Prima Secundae
8. Aquinas on the Last End (Summa I-II, Q1, Art. 5): Can a Man Have Many Last Ends? No One Can Serve Two Masters
Class of 2011-02-24
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[0:00] Fifth article. Whether there can be many last ends, right? To the fifth, one proceeds thus: It seems possible that the will of one man can be carried over to what? The same time, to many, right? As in ultimate ends, right? I think you got to look at the words there, huh? In plural, very born to many things, right? Simul together, right? Huh?

[0:35] Thomas doesn't seem to be. He's going to deny that. But you might you might admit that a man could have what? Many last ends, but not at the same what? Time, right? Huh? See, you know, it was. I forget the work of C. S. Lewis there, but he's just talking about human experience and on how

[1:01] something might seem to you the end of life at one point in your life and so on, you know. So to me, it might be candy, you know, huh? You know, the first thing, you know. And you know, he used to have a story about a little there, but the little boy wanted candy, and that was his thing in life, you know. And finally, his birthday was coming up, and his mother said, "You can eat as much candy as you want to, you know."

[1:29] After he ate so much, he got sick, you know. So and he learned his lesson, you know, and so on, huh? Okay, so it might be candy first, and then there might be, you know, with Romeo, it's Juliet is going to be his happiness, right? And then it might be for someone else. It might be power or wealth or something, right? Huh? And so on, but not simo, right?

[1:53] Huh? You know, so the so the candy and the girl or the girl and the wealth would not be what the last goal, right? You love me or my money, you know. The girl might say to the guy, you know, the you know the story of the Iris, there, you know, and so

[2:19] one of them is the last end, not the girl. Either the girl or the the wealth, right? Yeah, I've always puzzled over this article because it seems to me that in reality, a man could have as his last end, you know, power and wealth. You know, he desires both. Yeah, what Thomas is saying, not simul, not together, right? But he he might you know go from one to the other, right?

[2:49] See, I would I would argue in his principles that it seems to me our notion of happiness is what is it that perfects me? What is it that gives me? Yeah. What do I see as my perfection? But it could be that a man sees as you know describe what your your perfection. He seems a little. Perfection is having you know a beautiful wife, lots of money and power.

[3:08] Yeah, but he sees all of those as perfective. Well, let me take away a beautiful wife. Well, I have anymore. And he see, he can take away just one of them. Yeah. And he sees, so he's got. Okay, then might might be composed of all of these, right? It'd be one end, right? Composed of all of these. Yeah. Yeah. So in that sense, yeah. So no one of them by itself would be his last end, but the combination of them, right?

[3:31] I mean, Thomas is often quoting Boethius, right? Who says in the Consolation of Philosophy that happiness is a state made possible by the aggregation of all goods, right? Okay. So.

[3:48] It would be a combination of them that would be his last end, right? I kind of come out in the first argument, you know. Maybe so.

[4:00] For Augustine says in the nineteenth book of the City of God that some place the last end of man in four things: in pleasure, right; in quiet in quiet, or rest, I guess; in the first things of nature, and in what virtue. But these are manifestly many things, right? Therefore, one man can constitute the ultimate end of his will in many things. Well, just you know, make our order but look at the reply to ad primum there, right?

[4:30] To the first, therefore, it should be said that all those many are taken in the notion of one perfect good, constituted from them, right? Huh. By those who what place in them the ultimate what end, okay?

[4:58] Yeah, we say in the society there for us to turn studies, friendship and the pursuit of wisdom. Our wisdom shared with friends, right? Huh. Okay. Well then, wisdom and friends are both what? Involved in what? Like whereas parts, right? Okay.

[5:22] So not having two ultimate ends, wisdom and friendship, right? But wisdom, shared with friends, huh? Yeah. One mutual happinesses. You know, beautiful that that last line, right? Huh. It's also the context. Also, is marriage so that adds a fourth one in the way. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, there's kind of a metaphorically, heaven is is spoken of as marriage too, right? Exactly, that's what I'm saying. You know, Thomas often quotes that passage from the prophet Hosea You know, I have, you know, got.

[6:07] Espoused to you, right? In faith, right? Huh? But then the consummation of the of the marriage is what seeing God face to face, right?

[6:24] It comes down in the psalms too, huh? In in the psalms, it psalm forty four, the one that Thomas says is an epithalamium, right? Which is you know on the day of marriage, right? Like Spenser's Epithalamion, right?

[6:54] Moreover, those things which are not opposed to each other do not what exclude each other, but many things are found in things which are not opposed what to each other. Therefore, if one of them is laid down to be the last end of the will, not on account of this are others what excluded, huh?

[7:18] Thomas will show the kind of opposition it would be in this case, huh? When you apply to the second objection, huh? Moreover, the will through this

[7:38] the will through the fact or through this that it constitutes the ultimate end in something or puts in something does not lose its what free power, right? Huh?

[7:52] But before it constitutes its last end in this, for example, in pleasure, right? It is able to constitute its last end in something else, as in what? Yeah. Therefore, even after it constitutes its last end of its will and pleasure, it at the same time constitutes last end in what? Riches. Wealth, yeah. Therefore, it is possible for the will of one man to be at the same time born in diverse things as in last ends.

[8:25] Because the thing Thomas is going to object to is the idea of simul right? Okay. If you look at the reply to the third one, to the third, should be said that the power of the will does not have itself that it makes opposites to be together, right? That's the key thing, which would happen if it tended in many things disparate, as in what last ends, as is clear from what we talked about before.

[8:58] But against this is that in which one rests as in his last end dominates the affection of man, right? Because from that he takes the rules of his whole life. Whence about this? It is said in Philippians three, whose God is there? What? Belly. Yeah, it's interesting. What scripture has a speaking right? Huh?

[9:25] Because God is our last end. So, what you make your last end is said to be your God, right? Even though it's not God. That's beautiful. Said, huh? Whose God is there? What? Belly. Huh? Because they constitute their last end in the delights of the stomach. Yes.

[9:45] But as is said in Matthew six, no one is able to serve what two masters? Huh? Not ordered to each other, right? Huh? Therefore, it's impossible for there to be many last ends of one man. And not what ordered to each other, right? That's kind of interesting. Can you serve two masters. huh

[10:11] My own experience, in, the academic world sometimes was that people try to get two of the teachers, you know, disagreeing, right, huh? The even on the exams, you know, you know, they get the pressure off them, you know, and get the two guys going at each other. But um but sometimes too, you have students who are attached to this teacher, right, huh? Others who are attached to to this teacher, right?

[10:36] But they swear by this teacher, so to speak, and others who swear by another teacher. And but can you have two teachers like that, huh? Two masters in that sense, huh?

[10:51] I don't think so. De Koninck was more known than Dionne right? So he would get attached to De Koninck in his, kind of outgoing personality and so on. But I know, you know, when when Warren Murray went up to Laval, you know, to work with De Koninck De Koninck made perfectly clear to him that Dionne was a master. And Mary Shane, you know, when she went to to Laval there, and she stayed with Mrs.

[11:20] De Koninck Mrs. De Koninck made perfectly clear, but De Koninck made clear to her that Dionne is a master. And when I was doing my doctoral thesis, and I was working on a question that was in the thesis there and so on, I wanted to see what De Koninck thought about, right? So I went to him and asked him. He says, "You know, why do you bother asking me when you've got Dionne He was my advisor, right?

[11:46] He wasn't going to even answer me So. I wonder what you think anyway. So he, you know, tell me what he thought. You know, it's just so. Can you serve two masters, right, huh?

[12:06] One time in class, there was some discussion of equivocal names and analogous names, and a little complicated. What De Koninck was saying, So I said, "well, I'll put it up, you know, you know, so you can have it. " But you go ahead and see Dionne of course So he never got it, De Koninck used to joke about Dionne his principal passion was was fear, right, huh?

[12:32] And of course, the fear of being mistaken, you know. I mean, you know, and you come up with some new idea, you know. His first reaction is to reject it, you know, and you'd have to, you know, justify it to be good, you know.

[12:49] That's a beautiful one. No one can serve two masters. You did that all yourself, huh? So who's your master, Berquist or Thomas? Yeah. So if you see me departing from Thomas, you say, "Well, you say you're not going to follow me, right? " You're on your own. If you follow me departing from Thomas, then I'm your master, right? I'd call you to Shrewsbury, but that's maybe not much farther.

[13:34] Okay, I answer. Thomas says that it's impossible that the will of one man. Now, right? He's not saying or denying that two men might have a different ultimate end, right?

[13:51] Warren Murray tells me the story of he joined this club, you know, which is kind of a cuisine club or what it was, you know. So he goes to their annual dinner, right? And he just sits down, he doesn't know anybody, of course, and the guy who's there started talking about some of the problems they had in getting some of the ingredients for the the banquet, right?

[14:11] And and almost didn't get this, almost didn't get that, you know. You know he was so agitated, you know, Warren's quit the whole society. You know, I get some, you know, kind of good teas, you know, and some of these, you know, tea experts, you know, they you boil that two and a half minutes, or you boil this four and you look at ten seconds, you know, and so I don't do just that about you.

[14:51] It's going to be ruined, the tea. you know. And then, I do, I give them all four minutes and it's standard, you know, I don't know.

[14:58] But I mean, they have, you know, and how hot the water's supposed to be, and and this and this and this and this. Well, maybe they can tell the difference, but I can't be bothered. A friend of mine used to say about these high-powered, super high-priced stereos and headphones, and he said, you know, you get up the upper end of these things, and they're really super expensive.

[15:20] He says the only one that can tell the difference is a dog. Yeah. I'm not going to spend that kind of money. But then

[15:27] how much you like the dog? So listen, to Thomas' words here: it is impossible that the will of one man, right? Huh? So he's not denying of what two men, right? The one might have his stomach. Simo, right? Okay.

[15:49] And that refers, you know, to time, right? Huh? That's the word in the in the hama would be the word in the categories, right? But refers Simo, right? Martin. Right after the chapter on what, before and after, right? Because the first meaning of before and after is in time, and of course the first meaning of semul is what, in time, right? Okay.

[16:20] So we kind of say about boys, you know, they get attached to some game, right? Huh? And they want to play that game, right? And therefore, looking for other boys who want to play that same game, right? And then after a while, they lose interest in that game or something, and then they get a new friend, right? And someone else can play into whatever it is that that they are attached to, right?

[16:42] Huh? So their life revolves around you know that game, you know, for a certain period of time, but then something else revolves around. You get a girl after a while. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[16:59] So he says it's impossible that the will of one man simul at the same time, right? Huh? Has itself to diverse things as to last ends, right? And he says of this the reason to be signed is what, Three fold, huh?

[17:20] And the first one is perhaps the most fundamental one here. The first is because since each thing wants or desires its own what perfection. That someone desires as his last end,

[17:38] that he desires as a what perfect good and one that is what completing of himself, right? Once Augustine says in the nineteenth book of the City of God, the end of the of the good we now say, not what is constituted that it not be. I think he's using what the sense of end as being what. It's not that sense of end I mean, It leads to the destruction of the thing.

[18:11] But what is perfected that it be what full, right? Okay. I used to give the students this uh sophistical argument. they say happiness is the end of life. The end of life is death. Therefore, happiness is death. What's wrong with that? When you say happiness is the end of life, you mean by end that for the sake of which, huh? But when you say the end of life is death, end means what?

[18:43] Yeah, is that what Augustine is talking about here? I think he's he's making that distinction. I don't know what the English text says How is it the English text. In speaking of the end of good, we mean not that it passes away so as to be no more, but that it is perfected so as to be complete. Yeah, yeah. Those are two different senses of end, right?

[19:04] Aristotle talks about that in the in the second book of the Physics, right? Two different senses of end, right? But the one sense of end that, for the sake of which, is the fourth kind of cause. huh? Okay.

[19:22] Okay. Notice the word plenum in in Latin is plenum, right? Um, let's say about the scripture there. I was thinking about the text there. where it's in Christ, it says the plenitudo divinitatis, the fullness of divinity, right? Yeah. Yeah. But it's interesting to examine that word, fullness, right? Because you can see that the word full comes from what the class being full or something that sort, right?

[19:52] And then it's carried over, you know. And you say he fully understands something, right? You know, the perfection. The completion of the thing, huh? But it is taken from something very concrete and sensible. the fullness of, you know, got a full plate, huh? As they say.

[20:17] So it is necessary, says that the last end, thus what, fulfills the whole desire of man, that it leaves nothing outside itself to be what desired, right, huh? Otherwise, it wouldn't be the last end, huh?

[20:41] Which is not able to be if something extraneous, right, is required for its what perfection, huh? Okay. Who was I reading that is in the Catholic Reporter? It was, but some bishop there talking, you know, about young people nowadays, you know, kind of finding out the things that are offered up by society as happiness. There is something missing, you know. I mean, there are some good things in here, you know, but there is something missing, and they come to the priest or come to the church, you know, with this in mind.

[21:23] There is something missing, right? That was a friend of my dad. So it can't be the end of life, you know. It can't be. Friend of my dad, we used. I played golf with him once at the Blue Moon. My dad just played more regularly, and this guy, I think was a falling away Catholic in his wife. And when I came to the monastery, he knew about that.

[21:40] My dad told him I was going to start. and shortly after I left, he said to my dad, out of the blue, because he never talked about religion, my dad, he said, my wife and I started going back to church because we thought something was missing.

[21:56] Yeah. That's exactly what he said. So. So when Thomas gets through you know, in Summa Contra Gentiles is, showing what the end of man is, then he shows that it what satisfies all his desires, right?

[22:12] Which is not able to be said, as something is extraneous to its perfection, is what required. Required. Whence it could not be that in two things thus the appetite tends. because then one would not be what satisfying it, huh? As if each should be the what perfect good of it, right? Okay.

[22:38] Now Thomas in reply to the second objection, just because he related to that first argument, look at the reply to the second objection there, right? He says things that are not opposed to each other can both what be desired, right? To the second, it should be said that although many things can be taken which do not have any opposition to each other, right, huh? Nevertheless, it is opposed to a perfect good, right?

[23:05] That to be something of the perfections of thing outside itself. Now Aristotle takes up the word "perfect" in the fifth book of wisdom. The first meaning he gives of perfect is what has all its parts.

[23:23] So if you miss one of the parts, right, you don't have something what perfect, right? The second meaning he gives of perfect is what

[23:38] what has all the what the ability of its kind, right? And that's with the second meaning, huh? And I always point to the example of Dryden. You know, Dryden says when he began to go to the theater, there was more plays of you know Beaumont Fletcher being performed than Shakespeare, right? And especially Dryden, and then as he saw those plays again and again and started to see Shakespeare's plays, he realized Shakespeare's superiority, right?

[24:10] He said he realized that Dryden was just a what a limb of Shakespeare, right? Huh? I think a beautiful way of saying it, right? But he's talking about the second sense of perfect, right? But he's going back and using a word that belongs to the first sense of perfect. Has all its parts, right? Okay. You know, Einstein speaks of a pre-established harmony between Mozart and Johann Christian Bach.

[24:38] That's the youngest son of the great Sebastian Bach. But he went south, you know, to Italy and married a Catholic and came. So, but you know, they describe J. C. Bach as Mozart was something missing.

[24:56] That's the second sense, you know. Of course, the second sense of perfect, right? You know, I often say, you know, people would say of me, you know, he's Aristotle with something missing. I would consider that a great compliment, you know. Or he's Thomas Aquinas with something missing, you know. A lot missing, yeah. Maybe more accurate, I suppose. He's Aristotle with a lot missing. Nietzsche with a lot missing.

[25:20] Oh yeah. So to a perfect good, which is the idea of the last end, that to be a perfect good, right? That something of the perfection of that thing is what outside itself. There the opposition comes in.

[25:49] So if you have a perfect good that you desire, there's nothing outside of that that you desire as your last what end, huh? Now, what about the the power of the will to to will different things? Well, that's the objection. Let's look at the reply to that. That the power of the will does not have itself that it can do opposite things together, right?

[26:19] Which would happen if in many things that are disparate, as in ultimate ends, it proceeded, right? Because then one would be not what. Neither would be what perfect, right? Or if one of them was perfect, it would be seeking nothing beyond that, right? Which would be doing this pursuing two ultimate ends. Okay, let's go back now to the body of the article because most of those arguments are tied up with the first argument here.

[26:49] The second argument is a little more subtle, right? The second reason is because, and now it's a beautiful comparison here. Just as in the process of reason, the beginning is that which is naturally what known.

[27:09] So also in the going forward of the rational appetite or desire, which is the will, is necessary that the beginning is that which is naturally what desired. Now, stop on that before we go on to the next principle we've got there, huh? But? Thomas has a beautiful passage here in Summa Contra Gentiles, where he says that

[27:38] we acquire what is not natural through what is natural. And he gives as a very clear example of this the fact that we acquire what knives and forks and hammers and so on through our hands, right? So the hand is a natural tool, tool that we're what born with, right? You know, even the baby, you know, they grasp your your finger or something like that, huh? Okay.

[28:31] So all these artificial tools are acquired in some way through the hand, and therefore the hand is sometimes said to be the tool of tools, right? Okay. Now,

[28:51] another little less obvious case, but it covers a lot, when Aristotle in the book on the Poetic Art is talking about the imitative arts, right?

[29:03] And he makes the famous statement that man is the most imitative of all the animals. So, monkeys see, a, monkey do. Other animals imitate, but there's no animal that's as imitative as what man. And this is in some way behind the fact that there are plays and things of this sort. Now, these imitations, huh? And he says, at first we learn by imitation, right?

[29:36] And we all naturally delight in imitations, right? So, what is that delight to be taking imitations, which is natural to us, or by nature the most imitative animals? What is that behind, right? Why speak English, more or less? And how did I pick up English? Is that the natural way to speak? You heard about the Greek thinkers, you know, who thought there was some natural language, right? And so they kept the baby away from human beings so he wouldn't hear any

[30:20] words, and they're trying to see what language he would speak, and then you know what the natural language of man is. It's kind of crazy, but anyway,

[30:32] is English natural? Or is French or you know Greek? None of these are natural, right? Well, how did you acquire this not natural thing? Yeah, by imitating your parents and brothers and sisters, right, and so on, right? And

[30:54] so that's covers an awful lot of things, right? But in you know all the professions and so on, we imitate those who are already in there, right? You know, so the younger guy, you know, before he gets up and hits the ball, he's observing and eventually imitating the the older man, right? Who's proficient in this art or thing, huh? So Thomas is going to make use of the fact, right, that what we first know, we naturally what know, right?

[31:30] And what we naturally know or naturally come to know, it's through that that we come to know those things that we don't naturally what know, right? And then the same thing in the case of the will, right? What we naturally want is the cause of our what wanting things that we don't naturally want, huh? Okay. And then he's going to use the principle which Shakespeare also points out in

[32:00] Coriolanus, nature not being able to be more than one. He says, right? But let's go back to the text here. Just as in the going forward of reason, the beginning is that which is naturally known, right? That the whole is more than the part, right? So in the going forward of the reasonable desire, which is the will, it is necessary that the beginning be that which is naturally what desired.

[32:35] So Aristotle begins the metaphysics by saying all men by nature desire to what to know to understand. He actually says in Greek. That's the beginning of philosophy in a sense, something natural, right? Natural desire there. But this is necessary to be one, huh? Okay. Because nature does not tend except towards what one.

[33:02] Now the beginning in the going forward of the reasonable desire is the last in. Whence is necessary that that which the will tends toward under the notion of the last end be something what one. It's kind of a very subtle argument there, right? And you know, Shakespeare saw that, right?

[33:35] Notice how custom, in that sense, kind of imitates nature, right? And custom kind of what determines you to one, right? Okay. So if you acquire what is not natural, what is natural, and nature tends towards the one, right? And the beginning of all willing is the willing of the last end, right? And that's got to be something natural, right? And therefore we what inclined by nature to one last end.

[34:11] Saint Thomas says at the beginning of his commentary on the first psalm was, one thing men have in common: they all want to be happy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember as a little boy there, you know, one of my first thoughts about happiness. I didn't know if you can use the word happiness, you know, but I was convinced there was something that if you had it, nothing else would matter.

[34:35] Must be something that's hard, right? I don't know how this occurred to me, but I don't know if it occurred to you, but you know, then the idea was to discover that one thing which would have nothing else would matter, right? Maybe the mistake as to what that one thing was for a while to what that one thing was for a while. But there's a kind of determination to one.

[35:02] There's kind of kind of a you know. Is the argument hard to see than the first one? No more. No. It's a very interesting argument, huh?

[35:16] When Aristotle is is considering even the axioms there in the book, fourth book of wisdom, there, right? He sees they all go back to the axiom about being and non-being, and he says that's the natural beginning of all the axioms. So the idea is something one there, right?

[35:36] And so in a way, in the other axioms, like you say, the whole is more than a part. To say a whole is no more than one of its parts is to deny that a whole is a whole, because a whole has parts, right? You know, so you see it all rests upon the the axiom about being and non-being. You can't both be and not be same time, right?

[35:59] No odd number is what even. No prime number is composite. Well, to say that some number is is even and odd, right, is to say that it's, what divisible to two equal parts and not divisible to two equal parts, right? Or that it's more than it's an even number and differs from the even number by one. in contradiction, right? That's what Father Owen Bennett used to. He'd make the point.

[36:32] It takes a long time to be able to grasp that. Right. Say unfold it. Yeah. But even a child knows it in some way because if you if a child's in a candy bar, you take it and you say mine. He says no, mine. No, it can't be both at the same time.

[36:57] Now the third argument is a little more difficult. Even the third reason is because since what actions voluntarily get their what species from the end, right?

[37:16] Is necessary as has been had above. That that has been had above is necessary that from the last end, which is what common, they sort the notion of their genus. Now what does this mean? Just as natural things are placed in a genus according to the formal common reason, since therefore all things desired by the will, as such, are one genus. Huh? There's something common to all them, right?

[37:48] Huh? It is necessary that the last end be one, and especially because in every genus there is one first what beginning, but the last end has the notion of a first beginning, as has been said. Huh?

[38:06] Now, that's a rather difficult thing there, and sometimes you refer back to the fourth arguments of God and so on, huh? But let's just say a little bit about it. It's kind of a hard thing to get your mind around.

[38:27] But in the the the the fifth book and the tenth book, I guess of Wisdom, Aristotle talks about the one, right? Huh? What do you mean by one? He gives two different properties of one, and that it's a property of the one to be a beginning. The property of the one to be a beginning.

[39:16] And then it's a property of the one to be a measure. Okay. Now do you see any evidence of that? These two properties, huh?

[39:43] Well, let's take the the one that's most known to us, and that's in Book Seven of Euclid. The one is the beginning of what? Numbers. Numbers, right? That's not the only one around, That's the one that's most known to us, right? One is the beginning

[40:12] of all numbers, huh? And secondly, the one measures all numbers, huh? Now some numbers are measured by other numbers as well, and they're called composite numbers, I guess. But there are numbers, what they call prime numbers, that are not measured by any other number. But one is not a number. Oh, that's right. Yeah. They're gonna love that sir. Pardon me.

[40:41] Yeah. Okay. So, so in the poem, little poem there, Shakespeare, right, that love has murdered number, right? Has made the lover and the loved one, right? One is not a number, right? Number, right?

[41:02] And one is the measure of all numbers, huh? Well, there you see a little bit of the truth of this statement, right? In the one that is most what known to us, huh?

[41:27] Now, what do we take to to measure something? Our ruler. Our ruler. Yeah, you take something one to measure, right? Yeah. Okay. Um Aristotle says the virtuous man is the measure of all men, right?

[41:51] So, is it something one? It is the measure. Think of a unit of measure. Yeah. Standard measure. That's going to be something one, right? The bar there in Paris, right? That is the measure of length, right? The meter, I guess. Okay. Need more evidence of this here. The one is the proper one to be the beginning.

[42:36] There's something as a statement that's in my head, but I don't know if it's. In terms of power. Yeah. Yeah. Moral power is one. Yeah.

[42:49] Is is the teacher one or many? One. Yeah. He's the beginning of learning, right? Huh? Our teacher here is Thomas, right? One man, right?

[43:08] And we kind of measure ourselves by this one man, right? You know, we compare, you know, that Zappalov, there, you know, compare De Koninck and Dionne to Thomas and Paul Frank Short, you know.

[43:35] You measure. I measure poets by what Shakespeare, right? I measure musicians by Mozart, right? If you don't measure just by one, you suddenly tend to very few, right? Tend towards unity, right? To have a measure, right?

[44:05] You see, the original meaning of measure is that whereby quantity is made known, right? Is that true about other things that things are made known by something one?

[44:21] Genus or difference? Yeah. Any other evidence of this this thing? How about a family tree here? The ultimate family tree would go back to Adam, Adam, yeah. The beginning, right? Huh?

[45:03] Was there about about monarchy? Right? Makes sense, huh? One ruler. One ruler. Yeah. Yeah. Now, don't we also measure these things as more or less by how they approach the what beginning, right?

[45:39] In geometry, for example, are some things more certain than others? And they approach more the what? Axioms, common notions. Yeah. Yeah. The statements known to themselves are before the statements known to other statements, right? And the statements known to themselves are a beginning of the statements known to what other statements, and they, in a sense, measure them, right? Their truth, in a sense. But the

[46:24] statements known to themselves are distinguished into those known to the wise, those that are given science, and then those that are what common to all the sciences, huh? And which measures which?

[46:46] Yeah, the axioms measure the what? Private principles, right? Okay. So if I say no odd number is even, right? In arithmetic, that rests upon the axiom ultimately of contradiction, right?

[47:07] One, right? So that's the beginning of everything, right? Aristotle points out that the axiom about contradiction, the axiom about being and non-being, is he says a natural beginning, right? Of all what?

[47:26] Yeah, yeah. Nature tends towards one, right? But but it also measures all the rest, right? As far as their truth are concerned, they all, in some sense, go back to that, huh? Okay. But that's something what? One, right? Okay.

[47:48] Do you see a little bit of the truth of this, right? Okay. Now. Now, this is not explicit in this text here, but Thomas talks about sometimes.

[48:25] Suppose the same belongs to many things, right? But to some of them more than to what others, right? Huh? Do you think it belongs to all of these things per se or through themselves?

[48:47] Yeah. Because if something belonged to a thing to itself, wouldn't it be in kind of abundance, right? So if in the the room the air is not evenly what warm let's say right huh

[49:07] but some parts are more warm than others right huh and as you approach right the fire they get hotter right huh well then it's by their distance from the one fire that they're more or less what hot huh okay and that fire incense would be kind to measure them all right but also the beginning of all theirs right okay

[49:36] again going back to the more known to us there from logic right if you you know look you know even cut someone superficial way at the statements that are conclusions in geometry some of them would be more known to us than others right huh as they go back to the what beginning right

[50:00] huh okay So they're measured as more or less known because they're closer or further away from the the beginning, right? The beginning is something one, right? It kind of measures those things, right? Huh?

[50:17] Well, now you could speak in a way of all the things desired as being in a common genus, right? Namely, the good, right? Huh? But some things are desired more and some less as they approach the good. The state itself. Yeah. Okay. And you know, it's kind of a common beginning in philosophy that the through itself is always more so than the through what? Another. Yeah. What is sweet through itself, like sugar, is sweeter than what is sweet through another, like that.

[50:58] Yeah. So now, if something is so through itself, it's going to be more than one. So that is a little idea. of this third argument, right? But it involves things that are not, you know, maybe clear right away at first time. Thomas puts it at third, right?

[51:29] And especially because in any genus there is one first what beginning, right? What the last end has the notion of a first what beginning, right? So it's what's first in the source of everything else in the genus of the desired, right? Of the good.

[51:56] And then Thomas, at the end, adds here: just as the last end of man is simply to what the whole human race, so the last end of this man is to what this end, huh? Once, just as it's necessary that of all men there is naturally one last end, so of the will of this man, right, that it be what established, yeah, in one last end, huh?

[52:26] Okay. So it's enough, I guess, huh? Philosophy. Four, three, six. Are we?