to really say this, but it's interesting what he says there. And hence it is, Thomas says, that among those deprived, huh, from birth, of either sense. He's thinking now of some people who are blind from birth, right, and others who are, what, deaf from birth, but not blind. Those are wiser who are blind than those who, what, those who are deaf, huh? I don't know, I don't have experience, you know, to speak of with deaf people, or blind people, but that's kind of interesting that he apparently had some observation of that, huh? Now, apropos of that, huh, come back to, in what two ways is Socrates like Christ? There's two very noteworthy ways in which Socrates, who is the teacher of Plato, who is the teacher of Aristotle, there are two ways, two very striking ways, I think, that Socrates is like Christ, huh? Well, one way is suggested by those chapters in the Gospel of Matthew, you may recall. There's a series of chapters there where Matthew is bringing out the reasons why they wanted to put Christ to death. Remember that? Okay? And one of the reasons, of course, is that he claimed to be God, right? Okay? Another is that he was pointing out their, what, wickedness and so on, right? But another reason was that he, what, examined the Pharisees and showed that they didn't understand what they claimed to understand. Whose son is Christ? And they said, David's, huh? Well, how could David call him Lord then, right? If he's the Lord of David, he's not the, what, son of David, right? They couldn't answer him, right? So one reason why they wanted him, not the only reason, just one reason. One reason why they wanted to put him to death was because he showed them in his examination of them that they didn't know what they claimed to know and what their reputation for knowing, namely the scriptures, right? Okay? As you all know from the apology of Socrates, right? The defense of the courtroom, that's what got Socrates in trouble, the very same thing, huh? Okay? So in that one respect, huh? Socrates wasn't claiming to be God, I was saying. But in this one respect that, you know, Socrates was what? Examining people, right? Who claimed to know something, had a reputation to knowing something, were admired for this, and he showed them they didn't know what they claimed to know, right? At one respect, Socrates is like Christ, right? And in that respect, one of the reasons why they want to put Christ to death is the main reason, the only reason, almost, why they want to put Socrates to death. That's one very important likeness, I think, of Socrates as a historical figure to Christ. They're both put to death unjustly, right? And there's a reason why they want to put it to death and do this similarity there. Now, what's the second likeness that is suggested by this text here? He taught by the spoken word, right? Right. In other words, Christ wrote nothing, right? Yeah. Christ is not the author of any books. Right. Okay. Christ taught only by, what, the spoken word, right? Yeah. Well, Socrates is like that, huh? If Plato had written the dialogues, right? Right. And other words, you know, counseling, conversations, too, we wouldn't have any written words, right? For Socrates, huh? So Socrates, in that respect, is like Christ, that he taught only by the spoken word, not by the written word, huh? And so you can't do it like that, right? He taught only by the spoken word, huh? He didn't write books or articles, things. Okay? Now, Thomas asked a question somewhere, why is it that Christ taught only by the spoken word, not by the written word? Of course, you know how Christ is the teacher by Antonio Masia. And he says that in itself, right? He is the teacher, huh? Well, Thomas says that the spoken word is a more perfect tool of teaching than the, what, written word, huh? And so the supreme teacher, right, is going to use the most perfect tool. But in some ways, Socrates is, what, like that, huh? Socrates is a baby Plato, but it's in the dialogues, you know, they talk about how the written word corrupts memory and things of that sort. I used to make a joke, you know, sometimes I'd take some things down to the printing office or something, you know, to return up to distribution in class, right? And I don't know, with the absent-mindedness or what, I thought I would leave some folder down there and we'd often have to come back and get it there, you know? And I said, well, it's true, so it's a thing, you know, the printing word, it's a forgetfulness. So, it's interesting, huh? Socrates, in that respect, is like Christ, then, that he teaches only by the, what, spoken word, right? But kind of, I think, reveals the, you know, illustrates in a way that it's being said here, right? That the spoken word is a more perfect instrument than the teacher, that one learns more by the spoken word when you get the spoken word, right? Christ is no longer walking around talking to us, right? Or Socrates, you know, it's good that someone, you know, wrote down something in what they said, right? But, I mean, to get taught by the man, right? Plato was supposed to have said, you know, he thanked the gods for three things, that he was born a man, not a woman. Secondly, that he was born a Greek, not a barbarian. And third, that he had met, what, Socrates, right? So Socrates really was something of a, what, great teacher, right? And, of course, you know, with Plato and Aristotle, we don't have the spoken word, huh? I know myself sometimes in class, you know, you have these secondary texts, and you kind of debate in your mind, should I reproduce these, you know? Because you don't have a chance to go through them with the students, huh? It gets a little out of it, huh? But they don't read carefully enough, and so on. And they don't actually throw something at them, you know, that I don't go through and try to illuminate to them, huh? But you realize the importance of the spoken word, huh? And you see, in the end, you know, again, he'd be so excited to hear what he's saying, you know, to really sing again, you know? The main reason is that it's more perfect. Well, I'd say the reason Thomas gives, and it seems to be a fact that our Lord didn't write down anything, huh? Makes it the time you wrote in the sand there, right? The rest of that. So. And Thomas says, well, why did he do this, huh? And Thomas, you know, attributes it to what? His role as the, what? The teacher. Right. By Antoinette Messiah, huh? And something could be said like that of Socrates, right, huh? That Socrates saw the, I mean, Socrates, to some extent, too, may have thought, of course, he had nothing to say, right? He had to draw it out of him, you know? But I think it was also partly that idea that the spoken word was more perfect to him. Right. That was Plato, or Socrates in the dialogue, so. Could you develop that a little? And what's, why is? Well, you start to rely upon it, see? Remember what kids do with the computer and so on, huh? You know, the computer, you're supposed to give them access to everything they want, so why do I have to memorize anything? Don't memorize anything now, you see? Yeah. My children went to the Trivium School, and of course there you had to memorize student things, huh? Remember my son, Marcus, there memorizing Oh, Raven, which is a rather long poem, right? But people don't memorize things anymore, huh? That's right. And yet, you know, whatever things that are worthwhile memorizing, you know, I can memorize some of the psalms, and I don't know all the psalms, but a few of the psalms, you know, they come back to you, you know, when you're thinking about something else and there's some relevance to this. And the same way, you know, if you memorize, you know, some lines of Shakespeare, right, then you begin to see how much is in these ones, huh? It kind of concentrates your, what, attention on it, you know? I know myself sometimes I'm impressed with a sonnet or something of Shakespeare, and as I start to memorize it, I start to notice all kinds of things I didn't notice in there before. And whatever drew my attention to it, huh? And then after I memorize it, and I say, okay, now I'm going to go ahead and impress the students in class, you know, but quite a little Shakespeare that's relevant to something I'm saying. And then I go into another class, an entirely different class, and all of a sudden I see this relevance that's what I've memorized to something else, right? And it's just amazing, huh? These fundamental things. But people nowadays, they don't exercise the memory at all. I suppose in Thomas' day, too, I mean, you know, the famous anecdote of Thomas, he's traveling with another Dominican there, and they came up over the hills, and they could look down upon the city of Paris spread out there, you know? And this guy said, what would you like to have to own this whole city, you know, I mean, something like that, you know? And Thomas says, well, I'd trade the whole thing for a copy of John of Chrysostom, you know? Commentary of the Gospel of St. John, right? Well, you could just, you know, go to your computer or go to the library or something and get these books, maybe, right? You might have access to this book, you know, in one place in Europe or something, right? And you would maybe, you know, memorize these things, huh? I assume that the man like Thomas must have known the Psalms, you know, by heart, and maybe the Gospels and other things, you know? And I'm kind of amazed sometimes. You go back even, you know, in English, some of these poets, you know, they have memorized plays of Stouff, they play Shakespeare by from heart, you know? So I don't know how they. I remember he seems to have really decayed, huh? Our ability to do these things. But why is the spoken word more perfect tool then? Is it because... your direct access to the teaching? Well, you've got to realize, huh, that the spoken word is the original word. Yes. And the written word is only a sign of the, what? The spoken word, yeah. So, you know, when the missionaries went out, say, in some of these more primitive countries, they always had a spoken language, yeah? But sometimes, you know, when they wanted to translate the Bible or the Gospels or something for these people, they had to invent a, what? A written language, yeah? Yeah. Okay. Okay, let's look a little bit at this chapter 11 here now, the part, just a little bit he's given us towards the end of the treatise of the five outward senses, and only a part here about the tangible, and why he translated this in particular, and maybe at least get the beginning and the end, right? But also, it does touch upon this thing that's very important that the knower, in a way, where he sees what he knows, is originally, what, lacking there, right? And this is true even in the sense of touch in some way, but it's a little more involved because you can't be entirely lacking in the object, the sense of touch, because things like hot and cold and dry and moist, well, the organ of touch is going to involve those qualities, and this is because they are the basic qualities of bodies, and especially according to the four elements theory of the body. The tangibles, therefore, he says, are the differences of body as body. I mean the differences which determine the elements, hot, cold, dry, moist, about which we have spoken earlier in those works about the elements. That's the book on generation and, what, corruption, huh? Okay, now, just recall from what we studied a little bit, in Pedocles, and we mentioned how the theory of the four elements is the longest lasting theory in chemistry, huh? Okay, as to what the basic forms are. And as they began to think of these four, they saw a way of distinguishing them by hot and cold and wet and dry. And so, what is hot and dry would be the element called fire, huh? What was wet and cold would be the element of what? Water. Water. Fire. Fire and water. Those would be kind of the obvious things, huh? And notice how there are big opposite there, huh? Hot and dry and wet and what? Cold, huh? You know that text, is it, where is it, Isaiah? Yeah, it's, you know, it's in the Old Testament. The one that they're quoted a lot there when they're talking about abortion and so on. And he says, I have put before you life and death, you know, and whichever you choose. But if you go back to the text, it also says, what? Fire and water. Oh. Because there are habits that suck, life and death, huh? Uh-huh. Okay? Now, what is cold and dry? Earth. Now, I suppose you think of the Earth as cold and dry because when you dig down into the ground, it's what? Cool. So, the basement is cooler than the other part of the house, right? Yeah. And the cellars, you know, where you store the wine. Uh-huh. Um, cooler, right? But if you take the water out of the Earth, then it's dry, or it's what? Dust, right? Uh-huh. Okay? Now, I've got a force air here, right? Yeah. But if you think of air a little bit like, what, steam, right? Uh-huh. Okay? Um, you can see something in the meeting here, huh? And, of course, in the universe, it seemed like you had Earth in the middle here, and then on top of that, water, and then on top of that, air, and then the sun, moon, and stars, fire, which means it's thought before itself. And, of course, air being between fire and water would seem to be sharing something of both, right? Uh-huh. So, it shares with fire being hot and with water being what? Wet. Wet, right? Yeah. Okay? Now, when I teach the four elements there, as a reasonable guess, not as a truth, as a reasonable guess, I say, first of all, is it reasonable to distinguish the basic kinds of matter, the first forms of matter? Is it reasonable to distinguish them by opposites, as we're doing here? And I say, in general, does it make sense to distinguish things by opposites, huh? For example, if you're going to distinguish human beings, or divide up human beings, would you divide them into, let's say, male and white? Does that make any sense? Or female and white? Some human beings are females and some are white. No, the same person can be a female and white, huh? The same person can be a male and white, huh? It makes some sense to divide them into male and female, right? Or it makes some sense to divide them into good and bad, huh? Or to divide them into young and old, right? Middle age or something. First of all, he calls it the prime. But it would make sense to divide them into young and white, and good and male. But what is it that good and bad have that good and female don't have? Or good and white? Yeah. They're opposites, right? Yeah. So, I get them to accept, first of all, the idea that you want to divide the basic forms of matter by opposites, right? If you don't have any opposition, it could be the same thing, right? Right. Okay. Then the second thing I'd say to them is, why take hot and cold, wet and dry? Why not take black and white, let's say? Why not take hard and soft? Why not take sweet and bitter? Okay. Other sensible opposites. Why take hot and cold, wet and dry? Is it arbitrary? Or is there a reason to say that hot and cold and wet and dry are more basic than, say, black and white, or hard and soft, or even sweet and bitter, right? And, of course, you know, I'm saying, you kids, you know, you're ahead of the Greeks by opinion, right? By what you've heard, but they're ahead of you in their thinking, right? They have more reason, you know? What would be the reason to use these opposites rather than those, huh? More universal, sir? Yeah. And because they seem to be the causes of these. So, if you're looking at the first causes, the first beginnings of things. So, you put the white bread in the toaster in the morning, right? And even in there, it starts to change its color, and eventually it'll become black if you kept it in the toaster on that, right? They heat the black metal, and it becomes, what? Red hot, and eventually white hot, right? So, hot and cold seem to be responsible for, what? Black and white, huh? Okay? And even, to some extent, wet and dry, see? So, the morning my hair is all, you know, flying around, and so, I wet it down, and it gets dark, I'm not young. And then as it dries out in the day, it becomes, what? Gray and almost white, see? So, to a lesser extent, wet and dry influence, what? The color. So, garment looks different. Some of it's wet, and then, what? Dries, huh? I've been painting the house recently, and, you know, when you look at the old paint, and the new stuff, it's, you know, it's still moist, you know, it's bright, and it kind of changes its color a little bit. It dries out. This is even more true of hard and soft, right? Because I put the butter in the refrigerator, which is cold, and it becomes what? Hard, huh? I take it out, I put it in the frying pan, and it is softened by the heat, right? Okay. And, you know, you put a sponge in the water, and it becomes soft, and when the sponge dries out, it becomes kind of hard like a rock, huh? And you know how bread, you know, a stick over something, it dries out, and it becomes hard as a rock, and you can moisten it, though, right? And soften it again, huh? So, again, these are causes of hard and soft. Now, sweet and bitter, things taste differently, certainly, when they're heated and cooked, right? Or not, or when they're wet or what? Dry, right? So, these opposites seem to be causes of changes in the other contraries. So, these seem to be the most basic opposites that are what? Senses know, hot and cold, wet and dry, and you, it's even a lot of science, how thermodynamics was so close to the deep penetration of matter, instead of heat. So, if you have to know the world around us through your senses, then you have to know the first kinds of matter through your senses, huh? And if you must distinguish many kinds of matter by their, what? By opposites, right? And these are the most basic opposites that our senses know, it seems that this is it, you've arrived. There's no obvious way of going beyond those four, and finding something before them, huh? It would have to be a very subtle and roundabout way, you might say, some ingenious experiment that would reveal that there might be something before water, like hydrogen or oxygen or something, right? But no obvious way, just using your senses, huh? So, you can see why this theory would last for, you know, 2,000 years, from Amphetocles to Shakespeare. Shakespeare, you know, there's all kinds of allusions to the four elements, like it's a common coin, huh? Even in the sonnets, he talks about the four elements. Or, Theopaptus says, you know, I'm all fire and air, and these elements I give to the earth, Theopaptus says, and so on. Okay? Of course, these are very important in theology for, what? Metaphors, right? So, I mean, God is sometimes, you know, righteousness is sometimes more, I'm just a metaphor, but I use the word air a lot, just talking about God. Fire, talking about God metaphorically, right? Psalms of thirst, right? For the soul is thirsting for God. And even sometimes God is said to be, what, a rock, huh? So, these qualities that the sense of touch knows, like hot and cold, dry and moist, seem to be the differences of body as body, right, huh? They seem to be the fundamental qualities of bodies, huh? About which we have spoken earlier in those works about the elements. The sense organ for these is a tactile. That in which the sense called touch first is present. The part which is such in potency. For sensing is a certain suffering, a certain, what? Undergoing, yeah. Being acted upon, huh? Whence the maker makes that other, what is in potency such, like itself, huh? Let's not, I'll range the sentence there. But it makes something else like itself eventually, huh? But now since the body, which is the sense organ, has to be hot or cold or something like that, it can really lack entirely its object. Whence, he says, we do not sense what is similarly hot and cold and hard and soft, but we sense more what is excessive. The sense being like a certain mean of the contrarieties and sensibles. And because of this, it discerns the sensibles. For the middle is able to discern. So you tend to notice the air when it's, what, much warmer than you or much, what, colder than you, right? But at just the same temperature, you probably wouldn't notice it, say. Now, we sometimes take the example there of the man who goes in the shower, right? And the man goes in the shower, he has a certain level of warmth in there, and he's feeling this. I mean, after a while, he might turn the water up even hotter, right? Because he's sensing it less, right? But that's, in a sense, a sign that he's receiving now the heat as anybody sees heat, huh? And therefore, he's not really, what, sensing it. In the same way when you go into the ocean, say, to go swimming or something like that, you know, it's kind of a shock when you go in there first, you know? And then as your body gets used to the water, right? And it's kind of, doesn't seem so cold, right? People thought it was like bathwater, you know, but it really isn't. Yeah. For the middle is able to discern. For it is in relation to each of these the other extreme. And just as what is to sense, white and black, must be neither of these in act, so also in touch. But notice, it can't be completely diluted from this. This is hitting at the idea that the senses have to more or less lack the object they're going to be seen. And this is going to be important later on in talking about why the reason is, what, immaterial, right? It's going to be seen the natures of all material things. And therefore, it's going to be lacking, right? In the material nature itself. But you see something like this in the senses already, that they are lacking in their, what? Object at first, right? Otherwise, they could not receive it. Okay, so that last paragraph is kind of like a summary here. Okay, should we go on a little bit here to the twelfth chapter? The feeble-minded. Okay. Okay, but five minutes. Okay. Okay. Okay, so let's go on a little bit. Okay, so let's go on a little bit. Okay, so let's go on a little bit. Okay, so let's go on a little bit. Okay, so let's go on a little bit.