De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 150: Understanding and Knowledge: Better Understanding and the Indivisible

Transcript
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Wisdom is the best knowledge. I'm saying something about the knowledge itself. When I say a dog is an animal that barks, I'm saying something about the dog itself, right? But I'm using more the genus and a property rather than the genus and the difference. That's the difference between the difference and the property, right? The property is a name of something that's fouling upon the nature, right? Three, okay? Just like to be half of four is something fouling upon two, right? It's not what makes two to be two. Any more than a half of four, a third of six, a fourth of eight, a fifth of ten, and so on, right? But it's something that fouls upon being two, that you have this relation to four, six, or eight. But notice what Thomas is saying here. Even this objection I'm giving here, right? It's like a problem, right? But you can see there's a failure in a way to understand dog and cat when you say a dog is a cat, right? And if you didn't understand what a dog is and what a cat is, you wouldn't think that a dog is a cat, right? An example I always give in class is I'll say, no odd number is an even number, right? And even my students think they know that, right? But they know it because they understand enough about what an odd number is, what an even number is, to see that one cannot feed the other, right? Or if I say no triangle is a circle, they know that, right? But it's easier to know that no triangle is a circle than to know that no dog is a cat, right? Because you don't understand what a dog is and what a cat is, as well as you understand what a triangle is and what a circle is, huh? And for it's your right, we say, no, angel is God. But we don't understand what an angel is, even less than we understand what a dog and a cat is, huh? So, next time we'll do seven and eight, we'll be... In the name of the Father, and the Son, and 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, pray for us. Help us to understand what you have written. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Okay, to the seventh one proceeds, huh? It seems that one is not able to understand the same thing better than another. For Augustine says in the book of the 83 questions, the one who understands something other than it is does not understand it. Wherefore, it should not be doubted, huh? That there is a, what, perfect understanding, of which nothing could be more, what, powerful or more excellent, huh? And therefore, not to infinity things of one goal, when each thing is understood. Nor can one understand it more than another, huh? Moreover, the understanding and understanding is true. But truth is the quality of the understanding and the thing. And we've talked about that before, right? You know, when you say that what is, is not, you're subtracting from the truth. When you say what is, not, is, you're adding to the truth. So, you're not equal with reality, right? When you say what is, is, and what is not, is not, then you're equal with reality. So, sometimes they call truth the, um, equality, right? And the understanding of things. But equality does not receive more and, what, less, huh? For not properly speaking, can one say something is more and less, what, equal, huh? What's that, the thing there, huh? Was it in, in, uh, Animal Farm, or was it Brave New World, huh? We're all equal, but some are more equal than others. Well, he said, properly speaking, you can't say that one is more equal, right? Right. Okay? In other words, if you have three straight lines, and one of them is more equal to, you know, the third than the other one is, well, strictly speaking, you can't say that, right? Or two, you have three circles, and one of these circles is more equal to a third one than the other one is, huh? Either equal or not, huh? You either have the truth or you don't have it, right? Moreover, the understanding is what is most formal in man, huh? Plus makes a man to be a man, right? And separates him from the animals. But a difference of form causes a difference of particular kind or species. If, therefore, one man understood more than another, it would seem that he's not of, what, one species, huh? So he called Thomas the, what, angelic doctor. He doesn't seem to be the same species as us, huh? But against this is that through experience are found some to be, what, understanding more deeply than others, huh? Just as that man understands a conclusion more profoundly, who can lead it back to the first beginnings and to the first causes, than to the one who's able to reduce it only into, what, proximate causes, huh? Okay? So if I know you hit me because you're angry with me, right? I don't understand you're hitting me as much as a guy who knows why you're angry with me. Right? Because he can go all the way back to the first cause, huh? I answer, it should be said, that for someone to understand one and the same thing more than another can be understood in two ways, huh, this expression. In one way, thus, that more determines the act of understanding on the side of the thing understood. And thus, it is not possible that one person understand the same thing more than another. Because if he understood it other than it is, huh, either more or worse, he would, what, be deceived, right? And would not understand, as Augustine argues, huh? Pairing that to 83 questions. In another way, it can be understood that determines the act of understanding on the side of the one understanding. And thus, one more than another, one can understand the same thing better one than another. Because he is of what? More power in understanding, right? Just as he sees better by bodily vision something who is of more what? Perfect power. And in which the seeing power is more, what? Perfect, huh? So did Mozart hear better than we did? They say you sound a trumpet, Mozart faint, huh? Because his ear is so sensitive. Remember a guy in some kind of music chorus, you know. Professor, you know, hit a chord on the piano, you know. Now, you all know what that is, don't you? He could never figure out what it is. Everybody else in the class, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's the, this is that chord, you know. But to him, it's just a, okay. And of course, I know that from my experience with wine, huh? You know? Some people are, what? Taste the wine more than others, huh? Sure. When I lived with my brother Marcus out there, when he was a bachelor professor there, huh? Teaching at St. Mary's College. And if there's some wine that's in the bottle, my brother Mark would seal it up in a little container, huh? And then at the end of the week, we'd have, what? Wine tasting, huh? And each of us would test the other guy. The other guy didn't know what wine is being served. And I'd guess maybe right about 50% of the time, with his carbonate sauvignon, if you know who are. My brother Mark never, what? I remember, it was mistaken. And that's carbonate sauvignon, that's, you know. And I think I told you that story, Ron MacArthur had some dinner, I don't know when he was president or something, but he had some dinner for a number of the professors, and just for the fun of it, he served a wine in a different bottle, and no one knew that it was a different wine, except by Brother Mark. He said, that's not what the label says, and Robert Mark was kind of amazed, you see, and so some of these people do have, what, a better sense of taste, some people have a better ear, my brother Mark was telling me too about the eye, one time he was visiting, I think in Detroit there, and his friend there had some artist friends, and these guys are what, you know, they walk into a room, and they're all in their eyes, you know, and, oh, oh, I've never seen a shade of red just like that, you know. You know how, one thing you notice about men and women now, that women have more names for colors than men do, and they have more of a sense of color, right? But some of these painters, you know, they're very sensitive to a slightly different shade of green, you know. So, you know, I'm not aware of the fact that I see different shades of green in my life, you know, but they, oh, yes, that's just, you know. So, they're seeing better, right? So, Thomas is making that, that's a similia, as you said, from the monodexia, right? So that somebody will have a better eye, or a better ear, or a better, what? Somebody who's blown his nose as much as me must not have much sense of taste or smell left now. But, so some people also have a better, what? Understanding, right? We're able to understand, yeah. Now, he says, this happens about the understanding in two ways. In one way, on the side of the understanding itself, which is more perfect, yeah? That's a very interesting thing that he's saying there, yeah? For it is manifest, he says, that as the body is better disposed, so it, what? Gains a better, what? Soul. Soul. Now, you've got to remember what the soul is, huh? The soul is the, what? First act of a natural body, right? Composed of tools, right? And so, the body and the soul are, what? Relative to each other, huh? And so, if you have a finer body, right, you're going to have a finer, what? Soul, huh? And therefore, a finer, what? Understanding, huh? Okay? It's manifest that as a body is better disposed, so it gains a better, what? Soul. Which, of course, he says is most manifest, huh? In those things which are diverse in, what? Species, huh? So, Aristotle is always ejecting the botanic idea that a soul can, what? Go from one body to another, huh? Sure. Okay? Yeah. And that was kind of the Pythagorean idea, huh? And maybe your soul will be reincarnated, huh? And depending upon how good or bad you were in this life, maybe you'll, if you were an irascible guy, maybe you'll come back in a dog, or, and so on. Now, I remember in this book I had about cats, huh, it said, people who ate cats were rats in another incarnation. What an allusion to the old idea. And, of course, you find many references to this Pythagorean position, you know, in Shakespeare's play. I mean, the characters will allude to this, huh? Okay. Now, the reason for this is because an act in a form is received in matter according to the, what? Capacity of the matter. Whence, since also in men, some have a body better disposed, right? They obtain a soul of greater power in understanding, huh? Whence it is said in the second book about the soul, that those, what? Having a good sense of touch, soft in flesh, we see are, what? Apt to see, that they're well apt by their mind, huh? We see that they are well disposed, huh, in their mind. Now, this can happen in another way, on the side of the, what? Lower powers, huh? Which the understanding needs for its operation. For those in which the, what, power of imagination and the cogitative power and the power of memory is better disposed, are better, what? Disposed to understanding, huh? And I told you how when I was trying to do some of the solid geometry there in Euclid, my imagination was having a hard time picturing these things. So I constructed one of these things, you know, a little cardboard, you know. And I had it hanging from the lamp in the kitchen there where we eat our meals, you know, and helped my imagination, you see. But that shows the weakness of my imagination, right, huh? Okay. So I was pretty good at math, though, you know. When I was a freshman in high school, they gave us a national test, and there were three guys of us who got the 99, you know, percentiles, eh? So I was one of them, so, you know. But if you know somebody, you know, who's got, you know somebody with a photographic memory? Sure. This one guy I knew, one of the other guys who got 99, but he could take, you know, like they gave him a poem, you know, a five or six page poem, you know. He'd read it over once, close it, and reset it. Perfectly for memory. And I had a professor who had a photographic memory, huh? Chris, you know, he played the organ. He knew what? I read Aristotle and Greek with him. Another friend of mine did Arabic with him. My brother Mark did, you know, Middle English with him, and Chaucer and Dante in Italian with him. And, you know, he did German, French, all the rest of these, you know. See, that was a difficult language. You had to look at the book twice, he said, you know. And one Christmas, the organist at our church, you know, we had the auxiliary bishop resided there at Nativity Parish. And so they had a big Christmas liturgy and so on. The organist became sick, so they caught up on him, they came over and played the organ. I couldn't tell any mistakes he was making. They said he knew physics too, I don't know. But he had this kind of photographic memory, you know. So, I mean, some people have better, what, imagination or better memory than other people do. And these are used in preparing the images, which are going to abstract, right? And so on. So that's another way that one man can understand better than another. Okay. Now, from this should be clear the answer to the first couple objections, right? When you say one man understands, what, better than another, we don't mean that one man, what, is exceeding the object, right? And not being equal to the thing, huh? For he says, the truth of the understanding in this, consists in this, that one understands a thing to be just as it is, huh? Okay. But one man understands it to be as it is, better than another man. Okay. So now, just like with the senses there, right? When I taste the wine, I can't recognize it too clearly, right? I'm not tasting the wine other than it is, right? I'm tasting it as it is, but not as well as the other man is, huh? Okay. To the third, it should be said that the difference of form, which does not come about except from a diverse disposition of matter, does not make diversity according to species, but only in number. For there are diverse forms of diverse individuals, diversified according to what? Matter, huh? So notice, huh? You know, and there's a problem about the separated soul. How do you tell the difference between one separated soul and another one, right? And it's because your soul is made for your body. There's something individual about your soul, huh? And if your soul is not made for your body, then there wouldn't be many, what, separated souls, huh? There'd be no distinction, huh? Because it'd all be like Gabriel and Michael and Art and the angels, right? For each one is a separate kind of thing. There's no two angels. of the same exact kind. So the individual differences between your soul and my soul is that your soul was made for your body. And my soul was made for my body. So you have to appreciate your parents preparing your body, right? Because your soul could only be the soul of that body. And if your parents had prepared another body, right, it would have been a different soul, it would not have been your soul. So does that imply or does that make necessary that the body pre-exists the soul in time or just...? No, no, that's why the body naturally is what's generated first, right? And then the soul is infused in there. But I mean, is that relationship happening in time or is it just as a principle? Well, the body's prepared first, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the soul is infused, huh? Okay. Exactly when the human soul is infused, we don't know, okay? But if the soul is the first act of an actual body composed of tools, then you'd think there'd have to be some diversity of organs, right, before this would be the matter, right, suitable, the body suitable for this kind of soul, right? Narastal uses a comparison name. I do recall the animal that he's arguing against, right? That they have this transmigration of souls, especially, you know, where the soul of a man might go into a, what, dog, you know. The famous story is told, you know, the thing is walking along and somebody's beating a dog with a stick, and he said, stop, stop! I recognize the voice, you know, my friend so-and-so has died. You know, it's like his soul had left and come into the dog, huh? But Narastal says that would be like saying, what, that one art would pick up the tools of a, what, another art, huh? Like the tools of the carpenters, say, would enter into, what, and start using the tools of the tailor, right? And it's ridiculous, right? You know, they start, you know, sewing board to board, you know, and so each art has its own, what, tools, right? And the two are relative to each other. And the soul is like that because it's the first act, the substantial form of a natural body composed of tools, huh? So in a way, the soul is to this body like the art is to its, what, tools, huh? And not just any art can use the tools of any art, huh? So the glass blower doesn't use the hammer. He has to use the tools appropriate to him, huh? So however your soul may be displeased with the defects of your body, right, this is the only body that that soul could have been made for, right? So you can't hate your own body too much, however, you might, you know, just like its physical weakness or its ugliness or whatever is wrong with your body, right? This is the only body that my soul could inhabit, huh? So I've got to be thankful in some sense, right, that my body was prepared by my mother and father, huh? Okay, let's look now at Article 8 here. To the 8th one proceeds thus. It seems that our understanding knows the indivisible before the divisible, huh? For the philosopher, meaning Aristotle in the first book of natural hearing, so-called physics, says that we understand and know scientifically from a knowledge of principles and of elements. But the indivisible things are the principles or beginnings and the elements of the divisible things. Therefore, before to us are known the indivisibles, then the, what? Divisibles, huh? Moreover, that which is placed in the definition of something is known before by us, because a definition is from things that are before and more known, as is said in the 6th book about places, so-called topics. But indivisible is placed in the definition of indivisible as point in the definition of line. For a line, as Euclid says, is linked without latitude, without breadth, whose extremities are two points. And unity is laid down in the definition of number, because number is a multitude measured by one. Now, that's the definition Aristotle gives in the 10th book of... The 10th book after the books in natural philosophy. See, metaphysics is, in Greek, three words. Meta, meaning after. Ta, the article. Physica, the books in natural philosophy. So metaphysics doesn't mean anything to us, right? So it's the 10th book after the books in natural philosophy, in the order of running. The 10th book of wisdom. The 10th book of first philosophy. Therefore, our understanding before knows the indivisible, then it knows the divisible. Of course, Euclid defines number as what? A multitude composed of what? Ones, right? Okay, so they're both defining, it seems, the multitude by one. Moreover, like is known by like. But the indivisible is more like understanding than the divisible. Because the understanding is what? Simple. As is said in the 3rd book about the soul. Therefore, understanding knows before the what? Indivisible. But against this is what is said by Aristotle in the 3rd book about the soul. That the indivisible is shown just as what? As a privation or lack. You know the definition that Euclid has a point, is that which has no what? Parts, right? But privation or lack is known per posterior's, right? You have to know what knowledge is before you can know what ignorance is, right? Because ignorance is a lack of knowledge, huh? You have to know what sight is before you can know what blindness is, right? Okay? Because you define blindness as a lack of sight, huh? Okay? Therefore, the indivisible, huh? Of course, the word indivisible seems to show this negative in meaning, huh? Now, Thomas says, I answer that the object of our understanding in its present status, huh? When the soul is in the body, right? Is the what it is of a material thing, huh? Which it takes from the, what? Images, right? As is clear from the body. So, sometimes I say that the proper object of our understanding is the what it is, huh? Of something sensed or what? Imagine, huh? Okay? And because that which is first and through itself or by itself known by a knowing power is its object, huh? It should be considered in what way the indivisible is understood by us, right? From the way the indivisible is towards a what it is of the sort we just mentioned. The what it is is something you can imagine or sense, right? Now, the indivisible or undivided is said in three ways as is said in the third book about the soul. In one way as the continuous is what? Indivisible. Actually, I'd better say undivided in a sense, huh? Maybe the indivisible is not the best way to translate it. Because it is undivided in what? Act, right? Although it is divisible in what? Ability, right? Now, you know what the continuous is, huh? Aristotle is distinguishing quantity in the categories and distinguishes between what they call continuous quantity and discrete quantity, huh? and quantities always have parts, right? But in a continuous quantity, But in a continuous quantity, But in a continuous quantity, the parts are different. meet at a common limit or boundary, so the left and the right parts, you might say, of the line meet at a, what, point, the continuous at that point, and in a, say, a circle, right, the left and the right semicircles are continuous at that diameter in the middle, and if you wanted to take a body, right, it would be a, what, surface, right, okay, and that's contrasted with a discrete quantity like number, where, say, the number is seven, the three and the four don't meet anyway, do they, okay? Louis de Broglie there, the great physicist there, a French physicist there, the father of way of mechanics, he has a book called, what, on the discrete and the continuous in modern physics, huh, and so that distinction, I say, goes back to what Aristotle's chapter on quantity and the categories are. Now, he gives another definition of the continuous in natural philosophy, that the continuous is that which is divisible forever, and that also separates it from a number, you can't divide seven forever, eventually you get down to one, right, but a straight line you can bisect, and you end up with two, what, shorter lines, you can bisect those ones and get even shorter ones, but you can always, what, bisect a line, and the only way this could stop would be if you, what, cut some line and you end up with nothing, but as Anak Jager says, that's impossible, you can't cut something up into nothing, because you cut something up into what it's made out of, and so if you cut something up into nothing, it would be made out of nothing, which is absurd. Now, the other possibility, some may say, well, maybe you cut up to get two points, right? But, could you have a point, I mean a line, two points long, see? Well, can you have a line made out of points? Well, sometimes mathematicians say that, you know, in high school, right, you know, a straight line is composed, which means put together, from an infinity of points. But, since a point has no, what, length or width or depth, if two points come together, and they have to come together and touch in order to make a line, if they come together and touch, the whole of one is going to touch the whole of the other, in which case, two points have no more length than one point. The point is no part, so you can't end up overlapping and spreading out that way. And you can't really distinguish, you know, like you can in the circle, between the, what, the edge of the circle and something inside. The point doesn't have any extension. So, the only way two points can touch is to coincide, and if ten or a hundred or a million or infinity points touch, the only way they can do is to coincide. And if they coincide, they have no more length than one point. So, it's impossible to put points together, touching, and make some length. So, when you cut a line, you never end up with two nothings, nor two points, but always two shorter points. So, the continuous is divisible, what, forever. But this is not true of number, huh? Seven is not divisible forever, huh? And it's because of this that Aristotle, I think we were talking about the left hand, weren't we? It's because of this that Aristotle says that thoughts are more like numbers than like lines, huh? Thoughts are not divisible forever. There are many other likenesses. There's such a thing as a, what, next number. Like, seven is the next number after six. And there is such a thing as a next thought. Like you can see in the syllogism, right? So, if I lay down the statement that every, what, mother is a woman, and no man is a woman, the next thought is no man then is a mother, right? But with points in a line, there's no such thing as a next point. Because between two points, since they can't coincide, right, or touch, there's always a line between them. And of course, that's one of the postulates in geometry, right? Between any two points, you can draw a, what? Yeah. If points could come up and touch each other without coinciding, if they could come up and touch each other and remain two points, right, like two circles can, right, then you couldn't draw a straight line between them, could you? And the postulate of geometry would be false, right? So, between two points is always a straight line, and therefore, you know, there's an end, you know, point in between those two points. So, there's no such thing as a next point. Of course, when you start talking about time, that's true, too, huh? So, if you take the indivisible of time, the now that has no length of time, is there a next now? No. Very strange, huh? Yes. Very strange, huh? So, he's talking about the various ways in which something is said to be one, huh? And these are the three ways that Aristotle distinguishes in the physics, too, huh? In one way, as the continuous is indivisible or undivided, because it is undivided in act, right? Although it is divisible in ability or in potency, huh? In fact, it's divisible forever, right? And the undivided or indivisible of this sort is before, for the understanding, or is understood by us, right? Before its division, right? Which is in two parts, huh? Because a confused knowledge is before a, what? Distinct knowledge has been said. In another way, that is called one or indivisible in species or kind, as the definition of man is something indivisible. And in this way, the indivisible is understood before its division into the parts of reason. So we name a thing, right? In a kind of confused way, before we break the thing up into its parts of its definition. And again, before the understanding, what? Puts together and divides by affirming or negating, huh? So I understand, to some extent, man and animal before I put them together to say man is an animal. And I understand man and stone, to some extent, each by itself, right? Before I put them together and say man is not a stone. Okay? And the reason for this is because this two-fold indivisible of the understanding, it understands by itself as its own object, huh? In a third way, that is said to be indivisible, which is altogether indivisible, as the point and the, what? Unit, huh? The beginning of the number. Now notice, the unit is even, what? Simpler than the point. Because the point has, what? Position. And so if you're talking about three points, they could be in a straight line, right? Or one could be up above the others, right? But if you're talking about three ones, you don't have that difference, do you? Because the three ones don't have any, what? Position. So sometimes the Platonists would say that a point is a unit with position. That's why geometry is less certain than arithmetic. You have to take into account the position of the points. That's why you have sometimes more than one case in Euclid, in geometrical theorem. But you wouldn't have that in arithmetic. Now the point and the unit are neither, what? Divided in act, nor are they able to be divided. And it's the indivisible of this kind that is known, what? Afterwards, right? Through the privation of the divisible. And then he gives the definition of Euclid that we spoke about before. Whence the point is defined, or what it lacks, right? And this is the definition that you find in the beginning of Euclid, the first definition. The point is that to which there is no part, right? Right? Right? Right? Right? But sometimes we say, too, that the point is neither length nor width nor what? Depth, right? Now you can approach that by starting with the body, right? What is a body? Well, you say a body has length and width and depth, right? Then what's the surface? But no depth, right? So now you're already starting to what? Indigation, right? Okay. And then you go from a surface to a line, what do you say? Length. Length, but no width and no depth, right? Now you get two negations, right? Now what about the point which is the end of a line? Well, that is neither length nor width nor depth, right? So as you go from the composed, the body, right, to something simpler, the surface, and something even simpler than that, the line, and something even simpler than that, the most simple, the point, you get what? More and more negations, don't you? Yeah. Okay? And that's a sign, right? If you're talking about the indivisible, in the sense of the point, that it comes, what? It's known after. But, in fact matter, body is known before surface, and surface is known before line, and line is known before what? Point, huh? And I know sometimes, you know, in class, when you get talking about the point, sometimes you have a student who would deny that there are points. Let's say points don't exist. And anything that exists has got to have some, what? Some size, right, huh? Point doesn't have any size, right? Okay. Well, now, how do you force the student, huh? By the truth itself, to admit that points exist in some way? How do you force them to do that? Well, you have to go back to what he admits exists, namely a body. And then you say, okay, let's take a body. Let's take, say, to simplify it here, take a body like a cube, right? Okay. Now, there are bodies that don't go on forever, right? So, there's an end to this body, right? Okay. So, the end of the body does exist, it's a finite body. And the end of the body we call the surface of the body, don't we? Okay. Now, you ask the man the question, does the surface of the body have any depth, say? Well, if you include with the surface of the body a certain depth, right? Then, in that depth area, you haven't come to the surface yet, have you? You haven't come to the end of the body, have you? Okay. So, you force the student to say that one of those squares, right, that bind the cube, it has length and width, but it has no, what, depth. And yet, it exists because it's the end of the body, and the body doesn't go on forever, it has an end. Okay. Then you answer the next question, right? You say, well, what about that square, right? That's the side of the cube. Does that go on forever? If it did go on forever, the cube would have been infinite, right? So, it has also an end, right? Now, is the end of the square in any direction? Does that have any width? Well, if you give it any width, the end of the square, you haven't come to the end, have you? See? And yet, it does have an end. So, now you have an end that has length, but no, what, width. Now, do one of those lines that are the end of the, one of the squares in the cube, does that go on forever? Because if it did, then the square would have gone forever, but it doesn't. So, it has an end, huh? Now, how long is the end of a line? See? Well, if you give it any length, the end of a line, it's what? You haven't come to the end of the line, right? And yet, the line doesn't go on forever. So, the end of the line has no length. But it exists, right? Now, you've got the existence of a point. You see that? But notice how I have to leave the student, huh? From the existence of the body to the existence of a surface that has length and width, but no depth. And from that to a, the end of a surface that has length, but no width. And from that to the end of the line, and the point, huh? So, the more negation you have, the less, the longer it takes you to get to the certitude about the existence of it, huh? Okay? And, likewise, is the, what, definition of the one, that it be something, what, indivisible, as is said in the tenth book of metaphysics. And the reason for this is because such an indivisible has a certain opposition to a bodily thing whose, what it is, is first and through itself taken by the, what, understanding, huh? If, however, our understanding understood by partaking of, what, separate indivisibles, separate indivisibles, namely the forms, as the Platonists laid down, it would follow that this indivisible of this sort was what was first understood, huh? Because, according to the Platonists, the things that are before are first partaken of by things. And this is very important, you know, when we come to talk about God, right? Because the first thing, almost the first thing we take up about God after we know that God exists, and in the Summa Theologias under the first thing taken up, it's the, what, question of the simplicity of God, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? You know, if you look at the first question here in the Prima Pars, it's on the, what, necessity and the character of theology and so on, right? Then the second question is on, what, the existence of God, right? And then he starts to take out the substance of God, and the first question, which has eight articles in it, is about the simplicity of God, right? But as he goes through showing that God is simple, he's always negating some kind of composition in creatures of God. And then finally, of our article, we denies, negates any composition of God, right? So although simple is not a negative, like indivisible, grammatically, right? The understanding of what it means to say God is simple is to say God is not, what, composed, huh? Okay? And he, you know, eliminates all the kinds of composition you find in creatures, and then he gives some general arguments to show that there's no composition in God, huh? Okay? In Summa Codrigentides, he does the reverse, he shows in general there's no composition in God, and he eliminates all the particular kinds, or most of them. So, so it's kind of interesting, that Euclid will, well, what, begin with the definition of point, huh? It's not really what is first known, huh? Yeah. Okay? But there's a tendency in, in geometry because we're constructing these things, right? When you're constructing, we tend to go from the simple to the composed, huh? That this kind of is the, what, appropriate order in, what, geometry to go from the simple to the composed. But it's really because of, uh, the fact you're restricting yourself to quantity and shape that you can do that. It's not really characteristic of our mind to know the simple before the composed. And you find these, you know, books in biology sometimes where chapter one is about the cell, chapter two is about tissues, chapter three is about organs, and chapter four is about the whole animal, right? Which is more known to us, huh? Yeah, yeah. So they're kind of imitating what you do in geometry, right? where you define a point before line and angle before figure and triangle before quadrilateral and so on. Trying to apply that everywhere, right? As if the way of proceeding in math was appropriate everywhere. And it's not. That's a big mistake of Descartes and Spinoza, right? They want to proceed everywhere like you do in math. And math is... not very characteristic of our mind. That's what they mean when they're pan-mathematizing, that's what they call it? Yeah, yeah. If you look at the title of Spinoza's major work there, it says, Ethica more geometrical demonstrata, demonstrated in geometrical fashion, right? He tries to put in kind of axioms and postulates and so on. Okay? Now, the first objection here, Aristotle was speaking about understanding things from a knowledge of their principles or causes and elements. To the first, therefore, it should be said that in getting science or reasoned-out knowledge, not always are the beginnings and the elements of before, because sometimes from sensible effects we arrive at a knowledge of the beginnings and of the understandable causes. But in the completion of a science, always the knowledge of the effects depends upon a knowledge of the what? Beginnings and elements. Because, as is said there by the philosophers, then we think we know scientifically when we can what? Resolve things to their causes. So we know, for the most part, we know the effect before the cause, but then when we come to know the cause, we can turn around and see the reason why the effect was the way it was. Okay? So the husband knows the wife is upset with him before he knows why she's upset. Okay? And so he knows that she's upset before he knows the cause of her being upset, but once he comes to know the cause of her being upset, then he understands better why she was upset. Right? But simply speaking, he could say that she was upset was more known to him than the cause of her. And which is more known to us, day and night or the cause of day and night? Day and night. Yeah. And we disagree with the ancients who thought the cause of day and night was the sun going around the earth, right? We think the earth is turning on its axis, and so on. But notice, if we disagree about the cause and agree that there is day and night, right? Well, then, that there is day and night is more known to us than the cause of it, huh? Right? Men disagree about, more about the less known, huh? So historians will agree there was a French Revolution, let's say, but they might disagree as to the causes of it, right? And, you know, when you have an election or something like that and somebody wins and somebody loses, right? Everybody agrees that so-and-so won, not always, but usually. But they often disagree as to why so-and-so lost the election or why so-and-so won, right? What he did right or what the other guy did wrong or something of that sort, right? So people will get into disagreement about it. And so the effect is more known usually than the what cause. The exception to this is what? The mathematical sciences, but there you're dealing with something that is very limited there, huh? And very imaginable, right? Well, let's take a simple example here. The one I gave you before here, but I was even 15 there in the book one of you, right? What do you have there? Intersecting straight lines, right? Now, you can go from the fact that the lines intersecting are straight to demonstrate that those two angles will be equal. Now, there's a previous theorem that says when a straight line meets a straight line, it either makes two right angles, right? or angles equal to right angles, okay? So, if these are straight lines, then a plus x must be equal to two right angles, right? Right. And if this is a straight line, and this is a straight line meaning it, the same must be two above b plus x, right? So, if they're equal to the same, they must be equal to each other. Yeah. And if equal subtracted from equals, the results must be equal. But notice, huh? You're going from the cause, the cause of the angles is the intersection of the lines, right? But the cause of the equality of the angles is the straightness of the lines. If one line had been curved or bent, right, then they would not have been equal to those angles, huh? So, you're going from the cause to the effect, huh? But notice, you've got here what we could call common sensibles, right? Yeah. See? But in natural philosophy, what you sense is actually what? Not the main thing, is it? You sense the color of the cat, the shape of the cat, and so on. But he does, but why he does this, right? You sense that the trees get bigger as the years go by, right? If you're planetary, the why the tree grows is kind of hidden from us, huh? So, the effect is, to our senses, more known than the cause. And of course, every time we ask the question, why, that's a sign that we know the effect before the cause. Because we ask the question, why, when there's an eclipse of the sun or some other effect, and want to know the cause. So, the effect is known, but the cause is, what? Unknown. No. So, that's why, like Jacques Holmes says, we have to reason backwards, huh? As far as reality is concerned, when he uses that phrase, and Watson says, what do you mean, reason backwards? From the effect to the cause, right? As far as reality is concerned, huh? So, that's why God is the last thing known in philosophy, huh? Because God is the first cause, huh? So, you go from the effect to the cause, and from the cause to the cause of the cause, and so the last thing, in a sense, you come to is the, what? First cause, huh? And that's why Thomas says in the beginning of the second book of the Summa Contagentiles, that the order of theology, meaning revealed theology, huh? where you begin with God, right? Is just, is contrary to the order of philosophy where you end with God, huh? Okay? It's kind of strange, huh? In L. Guzell's Metaphysics, where he's trying to proceed philosophically, he tries to begin with God. And that's what Jill Sollum does in his Introduction to Philosophy, right? He follows the order of the Summa Contagentiles, and Thomas says explicitly that this is, what? The order of theology God before preaches, huh? But you see, what you're doing, as Thomas would point out, in Revealed Theology, you are sharing in God's own knowledge. And God knows everything else by knowing himself. And so in theology, we imitate God's way of knowing. So we know God first, and everything else in comparison to God, huh? But philosophy is not partaking in God's own knowledge. Philosophy is coming to know God only through his effects, huh? And so the effects are more known than the cause, and the cause is more known than the cause of the cause, huh? And so God, therefore, in philosophy, is really considered as such in the last part of the last part of philosophy. Aristotle does in the Twelfth Book of Wisdom. Okay? What got Descartes and Spinoza even more so off was they're so impressed with the clarity of mathematics, right? They want them to proceed everywhere like you do in math. Well, in math, you can know the cause. Say, I know that those lines are straight before I figure out that those angles must be equal. So I'm going from the cause, the straightness of the line, to the effect of their straightness, which is the, what, equality of those angles, huh? Okay. Okay? Just like in the earlier theorem, you know, about the triangle, if you have two sides equal, then the angles will be equal, right? Okay? Okay? They're going from the cause to the effect. But then they try to generalize that for the whole of our knowledge. And so, especially Spinoza goes even further than Descartes. So Spinoza says explicitly that the order in our thoughts and the order in what? Things is the same. So what is before in things is before in our...