Prima Pars
37. Summa I, Q.11, Arts. 1–2: The One Convertible with Being, and How One and Many Are Opposed
Class of 2006-05-23
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/037-summa-i-q-11-arts-1-2-the-one-convertible-with-being-and/

[0:00] 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. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Very good. Help us to understand Help us to understand, Holy Spirit. Amen.

[0:28] This division of the four articles of question eleven reminds me of what I sometimes say that the given the limits of the human mind, the basic choice in human thinking is either you choose to consider all things in general and the best things in particular,

[0:59] or you consider lesser things in particular. And so, as you study all things in general, you see how that's very important for understanding the best things in particular. And you see it here in the order of the four articles because the first two articles are about what the one that is convertible with being the most general things, and of course the last two articles are about the best thing.

[1:32] So those two go together. Strange as it may seem. So after the four said things, it should be considered about the divine unity and about this four things are sought. Whether one adds something over being. Secondly, whether one and many are opposed.

[1:58] Third, whether God is one. Whether and fourth, whether God is most one, maxime. So article one, to the first one proceeds thus. It seems that one

[2:17] adds something over being. For everything that is in some genus, some determined genus, has itself with addition to being, which goes around all genera, covers all ten genera Aristotle talks about in the categories. But one is in a determined genus, for it is the beginning of number, which is a species of quantity. Therefore, one adds something above being. So there are ten basic genera, right? And the first one is substance.

[2:57] Second one is quantity. Third is quality. Fourth is relation, and so on. And number comes under quantity, right? And one is the beginning of number, so it's not as universal. And therefore, it must be adding something in particular.

[3:20] Further, what divides something common has itself with addition to that. But being is divided by one and many. Therefore, one adds something over what being, huh?

[3:39] More, if one does not add something over being, it'd be the same thing to say one in being. But it's not what just a nugatoria It's not just a repetition, right, to say one being.

[3:58] You say I'm a man. You say I am one man. Are you adding something or not? Are just saying the same thing? Therefore, it's not a nugatio to say one being, which is false. Therefore, one adds something over being.

[4:19] But against this is what Dionysius says in the last chapter of the Divine Names. There's nothing among existing things that does not partake of the one, which would not be if one added something over being that contracted it. Therefore, one does not have itself from addition to being.

[4:45] Okay. Now Thomas says, "I answer it should be said that one does not add over being some thing, right? But only the negation of what division.

[5:06] Now this negation here is not a real thing, but a being of what reason. Beings of reason can be either negations or relations of reason, and we'll find out about the good and the true that they add a relation of reason. But the one adds merely a negation.

[5:32] And from this it is apparent that the one that one is convertible with being. Now convertible in logic means what? Hmm. Changeable. Well, yeah, but in logic you say A and B are convertible. If every A is a B, and every B is a what A? Okay, okay. So let me say that a thing in its definition must be what convertible, right? Every triangle is a plane figure contained by three straight lines, and every plane figure contained by three straight lines is a triangle.

[6:19] Now Thomas shows this by an either-or argument, huh? That every being is one. For every being is either simple or what composed. Now what is simple is undivided, not only in act but also in what ability.

[6:44] So the point is not divided actually, and it's not able to be divided. Can't cut a point in half. But what is composed or put together does not have being, so long as its parts are divided. But after they constitute and compose the thing that is composed or put together. So if the parts of the chair are not put together, chair doesn't exist, right?

[7:20] Hence, it is manifest that the being of each thing consists in division. Then he gives a sign of this again, in addition to the argument, right? And hence it is that each thing, just as it guards or tries to keep its own existence or being, so it guards its own what unity. Okay. So the being of the army is going to be destroyed if it's divided, right?

[7:52] So y'all convinced now that being and one are convertible. Aristotle shows this in the beginning in the fourth book of Wisdom that being and one are convertible. Now let's go back to the first objection, which was drawn from the one that is the beginning of what number, right? That objection would be good if the one that is the beginning of number was the same as the one that is convertible with being, but they're not the same one, right?

[8:27] Okay. Now I think I mentioned before how in Wisdom the order of proceeding is you're going towards the immaterial, right? Just the opposite way of what you do in natural philosophy, where you go down towards matter. But there's a second difference. Because in natural philosophy you go from the general to the what particular, but in wisdom, in a way, you go from the particular, the less universal, up to the more universal.

[9:05] Now this is most clear and most explicit in the ninth book of wisdom. Remember the book on act and ability. In the first part of the ninth book, Aristotle talks only about the act called motion, and the different kinds of ability in reference to that act. And then in the second part of the ninth book, he ascends to a completely universal consideration of act, which gives rise to an understanding of other senses of ability.

[9:42] And this is important eventually for studying even the immaterial things. So in a way, you're ascending from the less universal to the what more universal. Now you can say he's doing that also in his study of substance, because he begins with material substances. substances. So in a way And from them, he kind of ascends to a general understanding of substance that's valuable, even when you talk about the separated or immaterial substances.

[10:14] Now, most people are stuck on that less universal level, and Aristotle, in the fourth book of Natural Hearing, physics, when he takes a place, he quotes the common opinion of the Greek philosophers before him that whatever is, whatever exists, he says, must be somewhere in some place. If it isn't somewhere, it doesn't what exist. Now you go out on Main Street here, and in these towns around here, and that will be the common opinion.

[10:51] Whatever exists must be somewhere, and somewhere doesn't exist, right? I remember in grade school, you know, asking the teacher, "Where is God?" Well, to be somewhere, to be in a place, is really a property of bodies, right? So you're identifying what is with bodies, and what exists in bodies, and that's where our mind begins. And so, if you look at the division of the opinions of Aristotle's predecessors that he gives in the beginning of the first book of the physics,

[11:34] after he gives their division, of their opinions about the cause of natural things, he says, in the same way for them was the consideration of what is,

[11:45] because natural bodies are more fundamental than artificial bodies. So if you want to know what is, you got to understand natural bodies, and that's it. Okay, that's not until Anaxagoras and then Plato and Aristotle himself show that there exists some immaterial things that our mind begins to what separate the idea of what is and the idea of substance even from what body, right? So it's hard for us to rise to that most universal level, and the same thing that you see in the state of act and ability and in the study of substance comes up in the study of the one and the many, because the one we first have in mind is the one that's tied up with the bodily, with the continuous, and

[12:41] the division that is involved in negation there of the one is the division of the continuous. But the division that's negated in the more universal one. Is the division of being and what Not being. Okay, so it's very hard for our mind to ru from to rise from one to the other. And we have this problem we get to the Trinity, right? But it comes up here in this first objection, right?

[13:16] To the first, therefore, it should be said that some thinking the same to be the one that is convertible with being, right, and the one that is the beginning of number, they were divided into contrary what positions. For Pythagoras and also Plato, seeing that the one that is convertible with being does not add something over being, but signifies the very substance of being, in so far as it's undivided, they thought that thus it has itself about the one that it is the what beginning of number, and because number is composed of unities, they believe that numbers were the substances of all things.

[14:10] I've got your number. That's an old Pythagorean speaking, right? Huh? Okay, I've got your number. So they're confusing the Platonists and Pythagoreans, the one that is the beginning, right, of number, with the one that is the what convertible with being, and therefore making the very substance of things to be numbers. Now, in a contrary way, Avicenna, right? Considering that the one which is the beginning of number adds something, right, over the substance of being, right?

[14:55] Otherwise, number composed of units would not be a species of quantity, huh? He believed that the one that is convertible with being adds something over the substance of being, just as white adds something over man.

[15:14] So, notice, these are very great thinkers, Plato and Avicenna, and they're both what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not seeing the distinction there between the one that is the beginning of number and the one that is the what? Convertible. Yeah, yeah. So you gotta stop and realize how easy one can be deceived.

[15:42] But this is manifestly false because each thing is one through its very what substance, huh? Not through something added. If it were through something other one.

[15:57] If were that something was one, right, through something other, some other thing, since that again would be one, it'd be one through something else, and this would go on forever, right? Once we're not a stand in the first.

[16:17] Thus, therefore, it should be said that the one that is convertible with being does not add something above being. It adds merely negation, which is a being of reason, right? But nothing in reality. But the one that is the beginning of number adds something over what being, pertaining to the genus of what quantity, right? Which is used when when he always refers to the one that is the beginning of number.

[16:49] He always uses the word rests there. He so that you would say that is something real. That's why I was understanding this. And it refers to the one which is the beginning of number. It says it doesn't add some rests, yeah, real thing. Yeah, yeah. See, when you contract being into substance, quantity, quality relation, you're getting something more particular, right? So you're adding something real there, right?

[17:13] But being and the one that's convertible with being doesn't add anything real, but does add negation. Okay. Now the second objection now about being being divided by the one and the many, right? Therefore, it must add something to it, right?

[17:38] Now, to the second, it should be said that nothing prevents that which is in one way divided to be in another way what undivided. Undivided. Just as what is divided in number is undivided in species, huh? Like you and I are one in species, right? And you and the dog are one in genus, right? But just one individual, right? And thus it happens for something to be in one way one and in another way what many.

[18:15] But nevertheless, if it be undivided simply, either because what is undivided according to what what pertains to the essence of the thing, although it be divided as regards those things which are outside the nature of the thing. Just as what is one in subject is many in accident, like I'm one in subject, but I'm what a geometer, and I'm white and I'm healthy, I guess, more or less.

[18:48] Okay. Or because it's undivided in act and divided in what? Potency. He kept being a guillotine there, and he actually, actually, two instead of one. Just as what is one as a whole, but many in its parts.

[19:12] Things of this sort are one simply and many. What? Secundum quid. There's that distinction again that we meet so often in philosophy. If, however, something, a converso, is undivided in some way, secundum quid, and divides simply, as because it is divided according to its essence and undivided according to what?

[19:40] Its its notion or its thought, yeah, or according to its beginning or cause, it will be many simply and one secundum quid. As what are many in number and one in species, or one in their origin. Thus, therefore, being is divided by one and many, As it were through one simply. And many what? Secundum quid?

[20:06] For the multitude itself would not be contained under being unless it were contained in some way under what? One. For Dionysius says in the last chapter of the Divine Names that there is not a multitude not partaking of one, but what are many in parts are one in a whole, and what are many in accidents are one in subject, and what are many in number are one in species, and what are many in species are one in genus, and what are many in In going forward are one in their what?

[20:43] Source. Okay. As the great Heraclitus says it's wise listening not to me but to reason, to agree that all things are one not to me but to reason to agree that all things are one? Okay, but some things are one simply, and some are one in some way, right? So I've got twelve grandchildren, right? Okay. So the one family, one one big family, you know. But we're all one in in one source.

[21:10] I told you the guy saw me in church and give my grandchildren. and said, you know, you are responsible for all this. Well, in some way I'm responsible for all these little grandchildren, you see. But so the one in some way, right? In me, right? Okay. And and we're all one in this country in some way, all the citizens in some way one. I mean, not simply, right?

[21:31] But in some way, right? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And if the army is, it's got to be have some unity, right? And if the army gets dispersed and scattered, just a crowd, you know, fleeing, you know, then it's not being an army anymore, is it? Say, okay. It's lost its unity, right? They need to head. Yeah. Is this last one referring to the Trinity or no? No, no, it's just the fact that we're one in their source, like my family, right?

[22:03] Okay. Okay. Or even say maybe acts of the soul, acts of intellect, acts of the will, but one in their source. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The third objection was saying what? It's not simply a repetition to say one being, right? He says the third, therefore, is not just a negatio, when it is said that being is one, because one adds something secundum ratione. It adds, say, what negation, right?

[22:48] Okay. It adds the idea of undivided being. Okay. But negation is nothing but real, right? Okay. That's true, even of things like you know, you say that. This man is blind, right? Okay, is that something added to the man? No. No. It's really what in reality

[23:19] something away from the man, right? It's a separation. Yeah, yeah. but we say that the man is blind, just as we say the man is healthy, right? But the health is something real added to the man. To be blind is the negation of something real, right? But the mind takes it as if it were a kind of being, right? Being as true as Aristotle calls it in the fifth book of wisdom.

[23:45] So one adds something in meaning to being, right? And that is a negation, of nothing real, undivided being. Now, number arises from what? In particular, arises from the division of the continuous, and because the continuous, as we've seen before, is divisible forever, then number can go on forever, right? Okay.

[24:23] Now the next article is on whether the one and the many are opposed, huh? Okay. Now, in understanding these most universal names, you have to see what is the distinction of these names one from another. We've seen that a bit in this first article. We can be a little more explicit than this, but you can say one differs in meaning from being because it adds the idea of undivided to being, right?

[24:55] Okay. But you also want to look at the opposite of each of these ones. Opposite of good is bad. The opposite of true is false. Opposite of one is many, right? And they're opposed in different ways. Okay, so he's going to take that up now.

[25:16] The second one proceeds thus: It seems that one and many are not opposed, for nothing opposed is said of its opposite. But every multitude is in some way one, as is clear from the aforesaid things. Therefore, the one is not opposed to what? To the many, to the multitude. Further, nothing opposed is constituted from its opposite, but the one constitutes multitude. Therefore, it's not opposed to multitude.

[25:54] Okay, that sounds like you know sickness making up health or something, right? Or vice versa. How can this be? Moreover, one. Is opposed to one thing, but to the many is opposed the few. Therefore, it's not opposed. Therefore, one is not opposed to it. Okay.

[26:23] So what's the opposite of black? White. Healthy. Sick. Hard. Also. Yeah, it seems to be only one opposite, right? So sometimes we oppose the many to the few, right? So if it's opposed to the few, it can't be opposed to the one.

[26:49] Moreover, if one is opposed to the multitude, is opposed to it as the undivided to the divided, and thus it is opposed to it as a privation or lack to the habit or the having.

[27:07] But this seems inconvenient, because it would follow that one would be what posterior to the multitude, and it would be defined through it. When nevertheless multitude is defined by one, it's a collection of ones. Once, there would be a circle in the definition that's not to be allowed. Any circularity in definitions, which is inconvenient, not suitable, not fitting. Therefore, one and many are what opposed, are not opposed.

[27:47] But against this, those things whose reasons or definitions are opposed, they themselves are opposed. But the ratio or definition of one consists in its indivisibility or in division. But the ratio or notion or definition of multitude contains division. Therefore, the one and the many are opposed.

[28:14] I answer: It should be said that one is opposed to the many, but in diverse ways. For the one, which is the beginning of number, right, is opposed to the multitude, which is number, as the measure is to the what measured. For one has the notion of the first measure, right, and number is a multitude measured by the one, as is clear from the tenth book of the metaphysics, Aristotle.

[28:54] But the one which is convertible with being is opposed to multitude by way of privation or lack. As the undivided to the what divided, okay.

[29:15] So that's a very interesting distinction, right, between the two ones and the many that they're opposed to, huh? So we sometimes define the number as a what multitude measured by one, okay. And then later on, Aristotle in the tenth book of Wisdom will say that we carry over

[29:43] the idea of measure to other kinds of one. But the original meaning there is the one that's the beginning of number. That's the first measure, really, huh? That's what I'm saying later on. you know God is what. You might attach to the consideration unity of God maybe as being the measure of all things. You might also attach it to simplicity, and be very close together.

[30:17] Okay, the next. Let's look at the objections now, right? Notice how the body article is very short, right? And and the points he wants to make in more detail are all tied up with the objections.

[30:32] Now the first objection was saying nothing, no opposite is said of its what opposite, right? But every multitude is in some way one. Therefore, the one is not opposed to the multitude.

[30:48] To the first, therefore, it should be said, Thomas says, that no privation or lack takes away entirely being, because privation or lack is a negation in a subject, according to the philosopher. Okay. We talked about that before, but notice the difference between saying that something does not see and something is blind, right?

[31:23] Strictly speaking, you can't say that this cup here is blind, but you can say it doesn't what see. Everything in this room either sees or does not see, right?

[31:40] Because one is merely indicating the other, right? But is everything in this room either see or is blind? No. Now, what does blindness mean then, right? It doesn't mean simply doesn't see, right? But it's the non-being of the ability to see in a subject, right?

[32:09] Act by nature to see, right? Okay. So it doesn't completely take away, but just negate only, right? It implies that there's a subject there, right? That's capable of something, and it doesn't what have this, right?

[32:31] But nevertheless, every privation takes away some being, right? Okay, but it doesn't take away the subject. Okay. And therefore, in being, by reason of its what community, huh? By reason of its commonness, huh? By reason of being most universal,

[32:54] it happens that the lack of being is founded in some being. Okay, so though the blindness of the blind man is a kind of non-being, right? The blind man himself does exist, right? Okay.

[33:17] Which does not happen in the privations of special forms, as of sight or whiteness or something of this sort. So you wouldn't say, you know, that what

[33:38] if the if the man is blind, we wouldn't say that the man who is blind has sight, right? Or he sees. Okay, but if you take it in general and say, "Hey, there's non-being in this man," but he is nevertheless, okay. So what is is not in some way, right? Because we are relative now.

[34:01] And just as it is so about being, so it is about the one, and also about the goodness. We'll see, which are convertible with being, right? For the privation or lack of the good is founded in something good, right? So that's why we see it even the devils, right? In the devil himself, his nature is something good, right? Okay, but there's something lacking in his will, right?

[34:32] There's a disorder there, and so on. And likewise, the removal of unity is founded in something what one. And hence it follows, or happens rather, that a multitude is something one, right? And what is bad is something good, right? And non-being is a certain what being, yeah.

[35:04] But nevertheless, the opposite is not being said in the opposite, because one of these is simply, and the other what? Secundum quid? For what

[35:23] what is in some way being as an ability, and is not being simply that is an act, right? Or what is being simply in the genus of substance is non-being secundum quid as regards accidental being. Okay, so would you say, "Am I or am I not?" What would you say? Yes. And you'd Say I am. Yeah, simply say I am. Right. But let's say I am not a pianist.

[35:57] So, some way I am not right. Okay. And I can't both be and not be simply. I can't both be and not be a pianist, right? But I can be and not be a pianist. So it's not the same thing as being what Affirmed and denied, right? Okay.

[36:25] Likewise, what is good in some way is bad simply. Yeah. Yeah. And that's just the reverse, right? So the devil is bad simply, but in some way he's good. His nature is good, right? And it wasn't so good; he would not have been tempted to make himself God. Right. Okay. And likewise, what is one simply is many secundum quid, and a conversely right? Okay. Is that all clear, you know?

[37:01] Huh? You can't avoid that distinction between simply and not simply, right? So we're saying the many are one what in some way, their order or something of this sort. Maybe simply they're many, right? So we're not saying that something is one and many in the same way, are we? No. So rather that difficulty.

[37:36] Yeah, and Thomas too here. The parts and species. Some that adamantly would say the opposite. Further, he says in the second objection: now, nothing opposed is constituted from its opposite, but the one constitutes multitude; therefore, it's not opposed to multitude.

[38:03] To the second, it should be said that twofold is the whole: one homogeneous that is composed or put together from similar parts, and one is heterogenous that is composed from dissimilar parts.

[38:24] In every homogeneous whole, the whole is constituted from parts having the same form as the whole, just as each part of water is water.

[38:37] And such is the constitution of the continuous from its what parts? But in every heterogeneous whole, heterogeneous whole, each part lacks the form of the whole. For no part of the house is a house, nor is a part of man a man. So my arm or my leg, even my soul is not a man. And such a whole is what multitude.

[39:10] In so far, therefore, as its part does not have the form of multitude, the multitude is composed from units, just as a house from what are not houses.

[39:29] Not that the what unities constitute the multitude according to what it they have of what indivision, in so far as they are post multitude, but according to what they have of what of being. Just as the parts of a house constitute a house, through this that they are certain what bodies, not through this that they are not a house. You know, like the bricks constitute a brick wall, right? A brick is not a brick wall.

[40:06] So a brick wall is made out of what? What is not a brick wall? But they don't constitute a brick wall insofar as they're not a brick wall, but insofar as they're a brick, right?

[40:21] Remember that next time you make some cake or something, brother. Making a cake out what's not a cake? Quick trick, huh? And the third objection was saying that the many is opposed to the few, right? And here Thomas simply points out that the many has two meanings, huh? The third, therefore, it should be said that many is taken in two ways: in one way, absolutely, and thus it is opposed to the one.

[40:51] another way, insofar as it implies a certain what—excess—and thus is opposed to the few. Hence, in the first way, two are many; not, however, in the what? Second way, right? So, two different meanings, right? This is actually a rule Aristotle gives in the Topics on the book on places, huh? That if a thing has more than one opposite, it has more than one what? Meaning, yeah. Like, what's the meaning of the word liberal, right?

[41:27] Stingy. Yeah, liberal is opposed to stingy, but then liberal say is opposed to conservative, okay? And liberal is opposed to let's say servile, right? Okay. So if it has many opposites, then the word liberal has many what? Meanings. Meanings, yeah, yeah. So if many is opposed to one, and many is opposed to few, many has two different meanings, huh? And sometimes when you're defining things, you know, you say like a genus is a name set of many things, other in kind, signifying what it is.

[42:06] What does the word "many" mean there? Does that mean as opposed to few? It means many as opposed to one. So sometimes, you know, to be clear, I'll say "many" in the sense of more than one, which could cover two, right? But not many is opposed to few. So a genus, you know, would have as few as two species, huh? Like you divide quantity into discrete and continuous.

[42:34] Okay. So that's easy enough to solve, huh? But it also touches upon that that rule. Socrates tries to reason from the idea of there being just one opposite of each thing, huh? In the Protagoras, right? He's trying to prove that the five virtues are really the same thing, right? And so he takes the opposite of wise is foolish, right? The opposite of temperate is foolish. The thing is only one opposite, right?

[43:25] So folly is opposed to both wisdom and temperance. Wisdom and temperance must be the same thing. So the drunk, you know, acts foolishly, right?

[43:48] The fourth objection. This is the one about the circularity of the definitions and so on. To the fourth, it should be said that one is opposed in a privative way to the many, insofar as in the notion of the many is that they are what divided, right? Whence is necessary that division be what before unity, right? Not simply right, but according to the way of our what understanding things, huh?

[44:28] For we grasp simple things through composed things. I remember Aristotle saying that in the third book about the soul, right? And the stock example is Euclid's definition of point, which he gives here. That the point is that of which there is no part. Then, also defined as the beginning of a line. But when you say that the point

[44:57] has neither length nor width nor depth, right? Well, we go from the body. We know the body in an affirmative way, and we see the body has length and width and depth, right? And then we go to surface, and we say it has length and width, but no depth. One negation, right? And then we go to line. We say a line has length, but neither width nor depth, huh?

[45:26] And finally, we get to the point. there's neither length, nor width, nor depth. Position only, right? So as you go from body to surface to line to point, you have one, two, three negations, right? So you're knowing the simple through the what composed, huh? That's the way our mind goes, huh? Because our reason's own object is that what it is is something sensed or imagined, and this is something composed.

[45:57] So something that is not composed, we have to know by what. Negation of the composed, yeah. And so the the article, the question three that we read there on the simplicity of God, right? What we did in those eight articles was to show that God is not composed in any way, right? Okay. So we're knowing the simple by the what composed. That's why it's very interesting the way geometry proceeds, because it proceeds from the what simple to the composed, contrary to the normal way our mind works.

[46:38] Okay. But it is appropriate in geometry to go from the simple to the composed. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But now let me show you how you avoid the the the singularity, right? So division comes first, right? Then understanding of one, right? But then multitude comes after that, because the multitude is a collection of one, so you have to understand one to understand the multitude. But the multitude, even by definition, is after what or follows after the one, because things divided, we do not understand to have the definition of multitude unless or except through this that attribute, right, to each of the divided things some kind of what unity, right?

[47:51] Hence, one is placed in the definition of multitude, not multitude in the definition of one. But division falls in the understanding from the very what negation of being. Thus, what first falls in the understanding is being, right? Secondly, that this being is not that being, and thus we understand division or distinction. Third, one which is undivided being, and fourth multitude. So now get your thoughts in order, right?

[48:29] Being, division, one, many. Can you draw that out some more? I see the first two, but then the third, and how do we come to the? Well, the third one there is understood now as undivided being, right? Do you negate division, division. Oh yeah. Okay. And then we have the multitude. You have to have many ones, right? In the idea of the multitude. Oh, okay. So those those many ones are divided one from another, right?

[49:02] But each of them in itself is undivided, right? So there are many ones in the multitude. So you're understanding one before you're understanding multitude, huh? But you're understanding division before you understand one, because that's undivided being, right? But you're understanding being before you understand division. You understand being and non-being, and then you understand the division, yeah, distinction.

[49:32] As I mentioned before, Aristotle and Thomas, uh, I mean Aristotle first really was the first man to understand the most universal things. And part of understanding the most universal things is to understand the distinction of them one from another, right? And to understand the order of them. Well, now you're understanding a bit the distinction between being and One and the order of them, right? And more completely here, the order of being and unbeing and division and then one and then many, right?

[50:14] So I told you that famous dinner with your honors Basilius and Deccanic and De Koninck you know, and De Koninck got up after the all the Honors said was thanking them for the nice things they were saying and so on. But you should have not been praising me; you should have been praising Thomas Aquinas. And the Cardinal had got up to say a few words, and he said, "Well, this is all very good to praise Thomas Aquinas, but you should have been praising Aristotle.

[50:41] " Because this comes directly from Aristotle, you know. So Thomas, in that sense, was a very humble student of Aristotle. He wasn't afraid to learn from Aristotle or from Saint Augustine, and you know what Cajetan says: he seems to have inherited the mind of all the Church Fathers because he so what reverenced them, right? Inherited Aristotle's mind too. Okay, so

[51:18] we continue now or take a break now? Yeah, because we're breaking the two parts, right? So this is also dividing the four articles. Basically, you can say two of them are about one in general, right? Yeah. And then the other two about God being one and He being most of all one, right? Okay. So now you see the idea that you have to understand things in general to understand the best things in particular.