Prima Pars
74. Aquinas on Life (ST I q.18 a.1–3): Moving Oneself, Life as Being, and the Grades of Life up to God
Class of 2007-03-22
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/074-aquinas-on-life-st-i-q-18-a-1-3-moving-oneself-life-as-being/

[0:00] In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of 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.

[0:19] Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, pray for us and help us to understand all that you've written. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:34] So the first is a little text of Aristotle there, the first objection where he compares the, in the older physics there, the motion of the what, heavenly bodies and so on is a kind of what, life, right? So to the first, therefore Thomas says it should be understood that that word of the philosopher is able to be understood either about the first motion, namely that of the heavenly bodies, right?

[1:05] Or about motion in general, and in both ways, right, or in either way, motion is said as it were the life of natural bodies. There's a likeness there, to a likeness and not property. Okay. For the motion of the heavens is in the universe of natural bodies something like the motion of the heart in the animal, right? And of course, as you know, there's a circulation of the blood.

[1:36] And of course, it seemed like the circulation of the heavens was what's causing motion in the universe down below, right? So we're still making a kind of comparison, right?

[1:48] The same thing can be said about motion in general. Likewise, every natural motion has itself in some way to natural things as a certain likeness of what, fight operations, right? As if you said the fall of stone to the ground is the life of the stone, right? Not very elevated life, but falling to the ground, huh?

[2:11] Yeah, yeah. Well, we fall too, and our life. Okay. Whence if the whole bodily universe were one animal, right? Then this motion would be from a intrinsic what, mover, right? As some lay down, according as motion would be the life of all natural bodies. That's fairly easy to solve, huh? Okay.

[2:44] Now, moreover, the second objection: plants are said to live in so far as they have in themselves a beginning or cause of the motion of growth and decrease. But locomotion, change of place, is more perfect and before by nature than the motion of growth and decrease, as is proven in the eighth book of the physics. Since therefore all natural bodies have some source of their locomotion, it seems that all natural bodies what live, huh?

[3:21] So when Aristotle, you know, takes up in the eight books of natural Hearing, he takes up motion in general, right? And then the fifth book he distinguishes three kinds of motion, change of place and change of quality, and then growth or change of quantity. And then he takes up each of those in particular. In the four books on the universe, he takes up change of place, and then in the two books on generation, corruption, change of quality, and then in the books on life, he takes up growth and so on.

[3:53] But in order to have growth, you've got to have what what we call chemical change, right? So chemical change, in that sense, is before growth. There can be chemical change without growth, strictly speaking, right? But there can't be growth without chemical change of food and so on. But again, chemical change won't take place unless you bring things together. So change of place seems to be, in a way, a cause of change of quality, and that a cause of change of what of growth, right?

[4:29] Now, used to be that a even a biology major would take his freshman year, you know, more chemistry than biology, as because of that. But also you can say that that since change of place is not affecting you intrinsically, right? You're more actual when you change your place than when you're growing, because in your growing you're acquiring something internally. When you're being qualitatively changed, you're acquiring something intrinsically, and therefore you're more in potency, you might say, huh?

[5:03] While the thing that moves in place is already fully an act. Okay. So the second Thomas says, it should be said that it does not belong to heavy and light bodies to be moved, except when they are outside the what disposition of their nature, as when they are outside of their own place. That's the older idea of how it's heading there. But when they are in their own and natural place, then they what rest, huh?

[5:45] But plants and other living things are moved by a living motion. According as they are in their very natural disposition, not, however, in exceeding to it or receding from it, rather, according as they recede from such emotion, they recede from their natural disposition. You can't see the point he's making there?

[6:24] It's less what? What is it? You might say when a when a plant is really in its in its fullness of its nature, it's going to be growing, right? Why, when a stone has what it should have by its nature, it's going to be what at rest, not motion at all. So it seems to be further removed from life.

[6:49] Moreover, he says, heavy and light bodies are moved always by a what outside mover, either the one who generates them, giving them their form,

[7:01] or the one who moves the what thing that is holding them back. Right. So if you move the pillar, and the thing falls down, right, then you're causing the motion, but you're outside of the thing, right? And thus they do not move themselves as living bodies do. So the plant seems to what build itself up.

[7:24] Now the third objection is taken from this old saying about living waters, right, and not in the biblical sense, right, but in daily life. And

[7:38] now waters are said to be alive which have a continual what flow. For standing waters which are not continued to some source continually flowing are said to be dead, right? They're stagnant, as the waters of cisterns and

[7:58] ponds, something. And this is said by way again of what likeness, in so far as they seem to move themselves, they have a certain likeness of life.

[8:12] But nevertheless, there is not in them a true notion of life, because they have this motion not from themselves but from the cause generating them, just as happens in the motion of other heavy and what light things. So now you know what life is, right?

[8:32] It's basically the idea of move itself. Example: Why you always give in classes or go for a walk in the woods and walk along the stone and you kick it and it rolls. Do you see it's alive? No. If you step on something without kicking it, and as you move, it shoots across the pathway. It's alive, you see. So it's stated that something moves itself, right?

[8:59] You can see how people are puzzled. You know the jokes about the first automobiles. You know, where's the horse? Like the horse must be inside, so all concealed. But automobile means well as if you move yourself, it's really one thing moving another. Okay, now the next article might be a little strange to you, but the question of whether life is what the living thing does which is one way we use the word life, right?

[9:39] Or is it also, and maybe more fundamentally, the very being or existence of the living thing? Would you say that I'm alive? Somewhat, but

[9:58] is this what I'm doing that is my being alive? Or is it the existence of a thing that is able to do these sort of things? and if you oppose oppose life, let's say, to death, right?

[10:21] Is death simply what the I'm not doing these things? Death is more the what loss of your being, yeah. So that's like in the quote Aristotle Vivere viventibus esse," right? Okay. or is to say that I'm alive is to say I have the being or existence of a living thing. Okay. That's obviously connected with the fact that I do certain things. Yeah. Why, for example, sleep is not the same as death.

[11:02] Yeah, yeah. And you know these trees out here and so on. are they alive in the winter. And sometimes, you know, so you're not doing anything, right? But you know, people sometimes wonder whether it's been a severe winter and whether the plants have survived, right? And and they're not sure right away sometimes whether this plant is still alive. Then it starts to blossom and so on, and it gets warm.

[11:28] Okay, it's still alive. And what we call revives, right, is not really resurrection, but the life was kind of hidden, right? So this is kind of the point he's making here.

[11:46] So he's going to be arguing against the idea that life is operation fundamentally, although you admit that use the word life too. To the second one proceeds thus: it seems that life is a certain operation, a certain doing.

[12:03] For nothing is divided except by those things which of its kind or genus. But to live is divided by certain operations, as is clear through the philosopher in the second book about the soul, who distinguishes to live by four things, like we were talking about last week. Remember the four grades of life: to use food, to sense, to move according to place, and then to understand. So he's going from the lower to the higher, right?

[12:36] So plants have only the first. All animals have the second, in addition to the first. The higher animals have, in addition, the third thing, right? And then man has all three of these, except in the except in the lex sloth. And in addition to what? Understand, right? Okay.

[12:59] And remember the point I was making last week on that you distinguishing life by these four, and therefore right away when you think about the fact that God understands, you can think right away about Him being alive, right? And that's the way the Summa Theologiae has, where it attaches the consideration of the divine life to the end of the consideration of His understanding,

[13:24] as opposed to the Summa Contra Gentiles, where He takes up the life of God after the will too, because that does pertain to His life too, but it doesn't constitute a grade of life, you might say.

[13:38] And this way, the Summa is easier for understanding the words of Christ. Why does He say, "I am the way, the truth, and the life"? Right. He couples truth and life together, right? Just like they're coupled together here, truth and life. Now, being appropriated to the second person, because He proceeds by way of God understanding Himself, right? But the fact that He couples those two, we can kind of see that from this text, right?

[14:04] And from going back to the second book about the soul, right? That ties in with that word of truth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Think of that.

[14:18] So I mean, there's something to be appreciated in both Summas, right? The way it proceeds. So he's saying here the philosopher is distinguishing to live by what operations, isn't he? Right. That's the objection. Of course, that's the way we come to know these things.

[14:42] Does Descartes say, "I think, therefore I am"? Right. He could have said, "I think, therefore I'm alive." Yeah. Then you'd see the two joined together again, right?

[15:00] Moreover, active life is said to be other from contemplative life. But the contemplative are not diversified or don't are not different from the actives, except according to certain operations. So we have Martha and Mary, right? Right. Martha's making dinner and Mary's there listening to the words of Christ. Therefore, life is a certain operation.

[15:32] Now, though Thomas is going to kind of argue for a certain priority of the word to live to refer to the existence of the living thing, right? He's not going to deny that you can use the word life in this other way. Moreover, to know God is a certain operation.

[15:52] But this is life, as is clear through John seventeen three. This is the definition now of eternal life. This is eternal life that cognoscant that you might know you alone the true God. So it's not that you might be alone the true God, but you might know him. So here you are calling eternal life this operation of understanding God, loving him.

[16:18] But against this is what the philosopher says in the second book about the soul that to live is for living things to be. For me to be is to be alive. When I cease to be alive, I will not be anymore. My soul might be, but I won't be anymore.

[16:43] I answer. It should be said that just as is clear from the things said, our understanding, which properly is what knowing of the what it is, huh? Terrible word quiditas, huh? Well, forgive Thomas for using that word quidditas, Quiddity.

[17:05] Yeah, Shakespeare Shakespeare sometimes makes fun of us. Quiddities, you know, somebody's got all this sort of language, huh? Liquidity means really what the whatness of the thing, right? What it is.

[17:20] Now, of course, we sometimes say in general that the proper object, reason's own object, is the what it is of something. And but sometimes Aristotle is more precise, like in the third book about the soul, where he says the proper object of our mind is the what it is of something sensed or imagined.

[17:42] So our understanding, which is properly knowing the what it is of a thing as its own object, it takes it from what the senses, which don't know the what it is, whose own objects are what exterior or outside accidents. And hence it is that from those things which appear on the outside of the thing. We arrive at knowing the essence or nature, of what it is of the thing.

[18:16] And so the great Heraclitus said, "What nature loves to hide," and that could be said even of nature in the sense of what a thing is. But why is it said to hide from us? Because it's within, right? And what's on the outside is known to us. And that's why I have these beautiful words in English, you know, where we say, "You have to think about something usually before you understand it, right?"

[18:45] And the words "thinking about" kind of imply the idea of going around the thing, right? Not getting inside. But when you think something out, then you come to understand it. But when you think something out, it's like bringing it out, right? And so sometimes, you know, I'll define definition, which makes known what something is. I'll say it's speech signifying what a thing is, or speech making known what a thing is.

[19:15] But sometimes I'll say it's speech bringing out what a thing is, and that implies that what it is is kind of within for us at first. So we have this beautiful way of speaking in English, where we speak of thinking about. It's the idea that you're knowing things in an outside way at first, and then you try to work your way in. You have some insight,

[19:42] but insight, you know, really is just naming the act of understanding rather than the act of the senses. Now it's not. We'll be on my briefcase here, getting some insight. As a very, very limited sense of insight, because it's empty right now.

[19:59] And so this is the way. We know other people, right? In an outside way at first, huh? Okay. And sometimes, you know, we only guess what the inside is like, huh? That's why you need the the so-called moment of truth, right? Why there's a circumstances that really reveal somebody's what character.

[20:27] Now, it goes on then to draw a conclusion about how we name things because we know things in an outside way first, right? Or an outward way. You know, in the old definition, the sacrament was an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace. The old Baltimore Catechism. Well, what did outward mean in that definition, huh? Yeah, it's almost a it's almost a synonym for sensible, right?

[20:53] The outward appearance of the thing. So now the influence or the effect of this upon the way we know. And because thus we name something as we know it, that's the principle Thomas always gives, huh? It is clear from our discussion of names before, right? Hence it is that many times from the outside properties, right? Names are placed upon, right? Are imposed to signifying the inward natures of what things, essences of things.

[21:34] Whence these names sometimes are taken properly for the very essences or natures of things, what they are. To signifying they're chiefly imposed, right? Okay. I'm not saying where imposed means what placed upon, right? There. You want to place it upon what the nature of the thing, right? But you take it from something outside, maybe, right? Thomas always gives example of stone, you know, and you know, lapis, you know, and lapidem, and so on.

[22:10] Yeah. It's maybe a false etymology, but it hurts the foot, you know, and that's an exterior nature of it, but it's an effect of of it is. Um.

[22:23] But sometimes the same names are taken for the properties, right? From which they are placed upon, right? And this minus proprie, so he's not saying that this is not a correct way of speaking, but just so. And then he gives interesting comparison here. Just as is clear that this name body is imposed to signify a certain kind of what substances, right? Namely, those substances that are apt to have three dimensions, right?

[22:59] But then, also sometimes, this name body is used to name one of the what species of continuous quantity: line, surface, and what body, right? According as body is laid down to be a species of quantity. So that's a famous example, right? Sometimes, you know, we divide substance into material substance and immaterial substance. But the name we give to material substance is body, okay?

[23:29] But we divide quantity into what discrete and continuous, and then you divide continuous quantity into line and surface and body, right? Well, and then time and so on. Was body there and body in the category substance being the same thing? No.

[23:52] Yeah, and and you kind of identify that kind of substance by what the senses know, which is the length and the width and the depth, right? And it's important to make that to see that distinction. Make a side here again to Descartes, and Descartes identified the substance of material things with their extension.

[24:20] Well, that's going to get you in trouble with the truth, and later on, therefore, with the Eucharist, huh? Because if the substance of of the bread and the wine is their extension, that remains, you see. See, it's the substance of the bread and the wine that is transubstantiated, right? Becoming the body and blood of our Lord, huh?

[24:48] And and the body and blood of our Lord is there not by its own dimensions, huh? But by the dimensions of the bread and wine there before, which dimensions are preserved in existence by God, okay? So you get a lot of troubles if you don't make these distinctions, huh?

[25:15] So he's going to make a comparison there between these two uses of the word body, right? And body fundamentally names one kind of substance, right? Okay. Just reading this morning in the Summa Contra Gentiles that these spiritual substances are not bodies. Thomas gives about eight arguments, you know. So, but then you can also, but as minus proprie he says, call this species of quantity body, huh?

[25:47] Well, thus, therefore, it should be said also about life, for the name of life is taken from something outside, right, appearing about the thing. Which is that it what moves itself, huh?

[26:06] But nevertheless, it is not placed upon the name is not imposed to signifying this, but to signifying the substance, right? To which it belongs according to its very nature to move itself, huh?

[26:23] Or to act in some way to its own what operation, right? And according to this, to live is nothing other than to be in such a nature, and life signifies this same thing, but in the abstract,

[26:45] just as this name cursus signifies to run in the abstract, right? Whence vivum is not an accidental predicate but a substantial one, and so we divide substance shall be divided into material substance sometimes, immaterial substance, and immaterial substance could also be called body, right? Substance, and you divide that into the living and the non-living, right? The living and animals and plants and sheep and so on but it's it's a what not a praedicatio accidentalis which would be if it was naming some operation, but substantial, right?

[27:29] But sometimes he says nevertheless, life is taken minus proprie in the same phrase for the operations of life, right? From which the name of life is taken,

[27:44] just as the philosopher says in the ninth book of the ethics that to live chiefly is to sense and to understand. If you're not sensing, listening to Mozart and reading Thomas, you're probably not living, you know. That's what we say? I say

[28:06] to the students. you know. I'm going to live it up this weekend. Oh, what are you doing? I'm reading about God, you know. I'm going to think about God. That's living it up.

[28:20] Where's the beard? You guys are going to be living it down this weekend? Okay, now that text of Aristotle can be taken in both ways, I guess, huh? To the first, therefore, it should be said that the philosopher there takes to live for the operation of life, right? Or it can be said better, right? That to sense and to understand and things of this sort are sometimes taken for certain operations, right?

[28:56] Sometimes for the very what being, right? Existence. Of things operating in this way. For he said in the ninth book of the Ethics that to be is to sense or to understand. That sounds kind of funny way of speaking, right? What does that mean? That is to have a nature for sensing or for understanding, right? So it's not the same thing as what? Yeah. Yeah, because esse is not sentire in us.

[29:28] In God, they're the same thing but in us they're not the same thing, but in us they're not. But Aristotle's way of speaking is interesting, right?

[29:37] And in this way, the philosopher distinguished to live by those what four. For in these lower things there are four genera of living things, of which some have a nature only for using food, and what falls upon this like growth, right? Which are growth and Generation. Some further for sensing, as is clear in the animals that don't move from one place to another, as the oysters, huh?

[30:12] And these other kinds of you know things that are at the bottom of the ocean, almost like plants, you know. But if you stick them with a pin, you know, they they react, right? So they seem to have sensation, but they don't have the higher senses like sight and hearing, because they don't go at a distance, huh? Further to moving according to place, as the perfect animals like the cat and the dog, huh?

[30:34] The quadrupeds and the ones that fly around and so on, the ones of this sort. And some further, and that's us now, for understanding, as what men, right? Okay. Now homines is what. Yeah, yeah. Really close. No, I was teaching some guys at the house last night. They were doing the Peri Hermeneias, right? And we're talking about noun and verb as the parts of the statement. And in my text here, I say both noun and verb are names as previously defined.

[31:16] So a name is a vocal sound signifying by human agreement, no part of which signifies by itself. Now the noun and verb are both a name, but the verb signifies with time, and the noun without time, right? Okay. But now in Greek, in Aristotle's Greek, you have the same word for name and for noun, which is onoma, right? And then verb has its own name, rhema.

[31:54] So sometimes when Aristotle says onoma, he means what's common to noun and verb. Sometimes when he says onoma, he means noun as opposed to verb. And so if you read Ammonius Hermiae, the Greek commentator among the Greek commentators on the Peri Hermeneias he'll be explaining that as he goes on, right? Now in Latin you had the same thing. You see, you have nomen and verbum, noun and verb, but nomen also is used to name, name.

[32:28] While in English we have the word name and the word noun, so we can have a separate word. But then I explained in regard to human being and and and male and female, the Latin and the Greek have two words, right? So they have vir as opposed to femina, and then homo is common to vir and femina, a different name. But we don't have that. We're like like the thing with nouns, they so.

[32:56] Man is divided to man and woman, right? So we have to explain by using man as opposed to woman, or man is common. See, they have their own separate word here, right?

[33:12] Okay. Okay, so that's clear. how to understand Aristotle's text there, right? You can say he is in a way talking about the operations of life, but he's really talking about the different kinds of living bodies, right? The different grades of living bodies that become known through these different things that they do, right? Okay. So when I cut a branch off the tree there that's rubbing against the house or doing some kind of damage, you know, I don't feel too sorry for the tree, and I don't hear any, you know, screaming.

[33:53] Yeah. You have that in fiction sometimes, huh? But. Go ahead. Go ahead. But if you cut off, you know, a leg or a thing of the dog or cat, you get quite a reaction to that.

[34:08] Sometimes you don't even have to go that far Now, the second objection is taken from talking about the active life and contemplative life. The second should be said that the works of life are called those things whose what sources are in the ones doing them, so that they what lead themselves to such operations. Now it can happen that

[34:42] not only are there natural beginnings, right, of things done in men as natural powers, but also some things what added above as habits inclining one to certain general operations, which act in the manner of nature, right, and make therefore these operations delightful. So when you get habituated to something, it's pleasant to operate according to this.

[35:11] And from this, it is said is a word to assume likeness that that operation which is delightful to a man and to whom and to which he is inclined and which he spends his time and orders his life to it—that's his life, right? Someone sitting down talking about teaching, you know, you're going to start teaching. C'est ma vie, he says. C'est ma vie. It's my life.

[35:41] When some are said to lead a what luxurious life, huh? Some a honest life, right? And in this way, contemplative life is distinguished from the active life, and in this way also. To know God is said to be what eternal life.

[36:02] Of course, God's eternal life is is what existence. That's so often. So this is a distinction, a sense in creatures, right? Between the being of the creature and its operation, right? And both can, in some way, be called life, but in God, they're going to be the same. Just stop on that a second. This last sentence. So when we read this scripture about that life is to know.

[36:37] Yeah, this is eternal life. Yeah. So that's that's a less proper definition. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Substance is what's primary, right? Okay. But I mean, I think it's it's important, you know, just important to realize that there's a distinction in the use of the word life, right? Yeah.

[37:02] They can name the being or existence, right, of the living thing, right, and also name its what operations, right? Yeah. But first, names the being, right? But in terms of our knowing, we come to know that through the operations, right? You know, like for example, the question arises about the existence of the of the human soul. You know, does the human soul continue to exist after death?

[37:29] Right. And Aristotle says in the beginning of the three books about the soul, he says that this question depends upon whether the soul does something not in the body, right? If the soul does something not in the body, then its existence is not just in the body, right? So you're coming to know the kind of existence the soul has, right? From what it does, right?

[38:04] Okay. But in things, you can say the reason why our soul does something not in the body is because it has an existence that is not just in the body.

[38:21] You know, the way they express it, you know, it's kind of interesting. They say the existence of the soul, or the soul itself, it's not completely immersed in the body, right? Absolutely. And so you kind of, you know, imagine like floating in the ocean there, right? But part is is is submerged and part is above the water, right? And so this is kind of a funny thing, the human soul, right?

[38:45] It exists in the body, but it's not what immersed in the body, right? That's a very strange way to be, but how do you know that? So, because you do something not in the body, right? You understand, for example, the what? Universal, right? Okay. While something is received in the body, in the continuous, it's always going to be what? Singular. So,

[39:20] even since Descartes found that order, he says, "I think, therefore I am," right? Because he said more precisely, "I think, therefore I am alive." So, in a sense, coming to know one through the other, right?

[39:37] Now, what's the famous remark of Shakespeare there? Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs, huh? It doesn't say things in existence. The existence of things sooner catch your eye. It's their motion, right? The motion stands out. But uh that's not what's most fundamental, to things motion. Okay, so these first two articles are kind of about life in general, right? Like Thomas often does, and our life as the creatures and so on.

[40:09] Now we come to the question of whether life belongs to God. Okay, this is I think more divided up in the Summa Theologiae, Summa Contra Gentiles, you know, because you say God is alive, and then later on you have another chapter and God is life itself, right? Okay, but it's more run together. To the third one proceeds thus: it seems that life does not belong to God, right?

[40:49] For to live, some things are said to be alive according as they move themselves, as has been said, but doesn't belong to God to move; He's unmoving, Therefore, he, needed to live, right? That's a good objection, right?

[41:10] Moreover, in all things which live, right, one can take some source of their life, right, some beginning of it. It is said said in the second book about the soul that the soul is the beginning and cause of the living body, okay, are we saying say that the soul is the cause of life within the living body, the first cause? But God doesn't have any beginning or cause.

[41:40] Therefore, it does not belong to Him to be alive. Moreover, the beginning of life in the living things which are among us, and those are living bodies, right? So the beginning of life in living bodies is the what? plant soul, you might say, right? Which is not except in bodily things. Therefore, it doesn't belong to bodyless things to be alive, huh?

[42:16] But against all this nonsense is what is said in the eighty-third Psalm, third verse: "My heart and my flesh, there's two of them again, right? Exult in the living God." Okay, that's one of the preparatory psalms priests would pray before mass. Very good. Of course, in the Confession of Faith of

[42:41] Peter, right, he says, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Right. So he has the word "living" in there, right? Right, Saint John there at the end of the gospel says, "It is written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." Doesn't have the word living in there, but but Peter has that explicit in there. So I have another nice little text.

[43:13] So Thomas says, "I answer: It should be said that life most properly is in God. To the evidence for which it should be considered, that

[43:31] some things are said to live according as they what operate from themselves and not as it were moved by another. Right. Whence the more perfectly this belongs to something, then the more perfectly in that thing is found life.

[43:54] But in movers and moved, three things are found in order. For first, the end moves the what agent, and then the chief agent is what acts through its form,

[44:17] and this acts through some what tool that does not act by virtue of its own form, but by reason of the principal agent to which the instrument, which instrument belongs only to the carrying out of the action. So an instrument is that is a moved what mover, right? So it doesn't seem to be alive, right? Okay.

[44:46] Now there are found some things, he says, which move themselves having no respect to a form or end which is in them by nature, but only as regards the carrying out of the motion. But the form through which they act and the end and account of which they act are determined in them by nature, right?

[45:16] And of this sort are the plants, which by the form innate in them by nature move themselves according to growth and decrease. Now he's going to argue, he's starting from the lowest kind of life and showing how life is more and more found as you go up the scale, right, from the plants to the animals and eventually to man. Some things further move themselves. Not only as regards the carrying out of the motion, but also as regards the form, which is the beginning of the motion, which they acquire through themselves, and of this sort are animals, the beginning of whose motion is a form not what innate by nature, but taken by what sense.

[46:17] I was talking to somebody on the phone there, and he's talking about the cat there. You know, the cat was looking out the window at a bird there. A great desire to go outside.

[46:29] So the form of the bird, as in the senses of the cat, is what is moving him, right? See, so in that sense, he's he's kind of the responsible for the form that's moving him to go after that bird.

[46:52] Now, Thomas makes a little distinction there. Whence the more perfect sense they have, the more perfectly they what move themselves, right? He's going to make the distinction now between the second and third level there, the grades of life. For those that have only the sense of touch, like the oysters and like that, or these kind of plant-like animals on the floor of the ocean, they move themselves only by the motion of what dilating and constriction, right?

[47:28] As the oysters, little exceeding the motion of plants. So some of these things, you know, people might think they're plants, and you know, then animals. But those which have a perfect sense power, not only to knowing things that are joined to them and touching them, but also to knowing distance things, right? And they move themselves to some distance by a what going forward motion, progressive motion. Of course, you know, imagine the way birds can go great distances, right?

[48:07] Even other animals do. And sometimes you know people leave a dog or a cat behind, and they go over. I don't know how they find their way, but it's an amazing thing. Now, although animals of this sort take through sense the form which is the beginning of their motion or the cause of their motion,

[48:32] nevertheless they do not to themselves set before themselves the end of their operation or their motion, but that's innate in them by nature. By the instinct of which they are moved to doing something, through the form that they apprehend by the sense.

[48:58] Whence above such animals are those things which move themselves, even having respect to the end which they what set before themselves. And this cannot be except through reason and understanding, to whom it belongs to know the proportion of an end, and of that which is to the end, and to order one to the other. Right. So, as Aristotle said, belongs to the wise to order? And Thomas says the reason for that is that wisdom is the highest what perfection of reason which it is proper to look before an actor as.

[49:38] Shakespeare told us, huh? Whence a more perfect way of living is of those that have understanding, right? For these more perfectly move themselves. And he gives a sign of this, and a sign of this is that in one and the same man, the power. The power of understanding moves the sense powers, and the sense powers, through their command, move the organs which carry out motion.

[50:11] So you're most of all alive by your what reason, right? Even more than by your senses, and by them more than by your, you know, leg down there.

[50:28] I'm temporarily unable to walk very much. I'm not losing as much life as if I became blind or deaf or something, right? And but I'd be even less alive if I lost my mind, right?

[50:49] And the next another comparison to the person in the ethics, just as also in the arts, we see that the art to which belongs the use of the ship, right? Namely, the art of the governor commands that which induces the form of the ship, and this to the one who has carrying out only in disposing the what matter, right? Okay. So the chef is more alive than the guy who peels the potatoes, right?

[51:19] Yeah. Now he says, although our understanding moves itself to some things, right? Nevertheless, there are some things that are what set forth, yeah, by nature, as are the first principles, like the whole is more than a part, right? About which it cannot be otherwise, and the last end, which is like the beginning in the practical order, which is not able not to will, right? So I must want to be happy, right?

[52:01] Nobody wants to be miserable. even though we see it sometimes. Want to be immiscible? Whence, although as regards something it moves itself, right? Nevertheless, as regards others, he is moved by another, right?

[52:26] Okay. That therefore, whose nature is its own what understanding, and to which what it naturally has is not determined by another, right? This is what obtains the highest grade of life. But such is God. Whence in God most of all is life. Whence the philosopher, Aristotle, in the twelfth book after the book of the metaphysics after the books of natural philosophy.

[53:00] Having shown there that God is understanding, right, then he concludes that he has life most perfect and eternal. It's pretty good, this whole pagan Greek, right? Because his understanding is most perfect and always in what act? Let's stop for a second. Look at the text there from from the twelfth book of the metaphysics.

[53:51] Yeah, so it's in the twelfth book here, Lambda, the eighth reading. So let's be a little bit here. Kai Zoe. That means life, right? Okay. Kind of funny. Diocletian's wife was named Zoe, Z Z O E. Ah. So Kai Zoe de Geriuparki belongs, right? Talking about God here. It goes on. Hagar knew energia Zoe for the energia, the act, right? New that's nous of mind of the understanding is Zoe.

[54:41] It's life. A kainos, a kainos. That is the energia, right? The act. So he says energia, the act, according to the same, is the life of it. Ariste, the best life, he says, Kai ideas eternal.

[55:10] For we say, ton thean God, right? For we say God einai zoon, one living, right? Idion eternal, Ariston the best. So that Zoe life, and eternity, aion synekhes and ideas belongs to God, right? But then he adds, tutu God who is, that's what God is. So God is not just alive, but He's life itself. Beautiful. He goes on to attack the Athenians and Sibys who think that the beginning of things is not most perfect, right?

[55:54] Who think that the Kaliston and the Ariston is not in the beginning. Yeah, but we we talked about that before, right? In the What is the basic mistake that is being made? What kind of mistake is it?

[56:09] Those who think that the beginning of things is not the most beautiful, the most perfect, huh? Oh, the beginning with us. The beginning with us would be.

[56:33] Yeah. Thinking it's imperfect. But yeah, it's a kind of mistake that we've talked about. That's very common. The mistake of mixing up what is so simply with what is not so simply, but in some imperfect way, right? Now, Aristotle, in the ninth book of Wisdom, takes up act and ability. And after he he speaks of act and ability, then he takes up the order of act and ability.

[57:01] And he says, act is before ability and knowledge, because you know ability through act, right? Act is before ability and perfection and goodness, right? And then he says, in time, in one way it is, in one way it's not, huh? And he says that in the thing that goes from ability to act, it's an ability before it's an act. But it goes from ability to act, he says, because of something already in act.

[57:31] So simply, act is before ability. And therefore, the beginning of all things is going to be most actual, and therefore most perfect, huh? But those who think the beginning of all things is most potential, and therefore most imperfect, right? Are thinking that what is before in some way is before what simply, yeah. So that's that's the mistake being made, huh? And that's a sense of mistake, you know.

[58:03] These go on to to taffy them, huh? But I think one thing is kind of interesting, also in terms of our the end of our knowledge, huh? You can reason out that the end of our knowledge is to know the first beginning, the first cause.

[58:24] You can also reason out that the end of our knowledge is to know the best thing. Now, if the best thing is the first cause, there's no problem, right? But if the first cause is most potential and therefore the least perfect of things, right? Then you've got um dichotomy here, right, huh? No, you can't. You you've got an insoluble problem. And that's what what these people have, huh?

[59:02] And so, but with Aristotle, it's very natural, you know, as he says in the Ethics, with the truth, all things fit together, they harmonize, right? So it harmonizes with the fact that, simply speaking, act is before ability, and that the beginning of all things is pure act, and therefore most perfect, and therefore the the best thing is also the first thing, and vice versa. By, you know, what his comrade Lennon says, you know, you know, mind is the highest product of matter.

[59:42] So you're making you know the most imperfect be the cause of the most perfect, doesn't make too much sense. But the basic reason is that those things that go from ability to act do so because it's something already in act, so therefore simply act as before. We talk about that kind of. Mistake. That's the second kind of mistake outside of speech that Aristotle gives in the Sophistical Refutations.

[1:00:08] But it's a kind of mistake that runs through the whole philosophy, right? You know, in the beginning of logic, in the dialogue with Plato, I think I mentioned that.

[1:00:30] In the Meno, right? Meno has the objection: How can we look for what we don't know? Because then we know what we're looking for, right?

[1:00:45] Yeah, yeah. And Socrates says he doesn't know what virtue is. Meno says he does know what virtue is, but after Socrates examines him, it's clear he doesn't know either. So Socrates then proposes, let's put our heads together and try to figure out what virtue is on the grounds that two heads are better than one. And then Meno objects, you know, to such a thing because we'd have to know what we're looking for.

[1:01:12] And if we already know what we're looking for, we don't have to be looking for. it. And if we don't know what we're looking for, well, then we can't, you know, direct ourselves. Yeah, yeah. What's the solution to that?

[1:01:29] Yeah. We know something. Yeah. It's because you have to know what you don't know in some way before you can direct your thinking towards it, right? Now, I always give a very simple example in class. Let me give it again. I come into a class in a you know bigger class than this, and I'd say, to tell you the honest truth, I don't know how many students are in class today.

[1:01:53] I really don't know. But I can direct myself with the greatest of ease to come into know what I don't know. And so then I start to count, and I count da da da da da, and let's say end up with twenty three, right? Okay. Now, did I know I was trying to get to twenty three? See. And yet I directed myself to twenty three with the greatest of ease.

[1:02:17] Amazing fellow, right? How did I do that? How did I know the road to twenty three when I didn't know that that's what I was trying to get? See. You know, if you went to the gasoline station and say, "How do you get there? " Get where he's going, you know. You know, I can't tell you how to get there, unless I know where you're trying to get.

[1:02:38] See. Well, how did I know exactly the road that led me right the way to twenty three, right, right down the line, when I didn't know I was trying to get to twenty three?

[1:02:53] Yeah. I knew in some way what I was looking for, right? Because twenty-three is in this example the number of students in class, and I knew I was looking for the number of students in class, so twenty-three wasn't entirely known to me. And knowing that I was looking for the number of students in class was enough to tell me I should take the road of counting. And therefore, by counting, I came to know the number of students in class.

[1:03:27] Without knowing it to begin with, right? But knowing it in some way, you see. I try to bring home to students, you know, the universality and importance of this kind of mistake by saying that throughout life we're often doing what we shouldn't do. And not doing what we should do, but we do what we shouldn't do because the bad is in some way what good, and we don't do what we should do because the good is in some way bad.

[1:04:08] There's nothing so good in this life that it doesn't prevent us from doing something else that is good. So in some way you can see a you know a badness there, so you see where our whole life is in a mess because of this this thing, right? And if Meno's objection was good, there'd be no logic, and there'd be no art of calculating either. But then you see that at the end of philosophy, right, in in wisdom, where you know usually the the

[1:04:41] fundamental differences between materialists, right, who say matter or some kind of matter is the beginning of all things, and those who think some kind of actual substances, right, something understands. And again, people making that same kind of mistake, so it runs through the whole philosophy.

[1:05:04] Okay, very very common common mistake. So Aristotle avoids a mistake, but he knows that kind of mistake, huh? Of course, even if you know a particular kind of mistake, you might make that kind of mistake, but you know, it's helped to know the kinds of mistakes and and to exercise your mind in recognizing them, huh?