De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 48: The Active and Passive Intellect: Powers and Actualization

Transcript
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We'll share, right? But it's so weak in us, right, that we have to have it fortified by our guardian angel, right? And by God himself, right? So that's why when we pray there, you know, God, enlightenment, huh? Ask the guardian angel to strengthen the light of our mind, right? That's that thing, that light that Aristotle's going to talk about here next now. And some things can be seen by that natural light, huh? The church teaches that you can even know that God exists, right? That's an article of faith now, that the existence of God can be known by the natural light of reason. It doesn't mean that most people can know this too well, you know. It is possible to know it by the natural light of reason. So the way these objections, although they're in a way answered in this chapter, in this ninth reading of Thomas's division, they're kind of in a way, it should leave you with a little bit of uneasiness, right? And you have to see in some sense, from them, or begin to see, the need for this, what, act of understanding. But the other way of kind of approaching the need for the act of understanding is to realize that there is no world of forms, huh? If there was a world of forms that were acting directly in our mind, then you wouldn't need this act of understanding, huh? Incidentally, you know, when they explain, you know, the light of glory, right? And Thomas said, the light of glory, he says, is not like this light that Aristotle talks about, right? Because this light that Aristotle talks about in the next chapter is to make something understandable that is only understandable in goodness sake. Well, the light of glory is not to make God understandable to us. I mean, to make God understandable to act, because he dwells in light inaccessible. He's most understandable, see? He's the most understandable thing there is. But not to us, because of the weakness of our mind, huh? So the light of glory is actually disposing our mind, right? To receive God into our mind, huh? And both that by which we see and what we see, huh? But it's not to make God actually understandable. The problem is not in him, like with his material things, right? See, in a way, Kant was right when he said about material things are not knowable, right? The thing in itself is not knowable. But he should have said it's not knowable in act in itself. It's knowable in ability, right? Because then he ends up not knowing anything, right? Going to that position. But I mean, it's like you're saying, huh? Like the great Tempeticly says, right? You know, men having seen a part of the truth, they boast of having seen the whole, right? So in seeing in some way that material things are not knowable, he didn't distinguish, huh? Between knowable in ability and actually knowable. Or to be more precise, to be understandable in ability and to be actually what? It's one thing to not be understandable in any way. Nothing to be understandable in ability and therefore not to be understandable in what? In act, right? But as you know, the moderns and the human mind in general has a difficulty understanding what? Ability, right? Even the great Plato there kind of confused the ability of matter, remember that? But with the lack of form, that's where the Plato got into the business of saying that matter is evil, right? You know, you find explicitly in botanics, right? Because they confuse matter with non-being, huh? It's like confusing your ability to know with your ignorance. It's not through your ignorance that you actually come to know, but through your ability to know, right? If your mind was your ignorance, then you'd be in pretty bad shape, huh? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it's extremely subtle what Aristotle says there in the second difficulty, right? And it takes a wit like Thomas, huh? Mm-hmm. To illumine the dimwits like us. Mm-hmm. But for the nitwits, then... Mm-hmm. You know? It's kind of interesting, huh? Because when Aristotle, you know, it's Hesiod who made this distinction between the wits and the dimwits and nitwits, huh? And he said, he said, best of all is the man who can understand these things by himself, right? Next is the man who can learn it from the man who can discover it. But he who can either discover it himself or learn it from another, he's a useless white, is the way the English translation used to get it, right? And Thomas is more kind in the comedy, he says, he's useless as far as the acquisition of knowledge is concerned, right? He can have some other words, right? You know? So if these things, you know, if you can't discover these things by yourself, like Aristotle did, or you can't learn them from Aristotle, then you're useless as far as, what, getting philosophy, right? Mm-hmm. You know? So, the Greek seven wise men said, know thyself, right? Are you a wit, a dimwit, or a nitwit, right? I think, you know, the problem with a lot of the modern philosophers is that they're dimwits and they think they're wits. Mm-hmm. And, uh, what's the answer one time about, uh, even about the great Cajetan, you know? He shouldn't have commented on Aristotle directly, he should have just commented on Thomas. But, I mean, to comment, well, it's kind of interesting, huh? Mm-hmm. He gets off, so often he tries to comment directly on Aristotle. He has to be, you know, filtered through, what, Thomas, right? Mm-hmm. And, uh, and when Cajetan kind of, you know, compared the order among our minds, it's not identical by any means, but it resembles a bit the order you find among the angels, right? Mm-hmm. Where, you know, angel will illumine the angel below him, and he'll illumine the one below him down the line, right? Mm-hmm. But if we lose this order there, we, you know, if we try to go directly to Aristotle, right, and through Thomas, we tend to maybe miss a lot, you know, and even misunderstand the text. I remember one time when, when, uh, somebody was describing a conversation there that, when Cia Dion was having with, uh, with, uh, John Galt there, and they were trying to understand the, the, the first chapter there in the fifth book of Wisdom, where Aristotle gives six meanings there, the word beginning, and when Aristotle gets to the second meaning of beginning there, he makes a comparison to beginning with what's more known to us, huh? Mm-hmm. Well, some people think that's the second meaning, and Galt was understanding the text that way, which he could, and he's just looking at the text, and the answer, no, no, look what Thomas says about that, so, my rule of thumb, you know, is, is what Aristotle means, what Thomas says he means, right, and, uh, there might be, you know, some cases, you know, where, where Thomas has a, maybe a defective Latin translation, something like that, you know, he might miss something, you know, I mean, I don't, but, but, but, I mean, as a rule of thumb, I'd say, you know, Aristotle means what Thomas says he means, and, uh, but not, you know, the more you read Thomas, you know, you realize what the help he is to understanding Aristotle, the way he divides the text and the way he explains what his meaning is, but this, you know, a text like this is very difficult, and you really need, um, somebody like Thomas to proportion it, uh, to you, huh? And you, you, you go back and you, you read, you know, the, the, uh, the Greek commentators even, you know, and Aristotle, and then you go and read Thomas the commentators, you know, it's amazing to see how much, uh, pretty much he's penetrated, you know? And you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you Although Ammonius is very good, you know, but you only have Ammonius in a few things there, you know. Ammonius Hermaeus. There's several of Ammonius, but this is the teacher of Boethius, huh? It almost seems as if Aristotle wasn't quite aware of how much everyone else was below him, that he would have thought he would have taken that. Well, you see, we're not sure, you know, whether... Some people speak of these things as Aristotle's notes, right? Right? Some people speak of them as being the official notes of the school, right? Well, you know, if you saw, you know, sometimes a professor, you know, he's going to give a lecture, he might, you know, put an index card, you know, kind of a very brief thing, you know, and he would know how to expand it as he got in class, right? You see, maybe he's a little bit... So, I mean, it's very concise, right? And whether it's intended for publication in that form, you know, I'm sure these things would be expanded upon by Aristotle in the way that we try to do it there, help with Thomas and so on, to expand upon them, right? And so, I mean, I wouldn't say that Aristotle was not aware of that, right? See? But you've got to realize, too, that in ancient schools, the vocal word was much more, what, a part of the teaching than for us, right? Yeah. And the written word, we rely a lot upon the written word, huh? But before the printing press, too, you wouldn't tend to waste words the way we do. You know, John Locke, you know, apologized at the end of the essay, my understanding, you know, for being kind of pretentious, but he's too lazy, so he has to go over it again, and see? Well, these guys here, they're not going to waste words, and everything has to be maybe copied out by him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see? And so you kind of need a real tradition there of living teachers to understand these words. And DeConnick said, you know, he used to remark about, DeConnick was a young man, he wanted to become a Dominican, right? And then he was in poor health, you know, and he was bedridden for, I don't know, a year or so, you know? So they wouldn't accept him in the order, you know, because of his physical conditions. But what was he going to do laying in bed there, you know? He started reading Thomas very carefully, right? And you need, you need, he thought, you know, a period of time, right? Where you're free of all the usual distractions of the world, to really get into these texts and understand them, right? And he said, he's comparing it, you know, in Thomas' own life, when he was locked up by his brothers there, you know, and they're trying to keep him from becoming a Dominican, right? And he's supposed to have memorized the Bible in there, and memorized the sentences, and so on, and really got into these texts, right? But you need, you know, kind of a period, huh? I know my own life, you know, the, especially my last two years or so in college, you know, my brothers had gone away to school, my father had died, just my mother and I were there, and she was a very quiet woman, didn't play the TV or radio or anything like that. It was kind of like a monastery almost, you know? But kind of the quiet there, right? Just, you know, read, and I could, you know, read up in my room, I could read in the living room, I could read, you know, it's nice to be able to go to, you know, to spread yourself out a little bit, you know? And it was a period of, what, kind of a very quiet, thoughtful life, right? And you kind of need something like that, huh? You know, to really get into these texts. But you need, you know, with Thomas Aristoto, I mean, you've got to read them and read them again, you know? When I was first with Kusurik, you know, he'd always, you know, tell me, go read that, Dwayne, tell me to go read that. And I'd come back with more questions, he'd say, you don't read very carefully, Dwayne, he'd say, you know, go through it, you know, like that. So after a while, you know, the parents come, you know, I don't know how to read, Dwayne. So you start to read very carefully, right? You see, and you realize how much is in this, huh? You know? Would you read, when you began reading very carefully, whenever you approached a text for the first time, would you read it with great scrutiny, or would you first read it through generally, getting a general view, and then go back through it? Well, either one, but I mean, you realize you've got to, you know, it's like my father used to say, you know, to my brothers and I, about driving the car, you know, when winter comes, he says, you have to learn how to drive again. You know, I mean, you have to drive out so much more careful than you would be. So I'd say, you know, when you start to read something like Aristavo, you've got to learn how to read again, right? Because you have to read it with the care that you don't. Thomas, when he talks about that in the Secundi Secundi there, when he talks about being teachable, right? And reading the words, reading these words carefully, he says, frequently and with reverence, with respect, huh? So you have to read these words, carefully, frequently, with reverence. That's the way you become teachable. That's the way Thomas, you know, read Augustine. That's the way he read Aristotle, right? You know, I suppose he read just about everything that way, but I mean, especially those you can learn from, huh? If you don't read Aristotle carefully, frequently, and with reverence, you're not going to really learn much from him in the same way unless you read Thomas this way, huh? I mean, it's so dense in a way. I think people sometimes are turned off by that, you know, but they want to read something like you can read an hour or something, you know? That's not the way you read this stuff. If you do so, you're going to get indigestion. In fact, if you're going to like somebody, you can say a lot in a few words and keep on pulling things out of what he says, huh? Just in these few words here, you can anticipate all kinds of things that, you know, you're going to have in mind when you start to study God and the angels, which is the end. I'm studying these things anyway. Thomas says, I study the body so I can study the soul. I study the soul so I can study the angels. I study the angels so I can study God. That's it, he says. That's it. Okay? Christ prays and prays out loud for our instruction, right? And, you know, the whole 17th chapter is about the prayers of Christ, right? And he prays first for himself. Then he prays for the apostles, right? Then he prays for all those who will receive, you know? And there's an order in which he prays, right? And you can say the same thing, you know, that you have to pray first for yourself and then pray for those who are close to you, whatever kind of closeness it may be, right? And then finally, so many prays for the whole church and for all men in it, you know? But there's a certain order in which you pray, right? Mm-hmm. And, and that's in his church and he begins at home, right? But it's interesting that Christ shows it, right? He prays first for himself and it's kind of an amazing thing in a sense. And then he prays to the apostles who are most closely associated with him and his work and his life, right? And then he prays for all of us, you know? So that's amazing. Very trusting in Christ for the prayers themselves, but it's much to be learned there. You can keep on pulling more and more and you see more and more in these Gospels, you know? You kind of wonder there, you know? I remember, but the way I kind of remember that you were reading some of the lies of St. Teresa of Avila, not Teresa of Avila, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Teresa of Avila, and so on. You know, you can read what the saints say, you know, but in a way, that St. Teresa of Avila, you know, how she would reuse the Gospels, you know? Is that the Netflix he did? Remember? You read that too? Yeah. Yeah, yes, I remember it, you know? And I kind of come back to that because whatever the other saints are going to say, not that they don't have, you know, they don't help you in some ways because they suddenly expand upon something or something, but it's all there in the Gospel there, you know? And you keep on, and the more carefully you read the Gospels, and especially with Thomas' commentary there, the more you see in that, right? Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's funny because I was in my computer today and I was sending some things to my Brother Richard there and doing some stuff in logic and Brother Richard's going back and forth. And, you know, I got this folder I call current, you know? It gets all kinds of stuff in there and stuff, take a test in there. So this thing says, Exposition, what's that? I don't know what I was in there for it, but I opened it up. It was Thomas' commentary on the 17th chapter. I must have put it in my computer for some reason. Maybe I was lucky if you do be watching them. So I started reading the opinion. I said, Isn't that marvelous, you know, that he prays for himself? And Thomas is saying, right, he's teaching us, you know, all kinds of things about praying, you know? But I never really heard that question ask too much. Who should you pray for? Have you? Huh? I mean, maybe, you touch upon it, obviously, in various ways, you know, but that kind of explicit way, you know? And what does Christ, you know, teach us by his example, you know? Mm-hmm. You know? And it's kind of marvelous the way he does that, huh? That's important, you know? Yeah. And of course, he's explaining, you know, that this is eternal life in there, right? To know you alone, I was mentioning earlier, you know, and whom you have sent, right? And Thomas is saying, well, you spend what life is a little bit, right? And how life is applied to the mind, right? And then, like we're saying, that the understandable, the understanding becomes the what? Understandable, right? Well, what's understood here is God and God's eternal life, right? So that understanding God seeing him as he is, is, well, eternal life. Because the understanding is the understandable, right? You know? It's just, you know, one thing after another, you know, I said, gee, who is, and I read over again, I said, gee, understanding God and understanding. It's like, it's like I never read this before, you know? And you forget it, right? you know, forget how much is in there, right? And how much more is said in the gospel than in any one book, or any many books, you know, of the saints, right? It's amazing. You see, understanding God is like understanding eternal life, is that? Because he is eternal life, right? And the understanding is the one that's understood. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. What Dr. McCarkey was saying, and he said, well, he didn't really know enough to really be able to say this, but his experience, what he thought is, he found he learned more about Christ and who he is, through the letter to St. Paul, than the Gospels. The Church kind of holds up the Gospels principally, but in some sense, I don't know, maybe St. Paul makes it more explicit or something. Could there be a proportion thing? Like, you know, I find a lot of times where I feel I get more out of reading other stuff than Gospel stuff, maybe I get the least out of. But is that maybe because I'm not there spiritually and I need that? Well, you need somebody like the Church Fathers or Thomas, right, to unfold the meaning, right? I know it's like when Thomas goes through the Gospel of St. John there, it seems he's using Augustine and Chrysostom the most, right? Occasionally there's some other Church Father brought in, you know? But it's not like he's using all the Church Fathers explicitly, right? But you usually get what Chrysostom said about this passage and what Augustine says, that's what I remember going through there. Occasionally Hillary and other people come in, you know, but that's what you need, somebody like Thomas. But Thomas, in a way, like Kajetan said there in the Premium to the Summa, he seemed to have inherited, right, the mind of all the Church Fathers because he's so, what, reverenced them. But you see that especially with Chrysostom, when we just had his feast there about a week ago, and kind of impressive, I don't know, Chrysostom, I don't know, you probably have a different calendar, right? Did you ever celebrate Chrysostom, John Chrysostom? It was the 13th, I don't know. I, I don't know, but, yeah, yeah, but he's very impressive, you know, and he's a man in many ways. I don't know how many times in the exile was from, driven out of Constantinople and so on, yeah, but getting back in. But that's what you need, somebody like that, huh? Otherwise, the words kind of roll off you, you know, you don't really see more in them, right? But you go back and you read Thomas' commentary, and he's going to bring the nutshell, and then you get to realize how much you are in those words. You know, Thomas says earlier, when the commentary on Mac, it is that never does one fully unfold the meanings in Christ's words, huh? I've got to talk up at the Tribune School this Friday, see? You know, the old former headmaster calls me up, and he says, they're having a pop-up, except for the parents, right? You don't know what liberal education is, that's the only way to say a few words about liberal education in itself. So, okay, so I've got to do this. So I got thinking about it again, you know. And I was thinking about, you know, I'm going to talk about liberal education and so on, but there's more than one way you can explain why it's called liberal education, right? One way to approach it is to say that it's an education that's for the good of reason, rather than for the good of your body, like medical education, right? Or the good of your house, or the good of your food, like for the CIA, the Communist Institute of America, for the good of your food. You go to mechanic school for the good of your automobile, right? But this is, what's good, what goes this for? It's for the good of reason itself, right? Okay? And you say, well, if man is better than the other animals because of his reason, right? Maybe we shouldn't neglect the good of reason. It's what's best, right? But then you begin to see, this is one reason why we call it liberal education. That a slave is one who, what, works for the good of another. So when Misa's working for the good of the body, or the good of the automobile, the good of your house, it's in a way enslaved, right? To the body, or the house, or the automobile, you know. But when it's pursuing its own good, then it's what? Like a free man, right? Okay? That's the original reason for speaking of liberal education and surva education. It's by an analogy, right, to the free man and the slave. And the slave exists for the good of his master, for the good of another, therefore, right? Not his own good. But the master seems to exist for his own good. So liberal education, then, is an education of reason for the good of reason, as opposed to the surva education, which is an education of reason for the good of the body, or the good of the house, or the good of the car, the good of the food, the good of the, you know, whatever it may be, right? Okay? And then I was saying, you know, and the Church of the Father sees some connection in this, with Christ's conversation with Martha, you know? Right? Martha has chosen the better part, right? And he should not be taken away from her, because Mary has chosen the better part, right? And because Mary has chosen, right, in a sense, the good of her mind, they're listening to Christ, huh? But Martha, because she wants to go to the dinner or something, right? Go to the household, right? And it shall be taken away from her, it's going to be completed in the next world, right? Okay? But then you have to, you know, be aware of what they're thinking and say, you know, of course, now we need more Marthas in this world than Mary's, right? And even the man who has liberal education, he may have, he has to do what? He's forced to often pursue the good of something else, right? But reason is really only free when it's pursuing its own good, huh? But then I got thinking about the words of Christ, huh? Which I've heard often quoted in church and various places. Christ says, you shall know the truth, right? And the truth will make you, what? Free, right? Now, what's the usual explanation given of those words? You're here in church, you know, and people talk to us a lot, too, maybe. You're either free from sin or from error. Yeah, yeah. But a lot of times it seems that you have in mind, you know, free from sin, you're free from your passion, you know, the thing. And I'm thinking of in terms of, and I mean, pardon me the words, I'm not kidding, I'm not but another meaning of the words is that when reason is pursuing truth as its goal, it's pursuing its own good, right? And then it's free. And that, if what's your right, when we know the first truth which God, in a sense, is interested in, right? The first truth which is God himself, right? And a bit of vision, right? Then, reason will be completely free. It won't be enslaved anymore to the body at all, or to the house or the car, or clothing or money or whatever it might be, right? See? And if reason takes any concern about the other things, it won't interfere with its contemplation of God at all, see? So, reason will no longer be, what? Enslaved, but it knows the first truth, right? But insofar as it knows the truth, right? Even this life, it's a kind of anticipation of that, huh? That's why you say Mary has chosen the better part, but she shall not be taken away from her, right? She'll be continued or completed here in the next life, right? That's the kind of meaning of it, you know? That's in Christ's words there, huh? Are you a king? And he says, well... That his self is born in the kingdom of the world. It might give you a testament to the truth, right? That he's a, what? His kingdom is a kingdom of truth, right? That's a good reason, huh? And Aristotle shows in the second book of wisdom that wisdom is a knowledge of truth. And kind of Antonio Messina, you might almost say, right? And it shows that consideration of truth belongs more to looking knowledge than practical knowledge, huh? Because it's the very end of looking knowledge and it's not the end of practical knowledge. And because practical knowledge is often concerned with contingent truths, right? Like I say to them, you know, is France, France is the enemy of England in the Napoleonic Wars, and the French and Indian War, and it's the friend of England, maybe in the First World War and Second World War, right? But there's a kind of contingent truths, right? There's sometimes truth, sometimes not truth. They're important for the practical life, right? But then he goes on to show that the cause is more true than the effect, and therefore the first cause is most true, and as things aren't being, they aren't true, right? So the wisdom being about the first cause is about what is most true. Therefore, consideration of truth belongs, even when looking knowledge to wisdom, most of all. So Christ says, you know, you should know the truth and it should make you free. I mean, yes, one particular meaning of those words, I mean, not the only meaning, is that when reason knows the truth, it's knowing or achieving its own good, and that's what it is to be free, huh? To pursue your own good, rather than the good of another, right? Like the slave does. Interesting, huh? You keep on seeing more meaning, in a sense, in God's words, right? I remember another thing Thomas was saying there. One day I came to the office there, and I didn't have the Greek with me. I was at home, you know, and just had the old Oxford English, you know, and it's got bombarded with the translation in some cases, the way they miss, you know? How much you miss, you know? And it's just a false need, translating, you know? And you realize, you know, how good it was for him, and it's just like it's a Greek, but I think I'm like, I'm twisted, you know? There's no choice. Richard had taught it the same. I was certainly my advisor, and that was it. I told you the story, didn't I? I came down and had my list of courses, and he says, where's your Greek? And I said, my Greek? Yeah, he said, why aren't you taking Greek? And I said, well, I said, well, the other things I'd rather take. He said, that isn't a reason. He said, you know, you need somebody to tell you that stuff, you know, that's not a reason. You're going to study philosophy, you can take Greek. That was it. I said, what did I do? I took Greek. You know, and I was very proficient at it, you know, stumbling through the Greek, but I managed to learn a little bit, right? And then I got tied up with Koval there, who used to do these odd things, and we'd read some texts of Aristotle in Greek, you know, just kind of the way to do it. I got a little familiar to the Greek. But whatever Greek I've known, you know, a bit of marvelous help to me. All kinds of things I couldn't do, you know. You're up to chapter 5 here on page 39 of your text. Aristotle has shown that the understanding is an undergoing ability, right? And that we see some. Because we see the natures of all material things, it has to be lacking in any material nature. And then he went on to show the object that acts upon it, huh? And that could be described as the what it is, right? Of a thing sensed or imagined, huh? So he takes the example there of the what it is of a natural thing, which is sensible, or the what it is of a, what, mathematical thing, which is imaginable. And he saw the distinction there between what it is and the individual, right? Between what water is and the water in front of me here. Or between what a man is and the man in front of me here, right? Okay? Or even what a chair is. And the chair in front of me, right? Okay? And so the object of reason is something also universal, common to many. And so Bwethe says in logic there, in the beginning of logic, that the thing is singular when sensed, but universal when understood. Now in some way, though, the reason does know the singular, not directly, but as the source of its own, what? Thought, huh? From which his thought is taken. But the individuals, huh? Are not actually, what? Understandable. So what makes them to be actually understandable? Well, Plato doesn't have that problem because, for him, the universes exist in the world by themselves, huh? But Aristotle elsewhere says that you can't really have what a man is, right? Exist in the world by itself, huh? Because part of our understanding of what a man is, is it involves, what? Flesh and blood and bones, huh? And if you have flesh and blood and bones outside the mind, you're going to have it, what? Singular, huh? Okay? So, at the beginning of chapter 5, he's going to point out that there's another ability or power, huh? Now, in Latin, huh, they sometimes call these the, what we've talked about so far, the intellectus possibius, huh? But this is the understanding that, what? Undergoes, huh? So, undergoing understanding, huh? What's able, in a way, to become all things, huh? Because it would receive the natures of all the things around us. And then, the intellectus agens, huh? Which people kind of transliterate into the, what? Age and intellect. But we could call it the acting upon understanding. So, Ursaal begins by saying that everywhere you have something that's able to be, right? And does come to be, huh? Is actualized. You need something that is able to become something, and something that makes it actually become that, huh? And it's analogous to, even once you have a material world, where you have matter and the, what? Art, right? And the matter is able to receive all kinds of forms, right? The matter, let's say, if it's wood, is able to become a chair, a table, and a door, right? But there's something else that makes the wood actually to be, what? A table or a door, or something of that sort, right? So, the same thing in regard to the understanding part of the soul. There's something which is able to receive, what it is, right? Of all these things, huh? But that what it is has to be, what? Separated, huh? From the individuals in order to be received. And so there has to be something which is, what? Proportional to the art there, huh? That makes things that are able to be, what? Understood. Actually understandable. So, he begins by saying there, chapter five. So, let's do it. So, let's do it. But since just in every nature, and of course you might, as Thomas does in the commentary, say, in every nature where there's what? Something going from ability to act, right? There's something going from ability to act, and there's something whereby it is what? Made actual. The one, like matter, you could say, in each genus. This is what is in potency, all those things in that genus. Or to use the word I prefer, to use, it's in ability, all these things, right? The other, the cause, the sense of the act of sense, and what brings about by making them all. So there's something proportional to the art, right, which actualizes something, and the matter which is able to, what? Undergo, to receive, to be made actual. So this has also been necessary in the understanding part of the soul, that you have these, what? Differences, right? Something which is able to receive, right? The natures of all things, and something that makes those natures actually understandable. And there is, on the one hand, the sort of mind or understanding, right? I guess I'll use the word, what? Nusa, which is what we usually translate by understanding, huh? Okay? In which all things come to be, huh? Okay? The understanding that is able to become all things, what the Greek actually says, huh? To become all things, huh? Okay? But to receive all things, you can see that too. And on the other hand, another kind of understanding, right? That is able to make all things, he says in the Greek, huh? Okay? It's more active there in the Greek, right? That's the same idea, huh? Okay? Now he translates the next words there, referring now to that second understanding, the acting upon understanding. Like some state, like light, huh? On the Greek, what he uses is the word, what? Hexis, huh? It's a translator here, translated by state, huh? And Thomas says, now some people misunderstand what he means by that, huh? Okay? Hexis is usually translated, say, into Latin as habitus, huh? And therefore, in English, the word habit, right? And some people, he says, understand this as referring to the habit of natural understanding. But even the habit of natural understanding presupposes this acting upon understanding, huh? So he said, that's not how you should understand his use of the word Hexis there, right? You should understand it in the broader sense, huh? The sense, he says, in which Aristotle will distinguish between go back to natural philosophy between matter, right? Or ability in general and the act which is, what? Hat, right? As opposed to the lack of the act or lack of the forma. So in calling it a habitus there are Hexis in Greek. He means that unlike the undergoing understanding whose nature is to be, what? Impotency or inability whose very nature is to be like a blank cavern where nothing is written but able to receive all the natures of these things, right? And like that, it's, what? Like a form like an act and therefore it's said to be, what? Something had a habit, right? In other words, he says we should understand the word Hexis there in Greek there in the sense in the broad sense where having is opposed to what? Not having or lacking something, right? Okay? Because this is as an act or something active in comparison to the undergoing understanding which is as an ability, right? And of course the thing that's able to receive something but hasn't received it yet could be said to lack, right? Okay? And lack is the opposite of habitus, huh? A habit, huh? Okay? And that becomes more clear as he goes on to point out that the acting upon understanding is something actual, right? As opposed to the undergoing understanding which is something in ability or in potency to receive things, huh? And then he makes a second comparison, huh? Which is that this new ability we're talking about this ability in the active sense the acting upon understanding it's something like what? Light is, huh? Okay? Now what way is it like light, huh? For in a way light makes what is potentially color color and act, huh? So if this room was completely dark none of the colors would be, what? Actually visible, would they? But you turn the light on and the colors which are visible in potency and ability become actually what? Visible, right? When the light is turned on, huh? Well as light is to the seeing of the eye, right? So is this acting upon understanding to the seeing or understanding of the undergoing understanding, huh? So that something becomes actually understandable and able to what? Be received in the undergoing understanding because of the what? Activity, right? Of the acting upon understanding, huh? Now that sounds very strange at first, huh? but we are aware of the fact to go back to what we learned long ago I think how sensing comes first in our knowledge, right? And the next step after sensing is memory of what we sensed, huh? And the next step after memory of what we sensed is to gather together many memories of the same sort of thing. And then part of our ability here which is the ability of the acting upon understanding to separate out what is common to those many what? Things of the same sort that have been seen, right? So there's a dog in the yard and my mother says there's a dog going, huh? And then another day there's another dog and see the dog, huh? Right? And so I'm sensing individual dogs and I'm starting to remember maybe the dog I saw yesterday and maybe the dog I see today, right? And gradually I'm gathering an experience of dogs which is nothing other than a collection of many memories of the same sort of thing in this case the dog. And but everything up to this point is a singular, right? Sensing, memory even experience is a collection of singulars. But it's what a dog is the universal that is actually what? Understandable and able to be received in the undergoing understanding. And so I need an ability or power which they call the agent select or I'm calling it the acting upon understanding that will separate right? Something universal from the what? Images of all these singulars. and that is then received in the undergoing understanding. So actually our actually understanding is a result of the activity of what? Both of these abilities or what? Powers. Okay? So notice just as we carry the word what? To see which first names the act of the eye and then we carry that word to see over to the what? Act of the imagination and then finally we carry it over to the act of what? Understanding right? So likewise this word light has been carried over from what makes something potentially visible actually visible right? Over to this what? Act upon understanding which makes something potentially understandable right? Understandable in ability actually understandable by being separated from the individuating matter that you have in the senses or the what? Imagination huh? Okay?