De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 49: The Acting Upon Understanding and Immateriality

Transcript
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So, that first paragraph is concerned then with seeing that in the understanding part of the soul, there are these two different, what, abilities or powers, right? And one is an ability to undergo, to receive, the natures of all material things, but in this universal way, right? And the other is the ability to separate that universal nature from the singulars that are found in the, what, senses or in the imagination, huh? Okay. Now, in the second paragraph, 337, he's going to say some things about the nature of this new power now that we're talking about, huh? And he's going to say, what, four things about it, huh? And this mind, this understanding, huh? Meaning the, what, the acting upon understanding, it's separable, right? It's something separated from matter, right? You could have translated that separated. The Greek word is koristas, right? So, he's saying it's separated and it doesn't, what? It's apathes, right? In the first sense of the word passion, right? But maybe in other senses, too. It doesn't, what? Yeah, yeah. Okay. And it's not mixed with matter, huh? But then, because it's active, its substance is, what, act rather than, what, this passive potency or ability that is the undergoing understanding, huh? Well, they're very close, right? And if you recall back in the previous reading there, he said that the, what, the mind is not a body. That's more direct. And it's not mixed with matter, right? Okay. Yeah. So, it's a little bit, I was just lecturing the other day there on that fragment, DK12, of Anaxagoras, huh? And he says that the mind is unlimited, right? And it's self-ruling. And it's mixed with nothing, right? And then he gives a reason why it's mixed with nothing. And then he goes on, he says the thinnest of all things. And then he says it's the purest of all things, huh? Now, same to students. I used to think that when he said purest, he was just saying the same thing he had said before. That's another way of saying, you know, unmixed, right? But on second thought, maybe before he was saying that the mind is not mixed with other things, right? But when he says it's the purest of things, he means that it is not a mixture of things itself, okay? That's one thing to say that something is a mixture of things, right? It's composed of a number of things mixed together, right? But whether it is or is not, it's another thing to say that the whole of that thing, right, is or is not mixed with what? Other things, right? Okay? So, what do they have in college there? They have a dance called a mixer? Okay? So, you're mixing with other people, right? See? Okay? But you yourself are also what? A mixture of flesh and blood and bones and all these things, right? Okay? See? So, it's one thing to say that, what? I don't mix with other people. I stay by myself, right? And another thing to say that I'm not myself a mixture of different things, right? Two different things to point out, isn't it? See? And, you see, he says, he gives us before as the reason why it's not mixed with other things, that if it were, it couldn't rule them, right? Okay? And so, I try to, you know, explain Anxagos' reason by saying the first thing we demand of a judge is that he'd be impartial, right? Which means he's not a part of those between whom he's deciding or judging, right? So, if I have an interest in your company or something like that and you two guys are got a financial squabble, I shouldn't be the judge because if I decide in your favor, one of your favor is going to benefit me, right? If I decide for you, it wouldn't benefit me, right? It might harm me financially, let's say. So, I shouldn't be judging between the two of you, right? But then, after he says that the mind is the thinnest of all things, that's really a reason to say it's the purest of all things. Because if it were a mixture of different things, those things would be thinner than it. And it, therefore, would not be the thinnest of all things, right? Okay? So, maybe, though in the verse Horry here, of course, he's saying something like those two things, right? It's not a body, right? It's not in some way mixed up with the body, right? Because neither case would be prevented, right? In the case of the undergoing understanding from what? Understanding all things, huh? Okay? Now, he's going to give one reason for those first three things, and in a way for the fourth thing he says about it. That it's act. For, I don't like the way he translates that. You could translate that in a way, but I think it's more of the one making, the maker, right? For the maker is always more honorable than the one undergoing, right? And the principal, in the sense of the active principal, than the, what? Matter, right? Okay? So, the teacher is more honorable than the student, right? And the Michelangelo is more honorable than the, what? Marble, right? But in general, we'd say that the maker is, what? More honorable than the, what? Matter, right? And so, if the undergoing understanding is not a body, and doesn't undergo in the way matter does, right? And it's not mixed with matter, then even more so with the acting upon understanding, huh? But because it's acting upon, it itself has to be as an act, rather than as a, what? Like matter, or like potency or ability, huh? Okay? And notice, that's an analogy, right? He's saying that the acting upon understanding is to the undergoing understanding, a bit like art is to, what? Matter, right? Art is something actual, right? In fact, the form that the artist is going to induce in matter already has an action in his head, right? But that form exists in the matter only in potency or in ability. That's not until the art acts upon the matter, right? That's actual. Now, that's not altogether identical, that proportion, but, because the acting upon understanding is really acting upon the, what? Images, huh? And separating out, right? What is common from the singular, huh? And in that sense, it's acting upon the, what? Undergoing understanding, right? So, Thomas raises the question, how can the soul be both in potency to something and in, what? Act with respect and saying the thing, huh? And he says, well, the undergoing understanding is in potency to any determined material nature. Thank you. And those determined material natures are in the what? What we sense or imagine. An approximate sense in the images, huh? But the images, although they have these different natures in them, they're not actually, what? Understandable yet. But the acting upon understanding is actually immaterial. And so it makes them immaterial so they can be received in the undergoing understanding. So it's not an ability and potency in the same, what? Where the determined natures of the, what? Different things that they have images of, those determined natures are not in the acting upon understanding. If that were so, we wouldn't need the images at all to learn. We'd have to come to know what a dog is through sensation, memory, and experience a dog, huh? But it's a matter of experience. Then come to a knowledge of what a dog is through sensation, memory, and find the experience on. So the determined natures there are in these things, but those determined natures are tied up with the individual things, and therefore not actually understandable yet. Not actually immaterial. So the acting upon understanding makes these things, what? Actually universal, and therefore actually understandable. Understandable. This is the key to understanding eventually the angels and God. The fact that something becomes understandable when it's separated from what? Matter, right? And that's a sign for us that if something was by its very nature immaterial, it would be actually, what? Understandable. And that's why God and the angels naturally understand primarily themselves. Because they're actually understandable. They're actually immaterial substances, huh? But these material substances are not actually, what? Understandable. They're understandable only in ability or in potency. So there's some truth in what Immanuel Kant said, that the things in themselves, meaning material things, are not knowable, right? They're not knowable in act. They're not understandable, that is to say, in act, right? But they're understandable in ability. So in a way, from one middle term, he says that if the undergoing understanding is immaterial, and it's not acted upon the way matter is acted upon, and it's not mixed with matter, then the active principle, right? The maker, as it were, but it's analogous to art, is going to be of this sort even more so. The tradition is going to be in its very substance or nature as an act or as a form, as a hobby to us, right? Rather than as a potency for form, an ability to receive form. It seems it's, it comes to shame, the act that it has is its immateriality, and because it's actually immaterial, it can make other things material. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it doesn't contain the determinant, the definite natures of these things, right? Material things. Those definite natures are found and represented in a way in the images, okay? And so, there's something actual in the images, right? That is not in the understanding part to begin with, until he sees them, right? So in that sense, it's not in the act with respect to the images, but in potency, right? But there's something that the understanding part has, and especially the acting upon understanding, that the images don't have, and that's to be actually immaterial, right? And so the acting upon understanding makes the image to be actually understandable, and that does so by separating the natures of these things from the individuation to the images. And then, the act, undergoing understanding, can receive that, right? So, when, when, uh, St. John says, and this was the light there in the first chapter, this is the light that lightens every man that comes into this world, right? He's talking about how the light of our mind, of our understanding, is derived from this other light, huh? Okay? This is the light which lightens every man comes into this world. But, it seems in those words of St. John, he's not talking so much about the light of, what, faith, right? Although that comes from the same light, right? When he says, and this is the light which enlightens every man that comes into this world. Was every man that comes into this world enlightened by the light of faith? See? Okay? Now, those who are, who are enlightened by the light of faith, they're enlightened by this light, right? But, there must be some other light, for by everyone who comes into this world, right? Is enlightened, huh? That is what? The light that our self tells here. The act of what? The act of one understandly, huh? In other words, he says, this is like a what? A hobby to us, a having, right? And it's like what? Light, huh? Okay? So, this refers then to what we sometimes call, I guess in the text, the natural light of reason, huh? What is the natural light of reason, huh? This inborn light, huh? Well, it's really the acting upon, what? Understanding. Sometimes Thomas kind of appropriates those two things we saw in knowing, grasping and judging, right? He appropriates grasping to the, what? Images in which are the, what? Determined natures of things that you can grasp, right? But he attributes judging, which is the perfection of knowing, to the natural light, light of reason, huh? And there's some things we can judge, right? By the natural light of reason, huh? That a whole is more than a part, right? That something cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same way, right? There's some things we can judge by the natural light of reason. And some of these things immediately and others we have to, what? Reason out from the things we actually understand, huh? But then there's some things like the Trinity, let's say, and the incarnation, right? Which you're not able to judge by the natural light of reason, And therefore we need some additional light, huh? And the light of faith is necessary to judge, you know? Are there three persons in God? Yes or no? The natural light of reason, we can't judge between those two, right? There are three persons in God, there are not three persons in God, which is true, you know, which is false. Judgment is what? The separation, right? The two from the false there. But there are some separations that we can't make for the natural light of reason and require the light of faith, huh? I was looking at the beginning of Thomas's commentary there on Isaiah with the prophet, I don't get the impression from what he says or what Jerome says because he's following Jerome there, but that Isaiah says the greatest of the prophets, I don't know. But he's suddenly putting them very high, but he's talking about how this word vision is used in talking about the prophets and how we carry words over from the sense of what? Sight, huh? And so, we carry that word vision over and we will speak maybe of a prophetic light, huh? That the prophet has, huh? But that's something other than the, what? The light of faith or the natural light of reason, huh? But you have that same carrying over the word vision and the word, what? Light, huh? It makes an interesting comparison there too because he says that there are three visions that can take place in the prophet. And one is he can see something with his ordinary eyes. Or he can see something in his imagination, right? But the main thing is to see something with his, what? Reason, right? And he just had the imaginary vision, like the, what, the pharaoh has, but doesn't understand what it's all about. You know, the vision has to be interpreted by the prophet, right? But the man who has the intellectual vision, he has the full power of prophecy. You know, if Nebuchadnezzar somebody sees something, he puts it on the wall, right? This is a supernatural vision, I mean, it's not natural vision, right? But through his own eyes, right? But what does this mean, maybe, you know? Well, it didn't interrupt the marriage, I'm sure. Maybe it has to be fully understood, huh? So he says the man who has the intellectual vision, in addition to these other imaginary or even sight, he has, what, the full power of prophecy, right? Just like he says the soul, right, huh? In the human soul, you have the full power of the soul. In the animal soul, you have only some of that power. And in the plant soul, even less, right? So he makes that comparison, right, between the two. But I recall it here primarily because he uses the word vision, right, when talking about the prophet, huh? He's the one who sees things that are far off. Pokhile, Pokhile, he says, huh? Things that are far off. Is that the undergoing understanding is itself actually immaterial? So is that, is the immateriality of the undergoing understanding the acting upon understanding? No, no, no, no, no. But it's, it's very nature of yourself, the very nature of the undergoing understanding is to be in what? Potency, right? Potency in the sense of, able to undergo, right? Able to receive, right? So it's like, very much like, in the order of the understandable, like the first matter is that we talked about in the beginning of the first book of the actual hearing, right? Like matter is in a sensible order. And the acting upon understanding is like an agent that you have in an actual world, right? It takes art as being more obvious to us. And that acts upon the matter, right? It makes the matter, we see it's in form, right? So this is, has the ability to receive, the ability to undergo, and this is the ability to act upon, right? Okay? But in the order of the understandable. But that's why our understanding here is the lowest place to ball. And by the understandings above us, they're by nature somewhat actual, right? And the higher you go, the more actually they are by nature. But the divine understanding is by nature, what? Completely actual. He's pure act, right? The angelic understanding is like a combination of matter and form, right? The divine understanding is like pure form. But our understanding is like pure matter. It's in, what? Potency, in ability, in the whole order of the, what? Understandable. So that's a very important proportion there to help us understand these, right? But the more basic, you know, proportion is that the acting upon understanding is to undergo an understanding. Something like art or the agent is to what? Matter, right? Okay? But the one in the sensible order and the other in the order of the understandable. Except it seems that the proportion really isn't exact because as you were saying, it's not the acting upon understanding acting upon the undergoing understanding. Yeah, but you would say that the images are in a way like a, what, tool of the act of understanding, right? So by acting upon the, what, images and separating out, right, the universal natures of these things, that it in a way acts upon the undergoing understanding. Okay? As opposed to the art, let's say, where the artist has, the man's going to make a chair, he has the form already in an intelligible way in his art, right? You know, he has a, in an understandable way, the form of the chair he's going to put into the chair, right, or into the wood. Okay? Now, if the act of understanding had already the determinant natures of these things, right, then you wouldn't have to have images at all in order to acquire your knowledge. But then there'd be no reason for our soul to be joined to the body. You see? But because our soul is naturally ordered to something that's only, what, potentially understandable, right, it's naturally joined to a body so it can receive these things. So the kind of cooperation there between the images and the, what, act of understanding. And as he'll point out when he goes on there in the next chapter, this is why, not the next chapter, the chapter after that, when he compares this with the senses, you'll see later on the reason why we don't understand without, at the same time, imagining. And this is what kind of confuses people as to what? As to the immateriality of the understanding. Okay? But let's say that until we get to that point. He's going to hint at it at the end of this reading here, right? I still don't see why the undergoing understanding is actually immaterial. Yeah, but in the order, yeah, that's true, but in the order of the understandable is something only in, what, potency, huh? So it's... It's a bit like saying that matter is, what, is in the sensible order, yeah, in a way, yeah. But it's like potency there, right, in the sensible order. The undergoing understanding is like that. That's why it's proper object is that what it is is something material. It doesn't actually understand what an angel is or what God is. It understands them more by, you know, analogy and by negation, in relation to these material things, huh? But it is actually a certain immaterial nature. Yeah, you can say that, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So kind of... That's why he's reasoning there, see? That's why he's reasoning, because he says, in this mind, referring now to the active understanding, is separate from and pass on next, you see? And the reason he gives for the making, the maker, you could say it better, I think, is always more honorable than the, what? The one undergoing and the principle meaning the active mover, Than the, what? Matter, right? Okay. Okay. So, in a sense, he's already shown in the previous readings that the undergoing understanding is immaterial, right? Okay. But it's immaterial, but nevertheless, what? Impotency to receiving its object, right? But a fortiori, the power that makes its object actual, right, is going to be something immaterial. And in addition, it says in the fourth thing, and it's going to be as act, right? As exes. Right. As exes. As exes. So let me guess, why can't there just be one understanding, which insofar as it's immaterial nature, it's able to separate things, but it doesn't have any... Yeah, but even if it's immaterial nature, it's nature is to be like a tablet, right? That's in potency or an ability to what? It's object, huh? Just as the senses were, right? In the case of the senses, you don't really need an active sense because they're being acted upon by the material things around them, okay? Now, if the understanding of reason, as we usually call it, but the undergoing understanding may have to be more precise, now we have to introduce that, right, by speaking, the early Greeks, you know, they spoke as if it was acted upon by the sensible things too. And therefore, they didn't really distinguish between the senses, huh? They're both kind of a material body, right? But, as you study the senses, which are undergoing too, right, you realize that the senses have to be, what, free of their particular object, right, in order to, what, receive it, huh? So that my tongue can't be salty or sugary or sweet or bitter or oily, right? If I want to taste all those things, right? And the same way my eye has to be free of color, right, huh? The liquid there, to receive all these colors, huh? And then he argues, well then, the undergoing understanding, since it receives the natures of all material things, huh? It must be lacking all those natures, huh? But its nature is to be able to receive them, okay? Therefore, at least in the order of the understandable, it says potency is ability. And therefore, it's proportional to, what, to matter, huh? Matter is in the sensible world, so this is in the understandable world. So, it says mere, what, ability or potency, of a different kind of potency, obviously, in this one here. And therefore, it can't bring itself to have, right, what it doesn't have, right? The old saying is what, nothing, what, gives what it does not have, right? So it can't give itself all these natures of material things it doesn't have, any more than the eye can give itself the colors of, what, the things around it, but it has to receive them from something else. Because its nature is to be able to receive these. But then there has to be something that is able, that is, if there's that ability there, which is going to be actualized, huh, and the thing can't actualize itself, then there has to be something which is analogous to the art or the agent in the natural world, that makes something actually, right, visible. Now, in Plato's understanding, since he had a world of forms, these forms could be to the undergoing understanding, like the exterior sensible is to the, what, sensism, okay, and they can be acted upon directly. Once Aristotle saw that, that didn't really make sense to say that what a man is, exists in separation from, from men, and from matter, and from our mind, and the world by itself, huh, then you realize that what a man is, is separated from this man, and that man, and the next man, only, what, in the understanding part of the soul. And that's why he said, you know, it's not bad for those who say that the, what, soul is the place of forms, right, rather than the world by themselves, right, that the soul is the place of the universals. That's what the universals are, right? But those universal forms that are received in the undergoing understanding, it can't give itself those, right, nor can the images give it to them, right, because though the images contain, in some way, these determined natures of material things, they're not actually, like, understandable until what it is has been separated from the material conditions. And so that's why we need this other power here. Aristotle was forced, in a sense, by the truth itself, huh, to there being another power there, once he saw that Plato was mistaken in having this world of forms, huh? You see, if you read the Republic of Plato, he kind of compares the soul there to a man turning around, right? And the soul is looking towards material things, right? But it can't really know those things, because they're material and always changing. And then you start to turn the soul around, huh? And now the soul is looking at the, what, mathematical world, huh? And there you're starting to get something more, less material, right? And then finally, you turn the soul all the way around, and now it's at the world of forms. Okay? Now, that's not the natural way for our soul to know, so far as it can know, naturally, these immaterial things, huh? So Aristotle said, you have to go through the sensible things, huh, to the immaterial world. You have to reason from the material things to the immaterial things. And whatever we know about those immaterial things is by going through the sensible things that we've come to know. We can't know them very well, right? But we know that they are, and something by likeness about them, and primarily though by some negation, right? You know, their immateriality. Like Plato was saying, like, we can kind of, you know, turn away from those things and go directly, right? Now, there might be some kind of supernatural knowledge of that sort, right? And one example of that is St. Paul in the Epistle of the Corinthians, right? He said, no man, you know, he's caught up to the third heaven, right? Whether in the body or not, he doesn't know, right? But notice, he was what? Drawn up, supernaturally, right? And Dustin and Thomas say that he actually saw God face-to-face, but in a kind of transitory way, okay? He's carried up to the third heaven, right? Okay? But that's not a natural knowledge of the higher things, huh? So Plato, in a sense, you could say he's mistaken, right, as to what reason can actually do, right? It can't, as it were, abandon the sensible things and naturally come to know the immaterial things, huh? It would have to, like St. John the Cross or something, the dark night of the soul, right, huh? You know, mortify yourself, right, huh? And so far as possible, right, withdraw from your attachment to the material world, huh? Okay? Like some of these saints, they put ashes in their food and so on, right? Taking no pleasure in their food, right? Okay? But then you'd have to be pulled up by God, right? To see something, right? You see? And this would be, hey, what? Not through the natural light of reason anymore. So, there's a certain attraction in the way Plato speaks for the Christian author, right? Because he sees something resembling, right? What St. Paul and Gawent and so on. But there's a certain danger in that, right? Because Plato was speaking as if, you know, the soul can gradually turn itself around, as if by itself it could come to know the immaterial things directly, even in this life, right? Which is impossible for naturally to do that, right? So, there could be a kind of a, what, temptation to pride there, too, huh? In the plaitiness, huh? In the plaitiness, huh? In the plaitiness, huh? In the plaitiness, huh? In the plaitiness, huh? But nevertheless, there's a certain likeness, right? That what we say could happen to the soul by some kind of supernatural action, right? You hear it out, huh? But you know, you write about these things there, you know, they're physically, they open it off the ground, right? And that's a very outward sign of something more than natural taking place within, right? But they're being separated from this world, right? Withdrawn from their senses, huh? But that's not the natural way for reason to know, at least when the soul is in the body, right? It naturally turns to images, huh? That's interesting. Thomas talks about that, too. They quote Starnatius, huh? I think it's when he's discussing Jerome's prologue to Isaiah, right? And how Isaiah excels the other prophets in a number of ways, huh? You know? But one way is by his sensible images that he projects, huh? You know? And then he quotes Starnatius about the importance of these sensible, what, images, huh? I mean, even our Lord uses the parables. He's using, what, sensible images to teach something, huh? That's only one excellence of Isaiah's, right? He's also so clear in his prophecies, you know, that some of the Church Fathers say he's like a fifth gospel sometimes. You see some of the passages I've quoted, you know, about the passion and so on and so on. So there's always, they might sell many of the other prophets, too, right? I was referring to this one way, where he's, what, using these sensible images, how necessary that is. Thomas quotes Dionysius to that effect. Yeah. It's also perhaps important to distinguish the turning your mind away from sensible things or turning your will from attachment. Yeah, yeah. It's something. Yeah. But it is possible for God supernaturally to illumine the soul, right? Not through images, huh? Even the work like, you know, the Apocalypse there, you know, I mean, they're quite a sense of images, right? It was in chapter 6 there of Isaiah, you know, where he sees the Lord sitting, right? Okay. Now, what's he doing in 338? Well, this is really a third thing now, huh? Before chapter 5, he talked about the undergoing understanding, which, before we know about that, well, we might just call the understanding a reason, right? But then, in the first two parts here, there's two numbered parts there, he's talking about, there's got to be this other kind of understanding, right? This act of power, the acting upon understanding. And then he spoke about the nature that it was, right? It's immaterial, and it's substances act, and so on, right? Now, in the next paragraph here, I think two paragraphs, really, the next one primarily, he's talking about the two together, right? And about that part of the soul, therefore, whereby we actually understand it. And that involves, what? Both of these, huh? He's going to say some interesting things about this, huh? The first thing he says is that signs in act, right, is the same as the thing. However, according to potency, it is before in time, in the mind that goes from, what? Ability to act, right? But then he says very subtly, universally is not before in time. Now, this is something that Aristotle, in a very universal way, illuminates, right? In the ninth book of wisdom. The ninth book of wisdom is a universal consideration of ability and action. Taking ability here now in the passive sense, right? Okay? And in the ninth book of wisdom, it has really basically three parts, huh? And the first part is mainly just about ability. And the second part is about, what? Act, right? And the third part is about the order of ability in act. Okay? And there, Aristotle will point out how act is before ability in definition, huh? How act is before ability in goodness, huh? How it's better and so on. But then, when he comes to talk about in time, he says, well, in some way, ability is before act in time. But simply speaking, act is before any ability. Now, what does that mean? Well, see, because I want to explain, huh? In the thing that goes from ability to act, ability comes before act in time. Okay? Okay? Okay? And so, in the senses, for example, and in our reason, right, they are able to know before they actually know them. And that sense of ability is before act in time. He's saying that in particular here, right? Man is able to understand in time before he actually understands. Every student knows that, right? You're able to understand before you actually understand in time. And sometimes, you know, even if it's a long time, you don't get to the second one, right? There's no problem with all seeing that. But then he goes on to point out, huh? How does something go from ability to act? Well, it goes from ability to act by reason of something already in act. Because what is only an ability doesn't have the act yet, right? So it can't give itself the act it doesn't have. So there must be something before it already in act. And if that was from ability to act, there had to be something before it. So in the beginning, you have something that is in act without ever going from ability to act. And that's true in the order of being, and it's true in the order of knowing, right? There's something he's hinting that actually knows and understands without ever having been, what? In ability to understand before. And that's, of course, ultimately the divine mind. So he always has in mind what the ultimate goal of all philosophy is, right? And even if you read Aristotle in the biology books there, when he's, you know, doing anatomy, right? And seeing the order within, what? The parts of an animal or plant and these kind of things. But he has in mind, you know, that one wants to see the order that there is in the parts of animals in order to admire the mind that, what? Design that, what? Order that we find in animals, huh? So he has in mind, right? The divine mind, huh? That's the end of the goal, huh? To know the divine. My old teacher, Kusurik, used to have a nice little passage from Albert the Great, you know, where he said that if you study anything, right, for any other reason other than know God, unless he says you'd be forth to it by some necessity, right? You have a perverse attitude, he says, towards knowing. So everything else we study, we study for the sake of wisdom, right? And wisdom is ultimately a knowledge of what? Of God, huh? So I'm always quoting that little passage of Thomas where he says, I studied the body so I can study the soul. It's a better thing than the body, right? And I study the soul so I can study the angels. And I studied the angels so I can study God. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. Like what Bernard Clairvaux says, you know, there's no love of God. He says, the reason why God should be loved is God. That's the reason why God should be loved. Nothing else. So it's beautiful, huh? What are you seeing here? First he says that science and act, which is a result of the activity of both of those powers, right? It's the same as the thing, right? It's not the same as what? Well, yeah, I receive the natures of these things, right? So I have the natures of these things. So in some sense I become all things, right? But in a spiritual way, not in a material way, right? But that's what's marvelous about this, huh? Is that material things have only their own nature, right? But I have the nature of dog and cat and horse and so on. Because I, what, can receive all these natures in my understanding, huh? And that's why later on, you know, we anticipate a bit, but later on when he gets through with consideration of this part of the soul, he's going to say, the soul is in some way all things, right? Because the senses, in a way, are all sensible things, right? So the eye, in a way, is all colors. Of course, automatic can only receive one color, and if it's going to receive another color, it's got to lose the one it has, right? But the senses can receive all the qualities of that other object, right? The other object. So the eye, in a sense, is all colors. And the tongue is all tastes, right? Flavors. And the ear is all sounds, huh? So my ear is all Mozart, right? In some way. I can't be all Mozart at once, though, right? I've got to keep on playing one there. They were playing the 102.5 there. They were playing the 16th Sonata there, you know? The one B-flat there, Kershaw, 570. So I'm just, when I was driving up there. Really, really beautiful. Do you know that sonnet? Actually, when my daughter was at the Trivium School, and, of course, she's taking piano all these years and so on. And so they always have a little recital there, you know? Parents come, and the kid plays a little piece. And now, well, I said, she's going to play the second movement of that B-flat thing. So the music teacher says, and now he says, you know, Mr. Berkowitz always has a Mozart piece for us to hear. So, it's really beautiful at that second. You know, it starts out, I can't, I won't even try to humor, but, you know, it starts out with this very, very beautiful melody, right? And it goes through it once or twice. And then all of a sudden, it comes out, underneath it, another melody, right? You realize how profound this whole, what, mood it is that he's got there, right? And then finally it goes back to the original one, say. So there's a melody, say, this is a very interesting melody. But underneath it, there's all this other painting, you know? And it's just, it's beautiful, beautiful the way he does that. There's Nick Sloas' last piano sonata he wrote. So in a way, you know, all these sounds of Mozart, right? And Palestrina and the rest of it, right? You know? My eyes are in a way all these, you know, get this beautiful fall footage, right? So all these colors, right? And all these paintings in the museum, right? You see? You know how people sometimes, you know, if they're in a place where they're, you go to a museum many times, you know, and they go and look at these paintings, I don't know, and they go home at night and they get all these paintings in there. But now as a freshman in college, the English professor, his son was over in Spain and he was going to the, what's it, Prado, I guess, in Madrid there? The famous thing. And he was writing his father, you know, letters about these paintings, you know, these big paintings in this particular museum, right? Back to a while, they become a part of you, right? All these beautiful paintings you've seen, you know? And even more so by the reason, right? Because the reason, in a sense, becomes the natures of all things. So. So science in act, then, is the same as the thing. However, according to potency, it is before in time, in one, and there he's referring to our mind, right? Because our mind is, what? Like the senses it's able to know before it actually knows, right? Yet universally, it is not prior in time, huh? He's hinting at the fact that there's some understanding, right? There's some mind that actually understands without ever being, what? In the state of being able to understand before it actually understands. And the angels are, to some extent, like that, too, huh? The angels are created actually understanding themselves and many other things, right? But maybe not actually understanding everything. Like God, by nature, actually understands everything. So. And, of course, the light of our mind, in a way, is derived from what? The light, the light who enlightens every man who comes into this world, right? And when we pray before we study here and ask to have the light of our mind strengthened by the light of our own angel, right? You know? We're seeing, in a sense, a sort of priority, right? The light of the divine mind and even the light of the angels is prior, right? In time, you might say, if you could say God is in time, right? It's prior in existence to our mind, right? But in our mind, we're able to understand before we actually understand, huh? So that's why learning is good, right? Your mind is going from ability to act, huh? And then, that's what he means here, huh? He means that when the mind is, what? Been actualized, then it's not sometimes understanding, sometimes not understanding. That could be misunderstood. Some people thought he was referring to the divine mind there, right? But Thomas is saying he's talking about the mind and act now, right? So he's opposed to the mind and potency. So the mind and act, as such, is always understanding. And then, the last thing he says about it is in 339. When separated, this alone truly is. This alone can what? This alone is what? Separable from matter, right? And this alone is immortal and, what? Eternal, right, huh? Okay. So it's this whole part of the soul that involves the, what? Undergoing understanding and the acting upon understanding. This whole part is the part of the soul that is, what? The kind of soul, right? That can exist in separation from matter. Incidentally, there's a third power in the same part of the soul, which he's going to be touching upon in the next section of the Dianima, after he gets through with these senses and reason. And that's the will, right? Okay. It's interesting, you know, someone was telling me about, you know, these scientists, one scientist who did a lot of work on the brain, you know, and trying to locate the reaches of the brain. And what they do is, you know, stimulate different parts of the person's brain. Oh, yeah, I'm remembering something now. Or I'm smelling, you know, I'm tasting licorice now or something, you know. Or, and, but, but kind of, you know, we've got no control over this, right? You've just got to start, you know, oh, I'm tasting licorice, chocolate now or something, right? Or, I'm hearing Mozart now or something, right? But they couldn't find any part of the brain where the man experienced choosing something. And so, reflecting upon it, this scientist said, well, there's no part of the brain whereby we choose, right? So, I mean, that was kind of a, what, kind of experimental, right? Signed that the will is something, what, immaterial, right? That the ability to choose, like the ability to understand, is, what, immaterial. And that's why, you know, in God and the angels, you can have, what, will and understanding, a little more actual than ours, but you can't have senses, right? Okay. So, now, what's this last little part for? Well, this is hinting now to something that I mentioned already, but it will be brought out later on. In the, um, chapter seven here, huh? I won't get that far today. Um, but he's hinting at the fact that, um, there's another part of man. 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thomas sometimes calls or gustin calls the cogitative power right okay and he hints that and without this it understands nothing huh as i say this will get people confused about the understanding because first i was going to go on to show in that later chapter so long as the soul is in the body right it doesn't understand without an image okay right and the image is in the brain in some place some part of the body in the brain probably okay and that's why as i say to the students sometimes this question comes up um like i mentioned how i had one time a student you know was convinced that the brain is the organ of thought right and so i was stating his objection a little bit better than he could state it i say well you mean like a you know a blow in the eye interferes with the seeing right therefore the eye is the organ of sight and they blow on the brain interferes with thinking therefore the brain is the organ of thought yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and i say alcohol going to the brain interferes with thinking right yeah yeah yeah yeah okay so the brain must be the organ of thought thought right okay um i think i told you this before but you know let's say it again here i said okay in fact it was kind of definitive right okay i said well now um suppose you and i were in a room that had no windows and so on and the only source of light was a light bulb here in the center of the room and i can see you and you can see me right but now if i think i was a light bulb here in the center of the room and i can see you and you can see me right but now if i think i was a light bulb here in the center of the room and i can see you and you can see me right but now if i think i was a light bulb here in the center of the room and i can see you and you can see me right but now if i think i was a light bulb here in the center of the room and i can see you and you can see me right if i hit the light bulb hit the light bulb smashing it we'll no longer be able to see each other right okay therefore the light bulb must be the organ of what yeah he knows that's not true right okay so um we're taking an example here i can see you now but if you get leave this room and go out somewhere else that's going to interfere with my seeing you right now if we blow you up that's going to interfere with my seeing you right therefore you are the organ of the organ of my sight are you no now um what you see here is that there's two ways to interfere with seeing one is to interfere with the organ of sight like poking the eye and maybe cutting the optic nerve or something right uh the other way is to interfere with the object and you're leaving the room interferes with my seeing you just as much as a blow in my eye refers to my seeing you right but the one is because you're interfering with the organ the other with the object in some way right now blow in the light bulb in that example i gave is interfering with what seeing on the side of the organ or on the side of the object object yeah not interfering with the organ is it okay so when you say that a blow in the brain interferes with thinking or alcohol going into the brain interferes with thinking thinking that's a true statement but that's a true statement but that doesn't show whether the brain is related to thinking as organ or on the side of the object in other words you're going to be syllogizing incorrectly there so if by a separate argument you can show that reason is not a body right because it receives in an immaterial way and so on right then you're forced to say that a blow on the brain or alcohol going into the brain or drugs going into the brain or something of this sort right or a lesion in the brain is interfering with thinking on the side of the object the object right okay now what's the connection between the image and the object of reason right well the object of reason is that what it is something sensed or imagined huh just as the object of my eye is the color of something outside of man or the object of my sense of taste is the flavor of something outside me right so i can't see the color of something outside of me if you remove that object right because the object of my eye is the color of something outside of me okay does that mean that seeing is taking place in that object outside of me and not inside my eye or inside my brain no well just as the object of the eye is the color of the exterior thing so the object of reason is what it is of something imagined right so the images are to reason like the reason like the reason like the exterior object is to the what yeah in a way right so we don't think about what a triangle is without imagining a triangle right because we're understanding now not a form existing in a world of form by itself that's uh it's very nature is to be out there by itself right what you're understanding is that what it is of this thing sensed or imagined so you don't think about the what it is of this thing sensed or imagined imagining such a thing 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