De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 78: Substantial Form, Unity of the Soul, and Per Se Predication

Transcript
================================================================================

So you can say substantial form, it comes to a subject that is only in ability, a subject in other words that doesn't actually exist at all, and will actually exist only through the substantial form. Or the accidental form, right? In a certain way. Yeah, it comes to an actual substance, right? Yeah. To a subject that is already actual. Okay, sure. It's an actual substance, huh? Now, tagging with that is what you were pointing out, that through the substantial form, something exists without profitation. So you can say it gives existence simply. And the accidental form gives existence in some limited, qualified way. Again, the difference is between what they call in philosophy substance and what? Accident, right? If I'm sick, right, and I recover my health, right, would you say I came to be? No. You'd say I came to be healthy again, right? Right. Because you have to qualify, right? I came to be healthy, right? Wouldn't the wood, huh? Came to be a chair or a table, right, huh? Did the wood come to be? No. No. It already actually existed, right? Okay. Okay. So in the case of an accidental form, actuality is already in the subject and in the subject of it before it gets the savage actuality from the accidental form. In the case of substantial form, the subject has no actuality until the form comes to it. Now, another difference that Thomas sometimes talks about is that matter here, the subject of substantial form, matters for the sake of form, but the accidental form is more for the sake of the completion of its, what, subject, huh? So geometry there, I am not for the sake of geometry, but geometry is for the sake of the completion of Wayne Berkowitz, and health for the sake of that, right? And my virtues of the heaven, right? For the sake of completing me, right? But matter is to me for the sake of form. So, if there were three souls in me, or even two souls in me, would I be actually one thing? No. There'd be a plant there, and an animal, and a man. Yeah. Yeah. Which is absurd, right? Yeah. Okay. Now, Thomas goes back to something that we develop at some length in wisdom, that nothing is simply one except through one form, to which a thing has existence, right? And from the same thing, a thing has that it's a being, and that it is, what? One, huh? A lot of times, you know, when we're explaining that a bit, we point to the fact that a thing tries to preserve its unity in the same way it tries to preserve its, what? Existence, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so, if you divide something, it's going to cease to be, right? Yeah. So, from the same thing, he says, a thing has that it is a being, and that it is one. And therefore, those things which are denominated from diverse forms are not one simply, right? And he gives an example there of what the co-accidental being in metaphysics. Homo elbus, right? Okay. A white man. If, therefore, a man from another form had that he is alive, namely from the vegetable soul, and from another form, that he is an animal, namely from the sensible or sensing soul, and from another, the man, namely from the rational soul, it would follow that man is not one thing simply. As Aristotle argues against Plato in the eighth book of the metaphysics, huh? And he goes back to another objection there that, or pardon me, that Aristotle has in the first book on the soul. So, against those laying down diverse souls in the body, he inquires, what is it that contains them or holds them together, right? That is, what makes for them something one, huh? And one could not say that they're united through the unity of the body, because it's more the soul which unifies the body and makes it to be one than the reverse, huh? And a sign of that is when the body loses its soul, it falls apart, right? It decomposes, huh? So you'd have, what? That one thing there, right? Is that the way you think about yourself? Mm-hmm? You're cohabiting with a plant and an animal in the same body? No. It's one and the same that is sensing and digesting and thinking. Isn't that your inward experience, huh? Did you see his first argument a little bit, anyway? Yeah, mm-hmm. Secondly, this appears impossible from the way of predication, huh? He says, those things which are taken from diverse forms are said of each other, either prejudice, if the forms are not ordered to each other, as when we say that the white is, what, sweet, huh? Or if the forms are ordered to each other, there is a predication per se, in the second way of saying per se, because the subject is placed to the definition of the predicate, huh? Now, in the posterior analytics, huh? Aristotle takes up the different senses of the word per se, huh? And he also does it in the fifth book of wisdom, huh? Let's just stop a little bit of that word, because it's a very important word, huh? Then it's logic. Let's take it up again a little bit here. In the posterior analytics, do you know what the posterior analytics is about? Oh, I forgot. Yeah. In general, you can say that prior to the posterior analytics are about demonstration, huh? Yeah. And demonstration, to begin with, you can say is an argument, right, where the conclusion is seen to be necessarily what? True. True, yeah. Okay? Now, before you can see that a conclusion is necessarily true, what two things must you satisfy? Absolutely. In other words, the conclusion has to follow necessarily from the premises, right? But the premises themselves have to be necessarily true. Now, the word syllogism comes in the Greek word to calculate, and you can see it more easily there because you learn the art of calculating in grade school. When you add, subtract, multiply, or divide, the number you get is necessarily correct under what two conditions? That the numbers you multiplied were the correct numbers, right? Oh, yeah, okay. And secondly, that you... That you calculated, right? Yeah, okay. Here's a simple example here, right? There are six men in this room, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? And each man has two legs, right? Mm-hmm. Now, six times two means there's what? Twelve legs in this room. Okay? I'm giving you a sign of the good occasion that we're laying for a chair, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? Mm-hmm. Now, am I sure there are twelve legs in this room? See? I have to be sure that there are, what, six men in this room, and only six men, right? Mm-hmm. And be sure that each man has two legs, right? Yeah, yeah. Right? And that six times two is, in fact, what? Twelve, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? Now, what's the difference between that and the syllogism, huh? Well, the syllogism, from two statements, you're getting another statement. By adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, from at least two numbers, you're getting a third number. Okay? Now, to be sure of the conclusion of a syllogism, you'd have to be sure that the conclusion follows necessarily, and that the statements themselves are necessarily true. So, Aristotle wrote two books, and they're called, in English, The Prior and the Posterior Analytics, huh? And they're named from kind of the ultimate thing you learn in these two books. And that is to analyze, meaning to take apart, right? An argument, right? By the prior analytics, you learn how to take apart an argument to see if the conclusion follows the, what? Premises, right? Okay? In the Posterior Analytics, you learn how to take apart the premises to see if they are, what? Necessarily true or not, right? And you require both of those things in order to be sure of your, what? Conclusion, right? Okay? Remember how we were arguing about whether the brain was the organ of thought? Remember that? And we said, you have a couple arguments, right? To see if the brain was the organ of thought? But in one of them, the conclusion didn't follow necessarily. In the other case, the, what? On the premises, it's not necessarily true, huh? Okay? Now, in the Posterior Analytics, huh? Aristotle sees the connection between necessary and what in Greek is called kak-al-po, right? Which is translated in Latin by, what? Perseid, right? That's translated in English either by through itself or by itself, right? Okay? So Aristotle is seeing a connection between necessary and through itself or between necessary and by itself, right? And it's interesting, huh? That at one point in the Posterior Analytics, he reasons from the premises being necessary to their being kak-al-to, per se, to themselves. Another point, he reasons from their being through itself to being necessary. And Thomas says, well, isn't he reasoning circularly? But that's how connected the two are, right? But Thomas says that the active demonstration is from necessary to their being through itself, right? But if you take it as being true that the premises in science are through themselves, then you could also reason to their being, what? Necessary. Now, what does this mean, huh? What does necessary mean? What does per se mean? What does it mean to say something is necessary? For example, is it necessary that a triangle is green? No. Okay? Is it necessary, though, that two is half of four? Yeah. Yeah. What does it mean to say it's necessary that two be half of four, but it's not necessary that a triangle be green? What does that mean? Without it, it cannot be. Yeah. You're saying that the two is not able to not be half of four, right? But a triangle is able to be what? Not green, right? Okay. So the necessary is what is not able not to be. What must be therefore, right, huh? Do you see that? No. Now, what does this phrase, through itself, mean, huh? But notice, itself, there is a, what part of speech? Yeah. And it's a pronoun, right, huh? Okay. So in order to understand what this means, you need an example there, right? Could I say that two, through itself, is, let's say, a number? Would you see that? Now, this phrase you're thinking of at first, huh? When I say two, through itself, is a number, I mean two, through being two, is a number, right? Do you see that? And when I say two, through itself, it's half of four. I'm saying that two, through being two, right, is half of four, right? Do you see that? Okay. Now, another phrase you use sometimes in English, for a somewhat similar idea, is the phrase, as such, right? I'd say two, as two, is a number, right? Two, as two, is half of four. Okay. But now, take another example here, right? And triangle might be green, right? But even if it is green, right? Would you say that a triangle is green, through being a triangle? No. I don't know. A triangle is not green, through being. That's what it's meant by saying that a triangle is per acudens. He's a Latin word, right? It's per acudens. It's per acudens. a what? Green, right? It happens, to use the English word, right? Right, she does. It happens to be green, right? But it's not through being a friend that is green. But it could happen to be so, right? Yeah? Is this something like a distinction between, say, green in the shape of something being a separable accident? Yeah. Whereas, say, something through itself refers merely property present in all members and all times. But notice the difference here, right? Because I took these two examples on purpose here. Half of four is, as you're saying, a property of two, right? It's something that follows upon the nature of two, right? So half of four, a third of six, a fourth of eight, and so on, right? But number is something that would be in the very definition of two. Or if I said two is an even number, right? Okay? So these are two different modes of per se, yeah? Okay? And in the first mode of per se, here, what is in the definition of the subject, right? Is said of it to itself, for instance. In the second one, the subject is more in the definition of the, what? Property, right? Okay? It's a cause of that property, yeah? That's, incidentally, a third word that's tied up with these things, huh? Cause, necessary, and per se. Nurse Dowd defines demonstration the first time in the Apostle Analytics. He says it's a syllogism making us know the cause, and that of which it is a cause, and that it cannot be otherwise. Notice he's tying up the idea of a cause with, what? Necessary, right? And Plato had already pointed this out in the Mido and in the Phaedo, right? The best reason you can give for a statement is the reason why it must be so. And the reason why it must be so is a reason giving the cause, right? The cause of its necessary being so. So, when you study demonstration of the Apostle Analytics, these different senses of Kaff, Al, Toe, right? Will come up, right? But Thomas is emphasizing these first two senses of it. Yeah? Okay, I'm sorry. Once again, the two modes that per se, one is... Where the predicate is in the definition of the subject, right? Okay. And the second one, where it's more the reverse, that the subject is in the, what? Definition, right? Of the predicate, huh? A difference, man? It can't be a difference. No. If a definition is... The genius of the difference would be said of the subject, right? In the first way of per se. But the property in the, what? The second way, right? Right. Okay. Now, you look at Emmanuel Kant, for example, right? And he talks about analytical propositions and so on. He doesn't see that distinction between these two, huh? He just sees a distinction between a predicate that would be the definition of the subject, right? And a predicate that's not the definition of the subject. He doesn't see this other sense of Kant al-toe, or current statement. So now, Thomas is going to ask here, huh? He's going to show a difficulty here. Suppose I'm a man by understanding soul and I'm an animal by a sensing soul, right? And the sensing soul is not the understanding soul. It's an entirely different soul. Then we say man is an animal. What kind of a predication is this, right? Was it accidental? Like a triangle was green? Man is an animal. Is that accidental? No. But if it's per se, which one is it? Let's see how Thomas develops this a bit here, huh? Things which are taken from diverse forms are said of each other, either per-achidans, if the forms are not ordered to each other, as when we say the same thing is white and sweet, right? When we say the white is sweet, right? Or if the forms are ordered to each other, there will be a predication per se in the second way of per se, because the subject is placed in the definition of the predicate, huh? Just as surface is a preambula, it was before, color, right? If therefore we say that a body with a surface, right, is colored, it will be according to the second mode of predication per se. Now, why does you say that second mode of per se? Well, if you think of color as we experience in our daily life, right, color is always something spread over a surface, right? So it's not accidental to color to be, what, spread over a surface. But that surface is what? It's just the subject in which the color is, huh? If therefore there is a different form by which something is said to be an animal and by which something is said to be a man, it would follow either that one of these cannot be said of the other except ratchet ends if these two forms to each other have no order or that there is there a predication in the second way of speaking per se if one of the souls is to the other a preambula something presupposed. But both of these are manifestly false because animal is said of man as such, right? Not by accident. For man is not placed in the definition of animal but the, what, reverse. Therefore, it's necessary that it be the same form through which something is an animal and through which it is a man. Otherwise, man would not be truly that which is an animal and thus animal would be said of man, what? Per se. Yeah. And it's saying that right grammatically. Otherwise, man would not be truly that which is an animal, right? So that animal would be what? Per se said of man, huh? See? That's a mouthful, to digest, huh? Okay. Is animal said of man, let's ask it this way here, is animal said of man as, let's say, number is said of two or as half of four is said of two or as green is said of triangle? That's not the third one. No. See? That's the one that's well, it's clearly not it, right? Okay. See if I say something that happens to be what? An animal just like a triangle happens to be green, right? Now, of these other two ways, you see it's the second way, right? Then, Man would be in the definition of animal. And it seems it's not that, but it's simply the reverse, right? So it seems you're going to be forced to say this, right? That man is what? An animal, as such. And therefore it's going to be through what? The same form that he's a man and he's an animal. If it's not, it would have to be the accidental, right? Like white and sweet in his example. Or if my example here are triangle and green. Or it would be like, what? Animals like a property of man, right? The property of man to be an animal has a property of two to be half a four. Or property of the triangle to have its interior angles hit the right angles. But it'll make these two possibilities and you're forced to the theory, right? When you say animal of man, you're saying this is what man is. But they're one of the same, right? Even though animal is saying in a more general, right? In a more vague way, you might say. What man is saying, okay? Just like when I say a dog is an animal, right? I don't know if we had the cat around here and I said this. What's your name? Lucy? Lucy is a cat, right? And Lucy is a what? Animal, right? Am I really saying two different things about Lucy? No, I just want to use my cat. Like if I say Lucy is a cat and I say Lucy is orange or whatever she is. Right? See? To be orange is not what it is to be a cat, is it? But Lucy happens to be both, what? A cat and orange, right? Uh-huh. Okay. That's not the connection between man and animal, right? I happen to be both a man and an animal. I happen to be a man, I happen to be white. See? Is it the way it is? No. An animal can't really be a property of man because then man would be in the definition of what? Animal. And it's just the reverse, right? See? What do you say that again? Yeah. If animal was a property of man, right? Right. Then man would be more basic in meaning than what? Animal, right? It would enter into the understanding of what an animal is. But in fact, it's the reverse, right? Yeah. What an animal is, it is into what a man is, right? It's a pre-animal. So you're forced to say that when you say man is an animal, you say Socrates is a man, you say Socrates is an animal, you're not saying two different things as Socrates, right? Because what it is to be a man, it is to be an animal. Are you saying, going back to the animal-man comparison, you can't get something less out of something, or something greater out of something less, which is why animal has to be part of man, but man can't be part of man. Yeah. Take an example of Lucy there with less controversial, right? She's a rational soul. But if I say that Lucy is a cat, right? And you all mean that's true, right? Yes. And then I say Lucy is an animal. You agree that's true, right? Mm-hmm. So you have a cat and an animal. Different things? No. See? No. Yeah. Because to be a cat is to be an animal, right? Yeah. Okay? Even though cat is more particular, right? Right. More distinct than animal, right? Mm-hmm. But Lucy's being an animal is not something other than her being a cat, is it? In reality, it's not something other, is it? Because a cat is, by definition, an animal. An animal, right? Four-footed animal, right? Okay. And so when I tell you that Lucy is, what? A cat, and she's four-footed, and she's an animal, and we're telling you three different things about her? Wow. Huh? She heard me. But when I tell you that Lucy is a cat, and the Lucy is orange, then I'm telling you two different things about her in reality. You see? Okay, do you see the form of Zarbitt then? But you know, it involves a lot. You can see how logic is presupposed to, what? Theology, to the study of the soul, right? Okay. Aristotle distinguishes those senses of, there's another sense besides them, but distinguishes them in the second book of the posture, in the first book of the posture analytics, and in the fifth book of the metaphysics. Plato had made this very, what, pocket, right? The idea of kathalto, right? As Aristotle says in the posture analytics, an epistemic, sciencia, is about something that is, what, parts and properties kathalto. So the geometer never talks about a triangle being green, does he? No. He wouldn't know that by your reasoning it out. It'd be at best a matter of sensation, right? I saw a green triangle. So, it seems to me, if you're taking the soul by which man is an animal, and the soul by which he's a man, it's really two different souls, right? And you're almost back in saying, you know, the thing is white and sweet, huh? Huh. You know, it's not really one thing anymore. Yeah. That's going back to the first argument. Now, Thomas gives us a third argument, what is kind of a sign, huh? The third, it appears to be impossible through this, it's a very important sign, that one operation of the soul, when it becomes very intense, impedes, what? Another, huh? Which in no way would happen unless the principle of actions was one in its very nature. Do you see that? If you really had two different, you know, one soul that is sensing, another soul is understanding, then the intensity of the sensing, or the intensity of the emotions, would not interfere with the, what? Thinking, right? It's a ton different thing, doing that. But it's a bad experience, right? You know, when you're emotionally upset, which is something bodily, and something that pertains to your animal nature, right? Then your thinking is, what? Impeded, right? You remember that famous thing we mentioned here before, the famous words there of St. Francis of Assisi, right? They wanted to get the Franciscans to do a little theology? You seen that? He was giving permission for the Franciscans to study theology, right? Right. Provided you don't extinguish the, what? Spirit of prayer and devotion. Yeah, devotion, yeah, which is the act before prayer, right? That's kind of interesting, he should make that as a qualification, right? Because the intensity of the act of reason in theology, right? Yeah, right. Could impede the intensity of what? Devotion. Devotion, which is an act of the will. And St. Francis knew that, right? That's right, huh? See? Well, sometimes, you know, true, you know, St. Paul says, scientia inflata, inflates the value of his importance, right? You have pride, and that way it gets in the way, too, right? But more basically here, it gets in the way simply because of the intensity of the activity. Yeah. You see? That's a sign of the uncommon source, huh? That's a very important sign, maybe more proportioned to you. Yeah. There are arguments, huh? Sure. I have to look back, as I mentioned last time, we were talking about St. Teresa of Avalon and so on. But sometimes in a manner... Like Augustine or Thomas, you know, the act of reason is so intense there, right? You see, you don't see that maybe they also had devotion too, right? Yeah. When they talk about the man and the woman, and the woman having maybe, as St. Francis de Siles said, a more what? Loving. More loving nature, right? More devotional. On somebody's orders, they always pray for the devout female sex, right? In the translations, I see it in the Latin, huh? Have you seen that? No. Yeah, I see it right through some of the Dominicans and things in the translations. But at first I thought, you know, gee, as they say, the woman are more devout than men. But actually what you're doing is you're praying for nuns. You pray for the priests and you pray for the devout female sex that's a kind of a, what, phrase referring to religious woman, right? Right, huh? See? But it's interesting that they're named from, what? Devout. Devout, which is an act of the, what? Of the will, huh? See? So the intensity of devotion might, what? Impede the activity of reason itself, right? See? But vice versa, the intensity of the act of reason, as St. Francis was aware of, could get in the way of the, what? Of devotion, huh? Okay. So you're saying devotion is a part of the will. Devotion is the principal act of the virtue of religion, right? Right. And it's an act of the will, primarily. Why is intellectual study not an act of the will? Well, it's an act of the reason itself. It's commanded by the will, right? Okay. But the act itself is one of reason rather than of the will. And there's a kind of contrariety, you know, in quotes, between love and knowledge. Like we said before, I gave a little talk of this one time. The first talk I gave out at Thomas Aquinas College was on that. And contrariety of love and knowledge, which our style talks about in the sixth book of wisdom. Love is chiefly in the thing loved. While, what? Truth is chiefly in the, what? In the mind, huh? So we speak of, of what? Giving your love to somebody, right? But in the case of mind, instead of giving, we say, what? Take, right? You take the genus, right, huh? See? The first act of reason is sometimes called, in Latin there, simple apprehension, right? Simple grasping, right? See? Can you grasp what I'm saying? When you grasp something, it's what? Contained in your hand, right? When your mind grasps something, it's what? Contained in your mind. So, that's a perfection of the mind, to be able to grasp things, right? But do we use the word grasping to perfect, to name love, or perfection of love? Grasping? No. See? Even the popular words, you know, love isn't love until it's given away, right? You see? When Thomas is explaining the names of the Holy Spirit, and the names of the Holy Spirit there is Donum Dei, the gift of God, right? Yeah. And Thomas explains why the Holy Spirit, rather than the Father or the Son, is called the gift of God, right? Mm-hmm. Because he says, everything we give to somebody, everything else we give to somebody, we give to them because we, what? Love them. Therefore, love is the first gift. See? So, notice how we speak, huh? We say, I left my heart in San Francisco, right? That's a long sense, right? But Christ speaks the same way, right? You know, laying up treasures for himself, you know? Mm-hmm. Because where your treasure is, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And Augustine has that famous thing in Latin, you know that the soul is more ubi, where? Amat, quamanimat, right? The soul is more where it loves than where it animates, right? So the lover is said to be in the thing, what? Loved. So love, that says, goes out to the thing. But knowing is the reverse. It's putting the thing into the door. That's why the will, especially in this life, is more proportioned to God than the reason is, right? Just like I can more easily jump into the ocean, which can be like loving God, right? Then I can put the ocean inside of me. So the good is in things. So the heart, in a sense, goes out to the thing. I left my heart in San Francisco. Doesn't mean I had a heart transplant. It means that I love somebody or something there, right? Okay? And that's why, you know, the knowledge of the good and bad, the knowledge of opposites is the same. So the knowledge of sickness is also a knowledge of what? Health, right? But the love of sickness and the love of health are incompatible. Just as in reality, health and sickness exclude each other, right? So because the heart goes out to the thing as it is in itself, I can't love sickness at the same time I love health. I can't love vice and love virtue at the same time. But I can know both at the same time. So in a sense, the movement of love and the movement of reason are just the reverse. One is from the heart into things, and the other is the reverse. I said to students, kind of a popular way there, I say, it's always bad to lose your mind. So it's not always bad to lose your heart. It depends on who you lose it to. Okay? To lose your mind, that's always bad. There's a good kind of contrariety there between loving and knowing. This might not be related, but in loving something or really being interested in something, sometimes you become much more involved in intellectually engaging. Sure, sure. In that sense, the two kind of are incompatible, as opposed to one being... That's what I was saying, contrary in quotes, right? Not strictly speaking, contrary, right? Right, right. Because you can love to know, and you can, you know, love what you know, right? So I mean, the two can help each other, that's true. But because of their way of operating, right? The lover doesn't analyze the beloved in the way the student analyzes the subject, right? You want to know something, you take it apart, right? It's not how you love somebody. Take them apart. That's why a lot of psychologists have the biggest divorce rager. That's what they say. Yeah, yeah. They take apart people rather than love them, yeah. You know, they used to say about Mozart, right? That the whole man was in his ear, right? Oh. Well, there's an intensity there, right? Yeah, right. See? And Mozart's listening to some music, right? It's good music. Then he's really, what? His other operations are sort of impeded, you might say, right? Yeah. So where did Mozart listen to? Mozart. Now, Bach and Haydn and so on, Handel. Mozart revised the Messiah, right? There's a big controversy as to whether Mozart improved it or not, right? Because, you know, at Christmastime, sometimes they have these, you know, at Tower Records someplace, they have these, you know, a whole section of the science. There's all kinds of, you know. It's kind of hard to make your mind. What should I buy, right? But some, you know, would say... You know, the Handel-Mozart dash, you know, sometimes even, and some would be, you know, the original one way. You see, actually, Mozart improved it, you see. So, but Handel's a very great composer, too. You know, so, you know, at Christmas time when they sing the hymns in church, you know, like, Joy to the World, you know, you look down, and it's from Handel, right? The music. And you can tell the better ones, you know, they come from somebody like Handel or some composer. That's what he's doing. But now you see a painter tends to, what, overdevelop his eyes. He's completely into his eyes, huh? My brother Mark always tells me this, you know, in Detroit there, visiting a friend who had some artist friends, right? And these guys are painters and so on, and they're very intense about the shade, right? And it's kind of almost monstrous in some sense, because if he walked into this room here, what's going to get his attention is, Oh, I've never seen a shade of red exactly like that. Oh, look at that little blue. Oh, oh. They're just, you know, much more intense than we are, you know, but they're completely absorbed in their eyes. I had a girl student one time, and we were talking about, you know, with the eyes of the most noble senses, right? And I said, well, you know, most people, if you ask them, they'd rather, what, go deaf than go blind, which is a sign that they value their, what, eyes above their ears. She said, she'd rather go blind than deaf, you know, when she played the organ and so on, and she's into music, right? See? And, you know, the famous thing about the Frenchman, right? The doctor said, you're going to have to give up drinking wine, because if you do, you're going to go blind, huh? And he said, j'ai assez vu, huh? I've seen enough, but je n'ai pas assez vu, I haven't drunk enough. It's just going to go on Vicky, you know, they might lose his eyes, right? But in a sense, people are really absorbed in these things. You know, you, what's his name, Parker, the guy who does all these things, wine reviews. And if he gives a, you know, a good review to wine, next day, you know, shoot up in price, you know, from $10 to $50, something like that, you know. And he tastes wine all day long, right? Of course, he can't swallow it, because he'd be drunk, you know. But he can be absorbed in the taste of wine, the sniffing of wine, and it doesn't give you much room for anything else, huh? But the intensity of one faculty, right, gets in the way of the other ones. So, you know, Dr. Perquis, so how do we, all right, when St. Francis said that, it would, how do you get past, you know, this idea that, I guess, some of the Franciscans ran with that, you know, that's why we should study theology, because... Well, you've got to realize, you've got to realize, you've got to realize that St. Francis was giving approval for the study of theology, and he was doing so because he saw the need, right, for the Franciscans, not maybe as much as Dominicans, right? Sure, sure. But nevertheless, he saw the need that the Franciscans should know some theology, right? Right. And, but he wanted to have them, you know, avoid extinguishing devotion in their study of theology. But wouldn't, I must be, okay, he, he, he loved, he loved the study of theology, and I'm familiar with the history there, actually, in some ways. Yeah. Um, but if, if study of theology, is the idea that it only diminishes devotion and prayer if it's done too intensely, or, I mean, does... Well, I mean, there's maybe a time for things, right? Right, huh? Right. And there's a time maybe when you should be doing one or the other, right? Okay. I remember when a friend of mine was in the Dominican, right, you know, and I think it was on, it was every Sunday, I think, they would, they would attend two Masses. And the first Mass was a meditation Mass, right? Oh. And you wouldn't be singing or doing anything of that sort. And you'd probably be sacred in that Mass, too, you know? Mm-hmm. And then there was kind of a quiet Mass, a meditation Mass, right? Mm-hmm. And the second Mass was more of a high Mass, you know, where you were expected to be singing as part of the choir, whatever it was, and so on. Yeah. Well, it's kind of interesting, isn't it? Yeah. Because, in a way, there's even a little different intensity there, right? Sure, sure. When you're singing in the chapel or singing and trying to stand key and so on and praise God in a beautiful way and so on and edify those who are listening, right? And you're just trying to, what? Listen to oneself. Yeah. Dolce Superi, as Thomas says, huh? What is it? Sweetly savor Christ in the Uchrist, huh? So the singing could be, to some extent, a distraction, right? Yeah. From sweetly savoring Christ in the Uchrist, huh? Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of, you know, things where the intensity of one diminishes another. Yeah. Oh. Yeah, that's interesting. It's also, I guess, when you're talking about working the intellect, in a sense you're taking, you're kind of focusing on yourself and sometimes you get lost in a thought, you forget about anything else. You know, I remember watching that movie, you know, John Paul, the movie, and when he was a kid, he'd always pray for each subject. So he'd always pray for about five minutes and he'd go and do a subject, you know, read or whatever, and then he'd go back and pray. I always find that really interesting. Yeah. Why do we all do that? Because it was combining the two. It was combining devotion with intellect. And he interrolled it rather than having a good subject. Mm-hmm. And I guess that's, you know, that's the tension, is trying to, as Francis saw, trying to bring the two together without... Yeah, we talk about reading scripture too a lot, you know, and I must read scripture like a modern scriptural scholar does, you know, with a very dry thing and so on, but it's oratio lexion, right? Prayer and reading, you know? And that's why I like, you know, from a practical point of view, I like St. Alphonsus better than St. Francis de Sales, right? St. Francis de Sales has got, you know, the treatises on these things, explaining the things, but Alphonsus will have the kind of intellectual medication and then you'll have the, what? The prayer. The prayer, right? You know? Well, Francis, you read it, and now you've got to pray, but he doesn't have the prayer for you there. Mm-hmm. And, you know, so, it's a question of balance, right? I know myself, you know, sometimes too, you know, I read literature just to kind of, what? Relax. Yeah, relax and refresh my imagination and so on. And if I pick up Shakespeare, I find so many things to think about that sometimes gets in the way of. It's not so relaxing as it should be, right? To be an inferior poet might be more appropriate for me, right? It's actually gets me thinking too much, and, but again, I mean, the imagination is something different than the reason, and one gets very intense, the other is sometimes diminished. So this is the good argument that Thomas has here, right? Yeah, it is, yeah. You know, nobody knows what Aristotle died of, but one legend is, or one account is, that he died of chronic indigestion. Brought on to overwork. Because it's interesting, right? Fitting too much, and you're free with this, what? Digestive tract. I don't know if there's any truth to that, but I mean, that's one of the accounts that come down from antiquity, the diet of chronic indigestion brought on to overwork. That would be a good example of what he's saying here, right? Because they're the activity of the vegetable soul, right? And, and, you know, we've got this old cat at the house there, you know, she sleeps most of the day now, you see, and she, really, you know, she looks so comfortable there, you know, like that. And me, when I go back, sometimes I can't sleep because my nose is bothering me, or, or I'm thinking about something, and, you know, if I get to be thinking about it, I'll think all night about it, and so my thinking gets in the way of my sleeping, right? And the cat doesn't have that problem, you know, so she sleeps so, you know, relaxed, and so, my mother used to, you know, and she didn't pretty much like cats, but she felt kind of relaxing, you see the cat there, you know, in the kind of the closed basket, you know, sleeping, you know, and makes you kind of restful, you know, so the cat there's found out in sleeping, huh? But, uh, Father Boulet there, one of my teachers I mentioned before, you know, Father Boulet had this problem of, of insomnia, right? Mm-hmm. I'm sure it's because of his mind, huh? And, uh, became quite a chronic problem, huh? Mm-hmm. And they tried to, you know, see if there's some kind of sleeping field that would help them to sleep at night, but I guess these-