De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 72: The Union of Soul and Body: Form and Matter

Transcript
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Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, help us to understand how it's your birth to you. Amen. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. This is a long article. If you want to get through one article today, I don't know. We have some time left, or I'll show you that little passage there from the Pope on St. Tussauds of Avila. It's not exactly the way I quoted it, but I think I can defend that. If I resonate from the text. Okay. Okay, question 76, about the union of the soul to the body. And about this, he says, there are eight things that are asked. First, whether the intellectual principle, right, the intellectual beginning is united to the body as a, what, form, right? Second, whether the understanding beginning is multiplied in number according to the multiplicity of bodies, whether there is one understanding of all men. This is something that the Arab philosophers, now, there was made famous, right? And so, Thomas is always correcting that, yeah. And that's what he wrote, that work called, you know, De Unitat in Delectus, Contra Verwistas, right? On the unity of the intellect. But De Verwes' interpretation and thinking was very popular in his time, so that's why he has such a prominence. Whether in the body of which the understanding beginning is a form, whether in the body there is some other soul, right, huh? Like Plato spoke as if that were, you know, a plant soul in there, maybe an animal soul, a human soul, right? And Bethlehem comes into the heresies, too, you know. You know, they'll say that Christ has, what, placed the human soul, he's got the word, but then he's got animal soul for his body. It's a horrible combination, but all kinds of things. But those don't come up here, they come up in the third part here when he talks about that. Now, the fourth article is like the third, whether in it there is some other substantial form, as if there's a substantial form for the body other than the soul itself. The fifth thing that's asked, whether there ought to be, or what sort ought to be the body, right, of which the understanding beginning is the form. And whether, sixth article, whether it is joined to such a body by some other body as a middle, huh? That's what Descartes has position, right? The pineal gland up here, somewhere in the brain there, is where the mind, you know, is joined to the body. Yeah. Whether it is joined to the body by reason of some, what, accident, huh? And then the last article, which is a very interesting thing here, whether the whole soul is in each part of the body, huh? Or is it part of the soul in one part of the body, another part, another part of the body? Well, if you imagine the soul to be that kind of a air-like substance, right, huh? Right, right. Which is a false imagination, huh? Then part of the soul would be in this part of the body, another part of that part of the body. But how can the whole soul be in each part of the body? That seems difficult, huh? Uh-huh. Yeah. But people, you know, either they imagine the soul to be that body-like thing, or else they imagine the soul to be something like a point, but having a particular location in the body. Oh, yeah. Okay. And the soul is neither one of those things. Uh-huh. But that's something very interesting, but it takes a while to understand it fully. Uh-huh. So, the first objection here, the first article. To the first one proceeds thus. It seems that the understanding beginning, huh? You know, it's the word beginning there in Latin and in Greek and English. It's been more extended, perhaps, than the English word. Beginning, right? When I was in grade school, you know, they were always implicating the good sisters there. The difference between a principal, like the sister who was a principal at the school, and a principal in an art or science, right? Right. And there's a little difference in the spelling, right? Right. So the principal at the school, whom we're all a little bit afraid of, you know? Sure. Sister... What's her name? Frogs. Yeah, I remember one time my brother Mark had been sick for a number of days at this school, you know, and I was coming up the steps and she was, you know, there. Sister St. Joseph. And she stopped me and asked about my brother Marcus. Of course, I'm looking down like this, you know, saying, well, he's sick, you know. And she says, look at the person to whom you are speaking. Yes. But, uh... Notice, despite the difference in spelling here in English, it's basically the same word in Latin. Principium. Okay? And the word prince, is related to that same word, huh? Okay? Now, the first meaning of principium in Latin, like it would be for the Greek word archae, would be the beginning of the table, right? The beginning of the line. A point is the beginning of the line, right? Okay? And then the second meaning that they give of principium or archae is where you would begin your journey, right? Which not be for the beginning of the table, right? Now, I get up to leave this table to go home. I start from the beginning of the table, right? But if you're sitting in the middle of the table, you're not going to go to the end of the table and then start from there, are you? Sure. You're going to start from where you are. That's the second meaning of principium, huh? Where it's most convenient to begin, right? So my stock example in class is that if I go to Boston on Route 9, I'm not going to go to the beginning of Route 9, which is somewhere out in Western Massachusetts. I'm going to start right where I am, where I can get access to Route 9, right? And it goes to the first two meanings of it, right? And then the third meaning of principium is the fundamental part of the thing, like the foundation of a house is the beginning of a house, where the keel is the beginning of the ship, huh? The center thing, huh? And the fourth meaning is this one where you're principal or prince. The fourth meaning of beginning is the mover, huh? Okay? And then finally apply it to the beginning in knowledge. And that's spelled a little bit different in English. But it's basically the same, what? Word. What was the fourth? So the fourth meaning is the mover, huh? Mover. Yeah. The maker, right? So art is the beginning of things, right? Okay. The prince, the general, the man who commands others, right? He's the beginning, right? Your parents are beginning you, degenerate you, and so on, right? By this third sense of principium, the foundation of the house, the fundamental part of the house, that's closer to the first sense because it's inside that which is the beginning. So he just says the beginning of the desk is in the desk, right? But when I say the principal is the beginning of, or the prince is the beginning of those he moves, right? He's outside of them, right? Yeah. And then you go to the sense that is further from the senses, huh? The principle, the starting point in the mind, huh? Which we sometimes compare it to the fish and cause, huh? And then finally you have the general sense where any cause can be called a, what? The beginning, right, huh? That's the sixth one, you said? Yeah. For any cause. So this is the first word that begins the beginning of the fifth book of wisdom, right? The fifth book of first philosophy. The fifth book of the metaphysics of God. 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And in Greek, you see, you have the word archaea. So, archaeology, right? Comes in that word. Monarchaea comes in that same word, right? So the princes are called archaea, right? And the principles in science are called archaea. It's the plural. Okay? So, here he's talking about the intellectivum principia, right? He means the beginning, the source of what? Understanding, right? Whence first we understand, right? Okay? He's saying, is that, whence first we understand, is that joined to the body, right? Okay? And the first objection here says, as a philosopher says, and of course that's a, what? Aristotle by Antonin Messier, right? Yes. As a philosopher says in the third book about the soul, that the understanding is separated, right? It's not in a body, right? There isn't a body. And it's not the act of somebody, huh? Therefore, the understanding, beginning, right? Is not united to a body as a, what? Form, right? Or you could say the soul that understands, right? Can't be joined to a body as a form, because the understanding, the ability to understand, is not a body, right? And not in a body. So how can the understanding soul, which he calls the intellectivum principium here, how can that be the form of a, what? Body, right? That's a very good objection, right? Okay. What you notice is, as you've maybe heard said sometimes, it's a custom or the way of those mistaking to go to what? Extremes, right? And so, you know, in the beginning, they think of the understanding, the ability to understand, as being like senses, some kind of a body, maybe the brain or something like that, right? And then they make man not too much different from the beast, right? But then when they come to understand that the understanding is not a body, that's not in a body, right? Then they go to the kind of opposite extreme and begin to think of the human soul, as something that is an angelic-like thing, right? But it's an angel, right, huh? And it's an immaterial substance, right? Entire distinct from the body with no connection with the body, except perhaps the body is a prison or something, right? And incidentally, when they talk about the punishment of the evil angels, right? And they're afflicted by bodies, right? And Thomas will ask, you know, how is that, right? Well, because they can't be afflicted by a body in the way we could be, like fire, because they don't have a body, right? Yeah. But they can be, what? By God, what? Forced to be attached to these bodies, right? Oh, wow. Okay? So that they're, in that sense, joined to something, what? Or bound to something below them, right, huh? And that's a fitting punishment for someone who's that proud, right, huh? They see themselves joined, huh? Kind of attached to, right, huh? Bound to something inferior to themselves, maybe a body, right? But those who think of the soul as being kind of a, what, angel, imprisoned in a body, right? Right. The Platonists kind of tend to speak that way, right? And that's the way Origen understands it, right? And Origen thought that these souls were like angels, were all created as complete immaterial substances, and some of us sinned and then we're attached to, what, bodies as if we were, what, imprisoned in bodies, huh? As a result of our bad choices, huh? In the spiritual world, huh? So that's what's behind this thought of saying it's not united to a body as a form, so they're thinking of it more as angelic. Yeah, yeah. Either thinking, you know, so if they think of the soul as being, like any other material form, something existing only in a body, right, huh? And only having operations in the body, then they would deny that the soul is something subsistent or something incorruptible or something immortal, right? On the other hand, if they realize that understanding, the universal, understanding what it is, is not an act that can take place in a body, that it's an act, therefore, that is not in a body, then they tend to go to the opposite extreme, right? And think of the soul as being a kind of angel, huh? A completely immaterial substance, complete in its nature, right? In the body, being something altogether accidental to the body, to the soul, right? Okay? Yeah. Yeah, Hakali created the complete sense, yeah. Yeah. Not only something subsisting that has existence by itself, but something that has a complete nature, right? Okay? So, they tend to go from one extreme to the, what? Other, huh? The second and the third arguments, as you'll see in Thomas' reply, are simply developing there what was objected in the first one, giving the reason for it, and kind of recalling even Aristotle's arguments a bit. The second objection, moreover, every form is determined by the nature of the matter of which it is a form. Otherwise, there would not be required a proportion between matter and form. The matter and form are in a way relative to each other. Yeah. So, not just any form is in any, what? Matter, right? Right. And, of course, this is a basic principle in natural philosophy, huh? Like we were saying, you can't have just any soul in any, what? Body, right? Right. Because the soul is to the body, to some extent, like an art is to its tools, huh? And you can't have the art of sewing, let's say, huh? Use the tools of the carpenter, and the tools of the carpenter and the carpenter or the art of carpentry can't use the tools of the, what? Tailor or seamstress, right? So, my wife makes a dress or my daughter does. They use a scissors and, what? Needle, right? Okay. My brother-in-law, who does some carpentry, uses a hammer and a saw, right? He can't do his work with a, what? Scissors and a, what? Needle. He'd be kind of suspicious, of like, a guy trying to build a house using his scissors. It could be a cardboard house, but not the house we're going to live in, huh? Okay? Because he couldn't cut the wood with the scissors. He couldn't, you know, sew together the, the, uh, he's got nailed together, right, huh? Okay? And vice versa, a hammer would be quite useless to my wife and making a dress. And, uh, hammering the buttons or whatever, just break up the buttons, right, huh? Sure. And, uh, you know, she's using a saw to cut the dress and pretty rough with the dress as she gets through with it, huh? Okay? I used to take an example, you know, you can't expect the glass blower to use the tools of the carpenter, right? Ah, yeah. You know, point the glass and you go with the hammer and so on. And, uh, of course, we have a proportional principle there in political philosophy. Where Estelle points out that you can't realize just any form of government in any, what? People, right? Oh. See? Oh. And you know how the United States sometimes would naively set out, you know, to transport our form of government to all these underdeveloped countries and you kind of, you know, plaster things over and give them names but in practice you don't really have, huh? Sure. A, uh, American form of government possible in these people, right? Yeah. And so, you need a, um, people who, by education and customs and so on, are suitably, what? Proportion to this form of government. And so, matter and form are like, what? Relatives, huh? Okay, they're relative to each other, huh? This form in this particular matter, right? So that's kind of a common thing in political philosophy as well as in, um, natural philosophy, huh? And that's why you see, too, that the perfection of different things, which is to have with their form, right? is not the same. The perfection of the eye, right, is not the same as the perfection of the, what, ear, right? What perfects the ear is going to be different than what perfects the eye. So each form is in its own matter. So he says, every form is determined by the nature of the matter which it is a form. Otherwise, it would not be required a certain proportion between the matter and the form. And Aristotle actually reasons for that in the second book of Natural Hearing, the so-called physics, to say that it belongs to the same science to consider matter and form. Because there's the same knowledge of, what, opposites, right? And matter and form, in a way, are opposites, in the way in which relatives are to be opposites, huh? So it would make any sense for one science to be about fathers and another science to be about sons, right? Or one science to be about the double and another science to be about the half. Double and half naturally belong to the same science, right? And so he's going to make use of that truth here to say, to construct an argument here. If, therefore, the understanding was united to a body as a form, since every body has a determined nature, it would follow that the understanding has a determined nature. And thus it would not be knowing of all things, huh? Okay? Which is against the definition of the understanding, huh? That's kind of the first thing Aristotle showed, and Thomas repeated that, right? That the understanding is in, what? Potency and ability to receive the forms and natures of all material things, huh? Just as my tongue is able to receive the flavor of all different kinds of things, right? And that the sense, just as the sense has to lack any of that quality that's going to receive, right? That if my tongue was salty or sweet or something, right? My tongue could not taste all things, could it? And so, and if my eye was colored, right, huh, the fluid, I wouldn't be able to receive all colors, huh? And if Mozart was always sounding in my ear, right, I wouldn't be able to hear anything else. Some people think I can't, but anyway. So that if the understanding had any determined bodily nature, right, it would not be able to receive the natures of all material things. So, I start from saying, the understanding cannot be a, what, form of a body, right, huh? Okay. The third argument is similar. Moreover, whatever potency is receptive of the act of somebody receives a form with matter, right, and individually. And this is the old principle. Whatever is received, is received in the receiver according to the way of the, what, receiver, huh? So you can say the same thing to 30 students in class, right? And on the exam, you've got to get back. Not the same answer, because some of them will receive it, what, fully and completely, and others, you know, and perfectly. This has been Dr. Burkens. If there's something of an excursus, I've seen that elsewhere where it calls it a thing to receive in the mode of the receiver, and I just don't really know what, in a sense, but I don't really know what mode means exactly there. Well, mode, originally in Latin, has got the sense of something determined by measure, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, the most concrete example of this is when you, when I was in Italy, and we were in this tour bus there, and they went over there at the bishop and so on. And the tour bus stops at the restaurant there, and you walk in, and wonderful food, and these big kegs, you know. And I heard this woman behind me saying to her husband, oh, they've got beer here, you know. Well, I guess they did have beer, but these are kegs of wine, right? And then they have these different sized carafs, right? So you've got a little caraf, or a big one, a great big one, and then you just pour the wine yourself from the big keg, right? Fold the thing like a tap, and then you go through the thing and pay, you know, according to the size caraf you have, right? Okay. Well, notice, huh? If you went and filled all these carafs, right? Right. Each caraf would not receive the same amount of wine, would it? Sure. Because one is bigger than the other, right? One is small, right? Okay? So you're going to receive according to their, what? Capacity, right, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Okay? Okay, thank you. Some of your doctrinal thesis have all just done the word modus, huh? Oh, is that right? The important word there, yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah. The, um... I think I mentioned how I see, when you go from Latin to Greek and English, you know, you notice sometimes they'll translate the same thing, perhaps translate, but they'll say it a little bit differently, right? Yeah. And, um, I think I was mentioning how you're dealing with the ethics there, and you find the word happiness in the English text, and then in Thomas' text it's Felicitas, right? And in the Greek it's Eudaimonia, and it's kind of interesting, the etymology of these words is a little different, right? Oh, yeah. Because happiness actually comes from the word hap, meaning what? Luck. Luck, yeah. Oh. Yeah. And if you want to understand the original meaning of the word happiness, we've kind of, um, tended to take the word happy to mean joyful, right, as opposed to sad, right? Right. Uh, but you're happy in the sense of joyful when you're lucky. At least the common man thinks that, right? Right. So, um, if you look at Shakespeare's play there, the two gentlemen are on there, you'll see the original meaning of it, where, um, one of the gentlemen is going off, right? And his friend Proteus says to Valentine, he says, when you meet good hap, huh? Uh-huh. Wish me partake of your happiness, huh? Uh-huh. Okay. Okay? There it is, yeah. And there's an allusion to this again at the end of the play, right? You know, it's your wonder what a fortune, you know, this whole, this whole, uh, play, huh? Now, Aristotle, when he talks about the play, uh, in the Poetics, he uses not the word eudaimonia, he uses the word, for happiness, euthikia. Euthikia. Yeah. Which means good hap. You see? That's kind of, um, a more plebeian name for this, right? Yeah. Because the common man thinks of luck as having, you know, a lot to do with these things. And it does have a lot to do with, you know? But, but really, happiness is more result of what you've chosen to do or not do in this life, huh? Yeah. And, uh, but the etymology that's taken from luck, huh? Yeah. Now, felicitas comes from the Latin word felix, meaning fruitful. And so, in a sense, felicitas means fruitfulness, huh? Well, that's a little bit closer to what you're really talking about in the Latin ethics. And, you know, when Christ says, by their fruits you shall know them, right? Can a bad tree produce good fruit and so on, right? And when we have the expression that the fruits of the Holy Spirit, right? Yeah. Uh, the fruit is something, what, ultimate or last, right? Yeah. And something pleasant, right? Yeah. And, uh, therefore it well names the end or purpose even the life. Because that's what's last, right? It's that for the sake of which everything else is. And it's pleasant to have achieved that, right? Yeah. Although felicitas is not pleasure, but it's something that when you get, you're pleased, right? Yeah. And this here, you know, there's no more what the emphasis is in Nicolaiic and Ethics. Because Aristotle's talking about how a man is happy or miserable by what he's chosen to do or not do in his life, huh? And if you choose the right thing and do it, right, you're going to be, what, a fruitful life, right? And if you choose the wrong things and do the wrong things, then you're going to end up being miserable, right? Yeah. Okay. Um, the English word for misery, though, of course, is, what, richness, huh? And if you study the etymologically, it goes back to the idea of a shipwreck, huh? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And, uh, you notice how even, I think it was in Pius XII. was declaring the mystery of the assumption, was it? Yeah, assumption, yeah. Matthew Conception was the one that passed the 90th day, right? And then, a hundred years later, in 1950, right? He said that this is not article faith, right? And that if someone, therefore, was to deny, you know, the assumption, he would have suffered, what? Shipwrecked with faith. That's important. Yeah. Okay. St. Peter? Yeah. And Shakespeare often used that metaphor, you know, of life as a voyage, right? Yeah. Life's uncertain voyage, yeah? Of course, in those days, a voyage was a very uncertain place, right? You've heard about the way insurance was done those days? No. Let's see, you're going to make a boat trip, you know, from England down to Italy or someplace, right? Well, I bet about you're not coming back, right? And then you'd put up $1,000, let's say, whatever the sum is, and I'd put up $1,000, right? And if you get back safe, you collect your $1,000 plus my $1,000. If you don't make it back, I get back my $1,000 plus I get your $1,000. So it's kind of a common thing. So here it's got the idea of fruitfulness, huh? Did you see, fruit is a natural what? Result of what the tree does, right? And that gives something of the, what, truth of happiness and misery, right? Happiness is the natural result of virtuous action, virtuous choices. Misery is the natural result, you might say, of what? Yeah, yeah. Remember what the doctor says there, he sees this terrible condition of Lady Macbeth, you know, how it happens to her? Lady Macbeth is what? Commit a murder, right? Right. And now she's, you know, having these terrible nightmares, she can't sleep, you know, out there in the spot, she's saying, you know? Right. Like she's still going to wash her hands and the blood and so on. And the doctor realizes that her problem is not, what? Physical. Yeah, not a medical problem, I think, but there's a problem in her soul, right? And he says, unnatural deeds, huh, do breed unnatural troubles, right? It's interesting, huh, the breed is the idea to what? Generate, right? Yeah, wow. So unnatural deeds, huh, evil deeds, right? Like murdering a king, your own king, right? It breeds, it naturally, what? It produces, at least, natural troubles, right? Yeah. Misery, right, huh? Now, eudaimonia is taken from a daimon, which, you know, didn't have the sense of a demon at first, right? Right. A daimon was some kind of a superior, what? Being like an angel, right? Okay. And the eudaimon would be, what? A good daimon. Like we'd say a good angel, right? Our better angels is the phrase of Lincoln, right, huh? Sometimes you speak of having a good angel, and leading you or directing you towards a good, and a bad angel tempting you, right? And yes, to your better angels or your worse angels. But eudaimonia, in a sense, is saying that our happiness, right, depends upon a superior being, right? That you are well guided, huh? You have a good demon, huh? A good angel, right? Someone above you looking after you. I think it's really kind of marvelous to see those three words. And, you know, I first read Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. I read them in English when I was in high school, see? And I was quite familiar with the word happiness there. Then I started to read them in what lacked them. They were Thomas' commentary. And there the word is lichitas, right? If you know the Greek, it's eudaimonia, right? So you have three words that are being used synonymously for the same thing, the end or purpose of man, but the etymology, that from which the name is taken, is different, right? And there's some truth, perhaps, in each of those etymologies, huh? That my happiness is, to some extent, determined by good and bad luck, right? If I step out of the street there and I get hit by a car or something falls on me and I'm crippled, you know, that's going to, you know, that's going to fool us my happiness, right? You see? But what I choose to do or not to do, right, is going to very much influence what might be happy or miserable in this life, right? Anymore, it's very next life, right? But it also, what, depends upon some superior being, like an angel or God himself, right? You see? And in Nicomachean Ethics, of course, in a way, the emphasis is upon learning what you should choose to do or not to do in order to be happy and avoid misery, right? Because we can't control so much luck or chance, right? And the higher being, we can't determine what the higher being does, right? Although we can pray or do something of this sort, right? Okay? When Aristotle gets into the book, the politics there, he's talking about the best form of government, right? And he thinks it would take unusual circumstances to realize the best form of government. And so he calls it, you know, Kata UK, according to a prayer, right? You know, something one would more pray for than hope to, what, be able to accomplish, right? Because you need such, you know, exceptional, what, circumstances in order to realize the best form of government. Aristotle and politics have talked about the best form of government, period. Then the best form of government that most men are capable of, something lesser than that. Then the best form of government for this people here. Which might not be even the best government that most men are capable of, right? Yeah. So, you know, it's very nuanced Aristotle's position, right? Hmm. Now, this word moda, see, I first started noticing it, like when you're talking about, you know, my doctoral thesis, right? Thomas speaks, you know, of the modus procehendia, the way of going forward, right? The way of proceeding, right? In English, we translate that as the way of proceeding, if you want to put it in Italian English, the way of going forward. Going forward. And so, Aristotle and Thomas Faulian, they'll talk about the way of going forward in reasoned out knowledge, right? The common way of going forward. This is time and logic, right? And then they'll talk about the private way of going forward in geometry, right? Or in natural philosophy, or in wisdom itself, right? Or in ethics, and so on. Now, the Greek word is, what? Tropas. Proagagene. So, the same as this. Tropas. And these are the exact words we use, right? Ourselves speak of the tropas, proagagene, which is the same as pochidene. The tropas of going forward. Plato will speak of the modus and the, what, English of the way, right? Now, tropas, in Greek, sometimes, they'll translate it as way, very much a English word, but tropas has a sense in Greek, originally, of what? Turning. Okay. So, it's like a turn of mind. Okay. Modus, as I mentioned, is something that is fixed by some measure. And way, in English, of course, is closer to what? To road, right? So, when we have, we always translate the words of our Lord, I am the way, the truth, and the life, right? Yeah. But the Greek word there is not tropas, that's translated way, it's odas, road, yeah? Yeah. We get the word odometer, you know, which is the road, right? Wow. And that's the word our style we're using, it talks about the road, you know, the odas. It's in Greek, it's like this, but, so it's like an H sound, huh? Odas, huh? Okay. And that's how you get the word odometer in English, right? If you ever have an odometer on your bike, you know, measure the, you know, measure the, what? The road, right? You can turn it on, right? You can measure how far you bicycle it up, miles are right here, so. So, you know, but when you talk about, say, the private modus, I see people suddenly speak this way, you know. They'll say that an economist and a biologist and a philosopher and an English professor, each guy's got a different turn of mind. You see? His mind's turned a little different. And I see that, you know, and obviously we're not, you know, students of philosophy, you know. Washington Irving speaks, you know, in Mount Shore, right? It's a beautiful, beautiful little big Mount Shore, one of the stories. But Mount Shore can sort of turn of mind, get a plenty of turn of mind, right? The mathematician's got another turn of mind, right? So it's kind of very concrete, huh? And it's kind of interesting the way Plato speaks there, you know, because in the Republic, you know, he speaks as if the mind was looking towards material things, right? And they've got to turn the mind around, so it's going to look towards what? The immaterial things, huh? What you do is, you're looking at sensible material things, and then we turn the mind around so it looks at mathematical things. And they're kind of removed from the sensible world, aren't you? But still these mathematical things are imaginable, and they're not completely, you know, separated from what you have in matter of the continuous, right? Uh-huh. And then you turn around and look towards what? The immaterial substances, right? So Plato speaks as if the mind is being turned around. Yeah. Okay? And so we have that expression a lot, turn of mind, in any way, you know, in Plato. But now here you can say that the way of proceeding has to fit the matter. So it's measured by the, what? Matter. So we don't talk about triangles and squares, the same way we talk about human virtues and vices, right? Right. Okay? And right here you're closer to the idea of what? A road, right? Although way is perhaps not quite as concrete as road, right? Let me see. Because way is something of the sense of how you do something, right? Yeah. Yeah. As well as the roads you follow, right? Uh-huh. So, um, so it's interesting, huh? Each word's got a little different etymology. Sure. And, uh, but they're really being used here, you know, as synonyms, the words translating the same word there. But these are a little different in the etymology. Like up here, there's a difference in the etymology, huh? Yeah. Yeah. To say you can never study this word bodice because it's very important, huh? And Thomas uses it a lot, huh? So Thomas is saying he's talking about the categories, right? And how we divide being according to substance, quantity, quality, right? And Aristotle in the metaphysics says, according to the figures of predication. And Thomas says, well, he says the modi ascendi, the modes of being, right, are proportional to the modi predicandi, the ways that something is, what, said as something, huh? But I said in English I would use the word way, right? I would say the different ways that something can be said of individual substances are proportional, right? To the different ways that things are. But in Acton they would have modi, huh? Thomas would have the modi. So you get these words that, you know, get a, um, see them a lot of times in context and then you get kind of a sense of the way the word is being used in that language. But Monsignor Dian would teach us sometimes, you know, that sometimes the word in one language is, what, better than in another language, right? For some reason or other, you know, maybe dealing with the etymology. And so sometimes you lose something when you go from one language to another, right? Sure. Like, you know, the Greek word episteme, which is translated in Latin by, what, sciencia, right, huh? Right. But episteme in Greek means coming to a halt or a stop. It comes to the Greek word for coming to a halt or a stop. And so it brings out the fact that episteme is at the end of a discourse a movement of reason, huh? Yeah. When reason has now reached certitude, huh? Yeah. But as a result of a movement first, right? Right, right. And sciencia doesn't have the etymology at all. It's the idea maybe of knowing with certitude, but not the idea that you're knowing as a result of a discourse, right? Does it work sometimes if the Latin is actually superior than the Greek, or is the Greek generally better? Well, generally the Greek is going to be superior. But, you know, Dian would often say that English was superior on the whole to French, yeah. Yeah. But the proportion that Dian and Bulek is used to was that French is to English as Latin is to what? Greek, huh? Oh, okay. And that Greek is superior to Latin both for philosophy and for what? Is it poetry? Poetry, yeah. It's more concrete. And English is superior to French both for philosophy and for poetry, huh? That's interesting, huh? But, you know, sometimes, you know, you might have some word Latin, you know, that they might be better, right? And one example I would give is I think the word sapientia in Latin is beautiful. Oh, yeah. The way Thomas explains it, sapientia means sapida scientia, savory knowledge, right? Tasty knowledge, right, huh? See, that marvelous concrete, huh? Now, sophia in Latin, in Greek, doesn't have that concrete etymology, right? Yeah. And even the word wisdom in English doesn't have that, huh? See? Okay? But now, the word understanding, huh? I think is better than intellectus. But in some ways, intellectus is better than the Greek word, nous, huh? Mm-hmm. And the way Thomas explained intellectus is intus legere, to read within, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay? Um, but I think understanding is to what? To see what stands under something, right, huh? To know something, what stands under it, huh? And Shakespeare, at least two of his plays, you know, he puns upon the original meaning of the word understanding, right? And the thing for understanding, right? Okay? You know? I mean, the puns aren't that great, but I mean, you know, someone will say, and I don't understand you, and he says, well, if I can't understand, I mean, you can't, you know, that sort of thing, you know. But then when you take the Latin word substance, right, you see right away that it's the understanding that no substance, right? The words tie in right away. The etymology is exactly the same. Or we speak of the underlying cause, huh? See? Okay? And the English word for cause is ground, which stands under things, right? Okay. So, I think there's something marvelous about the English word understanding, huh? And, you know, when Thomas talks about, about, um, you know, what does it mean to understand a word, right? And if I say, um, some Greek word, you don't understand what it means. See? Well, to understand a word means to know what stands under the word, right? Okay? Now, in Latin, uh, the, the word intelligere would, wouldn't have that sense so much. It'd be, to, to read within, meaning within the word, right? But in Latin, they'll speak of the imposizio nominis, right? And in Greek, they'll talk about that, which means literally the placing of a name upon something, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? In English, we say, popularly, to put a label upon something, right? No. So you, you imagine that the name is above what it's naming, right? So you put a name upon something, right? So to understand a name is to know what stands under the name, right? See, see, the English word of understanding is, is, is really a, absolutely marvelous word, huh? And when I, when I'm teaching wisdom, you know, if you ever have a chance to do a little bit of wisdom, you know, the wise man most of all understands, huh? And, uh, you can tie right away with what the wise man knows, huh? He knows the first causes, what stands under everything else, right? He knows the axioms or perfectly. He knows the axioms or perfectly. He knows the axioms or perfectly. else, and they stand under all of our knowledge of statements, huh? And he most of all knows substance, you know? If he most of all understands, right? And you couldn't do that with the Latin word, and if it's over with the Greek word, right? You know? So sometimes the word in one language, huh? I know when Monsignor was explaining the word example there, right? It's a name. It's used in logic example in two ways, huh? In one sense, example means what? A singular used to illustrate the universal, right? Okay? And so if I define what a hand is, then I might say, well, this is a hand, for example. Okay? But then there's another meaning of example in logic where it's an argument from one singular to another singular of the same kind. Okay? So we appeased Hitler at Munich, and look what happened, right? We appeased this dictator, and it'll be the same thing, right? So you're arguing from one singular to another singular of the same kind. Once India went back to English, and it's comparing the word example with the word, what? Sample. You see? And sample is a piece of something to illustrate the, what? Hole. So you've got a big cheese, and you want to buy some cheese, right? And you're looking at it, and the guy says, well, let me give you a sample. He cuts a little piece off, and you take it, right? So that's a, what? A small piece of the hole, right? In an example, it's a singular to represent the, what? The universal, right? So English is very concrete there, huh? So, at that time, I thought the English word was, what? Better, right? When I try to translate the Greek word episteme, I don't translate it as halting or stopping, maybe I could, but I translate it as, by phrase, I'll say, reasoned out knowledge, right? Because knowledge brings out the idea of certitude as opposed to guessing, right? But reasoned out, it's the end of a, what? A movement of thinking out these things. So, um... Excuse me, Doctor? Um, you can mention one about, um, reading in, in, um, was that... Yeah, Thomas understands the word intellectus, huh? Oh, intellectus. As being, coming from intus, within, right? Okay. And legere, to read. Okay. Now, some of the etymologists might challenge that, you know, a little bit, huh? Read between, they sometimes understand it as, but read within makes a lot of sense, huh? Because, uh, the proper object of reason is the what it is of something, right? Read within, right. And the what it is, is within a thing. That's why you use the word nature, right? Nature loves to hide, is a great, uh, Heraclitus says, huh? Huh. So, reason reads within, huh? Yeah. And that's why we use the word insight for what? Insight, uh... Another word for understanding, right? Uh-huh. If someone has insight into people, he can read that, right? No. Yeah? You read that play of Shakespeare's there, uh, Symbeline, right? Well, at the end there, Symbeline realizes that his wife is the most evil woman, right? Uh-huh. But she had been manipulating him, manipulating a lot of people, right? And the finer evil comes out at the end, right? And she takes her own life, if I remember rightly, but... But anyway, he's completely misunderstood her all his life, right? And what does he say? Who is't can read a woman? Oh, my God. Who is't? Yeah, who is it? Yeah, who is it? Who is't can read a woman, right? Okay. Isn't that very concrete? I remind you of the Greek, the Latin word, to read within, right? Yeah. See? Mm-hmm. Yeah. To read a woman, right? Or any person, for that matter, would be to see what they're like inside, right? To have some insight to what they were, right? Well, he's completely mistaken about her, right? And her feigned love for him and all her evil plans, you know? And she's got the doctor, you know, showing her poisons and so on that she's using on animals, of course. And then she gives someone one of these poisons to get rid of him, right? Of course, the doctor has not trusted her with a real poison. But only a medicine that will, what, make you appear to be dead, like in Rome and Juliet, right? Not really so, right? Mm-hmm. And so the beautiful, it happens to Imogen that are on, right? But she takes the medicine and she thinks that someone's killing her. Oh, it's a beautiful, beautiful scene. Mm-hmm. But anyway. Mm-hmm. Okay? In other words, the degree to which you receive it, how much you receive it, and how well you receive it, depends upon the receiver, right? Right. So the Latin word modus there would imply that, but it's in a sense measured by that, right? Okay? You might as well, a little bit, you know, what they used to say when I was in grade school and I found years later in St. Twizio de Sue, right? Right. We're all going to be fully happy in the next world, right? Right. But some of us are going to be more happy than others. Right. See? And when St. Twizio de Sue was trying to explain it, one of my St. Joseph sisters, you know, explained it to me when I was in grade school, right? Yeah. You know, you have different, what? Size containers, right? You see? Size buckets. You see? And so each bucket is full, but one is, what, got more in it. Yeah. But they're all full, right? Right. Sort of like when we sit down and eat dinner or something like that, one person will be satisfied with eating less than another person, right? Yeah. And someone else is still. You know, I find, you know, because I'm getting older now, but I have the figures of appetizers I had when I was younger, but I find, you know, invariably if I go out to, you know, most restaurants, they're going to serve me more for dinner than I really can eat. And either I take it home or else it's going to be wasting the food, right? And someone's saying, you know, you know, that a lot of people have their experience in restaurants, and you see a lot of people taking stuff, well, they can eat it all. But apparently it's a maximum of the trade, right, that if someone leaves the restaurant after having paid a good price and they're still hungry, their experience has not been satisfactory. And, you know, and no one should leave the restaurant being hungry, right? But notice, one person needs to be, what, fully satisfied, he might be less than somebody else, right? So since it's measured by that, right, so how much you receive, and you can do more subtle things, how well you receive it, right, depends upon the, what, receiver, right? And I notice that, like, say, you know, if you're tasting wine or something like that, you're a wine tasting thing, you know, some people are much better judges of wine than others, right? You know, the famous Parker, you know, that has a newsletter and so on, you know, they taste, you know, hundreds of wines, you know, a week, you know? And, of course, you have to spit it out because I was really drunk all the time. But even some people are really good at discriminating what wines are, you know? I'd probably get, you know, the right 50% of the time or something, right? Not even that much. But other people, they can tell you right away what wine they're drinking and maybe even some details about where it came from or so on, you know? Not even if it's a carboné sauvignon that they're drinking, but it's from California or it's from Australia or it's from France or it's from Bordeaux or it's from Saint-Emilion or, you know? And it's kind of amazing, you know, to see how good some of these people are, you know? And I think I told you a story where Ron MacArthur had some dinner one time for professors there and for the fun of it, he had, you know, a different wine put in some empty boughs he'd saved, right? And everybody thought they were drinking what was on the label except for Brother Mark. Brother Mark says, this is not that, right? Ron MacArthur's kind of obese, Brother Mark could do this, see? But they probably would have deceived me, you see, you know? But not Brother Mark. So we're all receiving the same wine, but some are what? Receiving it better than what? Others, right? Their sense of taste or smell is more what? More discriminating, right? You see? So you see the exact same wine, but one is receiving it, what? Not more, but better, right? Right. Okay. The same way, you know, they speak about Mozart, I guess, when he was younger, you know, he'd blow a trumpet and he'd, oh! He'd faint, you know, because his ear was so sensitive, right? See? But he would hear things that you and I wouldn't probably, what? Hear, right? He's going to hear it much better, huh? He's going to hear it much better. He's going to hear it much better. He's going to hear it much better. He's going to hear it much better.