De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 148: Understanding Multiple Things and Composition in the Mind

Transcript
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The Holy Spirit, amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Praise for you, Lord. Help us to understand all that you have written. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, amen. I was reading a little account there, you know, incident in the life of St. Dominic when he was competing with the heretics and sometimes they'd have a public debate. And, of course, the town people listened to it, but they couldn't decide, you know, between the heretics and Dominic's. So they decided to have a trial by fire. So they threw both Dominic's book, his notes in the fire, and the heretics. The heretics, of course, burned up right away. And Dominic's book, of course, was not injured at all. Oh, really? I never heard of that. I guess in the church there they still have something, you know, and it was from the wood that was sinned or something there, you know, and this test was given before. So kind of interesting little story, yeah? Yes. Some of the donkeys here, I don't know if that's Dominic or not, but the donkey that the doors, the Eucharist, you hear them? I've heard that story, yeah. Oh, it's the end. Okay. So in Article 4 here now. To the fourth, thus one proceeds, It seems that we are able to understand many things together or at the same time, Simo. For understanding is above time, just as it's above the body. But before and after belong to time. Time is defined as the number of the, what, before and after in motion, huh? So when you talk about three hours, you're talking about the before and after in the motion of the sun around the earth, huh? So you're numbering the before and after in that. But before and after belong to time. Therefore, the understanding does not understand diverse things by before and after, or before and after, one after another, but together. Moreover, nothing prevents diverse forms that are not opposed to be together and act in the same thing, just as in the apple is the odor or smell and the, what, color, right? At the same time. But the understandable forms are not opposed. Therefore, nothing prevents one understanding together to come and act according to, what, diverse, understandable forms. I'm trying to say that right. Exactly right. And therefore, nothing prevents one understanding, right, together to come to be an act according to diverse, what, forms, huh? He's saying these forms are not opposed, just like the smell of the apple and the color of the apple are not opposed, so they can be found together, right, at the same time in the apple. So the different understandable forms in our mind can be together, right? Moreover, the understanding, at the same time, understands some whole, as a man or a, what, house, right? But in any whole are contained many parts. Therefore, the understanding understands many things, what, together, huh? Moreover, one is not able to know the difference of one thing to another unless both are, what, grasped together, as is said in the book about the soul. And the same reason is about any other comparison. But our understanding does know the difference and the comparison of one thing to another. Therefore, it must know many things together. If I'm taller than you or shorter than you, how can I know that without knowing you and me at the same time, huh? Or if I know the square has got more sides than a triangle, I must think of square and triangle, what, together, right? But against this is what is said in the book about places, huh? That's Sarah Stahl's book on dialectic. That one understands one thing only. But sherry, meaning kind of habitual knowledge, right? He can know many things, huh? I answer, and Thomas is going to make a distinction now, huh? I answer that the understanding is able to understand many things by way of being, what, one of those many things, huh? Per modem unias, huh? But it cannot understand many by way of being, what, many, huh? I know that's what I was saying, huh? You know, if I, what, understand the difference between a dog and a cat, I'm thinking of dog and cat together at the same time, huh? But there I'm thinking of them in one, what, comparison, right? But if I think simply about what a dog is, and I think simply about what a cat is, right, then as many as what? Many, right? And then I can't think at the exact same moment, what a dog is, and think about what a cat is, right? I have to make them one in some way. But when I say, for example, a dog is not a, what, cat, then I'm thinking of dog and cat together, aren't I? But if I just think about what a dog is, and just think about what a cat is, and I'm not comparing them or putting them together in a negative statement, then I can't think of the two at the same time. I say, by way of one or many, through one or many, what, understandable forms, huh? For the way of any action follows the form, which is the, what, source of the action, huh? So whatever things the understanding is able to understand under one form, it can understand together. And hence it is that God understands or sees all things at once or together, because he sees all things by one thing, which is his own essence or substance or nature. But whatever things the understanding understands through diverse forms, through other forms, it cannot, what, understand together. And now he gives a reason for this, huh? And the reason for this is because it is impossible that the same subject be perfected at the same time by many forms of one, what, kind, huh? And of diverse, what, species, huh? Just as it is impossible that the same body in the same part be at the same time colored by, what, diverse colors, right? Or that it be shaped by diverse, what, figures or shapes, huh? So a piece of clay can't be a sphere and a cube at the same time, right? It can be a cube and be brown at the same time, right? But it can't be a sphere and a cube at the same time. And it can't be brown and yellow at the same part, anyway, right? At the same time, right? So you can't have two forms of the same kind, right? At the same time, huh? So likewise, then, the reason or the understanding can't have, what, in perfect act, two forms, right? Understandable forms, huh? Okay? It's got to make something one out of them if it's going to understand anything, what, together, right? Okay? It's a little bit like saying, huh, that the understandable form is to the mind a little bit like the shape is to the clay or the shape is to the wax, huh? Okay? And it can't be shaped by different shapes at the same time. Does that have a lot to do, then, with the sense of truth that the mind is identical as equal to the reality? Is that the reason for this? Well, the reason for it is the one he gave. It's not possible to have many forms of the same kind at the same time. The objection about the apple there, right? Well, one was a color and the other was a, what? An odor, right? Okay? So it can have a smell and the color at the same time, but it can't have, what, two colors at the same time, at least in the same part of the body, right? Okay? And so he's saying the mind cannot be fully informed by two different forms of the same kind at the same time, right? Okay? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. More than the clay can be at the same time a sphere and a, what, cube, huh? And all these understandable forms are basically of the same, what, kind of thing, right? Okay? Okay. As he goes on to say, For all the understandable forms are of one, what, kind, one genus, because they are perfections of the one power of understanding, although the things of which they are, what, forms, right, are of diverse genera, okay? It is impossible, therefore, that the same understanding at the same time be perfected by diverse understandable forms so that it could understand diverse things in, what, in act, huh? Now, you see, as you go down from God, huh? God understands all things by understanding one thing himself. The angels understand themselves, but by understanding themselves, they don't understand all things, huh? So they need some thoughts in addition, huh, to their understanding of themselves. And as you go down from the higher angels to the lower angels, you require more thoughts, huh? And then at the very bottom, the furthest away from God in terms of understanding, huh, we require, like, a separate, what, thought for everything we want to know, what, distinctly almost, right? We're always trying to be a little bit more like the angels in God and knowing many things at the same time, huh? And to some extent, we can do this a bit, huh? Okay? We used to talk about, we kind of used to talk about in the calculus there where you, let's say, you put a, you inscribe a square, like, say, in a circle, right? Then you bisect the cords, right? That cut off. And then you draw lines from the center of that. And you get a figure that's still a rectilineal figure, but it's closer to the area of a circle, right? You keep on bisecting, right? And so you see the circle as the limit that you never reach, really, huh? But you approach more and more. So in knowing the circle as a limit of polygons, you're knowing circle and polygon somehow at the same time, right? And so it's the human mind striving to be more like its guardian angel, right? To know distinctly, huh, two things at the same time. In a way, you know the distinction between the polygon and the circle, that no matter how many times you bisect that and how close you get to the area, you never get a polygon that is really equal to a, what, circle, huh? Okay? So you see the distinction of them at the same time. You seem to know them together, right? Oh, of course. Okay. Now, the first objection was saying that the understanding is above time. And, of course, sometimes we speak of a certain time in the angels, but it's not the time that you and I know, which is a continuous time tied up with the locomotion of the sun and so on. So Thomas is going to point that out. The understanding, to the first therefore it should be said, the understanding is above time, namely the time that is a number of the motion of bodily things, huh? As we said before, when you study time there in the fourth book of Aristotle's Physics, you find out that time is a number of the before and after in motion. And, you know, the question, what is time, is different from the question, what is time, right? Excuse me, what time is it, rather? You know, guess me, what time is it? I'd say, well, it's 2.23, right? But that's no time. But 3 minutes or 3 days or 3 years is a, what? Amount of time, right? And what is that number, 3 days or 3 hours, huh? See? We're actually numbering the before and after of the most continuous and regular motion that you know, which is that of the sun around the earth, huh? And the clock is simply imitating, in a way, the motion of the sun around the earth, huh? But if you use the clock, the imitation here, you're looking at the before and after of that hand there, where it's on the 6 before it's on the 7, and then 7 before it's on the 8, right? So you're numbering the before and after in a motion that is continuous, huh? Well, as you know, the mind is not continuous, right? And the thinking of the mind, therefore, is not continuous, huh? But there can be a before and after in our thinking. You can think of one thing and then think of another thing, right? And when Shakespeare defines reason as the ability for a large discourse, right? Looking before and after. Well, discourse refers to what? Knowing one thing after another, right? And maybe eventually knowing one thing to another, right? But our reason can know one thing after another. And that's true to some extent of the angels, right? And therefore, we can speak of a kind of, what? Different kind of time up there. Discreet time, they call it sometimes. Okay? So he says the understanding is above the time that is a number of the motion of bodily things. But the plurality of understandable forms causes a certain variation of operations of the understanding by which one operation is before another. And this change Augustine calls time when he says in the 8th book upon Genesis to letter that God moves the spiritual creature, that means even the angels, right? Through time, right, huh? But the word time there is equivocal from what we call time here on this earth, huh? Because the time that we're referring to down here is a number of a continuous motion, huh? Of a locomotion, right? And that has nothing to do with the angels, huh? Mm-hmm. They're not contained under the sun or anything like that. Okay? Okay? So Thomas is saying that there is another kind of before and after in the understanding. Okay? That's why it's kind of hard, you know, to understand when the soul is separated from the body, right? We speak of the soul as being in purgatory, say, for a long time, right? It's not really in this time, right, huh? You know? But it must be very painful, right, huh, to be delayed to see God, right, huh? Because your body is not there to distract you from God or anything like that, right? And you realize your whole happiness depends upon seeing Him, right? And it's a fitting purgation, right, huh, that you be delayed, huh, in seeing God, huh? Or the fact that you put Him off, even in this life, right, huh, due to your own fault and so on, huh? That you dilly-dallied, huh, on the way. That's what female sin is, is not getting off the road to God, but dilly-dallying on the way, right? And so you've pulled up some pediments there to your immediate glorification. So notice what the objection is saying, huh? It was saying that there's no before and after in the soul because that would mean time, and the soul is above time, right? And Thomas distinguishes between the time that Augustine is speaking of in that thing and the time that is, what, continuous, right, and it's bodily on top of the bodily motion. So there's another kind of before and after, huh? I've given you the text on before and after from Aristotle, haven't I? But it's only that first meaning of before that is the before in time that's the bodily time, right, huh? And you have other senses of before and after, including that in the discourse of reason, huh? This is the third meaning of before, huh? I gave you that from the categories, right, the chapter and before and after. Is that the angels then, the third one? Well, it would be like that, yeah, yeah, rather than the first one, right? But there's a before and after in the discourse of reason, huh? I understand what a square is if I understand what a cube is, right? But it's more like a discrete thing, huh? You see, notice the difference between the continuous and the discrete. In a continuous thing, between, say, this point here and any later point, how many points could I stop at on the way from one to the other? Definite. Yeah. And can two points touch? No. So between two points there's always a line, and therefore there's as many points as you want to make in between, or you could stop at that. Now, is that true in reasoning? And just take a very simple example here of a syllogism. No, say, every, every mother is a woman, and no man is a woman. Okay? What's the next statement after those two? Every mother is a woman, and no man is a woman. No man is a mother. Yeah, no man is a mother, right? So there is a next statement, isn't there? But if you take any point on a line, is there a next point? There's no next point. Isn't that strange? Potentially there is, but no necessarily. Potentially. Next point, huh? You know, the reason we give, we give either argument, huh? We say that two points cannot touch. If two points had a touch, they would coincide. Because the points have no what? Parts, right? So they can't overlap, you know. And is there any difference between a point and, and does a point have an edge in an interior that's different? No. So the only way for two points to touch would be to coincide, right? In which case, you're only one point, right? So if you have two points in a line, there's always a line between them, right? And therefore, you can always divide the line, right? Think as many points as you want to in between them. So there's no next point. Kind of an amazing thing to think, right? In the same way, you know, with any continuous quantum, if you take a surface, right? I could have many lines parallel to this line here, right? But is there a next line that is parallel, or could be parallel? Because again, two lines could not, what? Touch without, what? It's trying to coincide again. So between any two lines that are parallel, there's always a little, what? Area there, huh? Surface. So there's no such thing as a next line. But there is such a thing as a next thought, isn't there? So this thought, no man is a mother, comes next after these two thoughts. And it shows, in the syllogism there, that it's not a continuous thing. In the same way, if you want to go from, in defining, you want to go from quadrilateral to what? Square, right? You have to add two things, right? You add to quadrilateral, equilateral, right? And right-angled, and now you're at, what? Square, right? There's just two things, until you get there, right? But between any two points, is there just two points? Can you narrow it down? So, when you add these two to quadrilateral, right away you're at square, aren't you? So defining and syllogizing, reasoning and so on, is not a continuous thing, huh? It's like numbers, right? That's why they call it discrete, huh? Because in numbers, you see, six, take any number you want to. There is a next number, right? Which is seven, right? A next bigger number, and a next, you know, smaller number, right? See? But with a continuous thing, is there a next longer line? See? There can be many longer lines, but there's always going to be, you can already bisect that, and make one that's not quite as much longer. And is there a next shorter line? Huh? No. But there is a next number, right? And if you look at Aristotle's ordering there, the senses of before, the first sense of before is in time, but time is something continuous. And to that first sense is reduced to the before in anything continuous. The second sense he gives a before in being, he gives an example of one before two. And then he goes to the third sense of before, which is a before in the discourse of reason. Okay? Those who are discreet. What? Two and three are discreet. Yeah. Yeah. And when he talks about a premium, you know, a prologue, well, between the premium and the tractatus, the drawing out of the work, there's nothing. But to take the most rigorous thing out would be the syllogism, right? Speech in which some statements lay down, just two. Another one fouls necessarily because of those laid down. Well, there is a next thought, right? There's no thought that comes between these two, between the syllogism and the conclusion. There's no bodies between them. So thinking is not continuous. So thinking is not continuous. And that's a sign that the, what, understanding, the reason is not a body. That it's so-called motion, right? Thinking, huh? Reasoning, the discourse, is not continuous. And so Aristotle, in the first book about the soul, he says that thoughts are like, what, numbers, right? Okay? So, though we do speak of a line of thought, right? Because the continuous is more, what, manifest to our senses than the number. The number's a little more abstract, isn't it, huh? That's why Euclid begins with geometry, right? I think it was terrific, right? But thoughts are more like, what, numbers. So it's this continuous time that the soul is above, right? Okay? It's touched, in a way, by time, insofar as the images are in time, right? You know? Your images are in time, and they're tied up with a continuous, huh? But the thinking itself is not in a body. It's not, therefore, subject to this continuous time, huh? But there's this before and after of the discrete, like there's a before and after in numbers, huh? And this was called time also by Augustine because it has some likeness, too. There's a before and after, but it's not the same sense, huh? And, in fact, the word before and after, as Aristotle shows in the categories there, is a word equivocal by reason, right? What's the certain likeness, huh? Of the, huh? When Thomas, you know, shows the truth in the Athanasian Creed, there's no before and after in God, huh? You'll eliminate all those senses of before that Aristotle's distinguished, huh? So that God the Father is not before God the Son in time, even in this other time, right? And He's not before Him in the sense of being better, right? He's not before Him in knowledge or anything. Anyway, you eliminate all the senses of before. There's no before and after in God. Mm-hmm. You can say the Son is from the Father, right? Mm-hmm. He takes from the Father, but He's not after the Father. Okay? But we'll leave that to the study of the Trinity someday. Now, the second objection says, nothing prevents diverse forms. They're not opposed from being within the same thing. And Thomas says, to the second it should be said that not only are opposite forms not able to be together in the same subject, but neither whatever forms are of the same, what? Kind, right? Even though they are not opposed, right? As is clear through the example induced about colors and what? Shapes, huh? Okay? So... It's not that sphere and cube are opposites like black and white or something of that sort, but because they're both, what, forms of the same kind, right, shape, that the clay cannot at the same time be a sphere and a cube. But you can mold it into a sphere and then mold it into a cube, right? The same way our mind, right, cannot be informed, fully enacted anyway, by, what, two understandable forms, huh? That would be like the clay being a sphere and a cube at the same time. Okay. Now the third objection is talking about how one can know the parts of a whole at the same time, so you're knowing many things together. Thomas says, to the third it should be said that parts are able to be understood in two ways. In one way, under a certain confusion, in a somewhat confused way, right, insofar as they are in the whole. And thus they are known through the one form of the, what, whole, right? And thus they are known, what, together, right? In another way, by distinct knowledge, according to which each part is known through its own, what, form, right? And thus they are not at the same time, what, understood, right? It's like the difference when you look at a painting and you're kind of seeing the whole painting in a kind of not altogether distinct way to the parts, right? And you focus. Now look at this, look at the way he's done this, you know? And now it's a different seeing, right? Then you're not seeing the whole painting, huh? But then you stand back and you kind of take in the whole painting at once, huh? Well, it's like that with the understanding, right, huh? It can consider a whole in a somewhat indistinct way, in which case by one form it knows the whole in each of its parts, right? Or it can concentrate and know distinctly, very distinctly, what are the parts? And then it can concentrate and know it very distinctly in all other parts, right? Like the anatomist, right? You know, I mean, it's a human being and you take in the arms and the legs and so on. Now we're going to study the anatomy of the arm. And then later on, another day we're going to study the anatomy of the foot or something, right? So then it's a separate, what, knowledge, right, of the foot and of the arm. But you can stand back and kind of know the human being as a whole. And then it's because in some way it's one, right? But you don't know the parts as distinctly as if you would focus upon them by a unique knowledge for each part. Now, Thomas says, as regards... So he's not, in a sense, denying altogether what the third objection is saying, right? He's making a distinction again, right? If you want to know altogether distinctly one of the parts, then you can't know all at once at the same time distinctly another part, right? But if you know them in a somewhat indistinct way as parts of the same whole, then you're knowing one thing, right? And you have one thought about what? The whole, okay? In the same way it would be in understanding the statement, but maybe he'll talk about that in the next article. So in the fourth objection, he says, let's talk about what about the difference between things? Well, to the fourth it should be said that when the understanding understands the difference between things or the comparison of one to the other, it knows both of the differences or the things compared under a what? A thought of the comparison or the difference, right? Just as has been said that it knows the parts under the notion of the what? Whole, right? So it's knowing them insofar as they are one in some way, right? Okay? Now this is what the big thing is. And if you go back to the more universal too, I can know dog and cat and horse in a confused way by knowing what an animal is, right? But if I want to know the dog distinctly, then a separate thought, right? And then the cat, another thought. And the horse, another thought. And the elephant, another thought, right? So this is kind of a what? It shows the lowliness of our mind, right? I can't know many particular kinds of things altogether distinctly at the same time, right? It's got to go from one to the other. It's a large discourse, as Shakespeare says, huh? Okay? It's like my listening to my Mozart theory, you know? I can't listen to the whole collection at once, right? There's 600 pieces or so, right? And I can't listen to the first movement at the same time I listen to the second movement, right? So I get kind of panicky sometimes. I mean, I get to the collection again, right? Or I haven't heard this piece for some time. That's really a great piece of music. I have to hear it again tonight, you know? But then what about this other one? I can't hear that. I can't hear them both at the same time. So I have to go kind of a rotation, right, through the whole thing, you know? It's got to listening to all the symphonies. Now I'm going to listen to all the violin concertos. And then I have to go back to the sonatas and, you know, just can't hear them all at once. It's like they're with the mind, huh? Let's look now at Article 5 here. To the fifth one proceeds thus. It seems that our understanding does not understand by putting together and dividing. I think he's thinking of the putting together and the dividing that's in the second act of reason, huh? When you form an affirmative statement by putting together, let's say, man and animal and saying man is an animal. Or you divide by separating things in a negative statement, like saying man is not a stone, right? You see that in the premium there that Thomas wrote to Logic, the way he speaks. The first objection says, composition and division, or putting together and dividing, is not except of many things, huh? You don't put something together with itself or divide it from itself, right? Which you put together and divide it from something else. But we said in the previous article, right, that the understanding is not able at once to understand many things. Therefore, it's not able to understand by putting together and, what? Dividing, right? So to know that a man is not a stone, I'd have to know man and stone at the same time. But you can't know two things at the same time. But Thomas will probably say that in some way they've been made, what, one, right? Formed one statement. Moreover, to every composition or division is added either the present time or the past or the future, as reflected in our verbs, right? But the understanding abstracts from time, huh? Even the definition of time is timeless, we say sometimes. Just as from other particular conditions, huh? So when I understand what a man is, is what a man, past, present, or future. It's not so mobile. Yeah, yeah. See, so this guy is saying, well then, but in a statement you have some time, right, huh? Either past, present, or future. So it's saying they can't understand in that way. Moreover, the understanding understands by being made like things. But putting together and separating is nothing in things. For nothing is found in things except the thing which is signified by the predicate and by the subject, which is one and the same if the composition is true. For man is truly that which an animal is. Therefore the understanding does not put together and divide. But against all this, huh? Vocal sounds signify the concepts or the thoughts of the understanding, as the philosopher says in the first book of the Perihermeneus. It's interesting that we use the word conceptio there, right? And that's important when you realize that the thought of God is also said to be, what, born, right, or generated, right? There's in likeness even to our thought, to conception, huh? But in vocal sounds, there is composition and division, as is clear in affirmative and negative propositions. Therefore the understanding composes and what divides, huh? What divides, huh? What divides, huh? What divides, huh? What divides, huh? Okay, I answer it should be said that the human understanding necessarily has to understand by putting together and dividing, huh? Incidentally, when you study God's mind, he doesn't understand by putting together and dividing. He doesn't have to. Although he understands everything, we put together a divide, huh? For since the human understanding goes forth from potency or ability to act, it has a certain likeness, huh? With things that are, what? Generated, right? Which do not at once have their, what? Perfection, huh? But they acquire it, what? Part of the green. Bit by bit, successively, right? And likewise, the human understanding does not at once, in its first grasping of something, right? Get a perfect, what? Knowledge of the thing, huh? When I first grasped something about the thing, I don't say at once everything that belongs to that thing, do I? And that's one of the reasons why I have to, what? Compose and divide to see what belongs to it or what doesn't belong to what I first grasped. Okay? But first, the mind grasps something about the thing, for example, the what it is, huh? That's a terrible word they make up in Latin, acquidity, right? But it comes to think of a Latin word for what, right? So it means the whatness of a thing, huh? The what it is of a thing, right? And that's the first act of reason that we talk about in logic, right? And the first act that Aristotle talks about in the third book about the soul, understanding what a thing is, right? And they sometimes call it simple grasping, grasping what something is. And notice what he points out there, that the what it is of a thing is the first and the understanding's own object, right? Now, the dianima, we kind of see this even more precisely, that our reason's own object is the what it is of something sensed or imagined, like what a man or what a dog is or what a triangle is or what a square is, right? Okay? So that's what we understand first, huh? The what it is of something, huh? And then we understand the properties of the thing, huh? So when you first understand what two is in some way, do you see right away, from understanding what two is in some way, that two is half of four and a third of six and a fourth of eight and so on? No. You've got to put these things together with two, huh? The properties and the things that happen to it and the way it has itself, the surrounding things, surrounding the things, the nature of the thing. And according to this, it's necessary for one thing grasped by it to be put together or what? Divided, right, from another thing that's apprehended. And then later on, from one putting together or division, one proceeds to another, which is to reason, like in the syllogism here, right? Okay? Of course, what you find out when you study the syllogism and logic is that you have to put together two statements, right, to get a third statement, huh? And it's a little bit like adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing. You need at least two numbers to add. And to subtract, you need two numbers, right? Okay? So calculating and syllogizing are similar in that two gets you a third, right? Okay? It's a little bit like sexual reproduction, right? Where two, the man and the woman, or the male and the female, gets you a third of the same kind, right? Okay? But again, there's another likeness there, too. You know, two dogs get you a dog and not a cat. And two cats get you another cat and not a dog. And two numbers in calculating get you another number, not a statement. And two statements get you another, what? Statement and not a number. Okay? So there you have the three acts of reason, huh? That we have in the premium there to logic, huh? Logic directs those three acts. Now, the angelic understanding, right? And the divine one, he can talk about those because he's in theology here and he's already talked about them, right? And the Dianima, of course, Aristotle has not yet talked about the angels or God, right? But the angelic understanding, I can guard an angel now, right? That he's talking about. And the divine understanding, right? Have themselves as incorruptible things, as opposed to those general things, huh? Which at once, in the beginning, have their whole, what? Perfection. That's why the angels could fall immediately, right? They have no chance of recovering because they have their whole perfection at once. And so it's a mature choice they made, right? Even if it was a bad choice, huh? The choices we make as a child and young person are not fully, what? Our choice, right? In fact, the child hardly chooses at all. There's no deliberation. That's why Shakespeare can have Horatio or Hamlet say, Since my dear soul was Mr. Suffer of Choice and could have been distinguished, right? It takes a while before your soul is Mr. Suffer of Choice and can have been distinguished, right? Whence the angelic understanding and the divine understanding at once, huh? Perfectly have a knowledge, the whole knowledge of the thing. Whence in knowing the what it is of a thing, they know about the thing at the same time, whatever we are able to know by putting together and dividing and by what? Reasoning, huh? They can see that in geometry, right? After we know what a triangle is, we have to reason out that the interior angles of a triangle are equal to right angles. You remember how that proof goes in number 32 in book 1 of Euclid, huh? Okay. We can't just understand what a triangle is and see that these three angles at the same right away are going to be equal to two right angles, can they? No. But we reason, you know, from the theorems about parallel lines, huh? We draw a straight line to a vertex, that's one way of doing it. It's parallel to the what? Base, right? And then we know that the alternate angles are, what, equal. Okay? And therefore, these three add up to, what, two right angles, huh? Okay? But even that alternate angle is equal had to be proven, right? That was proven in 27, huh? But that had a marvelous theorem before to know that any triangle, if you extend the side, the exterior angle would be greater than either one of these. You had to prove that, right? You know, magnificent proof that he has number 16 and 21. But the angelic understanding, or the divine understanding, when it understands what a triangle is, it sees right away that those angles equal to right angles, huh? Because sorry, my old teacher, is to, you know, describe, you know, your angel observing you trying to make a decision, you know, is like you watching an ankle worm right this way around. It's so slow, right? It's so, you know? So in understanding what a thing is, the angel understands whatever we could understand, right? By putting together what we grasp with something else, and by reasoning from those things, huh? It's like that, huh? Okay? Because sir, he gets to say, when you encounter your guardian angel after death, you'll say, this is God! What a marvelous thing, God himself! And the angel will say, no, I'm not God. He's even more marvelous than I am. But I'll take your admiration anyway. But don't admire me as if I was God, right? Okay? Now the second objection, huh? Is take...