Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
Lecture 9: Four Causes and the Method of Learning from Predecessors

Transcript
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So any questions now about Aristotle's premium? I'm going to take a break, so we can relax a little bit here and say, any questions about the premium? And sometimes, even in Introduction to Philosophy, I'll give them this premium, right? Because what is the end and goal of all this philosophical study, right? This gives you a little bit of a clue as to what that is, right? One would be just this geometry question. I still don't understand this, the commensurability of the diagonal. Oh, I don't want to try to demonstrate that. That's down back in Book 10, I guess. You could write. On Book 10. Yeah. What you find out about the side of a square and the diagonal, right, is you can't take any line, no matter how small you make the line, that would measure both of those. It's impossible to. I'm sorry, try this again. Take one side. If you take any side of a square, right, and you take the diagonal of a square, you can't find a line, no matter how small you make it, that would measure both of those. And what do you mean by measure, then? That would... Go evenly, yeah. That exactly, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No matter how small you make it. Okay. That's kind of an amazing thing. You wouldn't be kind of surprised by that, right? Mm-hmm. This theorem that I like in Book 2, Proposition 5, Book 2 of Euclid, right? Um, I kind of changed it around a little bit, you know, to, with a certain tragedy, as Aristotle says, to arouse more wonder, right, then? One thing that Euclid is showing by that theorem, number 5, is that you can have a rectangle with less perimeter, but more area, okay? In other words, you and I could fence off a rectangle, right? Mm-hmm. For our kids to play in. Mm-hmm. And I get more room for my kids to play in than you do, but I use less fence than you did. Mm-hmm. Yeah, of course, you know, the legend has said that the crooked geometers of ancient times, right, they would buy and sell land by perimeter. Mm-hmm. And so you're getting a piece of land with more perimeter, you had a smaller piece of land than I got. Mm-hmm. You know where a rectangle is. I'm using rectangle now to include square as well as oblong, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? Now, sometimes you use rectangle for an oblong as opposed to a square, okay? But using rectangle in the broad sense, Mm-hmm. which is, you know, quadrilateral with four right angles, right? Mm-hmm. It's possible to have more perimeter but less area. Isn't that kind of contrary to what you'd expect? Mm-hmm. I see? And yet Euclid shows in that theorem that a square with the same perimeter always have more area. And the closer a rectangle comes with the same perimeter, the closer it comes to a square, the more area it has. In fact, the difference in area is always the square of the difference in the, what? Link to the sides, huh? Let me just exemplify that. I don't know if I had to prove the theorem there. It's a beautiful theorem. But let's get exemplified here. You see, you have a square, five by five, so the perimeter is what? Twenty, right? Right? Five by five by twenty, right? Now, if you depart a little bit from the square, like once a little bit longer, let's say four and six, your firmature is still what? Twenty. Twenty, right? Okay. Now, if you depart even more from the square and you have, let's say, three by seven, your firmature is still what? Twenty. Twenty. And now you go even further. away from the square and you get 2 by 8, your firmature is still 20, okay? But notice, you're descending. The area here is 25, here it's dropped to 24, here it's dropped to 21, here it's dropped to what? 16, right? So you're using the same fence, amount of fence, to surround this area, right? But this guy's getting only 16 square feet, this guy's got 25, right? You see? Now, the difference between 5 and 6, or 5 and 4, either 1, is 1, and 1 squared is 1, that's the difference in area, right? The difference between 7 and 5, or 3 or 5, either 1, is 2, and 2 squared is 4, and it's the difference between the two. See? The difference between 8 or 2 and 5 is 3, and 3 squared is 9, and that's the difference, right? So it's a beautiful theorem, right? Yeah. But you'll show that it'll differ by the square and the difference in the fence. So you can have the same perimeter and, what? More area, see? But then you realize, because of that difference, right, you could actually have more perimeter and less area. Let's take a simple example here. Let's say you have one that's 2 by 10, well, now the perimeter is, what? 24. So it has more perimeter than the square, right? The area is 2 by 10, or 20. So it has more perimeter than this, but less, what? Yeah. That's contrary to what we'd expect, right? See? This is a beautiful thing. And of course, yeah, something like this in modern mathematical science and nature, as the father of modern physics said, I mean, Max Planck, he says, when he discovered the quantum, right, he believed, and he still believes, that the simpler a mathematical law is, right, the more extensive it is, right? Okay? So the more things you can deduce from it, right? The simpler it is. It's a little bit anticipated in this sort of thing, right? You see? You cover more area with less, what? Permitry. And it's something like that with words, right? Because, as Shakespeare says, brevity is a soul of wit. Brevity is a soul of wisdom. Shortness is a soul of wisdom. So how can that be? How can the wise man, doesn't he have more to say to other people? But he says more with what? Less words. Less words. That's why the Bible says, in the sequential books, the fool multiplieth his words, right? So he says less with more words, right? The wise man says more with less words. That's kind of a paradox, right? Now, of course, you go all the way up to God, and God says it all with one word, right? You see? He says more with less. But it's like this, huh? That what you say is to words about what area is to what perimeter. So just as you can contain more area with less perimeter, so it's possible to say more with less, what? Words, huh? I told you when I was at Deval there, um, and I was going to face the board at one of the things of the department center. I was going to face four professors, right? And this is, uh, this is, uh, just on your coursework, you know? And they're four different courses, right? And, uh, one guy I didn't think much of, you know, but I just had a course from him, and I thought he'd go back to the course I had the previous semester, because, uh, you just, you just examined us and we used to stop. So I said, you know, when he talked about the last semester, my cousin said, I got it all here in my index car. He used this guy's whole semester to one in the index car. And so I looked over and got down the phrases, you know? And then I came in to take it in, and the guy said, uh, am I going to go back to the first semester? No. And I snowed him at the index car. He hadn't said much, right? He could say, you know, with many fewer words than he did. He had to say in that course. So. So the wise man is going to say more with fewer, what, words, huh? You can write a little poem, huh? What? God the Father said it all in one word. No wonder when that word became a man. He spoke in words so few and said so much. It was the brevity and soul of it. A little poem. Is the vice curiosities, is that, in large part, or is that when people pursue a knowledge of the singular, of the universal? Yeah, yeah. You see, curiosity in Thomas, curiositas, right, is the vice supposed to wonder, right? And the curious man is pursuing things that are unimportant and not, you know, it's a disordered desire to know, in other words, right? You know? You want to know things that are not important to know or you don't need to know and so on, right? And that's like the singular, you know, so you know. Could be that, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, as I say, every time I go into the supermarket there, you know, there's all these magazines there, you know, and Prince Charles really killed Princess Diana. It's like, he's lost up. Or this, you know, one kind of thing after another like that, you know. It's just kind of funny sometimes, the titles, the things they come up with, you know. But, I don't know who it takes, Biden's scene, but they're all there, you know. And then there's some people who are curious about other people's private life and so on, you know, and want to know it. See, the problem is there's so many things you have to learn before you can really acquire wisdom that if you don't stick to the straight and narrow, so to speak. You'll never get there. Oh, you'll never get there, yeah. Yeah. You know, you talk to an historian, right? And you know how they say, you know, they learn more and more about less and less. Yeah. I remember one time talking to a historian from Worcester State College, and he says, you know, go to a historical meeting, and they'll say, well, what's your part of history again? Well, you can't say American history. I mean, it's just too fast, right? You know, you can't say 19th century American history, you know. Which decade do you work at? You know? And what aspect of that decade are you working on, you know? So you could spend, you know, your lifetime doing, you know, 1870 or something, you know? It's wonderful about 1870 that you spend your lifetime. Or, you know, you get these biographies, you know, of famous men, you know, and people have spent 10, 15 years working on this, the definitive biography of Henry Clay or something like that. Well, if you're curious about this person, for some reason or another, you know, you know, you might read the book in a day or two, but spend 10, 15 years, you know, trying to know the details of Henry Clay's. You could spend that time there, right? Yeah. So, you better know something about the soul, though, you know? Yeah. So, you better know something about the soul, you better know what you're doing here. Yeah. Yeah. So, you better know something about the soul, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what you're doing here, you better know what Sometimes it's good to put yourself back in Aristotle's shoes a bit, right? And just to put you know from the premium, right? After premium. You know that wisdom is the best knowledge you have. It's the most desirable knowledge you have, right? And therefore you want this knowledge, right? Now, what's the next thing you do? Yeah. But, stop and think from life. There's two ways to get knowledge you don't have. One is to discover that yourself, right? The other is to learn it from someone who already has it, if there is someone who already has it, right? And these two possibilities are true for geometry as they are for what? Yeah, for natural philosophy, for ethics, right? Okay. Now, if there's someone who already possesses this knowledge, right? Should I try to discover it all by myself, or should I try to learn from the person who already knows it? What do you think? Try to learn. Yeah. Now, is that reasonable? Very much so, yeah. But isn't it more glorious to discover it by yourself? So, shouldn't I try to discover it by myself? Because it's assuming that you actually get there and not fall into a pit, a slimy, muddy pit. Yeah. That's part of it, yeah. But even if I could discover it by myself, right? Which, you know, is a question, you know? Okay. Should I do that for everything I don't know? Would I get there as soon as if I, you know? Yeah. If nobody learns from anybody else, would any art of science be to develop? Do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. We can get very far, right? So, you might say that if there are some who already have looked for the first causes, right? And if they have succeeded in coming to know them, isn't it a reasonable thing to do to try to learn from them, right? If you didn't want to learn from them, but want to discover it by yourself, wouldn't this be a matter of that thing we call pride before, huh? Mm-hmm. You see? Because, is the knowledge which you've discovered yourself better than the knowledge you've learned from another? Mm-hmm. It's the same answer. It's the same answer. Yeah, yeah. You might say there's more honor attached to discovering it yourself, right? Mm-hmm. But you're a lover of honor of knowing, right? Right. You see? You're seeking more honor than knowing. If you seek to discover everything by yourself, because you're not going to get very far in knowing, you're going to have more honor and less knowing. Mm-hmm. You see? And so you're a lover of honor more than a lover of knowing. So maybe you should look at those who have been involved in this search for causes before you, right? And if they have, you know, made progress, maybe you should learn from them rather than try to discover it yourself, right? Mm-hmm. On the other hand, if they have failed, right? Mm-hmm. To achieve the goal, right? Maybe then you have some need to try to discover it if you can yourself, right? Mm-hmm. So Aristotle, in Book 1, after the premium, right, will go back and look at what his predecessors said about causes, right? Mm-hmm. And why they said it, right? And then you examine whether what they said about causes was sufficient for our purposes, right? And only if he finds it. insufficient, will he have to make an investigation himself, right? Even in that case, maybe not without their help, right? Maybe he has something to do himself, right? Okay? Aristotle didn't write in geometry because it had already gone pretty far without him, right? You see? Okay? Aristotle does something like this in the politics, in the second book of politics, right? Because at the end of the politics he's going to talk about the best government, the best city. And he says, in talking about the best city and what he thinks is the best city, he doesn't want this to be attributed to vanity in his part, right? He should talk about these things. But that the cities that are actually praised, right? Like Sparta and so on, have some defects, he really thinks, right? And even the cities that have been proposed in words, like that of Socrates and the Republic, he thinks they have defects too, right? And that's why he's going to send what he himself thinks, right? But first he's going to show that the, you know, what do you think is defective about the secret public? And that's something neglected in the, I think, in the modern philosophers, that they will often say something congruously to what Aristotle said without recalling what he said and why he said it, and then showing why what he said, and why he said it was deficient, right? You know? Of course, now there's so many books, you can't possibly read them all and do that, right? But I mean, it was kind of a mistake in the first place, you know, to... Multiply. Yeah. And to do your own thing, right? You know? Okay. So, but especially when you get to something like political philosophy or like wisdom, which are the highest parts of the two kinds of philosophies, like philosophy, practical philosophy, Aristotle is especially concerned with showing that he's not trying to discover something by himself out of vanity, right? His desire for honor, right? But because there really are defects in the thinking of of those who've gone before. That's kind of interesting, right? You get to a man like like Thomas Aquinas and what does he do, for example, in logic, right? Does he set aside the works of Aristotle and logic, the father of logic, and set out to write his own logic, right? No. What he does is to comment on Aristotle's logical works to help us understand them, right? But because he thinks that Aristotle is when he thought out these things, right? Thomas, you know, wrote the great commentary there on the sentences of Peter Lombard, right? Which is kind of a standard text, you know, theology there at the time. And, you know, for a number of centuries it was, kind of amazing, you know? And then when Thomas was going to do a work in theology as a whole there later on, his first thought was to redo the thing on the sentences, right? And then he said, I had to strike out, you know? And I think he orders things better than, you know, in a little more proportion to the beginner and so on. But for the parts of philosophy, for ethics, Thomas said, he tried to do much on his own, you know? I mean, so, kind of the simple question that arises, you know, is, given how desirable wisdom is, that's the most desirable knowledge of all, because it's the most divine, then the question arises, how do you get it, right? And that actually involves a lot more than you realized at first. But it's a very simple answer, right? There's two ways to do what you don't know. And one is to learn it from another, and that is to discover it yourself, right? And then the question is, which did you do here, right? And you kind of got to decide that at first, right? If you're going to learn from another, And, to some extent, your problems are solved, right? If you read this guy carefully, you know, frequently, and reverence, and so on. But if you can't learn it from another, then you've got additional problems about how you've got to acquire this knowledge, right? Mm-hmm. See? And that'll come up in the second book, starting now. Mm-hmm. Okay? But the rest of book one, or book one after the premium, gets me concerned with, can we learn it from these guys before, right? Okay? But at the same time, he's going to give you, in the rest of book one, something positive to come away with, apart from the negative conclusion, right? That the distinction of the kinds of causes that we had in natural philosophy is what? What? Sufficient, right? The distinction of the four kinds of causes, matter, form, move, and end. Mm-hmm. Okay? So you come away with kind of a, when he narrates the opinions and the reasons for the opinions of his predecessors, he raises that question. You mentioned that second usefulness of this, right? Not only does he set the stage for examining what they said was sufficient, right? But also, we can look at what they said to see if they touched upon any kind of cause other than the four kinds that we had, right? So you go away from the rest of book one with the conclusion that there are, indeed, just these four kinds of causes, right? But that your predecessors have not fully understood them or explored them fully, right? Or sufficiently, right? And then you go on from there, right? Yeah. Okay? And it's kind of interesting, huh? If that's the end of book one, book three now, if you have book two in a second, book three begins with Aristotle talking about how discoveries are made. You know, there's a direct link between the end of book one, right, that his predecessors have not, you can't say we learned from them, in other words, right? And then how he discovered the beginning of book three. But in between those, book two, how's that in there? So you try to, you know, anticipate a little bit, you know, what's going on in Aristotle's mind, right? He's a very careful writer, you know? And, uh, but, uh, we'll look a little bit at the Greeks, the early Greeks again, you know, and see what they said about the causes, and see a little bit of their thinking. Hi! Is it Lucy? Lucy, yeah, good for you. Hi, Lucy. Lucy the redhead. Very power. Very demanding. Come on. She's very demanding, huh? Yeah, she wants in there, you know. She'll tell you about it. Look, the downstairs sounds like, they put their mice down there, what do they do? Yeah, it's something they like a lot. Yeah, they like to eat cobwebs. Explore. She'll just keep, uh, the other cat's not like that. See? Let me down there. Go to myself and she'll just sit at my door. Meow, meow, I want in. Yeah, I want in. Then she scratches, kind of like, yeah. And just keep looking at me, open the door. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey Prayer, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angel, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, and help us to understand all that you have written. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. I have a tenth grandchild now, and I think her name is going to be Sophia. Yeah, which is a poker cross, after wisdom, so... When was she born? About Tuesday, I mean, yeah, Tuesday, yeah, about Tuesday. Didn't quite... Today's Thursday. No, no, earlier than that, I guess, or than that, Rosa. I'm getting confused now. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah. I spoke to your daughter the other day. Oh, you did, huh? It was, well, last week. It's actually before our time. Yeah, because I went out some things after that. Yeah, yeah. All good. So, it's good, huh? We're going to go out there in February there, so we'll be out there in a couple weeks. Now, what Aristotle does in the rest of Book 1 of Wisdom is to recall what his predecessor said about the causes and the reasons they gave, and then he, secondly, he gets a kind of critique, you know, the sufficiency of what they said. But in recalling what they said and why they said it, he also recalls the distinction of the four kinds of cause, which were worked out in natural philosophy, and he's going to look at what they said, not only as a preparation for the critique of it, for examination of its efficiency or insufficiency, but also to see if they touched upon any kind of cause other than the four kinds that he has, right? And so one comes away with a confirmation that there are, in fact, four kinds of what? Causes. And so before I look at these fragments, let's just recall those four kinds of causes and talk a little bit about the name of each of them, and then the definition of each kind of cause, and exemplify it a bit here. I might begin by saying, in kind of a general way, what is a cause? What do you mean by a cause, huh? How would you sort of define what you mean by a cause? I'll talk a decisive factor in bringing something to be. Okay, okay. Now, the Greek word for cause, cause, of course, is the right in the Latin word, but the Greek word for cause is idea, right? Which is tied up with the Greek word for responsible, right? So you might say a cause is what is responsible for the being or the becoming of another, right? And there are going to be different ways that they can be responsible for something. What is responsible for the being or becoming of another? And of course, that other could be called the what? That's right. That's right, yeah. Now, perhaps you have something in the Latin word, to cause, at least it's the word. I accuse you, right? Okay. I'm going to accuse you of something that you are responsible for, right? If I accuse you of the murder of so-and-so, it's because I hold you in some way responsible for the death of so-and-so. Okay. Now, the first kind of cause that Aristotle talks about, both in the second book of natural hearing, the so-called physics, and in the fifth book of wisdom, when he talks about the word cause, the first kind of cause could be called matter, okay? And the definition that Aristotle gives of this kind of cause has two parts. matter is that from which something comes to be existing within it okay that from which something comes to be that's the first part of the definition but the second part is essential existing within it so this chair maybe came to be from what right and the wood is in it right okay now we might say that something came to be from maybe the chair from the carpenter in some way too right but to the best of my knowledge he's not in here right so the carpenter is not a cause in the sense of what matter he may be a cause another sense of maker or something right but not of matter because of this second part right okay and sometimes we say that something comes to be from its opposite huh like day comes to be from night right but is night in day no or we say that the heart comes to be from the soft right for the soft becomes hard right but is soft in the heart no so the second part here the definition of matter separates matter from the mover or maker and also from the opposite okay as students you should go from ignorance to knowledge right so knowledge comes to be from ignorance was ignorance in the knowledge that's opposed to it no so this second part is very essential to the definition of this kind of cause now you can see it most easily in artificial things huh but you could also say that um you and i come to be from flesh and blood and bone right maybe they come from something even more fundamental so this is the first kind of cause now the second kind of cause is called form and aristotle says this is the definition of what was to be so what was to be in the case of this coming to be was a chair right huh and the chair is defined or it's definition of this is completed by its what form and by its shape what makes it to be a what chair okay now sometimes they attach the form here what they call the model or exemplar which is a kind of extrinsic form that you copy or imitate okay now the third kind of cause is called the mover or maker of course later on we had the creator to this right okay but they should define it in terms of first one here whence first there is a beginning of motion but the motion in the broad sense here not just change of place but any kind of change once first there is a beginning of motion okay so the carpenter begins to move the wood right to change the wood there's thought when he when he talks about this he gives us an example the father right and uh he gives an example of the advisor right because the father is a mover maker more by nature and the advisor more by reason and reason and nature seem to be the main what makers in our daily experience everything we see seems to be made either by art by reason in some sense or out there in the woods made by nature right okay these are made by art this is made by nature. Now the last kind of cause that Aristotle talks about is called the end. And he defines that as that for the sake of which. We've seen that before in our study of ethics. That for the sake of which. And if you want to, you could add something is or is done. This is the basic definition. That for the sake of which, right? Something is or is done. So these are the four kinds of causes that Aristotle distinguishes. And so in the rest of book one, he recalls the distinction of the four kinds of causes and says that when we go through what they said and why they said it, we're going to not only set the stage for an examination of the sufficiency of what they're saying, but also to see, did they touch upon any kind of cause other than these four? Of course, the conclusion for that is that they didn't touch upon any kind of cause other than these four. Which is kind of a confirmation that this is what all there is. Now, this distinction of the four kinds of causes is followed in Aristotle's text by a, what, three corollaries, huh? And the first corollary is that there can be many causes as such of the very same thing. So the cause of the, what, chair in one way is wood, right? In another way, it's the form or shape of the wood, right? In another way, the carpenter is the cause of it. And even sitting is in some way responsible, right? Because the carpenter made it for the sake of what? Sitting, right? So, because there are different kinds of causes, there can be many causes as such, right? So, you've got to avoid trying to choose sometimes between these causes, right? Is wood responsible for the wooden chair in some way? Yeah, so there wouldn't be a wooden chair without wood, right? But is the shape of the wood in another way responsible for it, too? And isn't the carpenter even more responsible because he shaped the wood? But he shaped the wood that way because of, what, sitting, right? For the sake of sitting, that he gave it the shape that he did, huh? Because he could have given it other shapes, too, right? But he gave it the shape he did because of sitting. Now, it doesn't mean that everything has these four causes, right? Because in the science, say, like geometry, maybe the only cause you talk about would be, what? Form, right? Okay? And Aristotle, after he gets through with these causes, he will ask, in natural things, how many of these causes should we look for, right? Okay? But some things involve as many as all four of these, right? Now, the second corollary Aristotle gives is that two things, he says, can be causes of each other, but by different kinds of cause, right? So is exercise the cause of health or is health the cause of exercise? Okay? Well, you say, why is he healthy? Because he exercises, right? Well, then you're giving exercise as a cause of health, right? But you might ask the reverse question, why do you exercise? For the sake of health, right? So health is a cause of exercise, but notice, not by the same kind of cause, huh? Exercise is a maker or producer of health, right? And health is a cause of exercise in the sense of a, what, end, yeah, okay? You don't want to, in that case, say, which is the cause of which? They're both causes of each other, but by different, what, kinds of cause, right? Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, huh? Well, is she full of grace because the Lord is with her? Or is the Lord with her because she's full of grace? Or are both true, but by different kinds of cause? Her being full of grace is a disposition that makes you suitable, right? For the Lord to dwell with her, right? And disposition is reduced to matter in the broad sense. That's on the side of the subject, huh? But vice versa, you could say the Lord being with her is a cause of her being full of grace in the sense of the mover or the what? Maker, right, huh? Is putting the premises together the cause you see in the conclusion? Yeah. But why do you put the premises together? For the sake of the conclusion, right? So the conclusion is the cause of the premises being put together in the sense of that for the sake of which you put statements together. But putting them together is what? A cause of the conclusion in the sense of the maker, the producer of it, huh? Okay? If I multiply two numbers, I get another number, right? So my multiplying those two numbers is the cause of my knowing the other number, right? In the sense that it produces the knowledge of that, right? Okay? I'm going to buy you all a 50-cent Coke, okay? And I take the number of you guys, 5, 10, right? 10 times 50 is what? $5,000 would cost me to do this, right? Okay? But why did I multiply 10 by 50? Let's take a minute how much it would cost me, right? Okay, so they're causes of each other, but for what? Different ways. In different ways, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now the third corollary he gives is not as closely related to the kinds of cause, but he points out how the same thing is sometimes held responsible for contraries by its presence and by its absence, right? Okay, so the captain is responsible for the safety of the ship or the destruction of the ship by his attention or inattention. And I tell the student is responsible for his knowledge or his ignorance by his paying attention or not paying attention by applying himself or not applying himself. So this distinction, if it is complete, is useful in any part of our knowledge we're looking for causes, not that this is how we look for all four causes, but you have to see which causes are good to look for here, right? So I mentioned in a science like geometry, maybe form would be the only cause that's really relevant, but when I define marriage, I use all four causes. It's a stable union of a man-woman by mutual choice, the same children. Okay? When we speak of God as a cause, and how many of these four kinds of cause has God a cause? Two and a half. Two and a half, yeah. I am the beginning and the end of all things, but we're made in his image and likeness, right? So he's the extrinsic form of the model there, right? But not the intrinsic form, right? Okay, so he's not the matter at all, and he's not the intrinsic form of things. But the model, imitate him, be perfect, even as your heavenly father is perfect, right? He's kind of the model there, the exemplar, and he's the beginning and the end of all things, the alpha and omega. So you have to see what kind of cause is relevant in talking about something. Now Thales is usually regarded as the first, what, philosopher, and he appears in all the lists of the seven wise men of Greece. But he's a man who really begins natural philosophy. But he's supposed to have also made some contributions to geometry, and even to political philosophy. He proposed a federal form of government for the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor. And the tribute to scientists.