De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 110: Intellectual Memory and the Retention of Forms

Transcript
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This, of course, is in his commentary, you know, takes it over from Aristotle, right? But you find it also in some of the Church Fathers, like Basil, I see it in Basil, right? That same division, huh? And you even find it in Machiavelli, right, huh? You see? So, but I've given names to the three, as you know, right? The Wits, the Dimwits, and the what? Nitwits. Nitwits, yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, one of the first exhortations of the great seven wise men of Greece is, Know thyself, right? Are you a wit, or a dimwit, or a nitwit, huh? And if a dimwit thinks he's a wit, you've got serious problems, huh? Because he thinks that he's going to, on his own, discover great things or something, right? And so, you need a dimwit who, to go forward, who has to know he is a dimwit. And secondly, to know also, what, whom to, what, believe, right, huh? Okay? But you have to, as I say, balance that with the text of Thomas in the commendation partition of sacred scripture, where he speaks of, he quotes scripture, and scripture is comparing the student in a way to, what, the earth? I mentioned this text, I think, before. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah. And Thomas, it was a metaphor, right? And Thomas says, well, what's the likeness here underlying this metaphor? In what sense is the good student like the earth? And he brings out three things there. The earth is lowly. The good student is humble, right? He submits himself to the, you know, words of the master and so on. But the earth is also, what, stable, right? And so, you have some discretion as to whether you're going to believe everything the, what, teacher says, right? Because the teacher may be more competent in some things than in other things, right? So, I may not believe Aristotle, what he says about the moon or the sun, right? Yeah. Because I think some people, since Aristotle, have invented things like telescopes and seen things that Aristotle didn't see, right? Right. So, I have some discretion as to what things I'm going to believe Aristotle in, and what things I might not believe him in, you see? And Aristotle himself, you know, when he talks about the sun, moon, the stars, he complains about the distance between him and the sun, moon, the stars, right? And he contrasted with his ability to cut open the animals that he studied, right? Okay. And so Aristotle himself was somewhat aware of his distance from the sun, the moon, the stars, right? Okay. So, that's the second thing the good student needs, right? And the third thing is, like the earth, he should be, what, fruitful, right? That he can take the thought or what he learned from the master and, what, see consequences of it, right? Apply it and so on, right? And so that's what's the three things required in a good, what, student, huh? You see that in Thomas, huh? So, notice Thomas's respect here. But this opinion is manifestly pugnant to the sayings or words of Aristotle. Well, for he says in the third book about the soul that when the possible understanding has thus become each things as knowing, right, it is said according to act. And that this happens when it is able to operate by itself, huh? It is, therefore, also then in potency in a way, right, but not in the same way as before, what, learning from another, as the wit does, right, or fighting like the wit does, right, huh? Okay. Now, you may recall Aristotle using it, in fact, to manifest what it meant to say that the, what, soul is the first act, right, huh? Okay, he distinguished between, what, habitual knowledge and actually thinking about something, right, huh? Okay. For he says the possible understanding is said to become each thing according as it receives the form of each thing, huh? And from this fact, from this, therefore, that it receives the species or the forms of understandable things, it has that it is able to operate when it wants to, right, okay? So I can begin right now, go to the board there, and start demonstrating some geometrical theorems if you want to, right? Okay, you see? Because I've learned some geometry, right? But I'm still in a potency when I've learned it, and I'm not turning my mind to that consideration of those things, huh? Okay? But I'm in potency to thinking about geometrical things in some particular demonstration or some particular theorem in Euclid, in a different way than I was before I picked up Euclid, huh? Uh-huh. And had learned some geometry, do you see? Uh-huh. And so Aristotle calls that habitual knowledge first act, right? And then when you use that habitual knowledge to actually think about these things again, then that's second what? Act, huh? Okay? So he says, from this, that it has received the forms of understandable things, it has that it can, what? Operate when it wants to, right? Not, however, that it's going to be always operating, that it'll always be thinking about that theorem in geometry, huh? Yeah. Because also then it is in some way in potency, right? Although other than before it, what? First understood, right? In that way in which one knowing and habit is in potency to considering and what? Act, right? Now, he gives a reason here, huh? The four-set position, that is the one of Avicenna, right? Is also repugnant to reason, huh? And again, the starting point. What is received in something, for what is received in something, is received in it according to the, what? Way of the receiver, huh? We've talked about that before, right, huh? And sometimes I apply that to teaching, huh? Right. And, you know, you get the same lecture and they all hear it, but what you get back from each of them is quite different, huh? And whose fault is it then that the material is not understood, huh? Because one student understands it very well, right? Having heard the lecture, no student hardly at all, see? What is received is received according to the way of the receiver, huh? I was hearing about the travails of some first-year philosophy professor, right, huh? Mm-hmm. And, you know, she was getting some complaints, you know, that students should always complain they didn't understand what she was saying, right, huh? So it was a kind of demonstration that what she'd said was quite clear. She had one of the students, and, you know, understood well what she'd said, right? Come in and explain the thing to the students, right? Right? But so, you know, that she'd really gotten the thing across, huh? Well, then the students were complaining, you know, she's so mixed up she had to bring a student in to lecture for her. How they could miss the point so many times, you know? He can't win, you know, and that's sort of a situation, right? In other words, here you have a student who can, you know, repeat the lecture and give the lecture himself, you know, because he's fully understood what has been said, right? So it must have been said with some kind of clarity, right? The others can't even see the point of this demonstration, huh? When I was in college, I used to, you know, do perfect exams at Kisurik, you know? And so Kisurik came in, he passed back the exam, and he was like, you know, moaning and groaning about the exam, you know? Now here's a guy, he says he got everything perfectly right, you know? He didn't tell us my favorite, because I'd get in real trouble with the kids if they did, you know? I mean, that's something professors tend to do, right? I mean, you know, I mean, you say, you're going to say that my lectures are not clear or understandable because so-and-so didn't understand them. There's always a half-dozen people who don't understand them, you know? You're probably talking to the wall or something like that, you know? Don't be complaining. There's always a half-dozen people who don't understand them, you know? There's always a half-dozen people who don't understand them, you know? There's always a half-dozen people who don't understand them, you know? So I was thinking about this new teacher, and it's kind of frustrating, you know. But anyway, that's all to illustrate what? Whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver, huh? But you know that. I mean, it can even be reading a book or seeing a movie or something like that, or whatever it might be, and some people react, you know, this way, and some people react that way, and some don't react at all. You know, how that goes, huh? Because it's received according to the mode of the, what? Receiver, right, huh? Okay. You plant seeds, and some are going to what? Sprout. And some are not going to at all, right? When our Lord say, you know, some of the seeds fell among this, and some fell among that, and some fell on stones, right? And some of them, you know, didn't generate at all. Some shut up, but then they faded and so on, right? Others, you know, produced 30, 60, or something, 100-fold, right? They received according to the, what? Receiver. In a sense, the earth or the ground is the receiver, right? But according to the, you know, the stoniness or the richness of that soil, right? They're going to be, what? Quite different in what happens, you see? Or, you know, you apply fire to things, and some things will melt, and some things will not melt, and some things will get hard, and some will get soft, right? Under fire, right? See? So, what acts upon things, you know, the way they're received, huh? See it according to the mode or the way of the receiver, huh? Okay? So, but the understanding is of a more, what? Stable nature and unchangeable nature than any, what? Bodily matter, right? Okay, because the understanding is not a body, right? It's naturally of a more stable nature, and what? Something more mobile, huh? In fact, that's where we use the word understanding, don't we? See? Something becomes understood or understandable when it stands still, right? Uh-huh. Okay, that shows you something about the mind, huh? So, the definition of time is timeless, right? If, therefore, the bodily matter, the forms that you see, if it does not only hold on to them when it acts through them, but also after it acts through them, or it ceases to act through them, much more so will the understanding immobility, right? In an unchangeable way, and in a, what? Way of not losing what we see of the understandable forms. Whether they are ones, what? Taken from the senses, or also ones, what? Flown in from some superior understanding, huh? Now, he says that partly, you know, because Adam Sandler was talking about that, right? But also, maybe, because he's thinking of the fact that we might be, what? Acting upon by God or some superior understanding, huh? So, notice, the basic reason is that what is received is received according to the mode of the receiver. But the understanding is, by its very nature, right? More stable and immobile, right? Than any body could be, huh? And a sign of that is the fact that we understand what changing things in an unchanging, what? Way. Way, yeah. You see? By the body, by its very nature, something changing, huh? So, if what is received in the body is retained, huh? Even when the senses are not actually sensing these things, so even more so should what is received in the understanding be retained, huh? You follow the argument there? If, therefore, he's going to make some more distinctions here. If, thus, therefore, if memory is taken only for a power, what? Conserving the species, right? It is necessary to say that memory is in the understanding part, huh? Okay. Okay? In that sense, he's admitting memory there in the understanding, huh? Yeah. If, however, of the definition of memory be that its object is what? Past. As past, right? Okay? Memory is not in the understanding part, huh? But the sensitive part only, which is apprehensive or particulars. Because the past as past is something, what? Particular. Singular, right, huh? Huh? I drove up here a short time ago and I can remember that, right? Uh-huh. Okay? Remember my class this morning or something, right? Uh-huh. He was talking about eternity this morning. Oh. Into the class, okay? Uh-huh. So I can remember that, right? But it's by my sense memory that I remember that, huh? Because that's something singular and individual, huh? Uh-huh. Okay? And it gives reason here now. The past as past, since it signifies essay or being under some determined individual time, huh? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. It pertains to the condition of the, what? Particular, the singular, huh? Uh-huh. So as the great Boethius says, a thing is singular when sensed, but universal and understood, huh? Uh-huh. So the past as past is something singular. That's why history is a, what? Knowledge of the, what? Singular. You remember the famous, um, saying of Aristotle in the book about the poetic art? You ever read that? Um, he's talking about, uh, fiction there, right? Poetry. And he says, uh, poetry is more philosophic than history. And in what way or for what reason does he say that, huh? Well, the reason he gives is that philosophy is about the universal. History is about the, what? Singular, right? Uh-huh. Well, fiction, great fiction, great poetry, is in between, huh? But it's more, what? Universal than, what? Oh, yeah. Singular, right? So when you see Romeo and Juliet, right, you don't say, oh, that's the way that pair of lovers that lived in 14th century of Rona were, you know? Um, but you say, ah, that's the way young lovers are, right? You see? You see something, what? Yeah, universal. Universal in that, huh? There's the inner penetration of the universal and the singular there, huh? Sometimes they speak of it as universal, singularized or singular, universalized. But it's more universal than, uh, um, what you have in history, then, huh? And it's approaching the universality of the, what? Philosopher, huh? And this is true, especially about great literature like Shakespeare's plays, huh? You read through Shakespeare's plays, it's like you, you've, uh, you've seen the whole human life, right? In a kind of universal way, huh? You see? While history is kind of an endless thing, right? You know? Okay. Um, um, I remember, what's his name, uh, the famous, um, commentator at the Greek plays there, but he's talking about, uh, Oedipus, right? And of course, you know how the Greek, Greek plays, you have a chorus, huh? And the chorus is almost like a commentary on what's taking place, huh? And when Oedipus falls, right, huh? The chorus comes in after the fall, Oedipus, you know, this terrible tragedy, right? Yeah. But he notes, huh, that, uh, the chorus doesn't say, O, Oedipus, you know, you know? He comes in and says, O, you generations of men, you know, you see? You see something kind of universal, huh? Something about man, huh? In, in the downfall of this man, huh? You see? Yeah. Okay. So, um, that's what he says, it's more philosophic, right? Because it's more approaching the, what, universal, huh? Okay? Why history is really a knowledge of the, what, singular. And of course, you get the pure historians, huh? They don't even like the use of history, you know, for, say, political philosophy or something like that, where you try to, what, generalize something, you know? Right. Remember this very good historian we had at Assumption years ago, and Dave Fay used to say, you know, talking about historical comparisons, you know? The purpose of history, you know, is to show the fallacy, he said. of all historical comparisons. Because, you know, there's so much into the singular, right? That when you say, well, this is like that, well, all they can see is the, what, differences in the situation, huh? When MacArthur was going to go to the Inchon Landing, you probably heard that famous time, and everybody else was opposed to it, right? Except MacArthur, huh? MacArthur says he's going to do what Wolfe did in Quebec, right? Well, of course, what Wolfe did was, he didn't land where Malkal, where the French thought he would land, where the normal place would be to land. He went further down the river, where the banks were such that no one thought he could get up, huh? And he found a way up, huh? And he suddenly surprised the French, because there he is on the Plains of Abraham, right? And this led to the capture, eventually, of, what, Quebec, and the defeat of the French in the French and Indian War, huh? And that's why Canada, you know, is part of the British Commonwealth today. And, um... Now, but how much alike was MacArthur? MacArthur's going to land at a place where the Koreans, the North Koreans, would not think that anybody would land, huh? It was such a dangerous place to land, huh? And I guess the tide's there at the Inchon, you know? You only have a few hours to work, and you don't have things exactly, you know? MacArthur said, you know, I've got more confidence in the Navy than you have, he said to the Admiral, right? They could do it, right? And, of course, it was a tremendous victory, right? It was really, you know, really, uh... Everybody had to eat their words, you know? Even Marshall had to, you know, send their congratulations, you know? And, uh... And the British military staff, you know, said this will go down in history, you know, was one of the greatest strategic moves, you know? But to what extent was what Montcalm did, or what Wolfe did in Quebec there, and what he did here, the same, you know, huh? You see? Uh... It was kind of funny, I had a little fun at school in there, you know, I was reading over Machiavelli, so is it the History of Florence, right? And there is a similar thing in there, right, where someone does that, huh? Well, obviously, when you do what the other guys don't expect you to do, that's going to be very successful if it works, right? I mean, it works. So, um... So I got the politics people over there, you know, to get this comparison between Machiavelli and who you're interested in, and, uh... and MacArthur, you know? But it's kind of striking to see that, huh? But, no, it's very trying to, what, abstract something universal, huh? Aristotle, before he wrote the politics, huh? He's supposed to have studied 150 of the Greek city-states, huh? And, you know, their history and the revolutions that took place, and so on, huh? So you have Book 5 of Aristotle's Politics, which is the book about revolution and also conservation of governments. It's based upon a long experience, right? So history can be a... Yeah, it could be a source of experience, right? The experience necessary for political philosophy, huh? When you get in their ways into political philosophy. It also can serve for foresight, too, huh? Because you can reason from a previous event, you know? But, uh, even these two golf wars we've had now, the second one has been much different from the first one, huh? And the circumstances were somewhat different, huh? We actually lost more men in the first one, you know? Yeah, but all these dire predictions were going to happen here in the second one, right? But they didn't materialize, huh? So, um... But history, you know, I mentioned history in this context here, because history is very much about the, what, past, right? But it's a now instead of the singular, right? And the now is the singular belongs to the order of the senses, huh? By the act, the possible understanding, it understands directly the, what, universal. That's why, in a sense, I can't understand any one of you guys, huh? You can't understand me, right? You see? Because anything you might understand about me really is something that could be found in somebody besides me. Yeah. You see? Okay. I have a philosopher who's a grandfather who's half Swedish, half Irish, you know, but that's still things that could be found in somebody else, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? Right? Yeah. Yeah. So you can't really get to my singularity, you know? Very well. Unless you go back to your senses, right? I saw a breakfast eating too much, or I saw a breakfast doing this or that. But then you're going back to your senses, right? You know? You're the man there. Okay, now I've got you pinned down, you know, but then I'm going back to my senses, huh? You see? But if I say, you know, well, here's a man sitting, right? He had a beard, he was da-da-da-da-da-da. But all of that could be found in somebody besides you. If I suppose you're the only guy who could be sitting there, right? At this point in time, right? Then I have to go back to my senses, huh? You see? Yeah. I suppose that somewhere then later when St. Thomas doesn't discuss how God then can know each particular one of us. There's no... Yeah, we see, in God, and even the angels, huh? They don't know by abstraction, you see. Okay? And they know by... Well, God knows because he makes all these things, right? Of course, he makes the singular, right? So, his knowledge extends to the singular, okay? But by his understanding, he knows the singular as well as the universal in the same way as the angels. But for us, it's kind of division, huh? By the reason, we know directly the universal, and by the senses, we know the singular. And that's the reason why, you know, as I was mentioning before there with Austerly's nice remark there in the essay towards an evaluation of music, how the fine arts and so on in fiction, they're more pleasingly proportioned to man because they involve something singular that tracks the senses and the imagination and so on, and something universal, right, that tracks the, what, reason, right? So, it's easier to read, say, Shakespeare. Of course, we have a little problem with the archaicness of the language, right? But the language wasn't so archaic. It'd be very easy to read Shakespeare compared to reading this stuff, huh? Yeah. But when you read Shakespeare, you see something universal, so your mind is not bored by this, right? Mm-hmm. And your senses, or your imagination, at least, is taken up with Shakespeare's wonderful images, huh? Yeah. Okay. Let's look at the replies right now to the objections. That was taken from Augustine's remark that in the superior part of the soul, you don't have things common to us and the beast, right? You have things that are private to man and not shared by the beast. To the first, therefore, it should be said that memory, according as it is, what, conservative, or conserving the species, meaning the universal species, is not, what, common to us and to the beast, huh? For species are conserved not only in the sensing part of the soul, because that could be common to us and the beast, right? So I remember where the food is in Moppet, where the food is in the house. I guess the ants do too, I don't know. But more in the conjuncta, since the memorative power is an act of some body. But the understanding, by itself, is conservative or conserving species, apart from the, what, or without, or outside of, I suppose, the, what, coming together with some body organ. Whence the philosopher says in the third book about the soul, that the soul is the place of the species, huh? Not the whole soul, but of the intellect. He's thinking of species there in the sense of the universal ones, of Plato, right? That would be what they call the botanic ideas, but rather the botanic forms, right? Okay? And Aristotle, so they're not in the world by themselves, but the universals are in, what, our understanding, huh? That's where man himself is, right? And dog himself is, meaning the universal, right? They're not in the world by themselves, huh? Okay? So, the place of these universal forms is the understanding, and therefore this is not something shared with the beast, huh? Okay? But what deserves these individual images, I remember how somebody looked that I've seen, huh? Okay? I recognized somebody that I've seen before, right? Then that's in my sense memory, right? See? Okay? I don't have any universal ideas about you. Or if I do, they don't really fit you in particular, do they? Okay? Do you follow that first reply there? Fair enough? Okay. Maybe a little bit like saying, you know, that my dog loves me, and, you know. And then I realized that the love that's in the will is something that we don't share with the beast. But this love that is in the emotions, the beast might share something of that with us. It's an affection between the dog and its owner, right? You know, the dog mourns the loss of the owner and so on. You know, the dog moans over the casket, right? It's owner, man's best friend, right? But it's not, you know, friendship in the sense of charity or something like that sort of, it's in the will primarily, right? So we share emotions with the dog, don't we? Even though our emotions might be more elevated than the beast's son. But we share the will with the angels, right? God himself. Okay, now, incidentally, as you read the next couple of objections, you're going to see another way that you can admit memory in the understanding besides its, what, retaining these forms. But we'll see that when we get there. The second objection was that memory was of past things, right? But the past is according to some determined time. Okay, so on. And Thomas says, To the second it should be said that pastness can refer to two things. To wit, to the object that is known and to the act of knowing. Which two things are joined together in the sensing part, which is grasping something through this, that it is changed by the sensible thing that is present. Once, together, the animal remembers that it itself has sensed something in the past and that it has sensed some past sensible things, right? The object as well as the act, then. But as far as the understanding part pertains, pastness happens to it and does not belong to it as such from the side of the object of the understanding. Now, why is that? Because the object of the understanding, the direct object is something universal, huh? Okay? And that's neither past or present or future, right? Okay? Something kind of quasi-eternal about the universal, huh? Okay? So, my grandfather is past now, right? My great-grandchildren are future. Okay? But man is what? You can't really say past or future, right? And it abstracts from that distinction, right? Okay, so knowing the universal, I don't know the past, do I? And in a sense, that's an object of mine, huh? Past is something singular. For the understanding, he says, understands man insofar as he is man. But to man, insofar as he is man, it happens, it's accidental, right? That he be in the present or in the past or in the, what? Future, right? But from the, what? Part of the act itself, huh? Pastness can be taken per se, also in the understanding as in the sense, huh? Okay, now he's admitting in a certain way, pastness there, right? Because the understanding, the act of understanding of our soul is a particular act, right? Existing in this or in that time, huh? According as man is said to understand now or yesterday or tomorrow. And this is not repugnant to intellectuality, because to understand of this sort, although it is something particular, is nevertheless, say, what? Immaterial act, huh? As has been said above about the understanding. Just as I can know that I understand something, right? As an individual, huh? I understand what a triangle is, right? See? And I know that I understand it, right? I can know a singular in that way by my mind, because it's something, what? Immaterial. But when I know directly that what it is, is something sensed or imagined, it's universal, huh? So I don't know the singular in that way. As has been said above about the intellect. And therefore, just as the understanding understands itself, although it itself is a, what? Singular understanding, right? So it also understands its own understanding, which is a singular act, either in the past or in the present or in the future. Sik-i-jitur. Thus, therefore, the definition of memory is saved as regards that which is past in understanding, according as it understands that it itself has, what? Understood this before, huh? Not, however, as it understands the past insofar as it is here and, what, now, huh? So my understanding, when I think about something again, I remember, right? I've understood this already, huh? That's what it seems to be saying there, right, huh? Okay? In that sense, it has a little bit of the, what? Knowledge of the past, huh? It's not only conserving the species, right? But it's able to, what? Remember that it did understand this before, huh? This is not altogether new material to me when I go back and pick up Euclid after a few months or something like that, right? And think about the theorem again, yeah, you know? Okay, I may get a little bit hazy in my mind, you know, but, you know, I've thought that before, huh? Okay? You know, sometimes I seem to forget that I thought about something before, you know? You know, sometimes I stick it out again, you know, and then I end up having the same thought expressed twice in my notes or in my computer or someplace, right? Let this happen, right? So there, he's adding a little bit over what he does in the body of the article, isn't he? There, it seems to me, huh? Okay? Because in the body of the article, he seems to be admitting memory insofar as the understanding, what? retains these forms by which it understands, huh? And the ordering of those forms is really what is its habitual knowledge, right? Okay. Okay? Yeah. But now he seems to be admitting that in a way it knows the past, huh? Insofar as it knows that it itself has understood this already, huh? Okay? But it doesn't know the past in this very singular way of here and now, huh? There has to go back to the census, huh? Okay? So when did you first understand the Pythagorean theorem, mister? Huh? Yeah? Okay? You know that you've understood it, right? In the past? I assume so. Right? Yeah? See? But you have to go back and say, well, gee whiz, I first studied Euclid maybe at TAC or something, right? And what year do they study that? Well, it's the first year, right, huh? Okay? See? But now you're kind of going back to your census memory, aren't you? I see? To get to here and now, huh? Or to then and then... Then and there. Then and there, yeah. I see? But maybe without the census, you would know that you understood this before, huh? It's not new to your understanding, huh? Right? Very subtle things here, huh? Mm-hmm. Now, the third objection was taken directly from Avicenna, you know. And, of course, what Thomas is going to say is that, like Aristotle already said, that these forms can be in a middle state, huh? Between, what? Potency and act, right? Let's call it first act as opposed to second act. A little bit like the man who's sleeping, right? Do I have the ability to see when I'm sleeping? Yes. I'm not a blind man when I'm sleeping, am I? No. But I, what? Not actually seeing, am I? But I actually have eyes, right? And you're able to see, right? But then I have to open my eyes and then I'll actually see again, right? So he's going to say something like this. I have to turn myself and want to think about these things, right? Before those forms exist and fully enact, huh? In my mind. Your car is so kind of a tick. Your car is so kind of a tick. Your car is so kind of a tick. Your car is so kind of a tick. Your car is so kind of a tick. Your car is so kind of a tick. Your car is so kind of a tick. Your car is so kind of a tick. intention on my part, right? And attention, too. So it says, to the third, it should be said that the understandable form at some time is in the understanding in potency only. And then the understanding is said to be in potency. Sometimes they're in there according to the, what? Ultimate, completion of the act. And then understands in act. And sometimes in a, what? Middle way, it has itself between potency and act. And then it's said to be understanding in, what? Habitu, right? In a habit, huh? And according to this way, the understanding could serve species even when in act it does not, what? Understand them, huh? Does not understand, I should say. So there's that intermediary stage there, huh? And of course you're forced to say that once you admit that what is received is received according to the way of the receiver, huh? And therefore the understandable forms are kept in the understanding, right? But as a matter of experience, we're not always actually, what? Understanding according to them, right? So therefore they must be in the middle state between that pure potency before we first receive them, right? And this full act when we're actually using them to think about something, huh? Okay? And I know myself a lot of times, you know, now with things that I know pretty well, like I've been teaching for 20, 30 years in college, you know, I don't prepare a class, you know? See? I just go in there and actually think about something that I habitually know, again, huh? And as Aristotle says here, you know, you can, when you want to think about that, you can do so, right? See? But before you have the habit, when you want to think about something or you want to understand something, you can't, just because you want to understand it, right? You see? So before I learn, say, a theorem in Euclid, I might want to understand, say, the Pythagorean theorem, huh? But that's Proposition 47, Book 1, I've got to go through a lot of things to get there, right, huh? And so if I want to understand the Pythagorean theorem, I can't just understand when I want to understand it. But if I've gone through all 47, right, and know them all, right, then when I want to understand, actually, the Pythagorean theorem, I do it. Right? That's nice, right? Right? Right? You see? Then you like the senses, huh? When you want to see the painting, just open your eyes and see it, right? No problem. But students are in that position, they don't realize it, you see, so they have kind of a false idea of what the life of the mind is, huh? Because they're associated with this, what, stage where you're trying to understand something and you can't understand it, or you don't want to understand it, you know, and you have this difficulty, huh? You see? The thing I found, you know, kind of, you know, in reading books, there's so much to understand in a book of Aristotle or a book of Thomas, you know, that I say, well, some things I think I understood there, and some things I don't think I really understood. But next time I read through, I'll maybe understand a few more things. Don't get too excited because, you know, you don't understand everything you read, huh? And Charles DeConnick, you know, the great teacher we had there at Laval, you know, we'd get through with, say, one of the books of the physics, the books of natural hearing, and DeConnick would say, now if you think you've understood everything here, he says, that means you've understood nothing, huh? If you'd really understood something, you'd realize you'd not understood everything. And that's kind of an interesting point to make, and then a good point to make, huh? I guess you've been, so I was just thinking again today, you know. Aristotle takes up in the categories of the words before and after, you might say. He really gives the meanings of before, but that gives you the meanings of after. And then he takes up, uh, the word hama, huh? Greek, huh? Okay. And then they translate that into Latin, then it's what? Simo, huh? Okay. Now how do you translate that in English, huh? You see? Together. At once? Yeah. Sometimes you say at once, sometimes you say together, right? Yeah. Okay. Now, why does he define before and after, before, at once or together? Why does he do that? To see that together as a negation, not before or after. Yeah, yeah. I think that that's the way we understand together, right, huh? Only as a negation? Yeah, that two things are together, let's say in time, take the first sense of together, when one is either before or after the other, right, huh? Okay. Then they're together in time, huh? And I kind of see that, huh? Okay. Now, in the 10th book of Wisdom, Aristotle has a very interesting thing here. He's talking about, um, more and less and equal, right? And he says that more more and less are before equal in definition, okay? I was talking about in a student there before class, and I says to him, uh, what does it mean to say that two straight lines are equal? Hmm. And, uh, he would say, but, um, I was hoping he was going to say that one is neither, what, longer or shorter than the other, right, huh? Okay? And, uh, I think Aristotle is right there, but I'm not altogether sure that I fully understand why he's right, huh? Huh. Okay? Or why this is so, huh? Huh. And, you know, I often think about what he says there when I teach you the Phaedo, huh? Because in that great dialogue of the Phaedo, Socrates is trying to show that the human soul is immortal, and one of the arguments is from recollection, huh? And he takes the idea of equality, huh? And he tries to show that the bodies of the world around us, like these chairs, huh, or these squares here in the floor here, one might say these squares are all equal, right? And Socrates says, but when you examine them more carefully, are they really equal? No. No. And there's some irregularity and so on. Right. And so, he says, what takes place is that we see things in the world around us through our senses that approach equality, huh? Yeah. But that aren't quite equal, huh? Now how do we make that judgment, huh? Yeah. That things approach equality but fall short of being equal, huh? Must we not have an idea of equality that we recall when we see these things resembling equality, but when we recall what equality really is, we then make the judgment that these things are equal, you see? And Socrates has a very nice, you know, monoductio there where he says, he takes the example of a painting, say, or a statue of somebody, huh? And someone did a painting, say, of me, right? And I wasn't here, but they brought the painting in and they say, do you recognize who this is? And you might say, oh yeah, that's a painting of Berkowitz. Yeah, the guy comes up here and today. And, but then maybe if you look at the painting, you might say, but Berkowitz's hair is a little more gray than this guy's hair. Berkowitz's nose is not so Roman, but kind of short or something. And so on, right? And could you make that judgment that this painting, although it's approaches the way Berkowitz looks, falls short? If your whole knowledge of Berkowitz was derived from that painting, see, a stranger wouldn't be able to make that judgment, would he? So if you look at that painting, you make the judgment that this resembles Berkowitz. Berkowitz somewhat, you know, but it falls short. You must have a knowledge of Berkowitz not derived from that painting. Do you see that? And so I always take the example in class with him of the great Frenchman there, a mafia who came over and helped us gain our independence. And he went back to France and almost lost his head in the French Revolution. And of course, he was a great friend of George Washington, right? He went down to Mount Vernon, you know, and spent some time there and went back to France. And he's the man who, what, told Washington to get down here to Virginia, right? You know, because this is a chance to finally finish off the British, right? And of course, they were great friends. And of course, Washington was very concerned about Lafayette. He had an agent in New York there with money to try to relieve him and so on. But anyway, years later, Lafayette got free and came back to the United States for a visit. And by this time, of course, the great George Washington was dead, right? But America was filled with what? Paintings and what? Statues of the great George Washington. And of course, he'd go around and say, well, nah, that's not really like him at all. But this is, he's a little more like this, you know? I guess, I think that statue that's down in the Virginia House of Burgesses of Washington, that he said, ah, that's really the, you know, very close, right? But could he make all these judgments if his whole knowledge of Washington was derived from these paintings and statues that the country was now filled with, you know? In commemoration of the father of the country. He must have had a knowledge of him separately of that, right? That's something, I think, a pretty good argument, right? But the point is that if the definition of equal is by the negation of more and less, right? As Aristotle argues in the 10th book, it doesn't apply to a fatal baby. If that's true, right? Then you could say, well, the bodies around us are clearly some more and some less, right? There's no doubt about that, you see? The other part of the same building is taller than my house, you know? My house is short, right? And so if I could get the idea of equal from more and less, then there would be a sort of weakness in Socrates' argument there, huh? But to me, there's something similar in these two, right? So Aristotle says, you know, for two things to be equal, you have to have the same kind of quantity, like, say, two straight lines, huh? But when you say two straight lines are equal, we mean one is neither more nor less. One is neither longer or shorter than the other. Well, the reason why I got to think about it today again was that this is the definition of eternity, you know? Cota simo et what? Perfecta possessio vitae in terminabilis. Okay? Well, I was trying to explain to the students how, you know, in the Via Negativa in theology, and I talked about this earlier in the course, and therefore you have to understand more what God is not than what He is, right? In the Vedic vision, we'll see God as He is, as St. John explains in the first epistle, right? That when He appears, we shall see Him as He is, huh? But I was trying to explain the negations. How many negations are in the definition here of eternity, huh? Three, maybe four, I see it here. But I see most people, and maybe all of you in class here today, I say to the students, think of eternity as a kind of endless time, huh? Okay? Now, of course, we as Christians don't think that time is endless. We think it has a beginning. You read about it in Genesis, and the end is you read about it in Apocalypse. But even if time had no beginning, right? And time had no end, as the Greeks thought, you know, probably, Plato and Aristotle speak as if this or so on. Still, this endless time would not be the same thing as eternity. Okay? And I think it's Plato, I guess, in the Tomegalus, huh? Sees that, huh? And it's important that Plato sees it, because Plato thinks that time is, what, in terminologies, right? It has a beginning, no end, huh? Although, you know, our life in time has a beginning and end. But time itself is endless, right? He thought. But he still thought that time was not eternity, huh? Right. And that's because he saw that even if time always was and always will be, there'd be a before and after in time. Yeah, yeah. And, well, in eternity, there's no before and after, huh? But if you understand this by the negation of that, right, then this involves a negation of the, what, before and after in time. Do you see that? Yes. So it's more clear that you're going by negation there, right? Yeah. If this is known by the negation of before and after, and that's perhaps the reason why Aristotle gives before and after, before, a lot, right? Okay. Because before in definition, huh? Right. Okay. So I said, you know, if you take your life or my life or Mozart's life or whoever's, whatever life is measured by time has a beginning and end in time, right? Okay. So the divine life, unlike the life of Mozart, has no beginning and no, what, end, huh? Okay. I think Mozart, he didn't live very long. I was present, you know, for the 200th anniversary of the birth of Mozart in 1956, right? Where he had two concerts entirely devoted to Mozart, right? And I was present at so many musical festivities for the 200th anniversary of the death of Mozart. So my life is, what, you know, it's been longer than Mozart's life. I don't say it's productive, obviously. But, so Mozart's life had a beginning and end, huh? And the divine life is in terming obvious, right? It has no beginning and no end, huh? But even if Mozart's life, if he had always been, it always would be, right? His life would still be spread out before and after. One year of his life would be before, after, and another year. So, there's another difference here, right, huh? Totesimo, right? Okay. So, those whose life is measured by time have a beginning and end in time, right? By the divine life has no beginning and no end. And those whose life is in time have a before and after in their life. But there's no before and after in God's life, huh? Okay, then, you go and you say, well, in that respect, the now of time resembles eternity more than time does, huh? Because in the now of time, now in a strict sense, which divides the past from the, what, future, right? And using the now in a strict sense, including none of the past, none of the future, that now is, what, at the point, indivisible. So, in the now, there's no before and after. So, in some respects, the now of time resembles eternity more than time itself does. And St. Bwethius brings this out when he says that, what, the now that flows makes time, huh? And the now that stands still makes, what, eternity, huh? Okay? Now, he wants to express the definition how time, how eternity differs from the now of what? Time, right? But the now of time, like the eternal now of God, is all at once and has no before and after in them. But the now of time is, in one sense, always other, right? Okay? It flows, right, huh? Okay? So, but like, you know, like, imagine, if you go in geometry, huh? You move, imagine a point moving down the line, right, huh? The point would be the same point, right? In one sense, but always other as to where it is, right? So, the now of time always seems to be what? So, the now of time always seems to be the same point, right? So, the now of time always seems to be the same point, right? So, the now of time always seems to be the same point, right? So, the now of time always seems to be the same point, right? So, the now of time always seems to be the same point, right?