Prima Secundae
9. Summa I-II, Q.1, Articles 6–7: Whether we will everything for the sake of the last end, and whether all people share one last end (jest, speculation, taste and the sweetness of the Lord)
Class of 2011-03-03
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/009-summa-i-ii-q-1-articles-6-7-whether-we-will-everything-for/

[0:00] In the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the, Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, Guardian Angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo gratias. 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, help us to understand all that you've written. Father, Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:32] Amen. So you're celebrating Thomas today, today, How did it get to be this day? do you know. Is this the old days? No, It was March 7th, the old days. Why I don't know. It must be there was a church dedicated on this day or something. I don't know. Maybe His body was moved to Rome or something, and something. I was reading Thomas there in the Questionis Dispitate the Spiritualibus Creaturis, and he's talking about how man's way of arriving at beatitude, right?

[1:21] Is divided against all the angels' way of arriving, because they arrive all at once, or they're lost all at once. That's it, you know. And we arrive at our goal in time, huh? So we have a chance to repent. I used to always think, you know, gee whiz, if you make that wrong choice, that the angels did, there's no chance to what? Repent, huh? And so Christ didn't come to save the fallen angels, huh?

[1:55] But again, you realize how how clear things are for the angel, right? That he can make a what definitive choice in a way that we don't make, at least as kids, and maybe even, you know, from a bit later on, right? Huh? Only gradually, right? Does our will become, you know, strongly committed one way or the other, huh?

[2:22] So I don't know if Thomas will talk about that here sometime, but that's kind of a nice contrast between us and the and the angels. So we're up to Article Six here in Question One, huh?

[2:37] Whether a man wills all things that he wills on account of the last end. To the sixth one goes forward. Thus, it seems that not all things, whatever that a man wills, he wills on account of the last end. It seems to me the man in the street and the average guy would probably think this way, right? Thinking about, doesn't know why he's doing what he's doing, right?

[3:05] Huh? What are you going to have for lunch? What do you want for lunch? I remember a professor out at Saint Mary's College where I first taught, and he had he was in Arabic history, you know. And I guess he had to learn Arabic for this, which is rather a hard language, I guess, for us to learn, and so on. I said, I don't know what motivated me, you know.

[3:28] He doesn't know why he he's doing this, you know, huh? I met another guy who was his specialty was restoration England, right? And I said, now, why did you decide to specialize in restoration England? Well, I was in college and I had a professor and he gave an interesting course on it. I got interested in it and so it's kind of you know, kind of haphazard, haphazard.

[3:56] It happened that way, yeah, yeah. So let's see what Thomas says here. Those things which are ordered to the last end are called what? spoudaia, serious, I'd say. I don't know. As it were, what? Utilia, useful, right? Huh? Useful for that end. But what? Laughable things, right? Are distinguished from serious things. That's what we do when we we distinguish tragedy and what? Comedy, right? Huh? And Aristotle, you know, quotes the advice of Gorgias de Rhetorica: "You should kill your opponent's seriousness with jesting, and he's jesting with seriousness."

[4:44] So one kind of what excludes the other, right? Huh? In the same way, in a in a play, you can't really be serious and comic at the same time. Although you can sometimes squirt the borders of doing that, huh?

[4:59] Therefore, what a man does jocosely, he does not order in the last what? End. Now, of course, for someone who everything is a joke, I don't know. It's even more serious to think. Doesn't seem to be ordering it to do anything beyond his immediate pleasure. But anyway, moreover, the philosopher says in the beginning of the Metaphysics that the looking sciences, huh? Which are called speculative in Latin or theoretical in the Greek, huh?

[5:36] From the word for looking, that the looking sciences, the speculative sciences, are sought and accounted themselves, huh? But one cannot say, huh? Cannot be said that each of these is the last end, huh? So I'm studying arithmetic there in Book Seven and Eight of Euclid, and for its own sake. And this is not the ultimate end, right? If it's for its own sake, then how am I doing it for the end of human life?

[6:16] Therefore, not all things which man wants or desires does he want or desire on account of the last what end. Moreover, whoever orders something to some end thinks about that what end. But not always does man think about the last end in everything that he wants or what does, huh?

[6:46] Man, therefore, does not desire all things or do all things on account of the what last end. Now, my weak little mind, wouldn't you be kind of thinking along the line of these objections and say, "That's my experience."

[7:15] And if one was proud and did not listen to the master, right, Thomas, one would be what deceived, huh? So you see how pride does it cause the what deception, right?

[7:30] But against this is what Augustine says in the nineteenth book about the city of God. That is the end of our good on account of which we love other things, but it, the the end, on account of itself, huh? Like Aristotle said, you quote him saying that the end is what what is desired for its own sake and not for the sake of something else, but everything else for the sake of it.

[8:00] Use those three three phrases, huh? Well, Thomas gives two arguments here in the body of the article. The answer should be said, it is necessary that all things which man wants or desires he desires on account of the what last end, and this appears by a twofold reason. First, because whatever a man wants or desires, he wants or desires under the notion of the good, huh?

[8:42] Which, if it is not desired as a perfect or complete good, huh, which is what the last end is, it is necessary that it be desired as tending towards a what perfect good, a good that is complete.

[9:02] Because always the beginning, I suppose you could say, of something is ordered to its what? Yeah, It's conservation, It's completion. Just as both in those things which come to be by nature, as well as those things which come to be by art, like this, these buildings out here, right? I come here every week, and you know they're tending towards that. I hope Yeah They were arguing about what size nails or screws or something about.

[9:37] I was going by. One guy was correct, the other guy. You know, you got to have this kind of a screw or nail. I got the wrong size or something.

[9:55] And therefore, every beginning of perfection is ordered in. Somewhat consummate perfection, which is through the last what end. That's an interesting argument. Secondly, because the last end, in this way, has itself in moving desire, just as has itself in other motions, the first what mover. But it is manifest that the second causes moving, the move movers, right? Do not move anything except according as they are moved by the first mover.

[10:45] Whence the second things are desirable, are desirable therefore for the sake of something else, do not move the appetite except in order to the first thing what desirable, which is the what last end.

[11:02] That makes sense, even though you don't stop and think about the fact that you have this in your desire, right? Huh? Why did I get up this morning, right?

[11:16] Why did I pick up this book, or why did I eat this, or what I, why did I do this? You know. Just like you know, in thinking there, you don't stop and think that every statement you accept, you accept because of the axioms, and in a way because of the axiom of being and non-being, right? Something cannot both be and what not be, right? Huh? But do you think about that explicitly when you?

[11:48] I don't think we really have that. To be or not to be, that is a question, because you cannot both be and not be, right? Okay.

[12:02] But that's underlying all your thinking, right? You think without holding that. When you you know stop and think about something else and say, is this so or is it not so, right now? You're kind of implicitly saying that one or the other can't be both, right? Now I know which it is, right now.

[12:29] So I really have in mind, in some sense, right, the first things that I know, right? That all other things that I know depend upon.

[12:39] So this goes back to the general argument that the four kinds of causes, huh? The first cause is what something that all the rest of them depend upon. He compares this to the to the mover, right? But that's when it's closest, because we sometimes use the word mover even for the end. The end moves us through this, right? Pyramus's beauty moves him to climb the tower, right?

[13:06] Huh? So, in some sense, the end is said to move. So, if the last end is the first mover, then the nothing else is moved without what that first mover.

[13:27] Now, what about these laughable actions, right? People want to be amused, huh? Apparently, this is a fairly common common thing, even in monasteries. The first, therefore, it should be said that ludicrous actions are not ordered to some what extrinsic end, right?

[13:58] But nevertheless, they are ordered to the good of the one what? Yes, jesting. Insofar as they are pleasing him or giving him some what rest, right?

[14:16] But the what consummated good of man is his what last end. So, in some way, it's ordered to the good of the man, but not to his what complete good, right?

[14:31] So, in some sense, it's ordered to what that complete good, right? Either a part of it or something that's necessary as a rest, so you can pursue more seriously that last end.

[14:49] People talk about, you know, the gospels. You know, is there any example of the gospel of Christ's humor, right? It's kind of hard to find an example of this. Maybe you could force a couple texts, you know. But did our Lord tell jokes or not? What do you think? No. It was wordplay. Did our Lord not tell jokes, or did the Gospel writers think that it was not good to recount these?

[15:21] Maybe they weren't that good. That's impossible. Well, he could have been humble and told bad jokes. Now, a lot of times they they take for the Trinity, you know, the thing about you know when man first falls, they would be like one of us, you know, huh? You know, kind of like you know how funny you know they would try to be like one of us, huh?

[15:46] That's kind of the way what the devil said, right? I'm going to be like gods, right? Only good and evil. So, our our joking, our recreation. Can be seen as possibly as like a component of the final end. Yeah, it's contributing in some way, right? Thomas, when you get to the Secunda Secunda, I think is where he gives an example there from John, where someone you know was too serious, so to speak, and John was saying, "Well, you know, you're going to break the the thing, huh?

[16:22] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but would it be would it be a means to the end or part of the end? If we're considering more philosophically, not you know, no, probably more a means. You know, it's certainly in terms of what he calls here rest, right? Huh? You know, requiem praestantes right? Delectantes I suppose that's closer to the end, right? But it's it's not a complete joy.

[16:55] Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee. The pleasures are pleasures, but they don't satisfy fully. But they maybe point in that direction. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[17:13] Second objection. He answers in the same way, right? About the speculative science, which is desired as a certain good of the one what? Speculating. So he's comparing that to to the play because the play there is for the good of the one playing, right? Huh? Which is desired as a certain good of the one speculating, which is included under right the complete and perfect what? Good, huh?

[17:44] Which is the last end. So I mean, the lower science is necessary to get to the higher sciences, huh? And so you're on the way to the higher sciences, huh?

[18:02] It's kind of interesting because Aristotle, when he when he's in the beginning of metaphysics, huh? He's talking about in the proemium there. He argues that this science is not practical, but what speculative, right? Huh? And then he almost argues as if it's the only speculative science, huh?

[18:25] Because the lower sciences are studied for their own sake, but also for the sake of what? The higher science, right? Why the higher science of which you eventually know God, right? Huh? Well, I've quoted that passage of Thomas. He says, "Where I study the body, so I can understand the soul. I seek to understand the soul, can I so I can understand the angels? Huh? Seek to understand the angels, I can understand God.

[18:55] But that's it. I don't seek to understand God to know something further. So I get a good job. Teaching theology. Finish my PhD. Now, what about always thinking about the end? huh? Because one doesn't seem to be always thinking about the end. huh? To the third, it should be said that it is not necessary that always one think about the last end, whenever one desires or what does something.

[19:37] But the power of the first intention, which is with respect to the last end, remains in any what desire of anything, even if one does not think about the last end and act. I think it's a beautiful example. You have to understand this a little bit. Just as it is not necessary that the The one who goes on some trip, right, through a road, right, in every step thinks about where he's going, yeah, about his intent.

[20:10] So I had the intention of of going to church or someplace, right, and this is the path to there, right. So when I'm walking on that path and admiring the flowers, where it is, snowbanks, um, isn't this necessary to think about where I'm going explicitly. But the intention there kind remains, huh? But Thomas will talk about this, you know, later on. when He talks about how it's necessary to, in a sense, renew one's intention, right?

[20:41] Of course, a lot of people, you know, start the day with a kind of offering up of all the things that they do during the day and their joys and sufferings and so on, with regard to their end, huh? But one doesn't always, during the frustrations of the day, think of what one is undergoing all this for. But one still has that intention, right?

[21:08] Um, but has to be renewed. Eventually, you could weaken, right? So you convinced by Thomas? This time, get away with it. Now, whether there's one last end of all men, right?

[21:38] When Jefferson said the pursuit of happiness, he didn't say what happiness was, or whether it was the same for all of us, right? He didn't try to say what happiness was, so

[21:51] maybe he thought that his what every man's happiness was in his own what things that turned him on, as they say, right? So I said on the bumper sticker, "It said, 'Music is my life. ' You know, this must be someone who

[22:09] someone else might say, 'Baseball is my life, ' or whatever is the sport he's professionally committed to, right? Dinner is my life. Yeah, I I live to eat I don't eat to live to eat. I don't eat to live. To some one proceeds, one proceeds. Thus, it seems that there's not one last end of all men.

[22:37] For most of all, that seems to be the last end of man. The what unchangeable good, huh? I suppose that's God, right? This is the only one that's completely unchangeable.

[22:56] But some are turned away from the unchangeable good by sinning, right? Therefore, not of all men is there one what last end. Moreover, by the last end, or according to the last end, the whole life of man is ruled, huh, or regulated.

[23:26] If, therefore, there was one last end of all men, it would follow that in men there would not be diverse what pursuits of living, right?

[23:40] Which is clearly false, huh? They don't live the same kind of life, all men, right? I said to my sister, "in law, oh, you know, I have to do a few theorems of Euclid every day, you know, to feel right. She says, What's something wrong with you. That's your way of life.

[24:08] She's probably a very practical woman. Yes, yes. Moreover, the end is the what limit you might say of action, huh? Actions, however, are of the singulars.

[24:31] But men, although they come together in the nature of the species, nevertheless they differ according to those things which pertain to what individuals. Therefore, there is not one last end of what all men, huh? I remember a student years ago when some course other was trying to maintain that the last end of man is to perfect whatever his or her individual gifts are. Was kind of like this argument here, in a sense.

[25:09] So that what is individual to me and distinguishes me to a greater or less extent from other human beings, right? The development of that is is my end. See,

[25:24] rather than the development of what is common to you and and me, right? So, which is is better in me? What is private to me, or what is common to me and others?

[25:50] And how would you would you would you try to show that a little bit? You know. The good of many is better than the good of one. Yeah. Yeah. Community, country, the the common good is your good too. Yeah. Yeah. Common is good.

[26:15] Now, if you look at what separates one man from another individually, right? And sometimes it's better or worse. What separates some men, huh? Don't you kind of judge these things that are private to us, or distinguish one of us from another, as how it leaves us or disposes us, huh, for what is common to us, huh? So, so let's say I'm an irascible person, right? You know.

[26:56] Um. Or I'm an alcoholic or something, right? And I'm inclined to drink these things, huh? Well, these things dispose me to be more or less unreasonable in my behavior, right? Huh? So, what is common to all of us to have reason, right? And to live in accordance with reason, one is by what's private to oneself, either better or worse disposed towards that, right?

[27:32] Um. If I have a poor memory, right? Does that dispose me well for the life of the mind? No. No. In a sense, what what is private to us comes from what more our body, right? Huh? Okay. The body is not as good as the form, right? Huh?

[28:06] A lot of people have that idea, right? And there seems some you know probability to it, right? Should Mozart have been a logician rather than a musician? You say. Or should Shakespeare have read written metaphysics rather than plays, right?

[28:29] Or a guy who's you know Babe Ruth, huh? Should he have been a philosopher instead of a home run hitter? I mean. And some some probability to that, right? Huh? You know.

[28:55] As mentioned before, class, there, you know, I was reading in and Thomas was talking about how in the angels, every angel is of a different kind. There's no two angels of the same kind.

[29:08] The reason why there can't be many individuals of the same kind is that individuality, as distinct from the kind of thing you are, comes from matter, and there's no matter in the angels. So each angel is its own kind of thing. So my old teacher, could say, "You don't really, you know, you meet the angels, you don't start counting them because they're so different, one from another, right?

[29:33] You wouldn't think of saying, you know, the two of us are a kind of different thing. And so, but then Thomas went on and said, you know, that the angels are much more perfect than we are. And one way that they're more perfect than we are is that each angel has the whole perfection of his what kind. And down here, right? No human being has all the perfection of his kind.

[30:11] So I only had the perfection of Mozart and Shakespeare and Euclid and Aristotle and Thomas and Augustine and all these things wrapped up in me, and I'd be one hell of a guy. If I had this, you know, but I don't have the whole perfection of my kind, right?

[30:30] This is dealing with the imperfection of man, right? And so, by what's individual or private to me, right? I'm either well or badly disposed towards the kind of thing I am—an animal with with reason, right? Towards being reasonable and developing my reason, right, and living in accordance with the reason and knowing by my reason, and so on.

[30:56] Okay. But against this is what Augustine says in the thirteenth book about the Trinity: that all men come together in desiring the last end, which is what? The attitude right

[31:23] No, Thomas is going to see a distinction, right? Thomas is always seeing a distinction. Where does that come up in Shakespeare's definition of reason?

[31:45] Yeah. See, see, when when Thomas talks about before and after, he points out that it presupposes distinction. So I sometimes speak of the axiom of before and after: that nothing is before or after what itself.

[32:09] And so there's always some distinction between what is before and what is after. And so you can't see that this is before that. We see no distinction between this and that. Now you might see a distinction between this and that without knowing which is before and which is after, right? So I might know two students, let's say, and distinguish between them without knowing who's a better student, right?

[32:41] But I know that this student is better than that one. If I didn't know that this student is different than that one, no. So when Shakespeare says looking before and after, that includes looking for distinction, huh? Just like when he says that reason is the ability for large discourse, he didn't mean that reason was not capable of small discourse. In fact, it's even more capable of small discourse than of a large discourse.

[33:12] But if you want to give the full power of reason, you say it's the ability for a large discourse. And then it's understood. well, of course, it can do a small discourse, right? And likewise, if reason looks before and after, of course it can look for what distinctions, right? If it can see the before and after, sometimes it can certainly see a what distinction. So it's understood, except you didn't understand in the definition, right?

[33:44] If I say you can lift two hundred pounds, can you lift a hundred pounds? You see, I'll complete that definition. Yes. I was mentioning how Thomas, in another article, there was saying, giving as a reason why our reason is derived from God, right? He said our reason discourses, like Shakespeare says, huh? And discourse is a kind of what motion? Motion depends upon an unmoved mover. So our reason must depend upon a mind that is what understands without motion, without discourse.

[34:39] Thomas says a beautiful phrase there in the quaestiones disputatae, disputed questions about spiritual riches, that the understanding of our reason is per modum motus, huh? By way of motion, right? Our reason understands, he says, by going from effect to cause, or from cause to effect, or from like to like, or from opposite to opposite, right? He distinguishes there, you know, kind of in a complete way, right?

[35:14] The discourse from one thing to another, right? If by discourse you mean coming to know the unknown through what you do know, right? So from your knowledge of the effect, in some way you can come to know the cause, and from the knowledge of the cause, you can in some way come to know the effect, and you can know sometimes a thing from what is like it, right?

[35:38] And you can also know an opposite in a way by its opposite. Incidentally, I was going to ask you, you know, we saying that the the matter of the second part is the same as that of what you pray for in the Our Father. Because you pray for the end, and then you pray for the means to the end, and then you pray for the avoidance of what make you deviate from the end.

[36:06] But why does Thomas divide the second part of the Summa into two parts and not into three then? Because the things that lead to the end and deviate from the end are sort of opposites. Yeah, yeah. And it's the same algebra opposites, right? It's especially clear when you get to the second part where he goes through all the virtues, right, and then with each virtue takes up its vice opposed to it, right.

[36:38] So that's why he divides into two rather into three, right? Wouldn't make any sense to, you know, to talk about the end, then talk about the virtues and go through all them, and then finally talk about all the vices, right? When each vice is kind of known in comparison to the virtue that's opposed to it, right. So that's why he divides it into two, right?

[37:02] So that's a very interesting explanation of unfolding of what Shakespeare means, right? That reason is the ability for discourse, right? To come to know what it doesn't know, what it does know, by running from effect to cause, usually, but sometimes from cause to effect, like in geometry, and sometimes from like to like, and sometimes from opposite to opposite. Beautiful, beautiful.

[37:37] Of course, Shakespeare saw that too. of course I was giving a talk at Thomas Aquinas College one time, you know, and I was unfolding one of these fragments from the Greek philosophers, you know. There's so much in it, you know, and so on. And someone said, "Well, did Heraclitus really see all that?" Well, he was a scientist, so I said, "Well, did Max, I mean, did

[38:07] what's his name, they discovered the quantum there? Oh, well, Planck. Yeah, did Planck really see, you know, that the atom and the light would be explained by the quantum, huh? You know, Heisenberg says that when Planck discovered the quantum, he went for a walk in the park with his son. He says, "I think I discovered something as great as Newton," you know, as if he realized there's something great about this, right?

[38:36] But did he foresee all the what conclusions, you know, because five years later, in 1905, Einstein explained the photoelectric effect by the thing, and then 13 years later. Bohr explained the atom by the thing, you know. This this was the greatest change in physics since Newton. This quantum, introduced. Did he see everything? Maybe. Saint Thomas says about hierarchy: when the angels, one angel purifies another, it's not like with us removing sin, but it's like pointing out an effect from the cause that you know is the real, real effect.

[39:17] So he says it's like leading and leading the hierarchy of showing the lower angel an effect. He might not have seen it, but he always sees the cause. But the lower angel has not jumped to conclusions. You see, before he was enlightened, not like us, you know. Thomas says, he's being purged of ignorance, but not of error. Well we're being purged usually of error, mostly. There isn't really a card.

[39:45] I did cut through the talk and kind of nothing. Actually, a formal question period. But the people coming up after isn't the same name. Well, Merton says. Somebody comes up. And Konik says,Well, he's mistaken there. he says

[40:10] Okay So Thomas is going to see a distinction, right? And it should be said that about the last end, we are able to speak in two ways.

[40:28] In one way, according to the what notion, right? The definition of what the last end is, right? In another way, according to that in which

[40:46] the notion of last end is found. Okay, we haven't really come to that yet, and it's going to be in these next questions. Now, as regards the notion of the last end, all come together in the desire of the what last end, because all seek to fulfill their own what perfection.

[41:16] Notice that word in Latin there, adimplere right? To fill up as it were, right? Now, which is the notion of the last end? As has been said, so it's kind of a confused notion, right? Because it's not unfolded exactly what it consists in.

[41:35] But as regards that in which this notion of thought is found, all men do not come together in the last end. For some want wealth, as it were, the what Consummate or complete good. So when I was in high school, there in the home room, there, the professor, there, Mister Burns, was saying, "Well, money isn't everything." Of course, this guy says, "Yeah, but what it isn't, it'll buy."

[42:10] That's a shrewd guy. I don't think Mister Burns appreciated that. Mister Burns was the was the was the brother of the bishop. In fact, we had two brothers of the bishop there in high school. One of them, one of them, went on to become mayor of Saint Paul. I don't know what a job he did, but

[42:38] the bishop presided at our at our parish. Right, he was auxiliary bishop at that time. You know, Very pious man, but you see, the ladies we have to communion, There was another priest getting all the communion, and the bishop all the ladies were rushing out to get the communion for the bishop. Makes a better thing to get it for the bishop.

[43:04] It happened when we were we were someplace on vacation once, and there was a bishop there with his secretary, yeah. And we went to a shrine. I got a rosary, and the priest said to me, "Oh, would you like me to have the bishop bless it for you?" That was a little guy. And I looked at him. I said, "Was his blessing any better than yours?" Kind of let the wind out of his sail there.

[43:29] I didn't know about indulgences then. so. I used to get a couple of hot weeks, like in July, there in Minnesota. You know, Minnesota is the land of ten thousand lakes, so it's humid. It's kind of heat that really, really, really gets you down, you know. The bishop would say, "You know, this is for your sins that the Lord sent you this hot, humid weather." You know.

[43:50] Now they're probably just air conditioned. Now the yeah the churches are air conditioned. It burns just to preach on hellfire. That burns me. Some seek what pleasure as the ultimate good, right? Huh? And some something else, right?

[44:28] So my my friend there was a close boxer, you know. He said some of these guys they really go for this developing the body, and like this is kind of the end of their life, you know, to have a developed body, you know, like.

[44:42] Yeah. So many what else? Some want what power, right? Now it's kind of interesting the comparison that Thomas makes here, the likeness he has. Just as to every taste is delightful the what sweet, but some find most of all delightful the sweetness of wine, huh? Some the sweetness of what honey, honey, or something else, right?

[45:29] But that sweet is simply what more pleasant, right? In whom most of all delights the one who has the best what taste. So what do you think of that example, Thomas?

[45:57] Aristotle himself, in in the Nicomachean Ethics, he says that the last end is something what pleasing. Everybody, in some sense, knows that, right? Okay.

[46:14] I suppose sweet, you know, it's got almost a sense of something a metaphor for pleasantness. Thomas says in the commentary in the Psalms, right? Huh? So they say something is sweet, they say it's pleasing, right? Huh? Okay. And Thomas, Aristotle says, they're not mistaken in thinking that the last end will be something pleasing, right? Huh? But they have never tasted, he says, the higher what pleasures, right?

[46:42] Huh? Okay. And so they seek it in these lower things, huh? And Thomas himself says, you know, that no man can live without pleasure, right? And therefore, if he cannot taste the higher pleasures, he will probably go to excess in the what lower ones, right? Huh? Because they're not very satisfied, so you got to go to excess, you know, if you make your end in these lower things, huh?

[47:12] Okay. So that reminds me a little bit of Aristotle's speaking in the what? Yeah. Um. How does the Psalms say, "Taste and see how sweet is the Lord," right? Thomas goes into a long explanation of it, huh? Yes, he gets the best explanation of the the metaphor there. It's a metaphor, right?

[47:42] What a metaphor is always based upon likeness, right? And Thomas kind of unfolds the likeness there between the sweet and what it's what you're trying to get at, huh? Because the sweet is is pleasant, right? Huh? That's what was emphasized here. But the sweet is also what refreshing, right? Huh? Okay. And the sweet is also what? What? Restful. Restful, yeah, yeah. And so you notice how people will speak, you know, if you have beautiful scenery, something like that, you know, say, "Oh, how restful," right?

[48:21] And so it's beautiful, and beautiful, of course, is what pleases when seen, right? What's also called what restful, right? Now, if you live next to the city dump and the trucks are around all the time, it's not very restful, right, or something, you know, huh? Or people don't want to be on a busy street like that, you know. But if you've got a place with a you know beautiful view or something, right, and so on, you see, it's restful, right?

[48:47] I mean, you speak of beautiful girls as sight for sore eyes, right? That the sweet is something what refreshing, right? That's what people are running to the can be candy or something for to refresh themselves, and so the but these things are are what. True, especially of what God, right? Huh? So it's a beautiful example. He takes that, right? Huh? It's really a key thing you'll see when you read the Psalms and you read the Nicomachean ethics, right?

[49:17] There's a reason why he takes that. So I mean, you can use the word "taste" in more than one sense, right? And taste is tied up, you know, in its extended senses with the idea of judgment, right? Huh? You say somebody's no taste, you know. Even no taste in music nowadays, you know, all the junk they play on the time radio in the stores, right? Huh? Your friend Warren Murray, you know, he goes into a restaurant, eats dinner, got this, gets up and leaves.

[49:58] Yeah. a great story told about Father Boulay. I guess was in the restaurant, and these guys are playing this awful music up there, you know. And he sends money up for them to stop. And they didn't stop right They didn't stop, right? Father Boulay, liked good music. And. He says that should be judged to be simply what But sweet, right? More delightful, in which most delights the one having the best what taste, yeah.

[50:52] But notice, you know, if you take, you know, as a little boy, you know, I like soda pop, right? And there is a little store there where they had one of these things at the cold water, you know, and all the things in there. And I used to go by there, you know, and after walking, you know, in the summer, you know, you get one of these orange or soda pop.

[51:14] But now, maybe the first time you taste wine, it doesn't what taste as good as the soda pop, right now. And you have these kind of mixtures of soda pop and wine that they sell, you know. So

[51:33] that's always how. And he says, you can taste one of these. These are really good, you know. I didn't say anything you know I did the same thing, you know, and so on,

[51:44] But. notice how a person drinks the soda pop. Now, if you tasted, you know, drank wine that way, you would be, you know, spitting it up, and you'd be.

[51:57] But you know, you wouldn't, you know, take a soda pop, or you wouldn't let Coke or something, you know, come down to closer room temperature so you can taste it. There isn't much to taste there, right? Huh? You know, you might you might like it right away, but it's not much to what taste, huh? My cousin Donald, who used to play the violin a little bit about the instruments, but

[52:24] used to like the Baroque more than Mozart, right? Huh? And then he realized you got to listen to Mozart. Once you start listening to Mozart, then you start to see how good he is, huh? When my two brothers brought home the magic flute, the first time I heard it, I listened to the whole thing dutifully and sort of dawdled and so on. But I didn't really hear anything, I don't think.

[52:47] And then I listened to these things more and more, right? Then I realized they are much more beautiful than. Yeah, yeah. As a little boy, I used to always, you know, go to the radio to find a march, you know. Now, march. I still like marches, you know. But it's a very obvious kind of pleasure from a march, right? You know, like the slogan there would be like a parade, right?

[53:10] You get the march, you know. So, but I don't get as much pleasure from a march now as I get from a Mozart symphony or a Mozart concerto or a Mozart aria, you know. See, so so as your sense of hearing develops, right, and you you hear more, right? Um.

[53:29] So that's what he's talking about, right? The man who is what? What seems to the man who is well disposed, right? That's the judgment you should you should what? Follow, right? Now.

[53:48] My friend there had a biography of Pius the Twelfth, you know, and came across the time when Pius the Twelfth was made pope, and he was going to move into the papal quarters there, right? And he was explicitly concerned that his Shakespeare would be

[54:05] there, you know, and I read that Paul the Sixth his favorite poets, were Dante and Shakespeare, right, well, you know, then I can say, well, okay, then. Good judgment. Yeah. Yeah. Good taste. Yeah. Yeah.

[54:25] So, those people are the judges of what is really most delightful, right? What is really the end? So Thomas speaks that taste and see how sweet the Lord is is a kind of experimental or experiential knowledge, right? Okay, not the kind of knowledge you get from you know doing the summa theologiae right? But somehow the saints would have tasted these things, right?

[55:04] They're much more pleasant than the things that we spend our time, you know, as ordinary human beings running around after. I often used to when we have a candidate ask, you know, what's your favorite beverage? You know, coffee or tea? What's your favorite beverage? Beer or wine? You know, which used to annoy my colleagues no end because I used to ask these questions. But the guy, you know, doesn't have any judgment on these lower things.

[55:35] How could he have judgment about the higher things? I mean, I've known many people who appreciate, you know, good beer. They know what good beer is, right? And they appreciate wine, but none of those men that I've known of that sort think that beer is tastier than wine. They all think wine is what tastier than beer, right? Those who think beer is better than wine are people who don't have any taste in wine, right?

[56:03] And so, I mean, you wouldn't, you know. Maybe take their judgment right, huh? Developed sense of taste there, you might say, huh? You drink beer, I can sort of pop that. Yeah, yeah, you're not savory, right, huh?

[56:26] Well, not as much anyway. I'm pushing on the bottom of your tongue there, and and get it, huh? Yeah, makes pass some of that stuff, yeah. Okay, but Thomas's example is well chosen, right? It might strike me first as odd, you know, but

[56:48] it turns out with scripture and the Metaphysics and Ethics and so on, it's quite, quite natural for him to do that. And likewise, that good ought to be most complete, which is desired as a last end by the one having his affections well what disposed, huh? Okay.

[57:21] Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that those who sin, right, they are turned away from the what unchangeable good in which our true beatitude rests, huh? They are turned away from that in which is truly found the notion of the last end, huh? But not, however, from the intention of the last end, right? Which they seek falsely in what other things, huh? That's where

[57:56] he says, is it in the first Psalm commentary? First Psalm, is it? All men come together in one thing in common. They all want to be happy. Different two things. Roads they take to happiness. The outcome of the roads. Yeah. Not everybody's happy. So you can see in this first article, in a sense, knowing happiness in a kind of what indistinct way, right, huh? Kind of a general way, right, huh?

[58:25] Under the notion of the last end, without saying, well, exactly, does the last end consist, right? We saw a little bit Aristotle, even he first draws a line around happiness, right? And we said, well, it's a perfect good and so on, right? But maybe that seems like kind of a commonplace, you know, and let's go a little bit further in, right? And then actually goes further into it even more in the tenth book, right?

[58:47] After he's gone through the virtues. Now the diverse studia, the plans of life, you might say, right? Of living happen in men and encounter the diverse things in which is sought the what notion of the highest good, huh?

[59:10] To the third, it should be said that all actions are of the singulars. Nevertheless, the first beginning of acting in them is what nature, which tends to something what one.

[59:32] That's something to think about. I think, though, you know, is is what is common to us to be an animal with reason, or reason itself, most of all. Is that better than what is what private to us? You know, unique to one of us, right? Or distinguishes one from another, right?

[59:57] Because isn't it by what's unique to us that we are well or badly disposed towards what is common? But the end is better than what is for the sake of the end, which is better, right? My common nature or my private nature. You want to speak that way? So that huh Is it also that the all all the private things are geared toward the common. In other words, because not we don't none of us has the perfection of our kind, so we need everyone needs to.

[1:00:37] Yeah, but also even just that idea. Also, it's been also the reflection of God only comes about through each person's. Just like there's different saints to to show the different perfections of God, but everybody are unique.

[1:00:55] Well, yeah, I suppose that the different saints have got different virtues that they might excel in, right? But in a sense, the saints are taking what is individual in them and subordinated to the common end of us.

[1:01:17] I think it goes back to the fact that what's private to us comes from matter, right? Huh. In what is common, more to the form, and form is better than than matter, right? Yeah. So the end must be found in something that is common to us, rather than something that is private.

[1:01:41] So we shouldn't celebrate diversity too much. No. no. You've got bubbles to grow up. That's a great verb. Okay. Okay. You've got bubbles to grow up. You've got bubbles to grow up. You've got bubbles to grow up. You've got bubbles to grow up. More serious things here. Suppose the ludicrous.