De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 83: The Soul's Union with Body and Accidental Dispositions

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In these, then in what? In plants, huh? So the soul, although it's what? The higher the soul is, the more powerful it is. And therefore, the more diversity it requires in the parts of the body so it can exercise these different operations to which it is potent. And that leads in, naturally, to the fourth one. When you study the categories, you find out that there's one category that is sort of man's category, and that's, in Greek, it's called hexis, or in Latin, habitus. But habitus wants to have some clothing now, so he thinks of that sort. Sometimes I call it outfitted. But it's the category that man has and the other animals don't have, unless they're used by man, and you put some clothing on it or something like that. But other animals don't go around putting on clothing or putting on armor and so on. But man does, huh? But why hasn't man been given a body with all the tools he needs? You know, like I've got a ballpoint pin sticking out here, and a knife here, and a saw here. Obviously, I'd be, you know, way down with, you know, think of all the tools in an ordinary home. A corkscrew coming out here, and a, you know, screwdriver here, and a ballpoint pin here, and, you know, so man can't, huh? So he's given, in place of that, a reason that can invent these tools and hands that can make them and that can use them. So, um, he kind of used to give a whole lecture just in that tenth category, how characteristic it was of man. It's interesting, huh, how, how we, um, will want to wear, let's say, when we steal the world, huh, different clothing for different, what, occasions, huh? So, when your children get married, the father is, what, got to get on a tuxedo, say, which I don't think he cared to get on, but you have to, you know, do this, you know, even when my son got married, I mean, it's one thing, you've got to give your daughter away. When your son's getting married, you know, my, my dad and mom, sister and I, we wear tuxedos, both fathers be there, you know, formal dress, so there's something suitable about that, huh? And certainly a bride would wear different, you know, clothing on a wedding day than in other occasions and so on. And so, um, and for different functions in life, policemen and the soldier and the priest and the doctor, that they should, uh, what, be able to change their clothing, huh? Because man is not as limited as other animals. Because the understanding soul, to the fourth it should be said, that the understanding soul, which is, uh, comprehensive and universal, so now it grasps what understands universal. You might recall when I was talking about the, um, definition of reason there in Shakespeare, its ability for a large discourse, and one meaning of large discourse is that, um, you can discourse about the universal, which covers a large area. Uh, and in fact, it covers an infinity of things, huh? When I know what an odd number is, and I know what an even number is, and I know that no odd number is even, how many numbers am I knowing? In a way, an infinity of them. So the understanding soul, which is comprehensive of universals, or grasping universals, has, um, a power towards, what? An infinity of things. And therefore, it would not be possible to determine by nature, for it, either determine it natural, what? Instincts you might translate in that context there. Or also determine, what? Tools or instruments or aids for defense and clothing and so on, huh? As to the other animals, whose souls have a, what? Grasp and power for some, what? Particular determined things. So the cat knows how to scratch and how to catch things with the things. But, um, it doesn't have to do all the things we do, right? So it can have the tool it needs right built in there. But in place of all of these, man has naturally reason and a hand, which are the, what? Organs of organs, huh? Tool of tools. Because through them, man is able to prepare tools of infinite kinds, you might say, and for infinite, what? Effects. That's interesting. So he says, reason and hands. Yeah, yeah. Now, there's that famous little dispute between Anaxagoras and Aristotle, because Anaxagoras has said that man is the most intelligent of all the animals because he has a hand. And Aristotle saw the connection but changed the order and said, he has a hand because he's the most intelligent of animals. So the hand is for the sake of the mind to carry out all the things that it has in mind. It's kind of interesting, too, how we use our hands sometimes to make a point. The worst time, you know, Deconic and some of the Europeans, too, had this more exaggerated to us, it would appear, use of the hands. You know, there'd be that kind of gestures like that. I remember one time in graduate school having some professor from Europe one semester and it almost seems to us almost kind of comical because the gestures are so... are so... pronounced. Pronounced, huh? I remember one time Deconic was down, too. I think the first lecture he was more pronounced in his gestures and he kind of cut them down because the serogence of his, you know, it doesn't fit too well with our customs. Yeah, sure. But there you kind of see the connection, though, between the hand and the mind. It's interesting that we do borrow the word grasp from the hand and apply it to the mind, comprehensive, huh? Thomas sometimes says the first act of reason, which is understanding what a thing is, he calls it simple apprehension, simple grasping. And so we use that word sometimes for... to understand. How did Anaxagoras phrase that again? His point of view about reason and reason? He says that man is the most intelligent of the animals because he has a hand. Okay. Yeah. But Aisagoras says, no, it's the reverse. He has a hand because he has reason, yeah. Because he is. He's got this universal reason. Huh. Let's try to do another article, but maybe you should take a little break between the two articles. That's great. And then just to share it and then... You can see clearly in the case of knives and forks and spoons and the other things. These are the tools that nature's not giving us all the tools that we need. We have to supply them. So likewise, the tools that our reason needs, like definitions and syllogisms and things of that sort. We're not born with these definitions and these syllogisms in our mind, huh? but we need these definitions to understand what these things are. We need these syllogisms to know the truth of those theorems and Euclid and so on. And so we have to make the tools that our reason needs. That's more hidden to us than that. We have to make these exterior tools that our hands need. You have these, in the dialogues of Plato sometimes or in the Greek mythology, you have these kind of mythical accounts of these things where somebody's in charge of passing out gifts to the various animals and give them the tools they need. And so the cat gives the claws but now you've got to give the bird something because he doesn't have any claws and you give him a wing so he can fly away from the cat so kind of even things up that way. We got through passing out all these tools that the animals needed and now all the tools are used up and now it's saying oh, there's a man. We've got to give him any tools. And so now you've got to steal reason or get something like that to supply. But it's kind of a fictitious way of explaining why man doesn't have the tools he needs. He's overlooked and there used to be the whole expression there, you know, kind of with this refugious and so. Where were you when the brains are passed out? People would say that to somebody, you know. Where were you when the tools are passed out? I mean. But the limited life that the cat needs compared to us, the tools that he has as part of his body. are Sufficient yeah, but we couldn't have as part of our body really all the tools that we might need You know all the occupations of man and all the needs of man Just take my glasses off last night and this thing falls out you know so Finally I found that little kit there. It was a little too long to screw, but You've got a handicap today, huh? So those little tiny screw dares that they sell you those But I try to do it because you know you've got the glass and then the screw falls on the floor You kind of find the floor and then finally I got screwed in there So stick it up like that you put it up in the bottom and so on, but So yeah, I need all those tools Because it's a little magnified glass too. I don't even get those markers Trying to see it So you never know what kind of tool you're gonna need You know the Tools to open jars, you know just just a really kind of rubber rubber match But you said you can't even open you know without one of these little things so When you say you get these definitions and syllogisms in our mind, we want to know what a thing is and more If you call them tools, you know sometimes Thomas will call the definition is a tool to help you understand what something is Mm-hmm And I come into class and I'm teaching let's say Shakespeare's Exhortation And I mentioned, you know that it's written in in verse It's written in blank verse And they say now y'all know what blank verse is Oh So they don't understand what blank verse is What do they need to understand what blank verse is? Definition Yeah, it's unrhymed iambic pentameter Now they probably know what unrhymed means, but What's an iam? I don't know what an iam is Well now they need a tool An iam is two syllables with the accent and the second syllable Oh, okay So the definition is a tool you need To understand what something is Or to understand distinctly what something is And syllogism is a tool you need to Reason out these theorems in geometry And reason out things And philosophy in general And the more these theorems you have in your mind That's intellectual virtue then? That's what they That's what produces it, yeah Yeah, yeah Episteme is an effective demonstration And notice, it's not the same thing exactly but If you take, let's say, a magnifying You know, a microscope A microscope You can look at something under low power And then you switch it around In your high power It's kind of like blowing it up And you see it more distinctly That's what the definition does When you go from You know, the word Squary Kind of what it means But then you kind of Break it up and say It's an equilateral And right angled Quadrilateral It's like kind of What? It's like a microscope in a sense There's something A little bit of a microscope does It enables you to see something more What? Distinctly I was trying to say Try to get this thing in there And I was like You know Magnifying glass One of my friends He's got one of me like this You know, it's set up like that So you can, you know Put it under there And you can see it blown up So you're seeing the same thing You saw before But more clear and distinct Because it's kind of blown up And, uh Socrates does something like that In the whole republic Because he's trying to show somebody That, um The just soul Is better off than the unjust soul Apart from rewards and punishments And he says But it's kind of hard to look at the Inside the just soul So I'm going to blow it up So you can see it big And he makes this comparison Between the three parts of the soul And three parts of the, what? City And then you can see something Of what it is for the soul to be What? In disorder When you see what it is for a family Or what it is for a city To be in disorder And I say When your emotions are running you It's like a man who's on a horse And the horse is throwing him But he's got his foot, you know Caught in the thing And the horse is running away And the man is bouncing along the road Like that, you know Right Being beat up Well, that's in a sense what it's like Or another thing I personally like That when your reason is trying to satisfy Excessive demands of your body for pleasure Or for what is pleasing to the senses It's like being a, what? Clerk at McDonald's or some place And the rush hour Buses have stopped, you know There's 30 people at the counter there That want a hamburger Want a french fry Want this, want that And you're rushing to try to Satisfy all these people It's a terrible position to be in, huh? Yeah And some people's reason are in that, what? Position That they're always trying to satisfy All the demands of the body For food and drink and sex And alcohol and smokes and drugs And all these things That ring around all the time Trying to get the money To buy these things and so on And, you know They'd be much more at peace If they could cut off Some of these desires, see But when their reason is a slave Yeah Shakespeare's expression And reason panders will But reason becomes a slave But when Romeo, when Hamlet says Give me that man that is not Passion slave Mm-hmm When I sense you're the slave Of what? Most people are a slave Of some passion or other Mm-hmm And I can call off that passion That vice they have Mm-hmm But sometimes it's kind of hard to see That, but if you see someone else Who has to do What somebody else says all the time Mm-hmm And he's causing me Don't do something Mm-hmm No peace Yeah So you can kind of see how bad that is Mm-hmm You know, when Thomas talks about About the, uh, the, uh, vices of the flesh Things of that sort Mm-hmm Um, he calls them childish vices Oh, yeah Mm-hmm But he has a very interesting way Why he calls them that And I don't know I don't know He alone does it But he says If you let a child Always have his own way Mm-hmm And you never correct the child And discipline him, you know In a good way Then the child eventually becomes Completely unruly Mm-hmm And the parents cannot, what? Control Control him Mm-hmm And that's a terrible situation To have in a family If you can see that in a family life Mm-hmm Um Well, that's a little bit Blown up What it's like to have your emotions Mm-hmm Uh, in revolt And not being in any way Subject to your reason Mm-hmm And your reason kind of Not being able to control your emotions Mm-hmm Right But vice versa When you're in a family Where the students Or not students But the children Get, uh, good discipline, right? Not harsh But good discipline Mm-hmm The children are happier As children Mm-hmm Right And these children Are let go wild, huh? Yeah Who are never satisfied And never pleased with anything Yeah Never at rest And never contented Or even, right? In the same way Your emotions Um Are In the virtuous person They're not crushed The emotions But the emotions are You're emotionally happier If you wish Mm-hmm I don't think I don't think, uh Mother Teresa Had any emotional hang-ups Of course I could see You know But these people Who's emotions have gone wild They have all kinds Of emotional hang-ups They have all kinds of You know They're on the They're on the border, huh? This one girl I was going out with In San Francisco Was telling me about When she was in high school You know And some girl Got dropped by her steady boyfriend Or whoever it was And she was at the top of the building Threatening to jump off And how are they gonna stop her? They finally found the boyfriend And he dropped her Coming down But I mean That's That's, you know That's what it is To not have your emotions And Shares Control Let's see a little breakdown Let's look at article Article 6, huh? Just a question for you I don't know if you have Any light for it Um Something I Keep running across Um That especially comes up In the context of Eastern church things I want to give you a good example Today how we have Feast of St. Ephraim And of course we have Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas Mm-hmm So you know, people have Kind of Set the two apart And they'd say St. Ephraim was a poet And see he has this Um I was just reading this one Line the other day It's like He's refreshingly Non-dogmatic You know Yeah, they put the two Against each other Mm-hmm Kind of like where Supposedly St. Thomas has to Dissect God You know Mm-hmm Where St. Ephraim Who's Who's completely Un-Hellenized You know They do this kind of thing Um And uh He respects the mystery, supposedly, you know, their basic bottom line seems to be that there's sort of like different logics, you know, there's the un-Hellenized logic, and then there's that kind of stuff. It's kind of like, what to do with that? How do you explain it? It's certainly a fallacy. Do you see Thomas' commentary on divine names of Dionysius? No. Well, in the beginning of the commentary, he divides the works of Dionysius, some of which we have and some we don't have, I guess. And according to the names that you might use in talking about God. Okay? Now, in the book on the divine names, our names that are said properly of God, they can also be said of creatures with a different meaning. But then he has another book which is about names said metaphorically of God. Now, there's a little contrast between those two. Take a name like, say, good, which would be like the first name in the divine names. Good can be said of God, and it can be said in some way of the creature, right? But good is found, first of all, in God, and fully in God, and only in some kind of secondary way in the creature. Okay? So although we might know the goodness of the creature before we know the goodness of God, when you come to understand the goodness of God, you realize that he's the fountain of all goodness and so on. And the name good is more applied to him than to us. Like when Christ says, in one sense, God alone is good. Okay? But now if you take a metaphorical name, the Lord is my rock. Well, does the name rock belong more to God than to the thing in the backyard here? No. No. There it belongs more to the creature, really. Yeah. Instead of God, metaphorically and not properly. God's not really a rock. Right. But there's some kind of a distant likeness there. So they're quite different, those two, right? Right. Now, if one man had written the divine names, another guy had written the symbolic theology or the metaphorical theology, you'd say, well, they just don't think the same way, these two guys, do they? Mm-hmm. You know? But actually, Dionysius has what? Both of those, right? Yeah. Okay? And then he has apparently another book, I don't know if we have it, on the, what? On the Trinity, see? And these are things now where you can't really find an adequate, you know, thing in creatures, huh? And it's kind of unique, the names of the Trinity and so on, see? So, notice that variety, see? Yeah. Okay? Now, Thomas does both of those. Now, if you read the commentaries in Scripture, he's doing, in many cases, metaphorical theology. As I say to people, the metaphor is sweet, which is a very common one. And it's used in Scripture, and it's used in, you know, romantic love and so on, very often, sweet and sweetheart. But in all my reading of the poets as well as the philosophers, no one has explained the metaphor of sweet better than Thomas. And it's in the Commentary of the Psalms that we have, which is incomplete. But he's explaining, you know, taste and see how sweet is the Lord. And why is God called sweet, huh? And, as you know, a metaphor is based on some kind of likeness. So Thomas is explaining the metaphor of sweet. And he sees three likenesses. And these three likenesses can be used now when you're talking about God, but other things more known to us. He says, the sweet is pleasant. Okay? The second thing he says about the sweet is that it's restful, quieting. And I've seen that with my own children. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, when you're driving across country. Did I mention that when I did? Yes. I did it? Yeah. Yeah. Get out some candy. Well, what I did was, you know, sometimes we drive out to Minnesota. It's a 24-hour to drive out there. But you could do it in three days of eight hours or two days of 12. And either one is hard, but, you know. So you're driving some distancing. But after a while, the kids get very restless in the back seat and so on. And so I went out to the drugstore, where it was, and I bought a number of these, you know, 35 cents things like M&M chocolate coated peanuts and, you know, some other kind of candy skittles or something, right? I'd buy three of, you know, three different ones. And then three more different ones, right? Three more different ones, okay? And I put three, I have two children, they say. I put those three things in a little bag, and I'd fold it over and stick one. I put another three things in a little bag, and I'd stay put, and I'd know it. So I don't know how many bags there are, but enough to handle them. And then I put these seven or eight little bags in a big sack, which stayed in the front seat with my wife and I. And the three little ones there in the back. And then, you know, of course, and I could look at each other. And when you know us can stand anywhere, the close back there, it's time for a daddy treat. So we'd pull out one of these things, and each one of them would get one of these three things. But they were, you know, shared with each other, oh, you know, and so, and they'd talk and laugh and so on. And they'd go on for a half hour, almost an hour, I see. And then you, you see? So it has a restful thing. And as I mentioned, you know, the old standard practice with the police when they found a kid who's lost. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Crying, screaming. But you know, this kid, you know, he's just a pain in the arse. Until you find the parents. And the typical thing that they did in the New York police always was to go and get an ice cream cone. And the kid would calm down and so on, see. So that's very much, you know, sweet, properly speaking. It's obviously pleasant. Everybody likes candy, you know, as a kid. And sweet things. And, but it also makes the kid, what, at rest, so to speak. And then the third thing that we look for, for the suite, is that it's refreshing. It revives you. And so you see people, you know, running down to those machines there to get a candy bar or something because they're getting kind of out of energy at the end of the day, huh? And you can't do that to everybody. It's a very common thing, right? People are going to have their donor or coffee or something in the morning. So those are the three things he sees in the suite, huh? It's pleasant, it's restful, and it is what? Refreshing. Refreshing, yeah. And so the word sweet can be carried over and applied to things, huh? Yeah. See? Now, apply it first, you know, in human things, huh? Take a very common metaphor. It's actually two figures of speech. You speak of your sweetheart, huh? Okay? Mm-hmm. Or the most common metaphor the husbands and wives use is honey or something of this sort, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's called my daughter Honey Biscuit. Mm-hmm. Okay? Now, honey is a little more concrete, you know, particularly in sweet, but still, it's basically based on the metaphor of sweet. Well, what do you mean by sweetheart? What does that mean? What is sweet saying about that person's heart? Pleasing. Yeah. Your sweetheart is a heart that loves you, right? Mm-hmm. And is it pleasing to be loved by somebody? Yes. Yeah. See? But now, is it also restful in some way to be loved by somebody? Some sort of insecurity. Well, what I usually do is use the monodexio here by the opposite. Okay. You know? If you sense hostility, people hate you. It makes you kind of what? Uneasy. Yeah. Even if you don't fear, you know, physical harm from them, right? It's kind of an easiness you have. It makes you kind of restless. Yeah. Right? While with somebody who loves you, you kind of had rest, huh? Yeah. See? That really is so, isn't it? Yeah. That's a little different than pleasing, but I mean, it's situated, huh? Uh-huh. Okay. And then, we find it refreshing to be. with those who love us. You don't want to refresh me, but somebody hates you. I remember a nice phrase of William F. Buckley, because he was fighting a lot of things, but he talked about the tenacious, ill will of some of his opponents. It all shows the words tenacious, not easily getting up that ill will of them. So that's what you mean by a sweetheart. It's a heart that you find pleasing, restful to be. Now, take another metaphor that I see Shakespeare. Shakespeare sometimes, instead of saying, your beautiful form, he says, your sweet form. Now, sweet there is a metaphor for beautiful. Of course, we usually define the beautiful as that which pleases when seen. So obviously it has that likeness. The sweet is pleasing, we said. The beautiful is pleasing. But we also speak of the beautiful as being restful. Well, people spontaneously do that, don't they? When you see some beautiful scenery, if you're in a house or a place where you can look out over the ocean or look out over the mountains and so on, we often speak of it as being so restful. You go out to a beautiful garden and so restful, a beautiful place. You can't always sit there. You're willing to sit there and just be at peace. Rest. And then we have an expression about a beautiful girl. Well, she's a sight for sore eyes. Oh, yeah. Isn't that true? And that's refreshing. I know myself, I used to go to this one reading room that was attached to the library when I was in college there, and a beautiful painting on the wall. So I'm sitting here reading this Blackton and so on, and I was thinking, no, it's kind of what? Restful to look up sometimes at that painting, and kind of what? Refreshes your eyes. Do you see that? So you have the same three things, huh? Now, if you apply the word sweet to God or to Christ, God is what? Pleasing to the mind, right? Pleasing to the heart, huh? But Christ will say, come to me, all you are burdened, and I will what? Refresh, you see? It's refreshing in a sense to turn to God, huh? And what did Augustine say? The awesome man is for thyself. Our hearts are restless until they rest in you. So God is pleasing, restful, and refreshing. So he can be called metaphorically sweet, huh? So Thomas understands these metaphors. And if you read not just the Summa, Summa gives some of the reasons why we have metaphors in Scripture. But there are other metaphors, other reasons he gives in the sentences, in the sentences that come to you in the sentences. Oh, in the sentences. Yeah. And one that kind of strikes me, you know, that it's not in the Summa, is that he gives the other one, is that every part of us should be subject to God, huh? Okay? Okay. Now, primarily, it's our reason and our will that are subject to God. Our reason in believing God, and our will in hoping and loving Him and obeying Him and so on. But notice how we bring even our legs into subjection to God, because we come into church and we genuflect, right? And we kneel down, huh? And things of this sort, huh? So even our legs, which are not the most important part of us, right? And then we fold our hands, or we do this or something of this sort. We have these ways we hold our hands when we pray. Some people, you know, when I grew up, we always pray, put our hands together like this. But, you know, I know a lot of people talk to the other way of putting their hands like this, huh? But which is a higher part of us? Our feet, our hands, or our imagination? Imagination. Yeah. And Thomas says, even the imagination should be subject to God, huh? Mm-hmm. And in using these metaphors, you are in a way bringing the, what? Imagination subject. Yeah. Yeah. And then when you have, you know, a beautiful church, right? Or a beautiful painting, right? Beautiful stained glass and so on. Mm-hmm. The I, in some ways, it is, what? In the service here. And beautiful church music, huh? When you sing. Um, hear this. And then the year, right? Through the year, you're being raised to God, huh? So the fact that prayer, prayer is actually an act of reason, huh? Okay. But it's not opposed to prayer that you genuflect or that you, you know? In Worcester, I, you know, I like the windows in the French church downtown, huh? Mm-hmm. You know, I mean, much better than the ones in the cathedral, huh? Mm-hmm. If you've been in the cathedral, I don't know if they're very good, they're very good, the ones in the cathedral. But, but, uh, a Sunday, this last Sunday, we happened to go to St. Rose of Lima there, because, uh, time-wise, and, uh, they're more modern things. They kind of can figure out a little bit, you know, but you can't sit there and meditate the way I can sit there, you know, in the French church downtown and look at these, you know, beautiful, you know, representations of scenes from the life of Christ. So. Notre Dame. Yeah, Notre Dame, yeah. Yeah. There's much more. Are we ready to begin again? Yeah. Okay, thanks. Yeah. Article 6. Whether the understanding soul is united to the body through accidental dispositions. To the sixth, he proceeds, one proceeds thus. It seems that the understanding soul is united to the body with accidental dispositions being, what, in between, being the medium, huh? First objection. For every form is in a matter that is proper to it or private to it and disposed for it, huh? But the dispositions to the form are some, what, accidents, huh? So you heat up a man too much, you cool him down too much, you kill the man, right? Mm-hmm. So you need a body that is disposed in terms of these accidental qualities in a certain way to be a suitable body for man. So aren't these accidental dispositions, the objection is saying, aren't they in between, in a sense, the soul and the body, huh? Therefore it's necessary to understand before that there are some accidents in the matter before the substantial form and thus before the soul since the soul is a certain substantial form. Well, notice the problem that's going to be with that is that you'd have something, what, between the substantial form and whatever is the subject of it. Yeah. Yeah. And the substantial form is the first act. Mm-hmm. See? Okay. But still there seems to be something in the objection, huh? That you can't have the soul joined to a body with just any kind of disposition as far as hot and cold and wet and dry and so on. Moreover, diverse forms of one species require diverse parts of matter. But the parts of matter are diverse, but diverse parts of matter cannot be understood except by the division of, what, continuous quantity, which he sometimes calls dimensive quality. Okay? Especially continuous quantity, lines being surface and body, right? So we speak of, what, one dimension, two dimensions, three dimensions, right? Mm-hmm. So he uses that sometimes to mean what we call continuous quantity. Therefore, it's necessary to understand dimensions in matter before the, what, substantial forms, which are many of one species. And I'll go back to what we were saying before. How is it possible to have, what, many things of the same kind many things of the same kind, many things of the same kind, many things of the same kind, things of the same kind? Bye-bye. Bye-bye. ...in the material world, because you have enough matter on it. And so, your mother or grandmother lays out the dough, spreads it out, and if she has enough dough, she can make, what, several dozen cookies with her cookie thing, Christmas trees at Christmas time, right? So, you have to understand in the dough already that it has, what, dimensions, right? And so, you can divide it and form many cookies. So, don't you have to understand, if there's many men, right, don't you have to have many matters to explain this multiplicity of individuals, and therefore you've got to have continuous quantities so you can divide up the flesh and blood and bones among us, huh? Moreover, the spiritual is applied to the bodily through the contact of, what, power, huh? Not through the contact of dimensions. But the power of the soul, the virtues of the power, there you have to, the Latin is a little more, there's two words there, huh? But virtue is sometimes a synonym for power. But the virtue of the soul is its power. Therefore, it seems that the soul is an added to the body by reason of a, what, potency, which is a certain accident, huh? But against all this, he says, is that the accident is, what, after substance in time and in definition, as is said in the seventh book of Wisdom of the Metaphysics. Seventh book after the book of Natural Philosophy. Therefore, one cannot understand some accidental form to be in matter before the soul, right? Which is the, what, substantial form. Just like we said before, you could have another substantial form in the matter before you have the soul, huh? Right. Otherwise, it would be something accidental itself, right? Well, how can you have matter receive accidental forms before it receives a substantial form? Then the accident would be before substance, huh? Why, accident is by definition a thing that exists not by itself, but only in another. Why, substance is by definition something that exists not in another. So substance is before, huh? In time and definition, accident. So how can you have accidental forms be an intermediary between the matter and the soul? That's one thing that's why I still don't quite understand the original question, and even follow the different objections, why they would think this to begin with. Well, it seems that the human soul cannot be united to just any kind of body, right? It can't be united to a body that's too hot or too cold, right? Okay. Or too wet or too dry. Okay. The soul cannot be united to a body that's dry as dust. So then... Or a body that's as wet as water. Or a body that's as hot as fire. Or as cold as ice, right? So, you're kind of identifying the subject of the soul with the body that has certain, what? Accidental qualities. Sit in temperature, right? Sit in hot and cold and wet and dryness and so on. And therefore, these accidental qualities are to be understood as in between, huh? The soul and the body that receives the soul, huh? As the explanation for why they're being acquired for the soul? Yeah, well, basically the idea that you can't have just any form in any matter, because the two of them are relative to each other, huh? And so... And then the objection is saying that, well, to make this body relative to the soul, you have to give it certain, what? Qualities. Okay. And those qualities are accidents. That's the third species of quality, huh? First one is habit or disposition. Second is power. Third is what? Sense qualities. In the first objection, you know, huh? Okay. Now, the second objection is taking, what? Quantity. Which is also an accident. You may recall how... How the Platonists and the Pythagoreans, to some extent, and say Descartes among the moderns, huh? Descartes, you know, makes extension the substance of material things. And quantity is the first action that Aristotle talks about, right next to substance. But as I always kind of playfully say, Descartes never grew up. Because if my quantity was my substance, then how could I grow up? I wouldn't be the same substance anymore, would I? So, it's really the same substance here, that was knee-high to a grasshopper, as they say, and now much taller than a grasshopper. And then the third one, huh, is based upon another species of quality, which is the power, huh? He's saying that the... How do you join a spirit, an immaterial thing like the soul, to the body? We can't join them like we glue together two different surfaces or two different bodies, because the soul isn't a body at all. The way they're joined is by, it's suggesting, in the way in which we speak of an immaterial power as being applied to something when it's acting upon it. Thomas did also learn in the Summa Contra Gentiles, where he speaks of how touch first means that the surfaces of two bodies are in contact, right? But then we use the word touch in a little different sense, where one thing is, what, moving another thing, huh? And the common example of that is, I touched you, my misery touched you, huh? And you felt sorry for me, right? See? We say about something, it's a soft touch. We're not talking about body, surface touching body, but one thing is, what, acting upon the other, right? And you say, well, that's the way that one body has, I mean, that's the way the soul has to touch the body, not by two surfaces being, what, brought together and made one, huh? Because the soul doesn't have any surface, it's not a body. But it does have power, right? And so it's not by the application of its surface to the body that's united to it, but by the application of its power. And therefore it's through its power or powers that the soul is, what, joined to the body. But the powers are in the category of quality. They're accidents of the soul. So the soul is therefore joined to the body through accidents of the second species of quality. And the first objection is joined to the body through accidents of the, well, partly, maybe the third, but partly the first, too. And then in the second objection is taking quantity as being in between, huh? So he says, I answer, it ought to be said that if the soul were united to the body only as a mover or motor, nothing would prevent, huh, nay, rather it would be more necessary that there be some dispositions in between the soul and the body. For the power, there would be the power, right, on the side of the soul, to which it moves the body, huh? And there'd be some, um, I was just trying to have any thought in there, some, uh, uh, suitability, right, from the part of the body, huh? By which the body would be mobile or movable by the soul, huh? The soul, when I was joined to the body, simply as its mover, right? Well, between the soul and the body would come the power that the soul has to move things, plus a certain suitability or suitable disposition of the body to be moved by that power of the soul. But we saw before that the soul is joined to the body as also its, what, form, and as a substantial form. But if the understanding soul is united to the body as a substantial form, the soul is united to the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body as a substantial form of the body. It is impossible that some accidental disposition fall as a middle between the body and the soul, or between any substantial form, for that matter, and it's what? Matter, huh? And the reason for this is because matter is an ability or potency to all acts in a certain order. It is necessary, therefore, that what is first simply among acts be first understood in matter. But what is first among all acts is what? Being, to be. It is impossible, therefore, to understand matter, to be hot or to be so big or so large, before it actually is. But it actually is, as being an act, through substantial form, which makes it to be, what? Sempliciter, right? Are you people looking in English, some of you? How do they translate sempliciter in English? Simply or not? It's almost towards the end of the body of the article. Yeah, it's just before reply in verse 1. Yeah. To be, however, an act it has in substantial form. Que facet esse subiciter, which makes being simply. Absolutely. These are the words, absolutely, huh? Yeah. I would have translated it simply, huh? Without qualification, huh? Right. Mm-hmm. What's the sentence in English? The whole sentence? Well, if I am in the right place, I have, but matter has actual existence by the substantial form, which makes it to exist absolutely, as we have said above. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know if that's the best way of translating it. At least, you know, when Thomas uses the word absolute, he usually contrasts absolute with relative. Okay. And I know myself sometimes when I'm talking about a distinction, huh, that you can see in some science. I sometimes talk about absolute distinction and a relative distinction, huh? And take, for example, numbers, huh? The distinction between odd and even is an absolute distinction. But the distinction between double and half is what? Relative. Yeah. So if it's an absolute distinction, absolute really means what? In itself, not towards another. So if in itself it's odd or even, it can't be both, can it? Right. The odd can never be even, you'll never be odd. Because that's an absolute distinction, distinction in itself. But double and half, it's relative distinction. So, a number cannot be both double and half the same other number, right? But a number like four can be double of two and half of what? Eight, right? I think it's interesting to see the difference there between absolute distinction and relative distinction. And both are important, aren't they? Now when I'm in logic and I say to them, what's the difference between a genus and a species? Is that an absolute distinction or relative distinction? Absolutely. No. No. See? Because something can be both a genus and a species, but a species is something more universal and a genus is something less universal. So quadrilateral is a species of rectilineal plane figure. But it's a genus of square and oblong and, you see? Okay. And odd number might be a species of number, but a genus of seven and three and five and so on. Okay. Or the distinction between father and son. Yeah. But for an absolute distinction, if you're a father, you couldn't be a son. Right. You couldn't be a son. But we know a man can be both a father and a son, but not towards the same man. Same. So I'm a son of Reno Victor Berquist, but a father of Paul Berquist. What about the distinction between mother and daughter? Same thing. Right. But now, what about the distinction between a man and a woman? Absolute. Absolute, I say. Hate to think. You see the difference? Yeah. I think I said that, but I'm not. Yeah, yeah. So, I said that's the way Thomas uses the word absolute as a, you know, contrast with relative. Mm-hmm. Okay. Now, the Latin word here is simpliciter, huh? And, you know, you'll find this in St. Thomas, simpliciter are very often contrasted with secundum quid, huh? Okay. Now, simpliciter here is a Latin equivalent of the Greek word haklos, huh? Okay? And sometimes we translate some piciter as simply, right? Yeah. And, over here, they'll say not simply, but in some way, huh? Okay? Now, that's a kind of distinction that takes people a long time to see the kind of distinction it is. But if you go through the different parts of philosophy, this distinction, this kind of distinction, comes up again and again and again. Take, for example, you talk about the good, huh? If someone asks you, huh, if you're a little boy or a little nephew or somebody, daddy, is it good to drink this? And let's say it's a delicious poison, huh? Daddy, is it good to drink this? What would you say to him? No. No. Yeah. If you don't qualify, is it good or bad to drink it? You don't qualify good or bad. You just say, is it good or bad to drink this particular beverage which is a delicious poison? You'd say, it's what? Bad. See? Mm-hmm. And you wouldn't even say something. Mm-hmm. Say it's bad, period. Which is speaking simply then, right? But, you could say that delicious poison is in some qualified way, in some diminished way, good. It's good tasting, right? It's a very perfect way in which anything good tasting is good to drink. Now, as I tell the students in ethics and elsewhere, all of our life, we're doing something bad, because in some way it's good. Yeah. Or, we're not doing something good because in some way it's bad. Mm-hmm. So, is it good to get up on Sunday morning, let's say, go to mass, huh? Yes. Okay? But it's going to keep from getting some more sleep. So, in some way, you could see it as being what? Bad, huh? Is it good to murder somebody who annoys you? No. It's bad. Okay? But in some way it's good. It eliminates the annoyance of your life. Now, is it good to rob the bank? No. It says bad to rob the bank, thou shalt not steal. But in some qualified ways it good. It doesn't increase the money in your pocket, look, if you don't get caught, right? So, we are choosing things like robbing the bank. You know the famous bank robber? He got caught many times. The judge would one day kind of just take your offices. You know,