De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 157: The Human Soul's Knowledge of Immaterial Substances

Transcript
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A strange creature to come right down to that way. Quite different from the dog and from the, what, angel, right? Because the soul of the dog is entirely immersed in matter. It has no operation except in the body and through the body. And the angel is, what, entirely separate from matter, right? But our soul is the first act of an actual body composed of tools. But not every power that it has is in a bodily organ, huh? So we say the soul is not entirely, what, immersed in matter, huh? Power, that word, from the ocean, right? Okay. In other words, what happens is that the body shares in the existence of the soul. The soul doesn't have existence just in the body. And the soul and the body doesn't share entirely in the existence of the soul. And therefore the soul has some operation that rises above the body. And we're a very strange creature. Shakespeare says somewhere we're all bastards, you see. But in a sense we are kind of, you know, half angelic-like and half beast-like, huh? Kind of strange creatures we are. But as Demarcus says, we're a little cosmos, huh? A microcosm. The material world and the immaterial world. But when they talk about the suitability of the word becoming human, right, rather than an angel, huh? Part of this suitability is that man is, what, a little cosmos, right? So God is taking back as we're the whole creation, both material and immaterial. He takes on human nature. So, that's what he said for us. Even though bias is right in saying most men are bad. In a sense, this is why, you know, the American principle that you have to divide power, right? It's based on the idea that most men are, what, bad, huh? When Aristotle's talking about the emotion of fear there in the rhetoric, right, and what is to be feared. And he says, among other things, to be feared is to be in the power of another man. For, as a ruler, he says, men do bad whenever they can. So, apparently, Aristotle agrees with bias of priding, you know, who appears on the list of the seven wise men of Greece, huh? He said, know thyself, nothing too much, huh? A very important proposition. You kind of talk about government, right? As well as ethics. The second objection is based upon, what, the object of the reason being different from the object of the will, huh? Okay. To the second it should be said that good and true, which are objects of the will and the understanding, they differ in their definition, right? But nevertheless, truly, one of them is contained under the other. For truth, or to be true, is a particular, what? Good, right? It's something good, truth, right? But there are other things that are good besides truth, huh? Okay. And the good is a certain, what? True thing, right? So, there's truth about the good as truth about dogs, right? Okay. So, it's interesting, huh? That the object of reason, truth, when compared to the object of the will, is a particular good, right? It's not every good. And the truth about good is a particular truth and not every truth, right? Isn't it interesting, huh? Mm-hmm. That the object of the understanding is a particular good, and the object of the will is a particular truth. Well, the truth about that, right? Isn't it odd? Mm-hmm. You see? That each is a part of the other, according to its, what? Its object. Okay? Very, very amazing thing. And therefore, reason can know the truth about the good and about the will, and the will can will the good of the reason, as well as the good of other parts of our makeup, huh? Isn't it amazing? It's actually amazing, huh? And that's why they're both principles of each other, too? Yeah. Yeah, where they can, you know, have some causality with respect to each other, right? That's why, you know, one of the last courses I had from Dion, you know, he was talking about the role of the will in the use of your reason, right? And he took the confessions of St. Augustine, huh, and followed the movements of Augustine's will in the confessions, huh, to illustrate, you know, what he was saying, huh? And I remember one incident there in the confessions there where Monica, who's very concerned, obviously, about her son, this is before the conversion, right? And she wants the bishop to talk to Augustine, right? Mm-hmm. And the bishop says, not yet. That's because Augustine at this point is not, what? Supposed. Not dasa, right? The docility of the will. So, I mean, there's the use of your reason, right? That I apply my reason to think about this rather than about that. My will determines that, or can determine that, huh? Or that I apply myself, you know? When Thomas is talking, for example, in the commentary on St. Paul there about pride, you know? Now, pride is in the will, you see? And in the summa kind of gentiles, he calls pride there the mater orroris, not the mother of error, the mother of mistakes, right? But in the commentary on St. Paul, he points out how in two ways the will, I mean, how pride is a cause of error. The proud man will apply his mind to judging something that is beyond his powers to judge, right? In other words, he will think himself to be, what? Better than he is, right? And therefore, he is capable of judging something that he's not capable of judging, or that he's capable of judging it before he's really capable of judging it, right? And that way, he easily makes a mistake, huh? But the other way that pride makes one is that you don't listen to those who are wiser than you. So, and I think of how many times I've been pulled back from mistakes by Kasurik or by Dion, right? And, or by Thomas or by Aristotle, right? You know? Well, if you have pride, though, you're kind of your own, what, master, you think you are anyway, right? And so you don't listen to those who are wiser than you. And therefore, you, what, make all kinds of mistakes and are not called back from all kinds of mistakes that you make, huh? So, the will, in the form of pride there, has a tremendous influence upon, a bad influence upon the mind, huh? But there is a docility also that's in the will, right? That Thomas talks about, huh? Or by the, in the secunde, secunde there, where, you know, where the mind is willing to apply itself carefully, frequently, he says, and with reverence, to the words of those wiser than oneself, or greater than oneself. That's kind of an interesting phrase, huh? There is the will to, to, to, to hear or to read, right, wherever the access you have to the person's words. the will to hear or read carefully, frequently, and with reverence. There's a few words he uses. The words of those created in us. Of course, again, this is partly to a need to know yourself. There's this famous passage of Hesiod that Aristotle quotes the Nicomachean Ethics. Best of all is the man who can discover these things himself. Nic's best, he says, is the man who can learn it from the man who's discovered them. Then the third are those who can neither discover it themselves nor learn it from those. Aristotle quotes his approval, and Thomas approves it in his commentary, right? And you see this in Basel's, I think it's in his exhortation about reading the Greeks there, where Basel talks, makes that same division, right? Even Machiavelli makes that division, right? Now, in a kind of playful way, I divide these three minds that we distinguish into the wits, the dim wits, and the nitwits. You've probably heard this before, right? Now, the wits are those who can discover something important by themselves. The dim wits are those who cannot, but who can learn it from the wits, right? But the nitwits are those who can neither discover it themselves nor learn it, right? So, part of knowing yourself is to know whether you're a wit or a dimwit and a nitwit, right? And it's a real problem if a dimwit thinks he's a wit, because then he's going to be his own man, so to speak, right? He's not going to learn from the true wits, and that's a real impediment to the life of the mind. Now, I go a step further and subdivide the middle group there, the dimwits, right? I classify myself as a dimwit. But I divide the dimwits into two groups. The dimwits who know who the wits are, and the dimwits who don't know who the wits are. And I call those dimwits who know who the wits are the upper dimwits. And those dimwits who don't know who the wits are, the lower dimwits. And I classify myself as an upper dimwit. So I want to know geometry, I go to Euclid, right? I want to know logic, I go to Aristotle. I want to know theology, I go to Thomas Aquinas, right? St. Augustine and so on, right? So it's important to know who the wits are. But out of pride, you see, a dimwit may think he's a wit, huh? And then he's got greedy problems, right? And he'll try to judge these things on his own, and he easily can fail because he doesn't have the ability to do them himself. So my own experience of philosophers in the academic world, huh? And in general, the thing in the academic world is everybody's trying to think for himself. This is kind of a platitude you hear on graduation day, you know? You know? From the student giving the valedictorian or whatever it is, you know? Praising the faculty for teaching us, you know, how to think for ourselves. You know, when I do that great fragment of Anaxagoras there, I talk to you before I think about the apparent contradiction in the great fragment. Anaxagoras, the second thing he says about the mind is that it's self-ruling, huh? And I say, now, a sign of the truth of the mind being self-ruling is the existence of that part of philosophy called logic. Because logic is the art whereby reason, what? Directs not the hand or the foot, but directs itself, right? So logic is a sign of the truth of the statement that the mind is self-ruling, right? Okay? But then Anaxagoras goes on in the next phrase, and he's talking about the greater mind and how it's not mixed with matter. And the reason it's not mixed with matter is that it couldn't rule over it if it was mixed with it. So he enunciates the principle that the ruler must be separated from the rule. And so I say, now, this makes sense, too. The first thing we demand of a judge, right, who's going to decide between you two and your disagreement, is that he be impartial, right? He not be, say, a friend of one of you or got financial interest in your company or something, right? But impartial means literally, what? Not a part of, right? So you have to make a separation there between the man who judges or rules and those who are ruled over, right? And the army, you know, you salute first, right? You're a superior officer, right? So the army very much makes a separation there between those who command and those who, what? Obey, right? So it makes sense to say that the ruler must be separated from the ruled, huh? But how do you fit that together with the mind as self-ruling? Because the mind is not separate from itself. You see the parent contradiction? Yet there's good reason, huh? To say that the ruler must be separated from the ruled, and there's good reason to say the mind is self-ruling. Yet the two seem to contradict each other, these two truths. Well, it's the solution to that, huh? Well, I take the clue to the solution from Socrates, huh? And what Socrates does, beginning in the Republic there, where he's talking about the soul, and he argues a certain way in the first book there, and beginning of the second book, you know, someone says to Socrates, do you want to appear to have convinced us, or do you really want to convince us? And Socrates says, I really want to convince you, huh? Well, the thing is kind of hard to see that Socrates is shown in the first book. So Socrates is going to blow it up big so they can all see it. And then you get this famous comparison in the Republic between the parts of the soul and the parts of the city. And you can see more easily the distinction of the parts of the city and the parts of the soul. So I imitate Socrates there, and I say, when a country is a colony, does it enjoy self-rule? No. But if the country revolts or gains independence in some other way, it begins to enjoy self-rule. But does self-rule mean that the whole country is ruling the whole country? No. No. It means that one part, one group of men, called the government, are ruling the other parts of the city. Okay? So there's still a distinction there between the ruler and the ruled, although we might use the phrase self-rule, right? But it doesn't mean that the ruler and the ruled are the same, does it? Then it takes something harder to see. Sometimes we speak of a man as having self-control, right? When a man loses his temper or something, maybe we say he's lost his self-control, right? But does the self-control mean, which is a kind of self-rule, does that mean that the ruler and the ruled are the same? No. But it's one part of man, namely his reason, controlling the other part of the man, his emotions. So there's still a distinction between the ruler and the ruled, huh? But if your reason is mixed up with your emotions, your reason can't, what, rule your emotions on it. And very often our reason gets mixed up. with our emotions right now that's much harder to see than the different parts of the city right and sometimes Plato compares reason and the emotions to a man and a horse right the man is trying to tame the horse and the horse is trying to throw the man off right and so reason is the emotions a bit like the man to the horse right but if the man continues to get on top of the horse he can eventually what tame the horse and the horse will obey him in the same way that washington irving describes this in the tour of the west right it's amazing how these wild horses are so quickly tamed you know that man knows how to do it okay but now you come to the reason reason doesn't have two parts and of course as the great annaxagra says reason is the thinnest of all things so it had some parts to be something within the reason but i say there is nevertheless a separation in the reason when it rules itself and what is that well they've all had introduction to philosophy and read the life of socrates and the apology about what's socrates famous for what separation was he trying to get men to make in their own mind and which almost everybody talked to had not made no they had mixed up what they didn't know of what they did know you see so they thought they knew things they didn't know right so they had mixed up what they didn't know what they did know and socrates was mainly trying to get men to separate what they do know from what they don't know now how does the mind rule itself well the mind is ruled in what it doesn't know by what it does know if i know for example the length and the width of that blackboard right i'm going to be ruled in what i say about the area by my knowledge of the length and by my knowledge of the width and by my knowledge of all multiply right you see that so reason is ruled in what it doesn't know but what it does know but that presupposes that you separated what you know from what you don't know but socrates life is a witness to the fact to this conversation with men that most men have not separated the two in which case their mind can't think for itself yet their mind can't rule itself right and most men have a very hard time separating these huh and aristotle went further to try to separate what the more known from the less known right and eventually to separate what is most known from everything else huh most men have not made the separations and therefore they can't think for themselves but out of pride they will try to think for themselves but then they obviously make all kinds of mistakes huh charles de conix said you know you do the history of modern philosophy as a denial of the more known by the less known and that's really what happens in the modern philosophers now let's go back to the apply the second objection right it's saying that the true and the good huh are the objects of the will and intellect and they differ right they differ in definition thomas says but nevertheless one of them is contained under the what other right now notice notice that huh that's very interesting see because if you take the eye the eye and the ear and the ear and you say well these are two different powers with different objects right and the object of the eye is color and the object of the ear is sound right well notice sound is not a particular colors and color is not a particular sound so the eye cannot really know what the ear knows right and consequently can't know what hearing is right because it can't know what sound is right and the ear can't know what seeing is or what color is right okay but now it's like that with the understanding and the will where the object is one the good and the other the true well the understanding knows what is true about the good example the first thing to say about the good in ethics is the good is what all want okay so we the reason can know the truth about the good but vice versa the will can will what not only the good of the body but the good of the reason right and truth is the particular good right so uh just as the truth about good is one particular truth right so likewise truth is also one particular good very important good obviously but it's a particular good right not the only good right so my will can extend only to truth but to food and to music of monzart and so on and my reason can know not only the truth about good but know the truth about food you know the truth about what's that nevertheless one of them is contained under the other isn't that amazing for the true is a certain good truth is a certain good and the good is a certain what true and therefore those things which are of the will fall under the understanding and those things which are the understanding are able to come under the what will yeah so i can understand that i will right and i can will that i understand i will to apply my understanding right that's important let's show my students that's cool will to apply my understanding to the the matter again right you see but the use of your understanding in that sense depends upon your will vice versa now the third objection huh this uh strange words of augustine right as you mean by notion of sound okay to the third it should be said that the affections of the soul are not in the understanding either by likeness only as bodies are nor by presence as in a subject as the arts art is right reason about making right so art is in reason itself right so reason knows arts because they're in itself right okay and it knows bodies not because there's bodies in the reason but because the likenesses of bodies representation of them is in it but as a thing that has a beginning is in its beginning right in which it has the notion of something that has a beginning because the good is understood as the object of the will right it's the beginning of that huh and therefore augustine says that the affections of the soul are in the memory through certain what notions huh well that's kind of augustine's strange speak way of speaking there thomas is explaining so we should start to look at the next one here i don't have a good time to look at the article this is question 88 now what way the human soul knows those things which are above it huh then it should be considered in what way the human soul knows those things which are above it to with the what immaterial substances huh so he's talked about the way the soul knows things below it right and things what itself right and then things above it huh reminds me of uh the excitation to use reason by shakespeare right because you may be touched upon five reasons why we should, what, use our reason or use it more? And one of them was in comparison to what is below man, two of them with respect to what is above man, and two of them with respect to man himself. Remember that? What is the man, it says? If his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed, a beast no more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and godlike reason to fasten us unused. Well notice, in comparison to what is below man, he's saying what? If you don't use your reason, you're going to fall to the devil of a beast. That's a good reason to use your reason, right? You've got to be less than yourself, right? And be a beast if you don't use your reason. But then he has two reasons with respect to what is above man. If he calls reason godlike, he's saying that by using your reason or by using your reason well, you become in some way like God, you become wise so far as possible for a human being, right? Become like God who made all things and wisdom and so on. And then when he said, sure, he that made us with such large discourse, right? Gave us not the capability and godlike reason to fasten us unused. Another reference to God, right? And there he's saying that in using your reason, you are what? Following God's plan for you. Okay? And giving you reason. So, he didn't give it to you not to be used, huh? So, there's two reasons in comparison to what is above man, huh? And then he touches upon the fact that man's chief good is more than the good of the beast. And it's going to have to involve reason, which is what man has more than the beast. So, you can't achieve your chief good without using your reason, huh? And then the connection between it and what a man is. And as you bring in the words of Polonius at that point, this above all to thine own self be true. So, you can't be true to yourself unless you use your reason, right? So, it's kind of interesting, huh? Just like Thomas here, right? Because five reasons, or touches upon five reasons, each one of which is sufficient, more than sufficient, for using your reason and using it more than you do, right? But one is with respect to what is below man, two are with respect to what is above man, and two are with respect to man himself, right? Man can't achieve his chief good. He can't be true to himself without using reason. If he doesn't use reason, he'll fall to the level of beast. If he uses it well, he becomes like God, and obeys God in his plan for us, huh? Well, Thomas is doing the same thing here. He's talking about how man knows things, the soul knows things below itself, and then we just saw how it knows what's in itself, right? And now, you're looking at it, just like Shakespeare, right? Shakespeare's just like him, I guess, huh? I mean, nobody knows where Shakespeare's wisdom comes to, you know. There's some lacunas in our knowledge, obviously, of his life, huh? He's a man, huh? He's the wisest to the poets, huh? And he's wiser than any of the modern philosophers, far away. And yet, he says in Midsummer Night's Dream that the lover, the madman, and the poet are all compact of imagination. And, of course, imagination is a source of, what, deception here, right? So, if Shakespeare is saying a poet is, that's the way a poet is. So, how can this poet be so wise? That's why I say Plato and Shakespeare, you know, are most unusual, right? Because Shakespeare is a poet, but with philosophical gifts, right? And Plato is a philosopher, but with some poetic gifts, as you see in the dialogues, huh? You know? Usually, these things are at odds, right? Either man's following his imagination, or he's following his reason. How can you follow both? Homer, I guess, is kind of wise, too, huh? Shakespeare's even wiser. Or, did Shakespeare get his wisdom from some contact with the philosophers, or contact with the Bible, you know? Or was he a wit? Very, very. Sorry, I can't turn him out. But anyway. And about this, we ask three things, huh? First, whether the human soul, according to the status of the present life, is able to understand the immaterial substances which we, huh, call angels, huh? To themselves, right, huh? I think I mentioned that before, that angel is not the name we use in philosophy for these immaterial substances. We call them usually the immaterial substances or the separated substances, right? But separated means immaterial, really. Okay? But we call them angels because of our familiarity with them in the Bible, right? An angel means what? Messenger, right? Okay? And so we become aware of the angels when, you know, a messenger is sent to Tobias or to the Blessed Virgin or somebody, right? Or to Joseph in a Dream or something, right? Okay? So, but that's not the way the philosopher would tend to name them, huh? Okay. And if the answer to that is somewhat negative, the second question is, whether one can arrive at a knowledge of them through a knowledge of what? Material things, huh? And the third, the strange position that you find in some Christian thinkers, that God is what is first known by us, huh? Okay? Interesting thing, huh? Okay. We may not be able to finish this article, but let's begin anyway. To the first, thus one proceeds. It seems that the human soul, according to the status of the present life, is able to understand the immaterial substances through themselves. For Augustine says in the ninth book about the Trinity that the mind itself, huh? Just as it gathers, what? Through the senses of the body, knowledge of bodily things, so, through itself, it gains a knowledge of the bodiless things, right? The incorporeal things, huh? But substances of this kind, bodiless ones, are the immaterial substances. Therefore, our mind understands the immaterial substances. Notice what Augustine is saying there, right? That a knowledge of the mind, or we could say a knowledge of the soul, right? And a knowledge in particular of the understanding soul, our own soul, is what? A gateway for us to the immaterial world, huh? If we didn't know our own understanding soul, and the connection between, what? Understanding and immateriality, we wouldn't know anything about the immaterial substances being understanding. That the angels understand, and therefore it's the only God understands, huh? We have to see first in our own understanding the connection between immateriality and being understandable. And, of course, in the immateriality of our soul, separability from matter, we get kind of a clue that there could be, what? Immaterial substances, whose very nature was to be separated from matter. They're not the form of a body like our soul is, huh? So the study of the soul is a stepping stone to the study of the immaterial world, huh? And, in a sense, the study of the soul is at the horizon, huh? Between the material world and the immaterial world, and especially the study of the understanding soul, the human soul. There's some place in Scripture where God is said to have a soul, and that's, of course, almost said metaphorically, right? It's kind of striking to see that, huh? Moreover, like is known by like, huh? But the human mind, meaning the human soul, is more like immaterial things than material things, since the mind itself is immaterial, as is clear from the things said before. Since, therefore, our mind understands or our soul understands material things, much more does it understand immaterial things. If our soul is more like the angels, right, than like material things, and knowing is by likeness, right, when our soul will know the angels more. But notice, even for Catholics who might have faith and so on, the angels are kind of fuzzy in their thinking. I remember years ago I told you that story, I was in class one time, and I said something about the angels, something like that. And I had a student who was actually, I think, studying, you know, with the assumptionist, right? I mean, it was like a seminary. And he's kind of puzzled, and he says to me, Do angels really exist? And I said to him, They're more real than you are. What can you say to that? What can you say? But they are more real than we are. I mean, it shows you, I mean, how fuzzy your thinking is, right? You know? One of my cousins there, who is a philosopher, you know, but his wife thought it was so silly to talk about the angels, right? You know, like this is a fairy tale or something, huh? You see, you have people who are very mixed up about the angels, huh? And a lot of them, I mean, if you talk to people, you know, and they're, now I'm just kind of a fashion about angels, you know, some kind of funny thing, but I mean... Rage. Yeah, yeah, so you've got to be kind of careful about that, but, you know, the people are always falling back in that position of thinking that the, what, whatever it is must be a body, right? As you were saying, out of sight, out of mind. Yeah, yeah, right, right, right. Yeah. Now, in my bedroom at home there, I shared with my brother Mark, they always had the little picture, you know, the boy and girl, they'll go across the bridge there, you know, with the angel kind of guiding them, right? It always sticks in my mind, you know, kind of the first representation. When my brother Richard came back from Italy there, he brought back, you know, four of these Frangelico angels, huh? Had them framed, you know, put them in the children's room. So, of course, those are really, I mean, insofar as you're going to do a drawing of the angels, the Frangelico is the one to go to, huh? I mean, so I have one of those things, I picked up when I was over there, you know, when, kind of when you see a pool like this, and all these pictures of the angels, you know, are done by Frangelico. But they really look like impressive creatures, you know? You know, they're obviously, you know, a drawing, right? And you just don't have a body, but I mean, you kind of represent them, you know, body-wise. This is the way to do it, huh? You don't have wings? Huh? Oh, yeah, they have wings, yeah. They're very impressive, though, you know? Not, not, yeah, okay. But incidentally, you know, talking about the church again, too, you know, there's kind of a conspiracy, you know, to eliminate the word soul from the translations of the Bible, and, you know, even like the Magnificat and so on, now if you go through it, you know, some of these translations eliminate the word soul. So, you don't even hear the word soul, right? It's like it's a... They try to do that in the translation of the Catechism. They try to do that in the translation of the Catechism. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the word soul, yeah, yeah. So, I can see the word soul except in soul music, whatever that is. No, no, no. Soul music. Yeah, yeah. Moreover, those things which in themselves are most, what, sensible, right, are not most sensed by us on account of this, that the excellences or the excelling qualities of the sensibles corrupt the sense, huh? So, if the light is too bright, it's what? Yeah, yeah, okay. Maybe you come out of a dark theater in the Sunday afternoon, you're kind of blinded, right, huh? Okay, come out of a dark room into the bright room. Okay. But the excellences of understandable things do not corrupt the understanding, huh? Okay. Now, that's a sign that Aristotle gives in the Dianima there, of the materiality of the understanding, huh? See? When I think about God, I'm not less able to think about lesser things, right? But more able to do so, huh? You know? You know, if you go through the treatise of the Trinity there, right, it really is a workout for your mind, right? You see? And you're dealing with something that's, you know, the highest thing above your mind, right? But now when I turn back to, say, Euclid and talk about the triangle and the geometrical theorems, I'm not, you know, blinded by the fact that I've been thinking about the Trinity. I can understand the triangle better now, right? See? But in the case of the senses, huh, because they're a bodily thing, if you look at something very bright, then you look at other things, you can't see them at all. Or you taste something, you know, that's very potent, you know, some of these hot stuff that they have in the Chinese restaurant or something like that. I mean, really, really hot stuff and you've got brains and sakes and you can't taste anything, you see? Even as a kid, you know, you eat all these, you know, lemon drops and like that and you can't taste your dinner or something, you know? See? Therefore, he's saying, those things which are most understandable are also most understandable, what? For us. And that's a little jump there, right? From what Aristotle has pointed out, huh? Aristotle has pointed out that when you think about something very understandable, that doesn't prevent you from turning to something less understandable. You can make more sense out of it, right? Okay? I've noticed that a lot, you know, going from philosophy sometimes to listening to music, right? Which is more understandable, philosophy or music? Philosophy. Yeah, because music is representing the emotions which are reasonable by partaking of reason in some way. They can be, right? You know, the reason why the music of the 18th century is better than the romantic music, and therefore it's the other stuff we have, is it represents the emotions in a state in what? It's reasonable, right? But nevertheless is reasonable by partaking of reason, huh? And so they're less understandable than philosophy. But I can appreciate good music better when I come from these things, okay? That's what Aristotle's saying, right? But is he saying that the more understandable something is, the more we understand it? Not saying that, is he? In fact, he says the reverse, right? He says that our soul is to the things that are most understandable, meaning God and the angels, like the eyes of the bat are to the light of day. Apparently he thought that the bat flew at night time because the light of the day was too, what? Bright for it, huh? Okay? And so the bat sees things better at night. He didn't know anything about radio and that sort of thing, right? But notice what he means by that lightness, huh? Which is more understandable, the cause or the effect? Which is more, makes us understand more, the cause or the effect? The cause. Yeah. It's the cause that enlightens the effect, right? But which do we know more, the cause or the effect? Yeah. Yeah. We know the effect more than the cause and we know the cause more than the cause of the cause. And the first cause is the most difficult for us to know, right? So what is most enlightening is kind of what's hidden from us, right? God has said in the scripture to dwell in light and accessible. But Thomas will point that, I'm sure, in the implied dejection, right? Okay. In the very beginning, the physics hairstyle points it out, huh? The confused is more known to us than the distinct. But the distinct is more, what? Understandable, huh? But not to us. But since material things are not understandable, except because we make them understandable in act, by separating them from matter, is manifest that the substances, which in their very nature are material, are, what? In themselves, more understandable. Therefore, much more do we understand such things than, what? Material things, right? The argument is saying that we understand something because it's understandable, right? That seems to make sense, doesn't it? Therefore, the more understandable it is, the more we, what? Understandable. Yeah, yeah. Now, as Aristotle, who, and Plato, maybe to some extent, too. You know, Plato's saying we're like those born in the cave, right? And there's that much light in the cave. But when they escape from the cave, they're kind of blinded because things are too bright for them, right? So, Aristotle, in the beginning of the physics theory says, what is more knowable to us is less knowable. And what is less knowable to us is more knowable. And what is more understood by us is less understandable. And what is less understood by us is more understandable. See? Well, it's very strange, right? You should say that, huh? But the reason for this is that our mind is going from, what? Ability to act, right? And so, naturally for us, an imperfect knowledge of things comes before a perfect knowledge, right? And corresponding to imperfect knowledge is something, what? Imperfectly known, huh? And to more perfect knowledge, something perfectly known. It's just to reverse. That's very hard to see when you first hear that, you know. If you write a whole document thesis on that, that one page of Aristotle, right? But you can see it in other kinds of education besides education of the mind. Because in any kind of education, you're developing something, right? And I usually start off with the education of the body there. And I take the 5BX plan or any of these plans. When I was in Canada, I used to get the Royal Canadian Air Force, right? These are graduated, what? Exercises, right? You do so many push-ups, you do so many this, so many that, right? And you have to find where your level is, right? Okay? How many push-ups can you do right now, see? Well, if you can get down on the ground and do 5 push-ups, but the sixth one, you fall, right? You better do 5 push-ups for, you know, a week or two or something, right? And then we'll go up to 7 push-ups. And you can do that for a week or so. We'll go up to 10 and, you know? Now, I ask the students, which is more productive of strength, doing 5 push-ups or doing 20? Oh, it's about doing 20, right? Yeah. You could say doing 20 push-ups is more productive of strength than doing 5. But for you, right, doing 20 might even hurt your body, right? So 5 is more productive of strength for you, even though 20 is more productive of strength, right? See? Lifting 100 pounds and lifting, you know, 500 pounds, which is more productive of strength? Well, lifting 500 pounds and 100 pounds. But if you can only lift 100 pounds to begin with, right, you might actually hurt yourself physically, try the 500 pounds, right? So lifting 100 pounds is more productive of strength for you, even though lifting 500 pounds is more productive of strength, right? Okay? Now, the same thing takes place in the education of the will, at least in the beginning. What is more lovable to us in the beginning is less lovable. Now, you might think, you know, gee whiz, you love something because it's lovable, right? That makes sense, doesn't it? And there, if you might say, the more lovable something is, the more you'd love it then, right? But we tend to love the sensible good, right, before the understandable good, right? So we love, I love candy, let's say, right? As a child, candy was more lovable to me than wisdom was, you see? And people often find things other than God, right? And they find this in the beginning, more lovable than God, right? Even though God is infinitely more lovable than they are, you see? Or we tend to love the private good before we love the what? Common good, yeah. But the common good being the good of the whole, and the private good being the good of the part, and the whole being greater than the part. The common good is more lovable, it's a much greater good, but it's less lovable to us, at least in the beginning. So we have to be led by what is less lovable, but more lovable to us, towards what is what? More lovable, but less lovable to us, at least in the beginning, that way, it's the way it is in the beginning. In the same way, in the education of taste, I thought my father was a very foolish man. He didn't fill the refrigerator with soda pop, as we call it the Midwest, orange soda, grape soda, root beer. With his money, he could have filled the refrigerator and had orange and soda pop, root beer, all day long. Been a happy man, right? But now I'd much rather have wine, you see? But which is more tasty, the soda pop or the wine? When you're doing soda pop, you do, right? You don't even taste it, huh? Drink wine, you know, there's much more to taste there, huh? Much more interesting. And you know how red wine should be cellar temperature, but not, you know, refrigerated temperature, you know? So you can taste it, right? But if you let Coke or something like that come down to that same level, you say, Ugh, not much taste of that thing, right? And the child would prefer a hot dog before he likes, you know, Marchand de Vin sauce or something, right? Because his sense of taste is undeveloped, huh? It's interesting when people start drinking wine, they like white wine before red wine, huh? But anybody who's experienced drinking wine, they all much prefer red wine, huh? Almost to the point, almost to drinking red wine when it doesn't go that well at the meal, right? Because it's a much more interesting wine, much more the taste there, huh? See? So, the white wine is more tasty to us in the beginning than the red wine. But the red wine is really more tasty. In the same way with painting and music and so on, huh? As a child, I was always trying to find a march on the radio. But now I'd much rather hear Mozart than the march. Much more to be heard in Mozart than the march. But it was less heard by me, huh? So, when you examine it, every kind of education goes from what is more so for us to what is more so in itself. More perfect, huh? And that's because in every education you're developing something, and so it's going from the imperfect to the perfect. It's going in that direction, right? If you're truly educating reason or truly educating the will, right? You know, that little treatise on the love of God by St. Bernard of Clairvoma. He says, in the beginning, we don't love God at all. We love other things, right? And then we have difficulty getting these things or misfortunes in our life. And then we turn to God for help. And now we're loving God for the sake of what? Something else. That's the second stage of the love, right? And then he says, as you turn to God and need, you start to get a little bit familiar with God. And you begin to love God apart from what he does for you. You begin to realize what a great thing he is. Great guy he is, huh? Okay? Now you begin to love God for his own sake, right? Great guy.