Prima Secundae
82. Summa I-II q.31 a.6–8: Pleasures of Touch and Sight, Unnatural Pleasures, and Whether One Pleasure Can Be Contrary to Another
Class of 2012-10-04
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/082-summa-i-ii-q-31-a-6-8-pleasures-of-touch-and-sight-unnatural/

[0:00] Okay, should we go into Article Six here? Yes. Okay. To six, one pro goes forward. Thus, it seems that the pleasures which are according to touch, right, are not greater than the pleasures which are according to the other what senses, huh?

[0:21] For that pleasure seems to be greatest, which, being excluded, all what joy ceases, huh? But such is the pleasure which is according to the eye, right, huh? Oh yeah. For it's said in the book of Tobit, huh, Tobias. Quale gaudium mihi erit me? What joys there are for me who sit in darknesses, right? And I do not see the light of what heaven, right? Okay. That's what he answered when the angel greeted him and just said, "Joy to thee."

[0:55] Mm hmm. And said, "What manner of joy?" Therefore, the pleasure which is through sight is greatest among sensible what pleasures, right? Right. Moreover, to each one is delightful that which he loves, right? As the philosopher says in the first book of the Rhetoric, huh? But among the other senses, most of all is loved what sight. Reference to Aristotle in the Metaphysics, huh? Bring him. Therefore, the pleasure which is according to sight is maxima right?

[1:34] And one time in class, I was talking about, would you rather go blind or go deaf? Obviously, terribly the one. And people will say what? Deaf. You'd rather be deaf than what? Blind. This one girl though, she said she'd rather be blind than deaf. But she was music was her thing, right?

[2:01] So would Beethoven rather have gone blind than gone deaf or whatever it was? Hmm. You know. So Beethoven delights in his thing, right? Huh. The cook would say he'd rather go deaf or blind, than lose a sense of taste, right? Something. Yeah. Yeah. I remember my mother-in-law when she was dying there. It was then, you know. She loses sense of taste, right? You know. So he said to me, she's taking no pleasure at all in eating food anymore.

[2:28] Just eating to stay alive, right? Now it's kind of a kind of horrible thing, just eating to stay alive, you know. Yeah, I remember the late great Leo Albert. That's what he said one day as he was chowing down on some ice cream. He said, "He said, 'Old age stinks. I don't have any taste buds anymore. This doesn't taste any different than a bologna sandwich. It doesn't taste any different to me.

[2:46] '" Yeah, yeah. It's a good student, Thomas. I once came to the book. Let him go away. Okay. Okay. Moreover, the beginning of what delectable friendship, right, is most of all vision, right? That's what Romeo says.

[3:17] Yeah, the neighbor boy there, you know, mowed our lawn when we were away, you know, and we pay him, you know, to guard the house there. But so we're talking a little bit, and I guess he's going to be in the play. He's going to play Romeo. Oh, really? So I started selling some Romeo's and Rosens to try to cut me off.

[3:34] Half tempted to go and watch the high school play, just see how he does. I hope they do it in some kind of you know older dress rather than do these ones. And he's modern; it's terrible. I can't even. Yeah, I haven't seen one of those.

[3:51] But the cause of such friendship is pleasure, right? Therefore, according to sight, there seems to be the greatest pleasure, right? But against this is what the philosopher says in the third book of the Ethics that the greatest pleasures are according to touch. He's talking about temperance there, right?

[4:16] Answer should be said that is. Oh my goodness, this thing's really getting thingy. Oops. This. Oh, go ahead. Coming down the page, I know. He wants to follow love. Start a

[4:40] school for them. What happened to him? By the way, probably crawling up my leg. I always wonder, you know, why the devil is called you know Beelzebub? You know, that's flies, right? Something like that. Lord of the flies. Yeah, yeah, and you know, out where where my dad is here, around the farm there is a lot of flies, and I am on quacking all the time. I said, my mind is distracted, you know, so you can't think about anything.

[5:13] You know, these flies flying around. Okay. Answer should be said that each thing, in so far as it is loved, is what rendered delightful, pleasant. Now, the sense, as said in the beginning of the Metaphysics, the senses are loved on account of two things, right?

[5:42] One, for the sake of the knowing, right, and for the sake of what usefulness, right? So you want to know your eyes so you can drive your car and find your house and find other things in the house and make things, but you also look at the what. Sunset, right, or something, right? Not even do anything with it, but just for knowledge' sake, right? Or painting, or something.

[6:08] Whence, in both ways, is possible for there to be pleasure according to senses. But because to apprehend knowledge itself as a certain good is proper to what man, and therefore the first pleasures of the senses, which are according to knowledge, are proper to man, right? But the pleasures of the senses, in so far as they are loved, and account of what usefulness, are common to all the what Animals.

[6:42] animals, yeah. If, therefore, we speak of the pleasure of the sense which is by reason of knowledge, it is manifest that according to sight there is greater pleasure than according to what. Any other sense. Yeah. If, however, we speak of the pleasure of the sense which is by reason of usefulness, then there is the greatest pleasure according to what touch,

[7:12] huh? For the utility of sensible things is to be noted according to the order that they have to the conservation of the nature of the animal. And to this usefulness is nearer the sensibles of what The sense of touch. For touch is knowing those things of which the animal itself consists, namely the hot and the cold, and the wet and the dry, and so on. Whence, according to this, the pleasures which are according to touch are greater, as being more near the end, which is the conservation of the body, by reason of usefulness.

[7:52] On account of this, also other animals which do not have pleasure according to sense, except by reason of what usefulness, do not delight according to the other senses, except in order to the what sensibles of touch, right? So not really enjoying, you know, the sunset the way we are, right? For that beautiful.

[8:20] For neither do the what dogs rejoice in the smell of the what. Leporum Yeah What's that I don't know Must be some animal to eat, right? Hare. Oh, it's a rabbit or something. Yeah. Lepidus, yeah. Said, "It's the only food, right? " Yeah. Nor the lion in the sound, the voice of the cattle, but eating of it, right? Yeah. Okay. As is said in the third book of the what?

[8:57] the ethics, huh? Since therefore the pleasure of the sense of touch is maxima by reason of its usefulness, right? The pleasure which is of sight by reason of its knowledge. If we compare both, if only we compare both, one will find simply that the pleasure of touch is more than the pleasure of what sight, according as it what. Stays within the limits of that sense of all.

[9:32] Pleasure, yeah. Because it is manifest that that which is natural in each thing is most what. Powerful. Potent, yeah. But pleasures of this sort of touch are those to which what natural desires are ordered, right? Those of food and venereal things and so on. But if we consider the pleasures of sight according as sight serves the what understanding, then the pleasures of sight will be what more potent.

[10:12] For that reason, for the very reason that we gave before, in which understandable pleasures are more potent than what sensible ones, right? Right. What's the the muthos that Socrates gives there? in the, I guess in the phaed, was it? Well, it's a beautiful proportion, right? Huh? And he says, you know, suppose you were born in the what water? You lived under the water all the time, right?

[10:41] You looked up through the water and saw the sun, the moon, the stars, right? You would not see them as clearly as you see them through the air, right? But if you one day somehow or other you got up above the surface of the water and into the air, wow! This is far more beautiful than I realized, right? Huh? Well, he says, above the air, there is another thing that the air is to, like water is to the air, and that's called what?

[11:13] Ether. Yeah, yeah. And after the soul leaves the body, it gets up into the ether, right? And then these things are even more beautiful than they are now, right? I noticed you go out in the desert, someplace where it gets very dry and you're away from the cities and so on. If you're driven through there at nighttime, you know, you look up at the sky. The stars are much more brilliant.

[11:31] They say, in Saudi Arabia, you know, these dry places, they're very brilliant. And it stimulates you to think about them. And perhaps this is where you get the ether in modern science, the use of the word any, because you say water is to air, and then air is to ether, right? Well, your first meaning of the word wave is what the water wave, right? And then you have sound waves, which are in air, right?

[12:00] Then you have these what electromagnetic waves, and light turns out to be waves, some others have a wave like aspect. And there's gotta be something that is to those waves like air is to the sound waves. So they borrowed the word from there, ether, right? Huh? It's a very fine thing. And Einstein said we can't find the evidence so it doesn't be ether there, right? So they have a way with nothing waving, right?

[12:23] Just kind of unusual thing, right? But that's you know that's but they were you know looking for all these things to see ether leg and so on, you know, succeeded, proved it.

[12:41] Um. So this audiovisual, right? Huh? The the eyes and even the ears are more important for knowing in some ways, right? But you got to be careful, right? Huh? They kind of gave a famous talk there, and the sense of touch and the sense of sight, right? And the modern world is sort of attached to the sense of sight, right? Wasn't thinking of the common man, but but but that the most basic thoughts, you know, are tied up with the sense of what touch, right?

[13:15] Sense of substance and so sense of good. But interesting. Take a little break now, or Latin text anyway. It signifies what an animal pleasure, and this most of all pertains to sight.

[13:43] But the what natural pleasure most of all pertains to what touch. That's right. The animal pleasure is more than one of knowing, right? And that's the way explains what Aristotle says that the sight is most of all loved an account of knowledge, and that it shows many what differences of things, right? Huh? So if you had only the sense of touch, as my pet, you don't know what is beauty.

[14:11] Contact, you wouldn't know things at a distance. You wouldn't know the sun and the moon and the stars, right? Huh? But that the sight is more spiritual is shown by the fact that we carry the word seeing over to understanding, right?

[14:31] So, I mean, do you understand what I mean? Right? We do use the word grasp. Yeah. Yeah. Basic activity. In one way, pleasure is the cause of carnal love, and another way, vision, right? Huh?

[14:54] For pleasure and most of all that which is according to touch is the cause of what the pleasant friendship by way of an end. Huh? But the vision is a cause as once it was the beginning of the motion, right? In so far as through the sight of the lovable is impressed the species of thing which attracts one to loving and to desiring its what pleasure, right?

[15:24] Huh? So Romeo has to see Juliet, right, before he pursues her, right? huh? So I used to ask the students in the love and friendship course, right? In the beginning of the play, Romeo is not in love with Juliet at all, right? But she just as beautiful in the beginning of the play as she is when he meets her. So why doesn't her beauty move him to love him?

[15:47] Because he's never seen it! Yeah. So the beautiful or the good is known, huh? This is the sight is the what beginning, right? Remember the sense of touch, huh? I want to hug this thing, huh? Isn't that one of the definitions of beautiful that what pleases when seen? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I

[16:12] think a lot about beauty. You know, is beauty more the object of knowing or the object of what of loving, right? Huh? I have to think it was more the object of loving. I used to give as a sign that the word lovely is used as a synonym for beautiful, right? Something is lovely, huh? As if it's more the object of love than of knowledge, huh? I'm not sure that's so, right?

[16:38] And you read when Thomas, you know, talks about the things that are appropriated to the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Well, beauty is appropriated to whom? To the Son. Yeah, that's species. Yeah, species, yeah, species. Also, Thomas gives a reason for that in the treatise of the Trinity, right? That's not appropriate to the Holy Spirit, but to the Son, right?

[17:07] It's more the object of knowledge, right? Heisenberg, you know, it's necessary there in the rule of beauty, right, in the discovery of physical theories, right? Huh? How very important it is, huh? Like

[17:27] I say, sometimes you know, let's say it was their axes. You know, it's more important that theory be beautiful than it be true. That's that's what you say, Falaxisprasia. That's that's what the scripture says: beauty is deceiving. Yeah, yeah. Well, Keats, you know, because they always quote him, you know, "Truth is beauty, and beauty is truth." That's all you know and all you need to know. Well, it's not quite the thing, you know, but you see the connection between beauty and truth, though.

[17:55] Those words, you see, in the scientist, right? They reject some theory because it's just ugly. you know, It's not beautiful. So, if beauty is appropriated to the Son, are you talking about the Word or Christ? What? You're talking about divinity. No, no. see, you're talking about the appropriation, right? Huh? Certain things are appropriated to different members of the Trinity, right? So, power is appropriated to the Father, right?

[18:28] And they give the reasons for that. You know, truth is appropriated to the Son, right? You know, I was thinking myself, and then you know, love and the Holy Spirit, and so on.

[18:42] I was thinking, you know, of how the 16th chapter of Matthew, right? Huh? He had the profession of faith of Peter, right? He says, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Well, then in the Gospel of John, you have Christ saying, "I am the way." The Greek word is hodos. I am the road, the truth, and the life, right? Huh? Now I was comparing those two things, right?

[19:09] Peter's profession of faith, upon which the whole church is built, right? That's why Christ adds, "And thou art Peter, and upon this rock of the church." And Paul the sixth was noting that in one of his sermons. Now you know the whole church is built on the faith of Peter, right?

[19:28] Well, when Christ says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," the human is put before the divine, there, right now, because as man he's the what road? As God, he's truth itself and what life, right?

[19:48] But notice this difference, huh? As man, he's Christ, that is his anointed one, right? But then when he goes on to get the Son of the living God, that's referring to his divinity, right? But notice the difference, huh? In the profession of faith, ah, you give what is proper to him. He's the Son of Living God.

[20:18] Ah, when you say that I am truth and life, what is that? Appropriation. That's appropriation, right? So our Lord uses appropriation there. Why Peter speaks properly, not by appropriation.

[20:37] But then you have to realize, well, why is truth appropriated to the Son, right? It's because he proceeds as what the word as the Word, right? And it's kind of interesting, huh? That Paul, I mean not Paul, John, you emphasize or brings out you know more than anybody else that he's the Word of God, right? He points out the Word of God is also the Son of God, right?

[21:01] But I don't know if, if in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you speak much of him as being the Word of God, right? But so they call him the Son of God, right? Hence, more as the Word of God that you see the reason to appropriate truth to him, right? You see it more clearly than as being the Son of God, right?

[21:23] Kind of interesting, right? But in in both you have the human put before the divine, right? Although you get to theology, then you reverse the order, right? And you take up the divinity before, right? Of course, you have that in Saint John, because John first talks about the Word by itself, right? Then later on you hear about the Word was made flesh. So then you get down to the human there, right?

[21:51] Because flesh there is. synecdoche Synecdoche, yeah, for a man, right? So in in the order of of defining, ah, Son of God or the Word of God is before the incarnation. But for us historically, our senses, the human nature is more manifest, right?

[22:19] Interesting. I was reading in John there, one one of the church fathers, right? The beginning of John there, where where do you dwell, right? And Christ says, "Come and see." And when the church father says, "Well," he's inviting us to both the active life and the contemplative life. He says, when he says "come," he's inviting you to the active life. And he says and see, it's kind of beautiful, right?

[22:50] You remember that Psalm was talking about. You know, sing joyfully to the Lord all your land. Serve the Lord with gladness. Well, that's the active life, right? Then later on it says what? It says, you know, rejoice again, and then says, know that the Lord is God; He made us as we are. That's my invitation to do the same work I did till us. But that's the contemplative life, right?

[23:11] You have exactly the same order as in the words "come and see," right? As you have in that Psalm, huh? it's kind of beautiful. That's kind of structured. I've been saying that about the Psalm, you know, the order there was kind of interesting. And then it goes right out and it's the same one way of understanding the words "come and see," right? To try to see a lot of those words, huh?

[23:32] Come and see. So you got to come to God by good deeds and good action, obeying His commandments and so on, and then you can. Yeah, contemplative.

[23:54] Aristotle sees that too, right? The moral virtues are more known to us, right? You got to be disposed by them before you can. Yeah, I mean, you know, if a person is disordered, morally, it's kind of hard to make him a good student. Contemplative, huh? Moderation is the greatest virtue. Yeah. Air claims. In order to wisdom. right? Yeah. yeah. Take a little break here. Sure. Whether some pleasure is what unnatural.

[24:35] To the seventh one proceeds thus. Now, it seems that no pleasure is unnatural, right? For pleasure is what in the affections of the soul proportional to rest in what bodies, right? Okay. That's why we say that something beautiful is restful, right?

[25:05] But the desire of the natural body does not rest except in its connatural place, right? Good old physics, right? Therefore, neither does the rest of the animal desiring power, which is pleasure, cannot be except in something that is connatural to the thing.

[25:30] Therefore, there is no pleasure that is what not natural, right? You notice how they're jumping up and down when they're doing this crazy music, right? They're jumping up and down all the time. That's all they do is jump around the stage, right? You know, there's no rest there really, huh? Well, I saw Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones play when he was probably in his fifties and sixties, and it was amazing.

[25:53] The guy was a cardiovascular genius, you could say, just because he was bouncing around the stage for two hours. He's got a real solid ticker. I always go back to this time when I when I heard Walter Gieseking you know, in concert, huh? And came to, you know, Walter Gieseking, he's a great pianist, right?

[26:12] I don't, I mean not. And when he came to the artist series there at the University of Minnesota, Minnesota there, and I'd never seen an audience be so respectful. You could hear the pin drop when he played the piano, right? And he he played, you know, great repertoire. He started with Mozart, you know, and the

[26:36] when he when he finished the concert, of course, there's great clapping. So he played an encore, right? And people clapped and played a second encore. And the people kept on, you know, plodding even more, you know. So he went to about 12 encores. Wow. We got to stop the thing somehow. So finally, he got down, to Claire de Goon, you know, like good night, you know. He had to do something to stop it, you know, because they always clap longer and in more enthusiasm every time, you know.

[27:04] But the thing, how respectful there, right? You know, so you could hear the pin drop. I just think this guy playing, you know. I guess he had to play one time for Hitler, you know. And so American government thought he'd played for Hitler, you know, so he wouldn't have been in the United States for a while, you know. So he's doing like any choice about. Have you performed in Brazil one time?

[27:24] That's like telling Jesse Owens. Yeah. Banning him from coming back. Yeah. Yeah. First, I said you wouldn't meet with Jesse in the matter, right? Oh, I meant you wouldn't. Yeah. The

[27:40] German nation have lost it. He wasn't. He wasn't an area, besides. Yeah. So, just as the body doesn't rest except in its natural place, right? So, he saying then the what the appetite will not rest except in something natural, right? So, every pleasure is natural. That's a good argument, huh? Yeah. Damn good argument.

[28:07] Moreover, that which is against nature is violent, huh? Mm-hmm. And everything violent is what saddening, huh? This is said in the fifth book of wisdom. Therefore, nothing that is against nature can be what delightful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No delight. I've been saying, you know, homosexual marriage is a square circle.

[28:37] Democratic parties can't be very square circles. Yeah. There ain't no such thing. Moreover, to be constituted in one's proper nature, when it is sense, causes what is delight. Yeah, this is clear from the definition of the philosopher above. But to be constituted in nature is to each thing what natural, right? Because the natural motion is that which is to a natural term. Therefore, every pleasure is natural.

[29:09] I'm convinced. Not to read further. But against this is what the philosopher says in the seventh book of ethics, where he discusses pleasure and continence and so on. That some pleasures are sick, egritudinous huh? Sickly and against nature, huh? Very insensitive. No, it's very sensitive. Very, very sensitive. I answer: It should be said that the word "natural" means, huh, what is according to nature, right? As is said in the second book of the physics, huh?

[29:52] Physis is Greek word for nature, right? Mm-hmm. But nature in man can be taken in two ways, huh? In one way, in so far as the understanding and reason is most of all the nature of man, right? Because by this man is constituted in his what species, huh? So Aristotle says in the ethics that reason, more than anything else, is man.

[30:23] And according to this, then the natural pleasures of man can be called those which are befitting man according to reason. Just as to delight in the contemplation of truth. And in the acts of what virtues, is natural to man.

[30:45] She is fair, and fairer than that fair of wondrous virtue. In another way, one can take nature in man, according as it is divided against reason.

[31:02] And thus, what is common to man and other things, especially what does not what obey reason, right? And according to this, those things which pertain to the conservation of the body, either according to the individual, as food, drink, lectus that's the bed, I guess—and things of this sort, or according to what the species, as the use of reproductive powers, right? Are said to be naturally what pleasant to man.

[31:47] Now, according to both of these pleasures, there is possible for it to be what unnatural, simpliciter loquendo. This is the old kind of distinction there. But connatural, secundum quid, in some qualified sense, right?

[32:09] For it happens in some individual individual to be corrupted something of the what natural principles of the what species. And thus, that which is against the nature of the species, per accidens, right, comes to be natural to what this individual. Just as to this water, which by nature is cold, right? Huh? It becomes what heated, natural that it also heats things, huh?

[32:45] So if you're in the shower there, the hot water naturally is going to warm you, right? Huh? Is it natural the water to warm you or to cool you? We'll go to the ocean. You'll see what what natural water is. Especially up north in New New Hampshire, right? Yeah, yeah. Take take a half the time you're there to get the nerve to go into that water, and then once you come out again, you say we got to go go go through that again.

[33:09] Yeah. So I go down to to Newport. What is better, more more civilized water? Don't go to the Gulf of Mexico. It's just hot. Yeah. It's like getting the bath water. in the middle of the year Yeah, it's 88 degrees. You walk into it. Oh, very. It's not. There's no really fresh. It's just it's like it's walking into a tub. Yeah. Yeah. All.

[33:38] Thus, therefore, it happens that that which is against the nature of man, either as regards his reason or as regards the what preservation of his body, becomes what Connatural to this man, right? Some vicious mole of nature, as Shakespeare talks about it, right? On account of some corruption of the nature existing in him,

[34:02] which corruption can be either on the side of the body, either through what sickness, huh? Just as to those with the fever, sweet things may seem bitter, right, and the reverse, huh? Or on account of some bad what complexion, Complexion. just as some people delight in eating of earth or carbon, right? Or things of this sort, huh? Or even also on the side of the soul, just as an account of what custom, right, huh?

[34:38] So like a second nature, right, huh? Some delight in eating men, huh? Yeah. Okay. Or in uh, coition with beasts or with men—that's homosexual, right? Right. Or others of this sort, which are not according to what human nature, right, huh? This this question should be sent to the president. Yeah, I think so. And the Democratic Party chairman. We'll say it's above his pay grade intellectually. at least.

[35:09] Yeah. yeah. I remember a student trying to do a senior paper. You know, used to have a senior paper, and was trying to claim that the the end for every man was the fullest development of his individual things, right? Well, if you make that the key, well, then what's individual, right? Might not be what natural. Yeah, and that should be the best thing for you, right, huh?

[35:42] So if you're naturally a coward, right, now to really develop that inclination, to be kind of a coward, right, huh? But these men, you know, you read about these saints. even Saint Francis de Sales, right, supposed to have been by nature kind of irascible or something, and he really, you know, became one of the mildest men and the most well tempered man, right? But he's kind of what going against his what individual nature, you know, as opposed to common nature, right?

[36:14] So we've got to follow what is the common nature rather than the what Individual. Individual, right? Well, God really put him to the test. He sent him up to Geneva, where there were thousands Oh, yeah. thousands and thousands of Protestants. who were Calvinists. contested them constantly. Tested, tested them as, as, uh, patients. That's what I remember. Stephen Parker made an interesting comment once. His insight about

[36:41] the the expression, without necessarily throwing it out altogether, but the expression I always hear about how precious the individual is, for his being unique and unrepeatable, and so forth. There's some truth to that, I wouldn't deny. But what makes a man precious maybe isn't what's unique to him, but what's common to him and all men. That's what I think, because that's the image of God. And I thought that was an interesting insight because you can lose.

[37:04] I think you lose your your perspective by emphasizing what's unique and unrepeatable. That's so that that gives rise to that comment that sounds cynical, but I don't think it is. Whereas you say to someone, "You are unique and unrepeatable, just like everybody else. " Because that's that's what's special about us is that we're made for each other. Yeah. Yeah. So you are no more unique or unrepeatable.

[37:29] Well, he is, but just like everybody else. This is a more usual sense in which you understand not natural, right? It's kind of funny that we use the word natural. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Reason is distinguished from nature, you know. Yeah, that's like praeter naturam. Yeah, but you got to be kind of careful about that. The way of speaking, what you what you mean by it. Yeah. Whether pleasure can be contrary to pleasure. Pleasure, huh?

[37:57] To the eighth, one goes forward. Thus, it seems that pleasure is not contrary to pleasure, huh? For the passions of the soul receive their species and their contrariety according to their objects, but the object of pleasure is the good. Since, therefore, the good is not contrary to the good, but rather the good is what contrary to the bad, and the bad to the bad. Okay, you're seeing the two vices, right?

[38:29] The two extremes. Um, as is said in the book and the categories, it seems that pleasure is not contrary to what pleasure, huh? Moreover, one thing is contrary to one thing, as is proved in the twelfth book of metaphysics. So they talk about contraries or the opposites that are what furthest apart in the same genus. Well, they compare that to a line. Can be many points the same distance from each other on a line, but only two points that are what the furthest apart, right?

[39:07] Okay. So when I divide Shakespeare's plays, you take tragedy and comedy, which are the contraries for this to part, and there's two kinds of plays in between, right? One closer to comedy and one closer to what tragedy, right? The two kinds of romances that they have, right? The Greek romance and the medieval romance, the love and friendship plays. Six of those and six of the what mercy and forgiveness plays, right?

[39:36] Mercy and forgiveness romances. Okay, but just two contraries, right? Um. So delight is contrary, joy or pleasure is contrary to sadness, right, or pain. Okay.

[40:04] Moreover, if pleasure is contrary to pleasure, this does not accept an account of the contrariety of those things which someone delights. But this difference is what material, and the contrariety is a difference according to form, as is said in the tenth book of metaphysics. Therefore, contrariety is not. There's no contrariety of pleasure to pleasure. But against this is that those things which impede each other, existing in the same genus, according to philosopher, are contrary.

[40:39] But some pleasures impede one another, right? Therefore, some pleasures are what contrary, right? So should I have a music of Mozart on doing philosophy or theology? I've heard the Lebanese come here and they talk about they comment on how the monks read while they're eating. How can you do that? If I'm eating, I'm eating. If I'm reading, I'm reading. I can't do them both. I can't enjoy them both.

[41:12] I think the answer should be said that pleasure in the affections of the soul, as has been said, is proportional to rest in natural what bodies.

[41:26] But two rests are said to be contrary, which are in contrary terms, just as at rest in what is above to being at rest in what is below, as is said in the fifth book of physics. Whence it happens that in the affections of the soul two pleasures can be what contrary.

[41:50] Now he says to the first, it should be said that that word of the philosopher should be understood according to how good and bad are taken in the virtues and vices, right? For they are found two contrary vices, right? But not, as they are found, the virtue contrary to virtue. So the first virtue we talked about in ethics is what courage, right? And there's what foolhardiness on the one hand, just closer to courage, and then cowardice, right?

[42:24] Okay, so you get two contrary vices, right? You also speak of the contrariety of virtue and vice. To the man in the middle gets hit from both sides, right?

[42:38] See, we Shakespeare's Coriolanus, he talks about that. Coriolanus is really very courageous, right? But to other people he seems almost foolhardy, right? Okay. But in other things, nothing prevents two goods to be what contrary to each other, just as hot and cold, right? Of which the one is good for fire, the other for water, right? And in this way, pleasure can be contrary to pleasure. But this in the good of virtue is not able to be, because the good of virtue is not taken except by what agreement to something one, two with what reason, huh?

[43:28] So you put ice cream on your steak? Or you have a super duper chocolate cake with a good glass of Cabernet Sauvignon? But they have this thing, you know, this white tasting with chocolate. They have these white tasting, but that's a more disputed question. But I think you know that. If I put ice cream on my steak, I would get neither the pleasure of eating ice cream nor the pleasure of eating steak.

[44:01] I mean, the two places would incompatible, right? Yeah. Well, obviously they get problems. Is there certain types of wine which go very good? For example, with strawberries. Maybe there's a special kind of ice cream that would happen to go just perfect. If it's invented, make it well. Yeah. You go to Thai restaurants and they have this, you know, green tea ice cream, you know, and I can never convince Rosie to take that.

[44:35] Not too bad though. I mean, my favorite ice cream, but you know. Okay. To second should be said that pleasure has itself in the affections of the soul, just as natural rest in bodies. And there is, it is both in what it is in something suitable and is a work of natural, right? Huh. But sadness has itself like a what violent rest, huh? For the sad thing is repugnant to the animal what appetite, just as place of what violent one, like that of a stone up in the sky, right?

[45:27] To the natural appetite of the stone, which wants to go down, right? Um, for to the natural rest of a body is opposed, right?

[45:40] The violent rest to the same body, huh? So on top of the pillar, right, where the stone can't go down. It's a violent rest.

[45:55] Whence is possible that pleasure is opposed both to what some pleasure and to rest, right? And to sadness, right? Okay. To the third, it should be said that those things in which we delight, since they are the objects of pleasure, not only make a material difference but also a formal. If there is a diverse reason for their being delightful, but a diverse ratio of the objects signifies

[46:32] diversifies the species of the actor passion, right? That reminds me of what Aristotle is saying in the book on the Poetic Art, where he says that the

[46:42] you shouldn't expect in a tragedy a happy ending. Because then you're seeking the pleasure that's proper to comedy, right? In tragedy, and tragedy has its own pleasure, but it's a different one, right? Huh. So, kind of the education you might say in fiction there is to learn to seek the pleasure that is appropriate to each kind of fiction, and it's not going to be the same, you know, in reading a Sherlock Holmes story and reading a Shakespeare what tragedy, right?

[47:21] And my friend Jim Fransak was teaching high school, you know, and he's trying to get the kids to appreciate Macbeth, right? And finding frustration, he told them that it was a mystery story.

[47:36] Well, in a sense, he's giving up the attempt to teach Macbeth properly, right? Which apparently is impossible with this group of students. But you see, the pleasure of a mystery story and the pleasure of what Macbeth is not the same kind. And if you seek the pleasure of a mystery story in Macbeth, you're going to Miss out on the pleasure that you can get from Macbeth, right?

[48:00] And you could say that. I always tell the story of my home newspaper there, Saint Paul Pioneer Dispatch. There used to have an advice column, right, for high school kids, like they have for you know adults, you know. And Mr. Beakle is kind of funny to to read. And the the girl was writing in and saying that her boyfriend wanted her to to wear this candy lipstick.

[48:35] And she wanted to wear adult lipstick, right? Huh. And that was her problem, right? I'll handle this. Well, the answer is very short. Buy him a lollipop. I think it's kind of a funny example because he's seeking in a kiss, right, the pleasure of a lollipop, right.

[49:04] So it's a good example, you know, a person seeking the wrong pleasure appropriate to something else, right? In the same way, you know, the example they're putting the ice cream on the steak, right? huh. You know, you're not seeking the pleasure proper to steak, right? Huh. You're taking away that, right? Huh. See. And

[49:29] I used to sometimes, you know, to disarm people, but you know, apart from the obvious moral defect of pornography, right? Huh. You know, um, which you may seem, you know, to be kind of puritanical, you know, to object to it because it has a bad moral effect upon people, you know. But I said you're seeking the pleasure that's not proper to fiction when you seek pornography, right?

[49:56] You're seeking the pleasure that's proper to bedroom or something, right? But it's not the pleasures proper to fiction, right? Huh. Each, you know. So there's a great deal in life there of realizing that different kinds of what fiction, right, different kinds of music, right, huh, have their own what pleasure, right, huh? But it all starts with the observation of Aristotle in the in the Poetics there, right, that you ought not to seek in in tragedy this happy ending, huh?

[50:27] And in the 18th century, you know, they used to find compare it to to tragic, and so Cordelia doesn't really die, and she ends up, you know, you know, restoring her throne or something, you know, and so they used to there there are these kind of desecrations of Shakespeare, you know. And they talk about when people finally realize it's not going to be the thing to do, you know.

[50:55] And finally, Shakespeare's restored by somebody, you know. You know the way it should be played, you know, King Lear, you know, the proper tragic ending, right? But but you are seeking a pleasure of comedy or something, right? A happy ending is not really the pleasure of tragedy, right? Pleasure of tragedy comes from catharsis of pity and fear, right?

[51:19] Antigone, right uh Well it's it's it's it's Creon, right? who's who's a tragic character, right now? He loses everything, right now. How could everything go so wrong, right? He's only, you know, insisting that this traitor to his own country should not be buried, you know. Antigone's insisting upon burying him, so she's put under the ground there in the tomb, right? He says, "What, you know? You are putting the living down under the ground and keeping the dead up above the ground.

[51:57] What's wrong with you, you know? " And then his son kills himself. Oh, it's terrible! It's too tragic. I think we have played Antigone in that play I think we have played Antigone in that play. in finding the proper pleasure in the proper mode of drama, if it's a tragedy, a comedy, or or in fiction, yeah, you contrast that with curriculums of English departments today. I looked at my alma mater's English curriculum recently, and nothing was really about literature as I have been taught about it.

[52:29] Yeah. It was all about ethnicity, gender, power. So yeah, it's a political pleasure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was very strange. If you if you take a man to kind of analogous things like C. S. Lewis, right now, you have, for example, I don't know if you've ever seen his little work there called Preface to Paradise Lost, right? He's in a sense telling you how to read this thing, right, so that you will enjoy reading it, right?

[52:56] Huh? Which is what Aristotle is talking about, you know. And in the the famous work, one of his greatest works, the Allegory of Love, right now, he's introducing you to a kind of fiction, he says, right, and that had a longer life than our modern novel, right. And it was enjoyed for centuries by people, right? Huh. But something, a form of fiction that's hard for us to what appreciate now, right?

[53:22] Huh. So he's writing the book, you know, so we can you know learn how to approach these things, right? But essentially, learning how to what? Enjoy actual drama. Yeah, yeah. And you know, I think you know, if you you know, take the pleasure of drinking some root beer, you know, you know. Now, if you try to drink wine, way you are not going to enjoy it, right?

[53:48] You see, so when you start to drink wine, you have to drink it differently than you drink soda pop. And if you drink it the way you drink soda pop, you're not going to get the pleasure of the wine, right? You've got to take just the right amount in your mouth, and you've got to relive it,

[54:06] you know, and sniff it, you know. I used to say you've got to sniff it three times before you sip, you know. But that's the way to enjoy a glass of wine, right? See? And but it's not the way to enjoy what you know, Coke or something like that, right? You know. But the same principle Aristotle's talking about, right?

[54:33] And so, but I mentioned my friend there. I mean, just give up trying to get them to appreciate Macbeth as the way you should appreciate a tragedy, huh?

[54:48] Not to be morose to appreciate a tragedy. The Greeks used to have, I guess, used to play what two tragedies and then you have a comedy or something, you know? That's the way they did it, you know.

[55:01] I remember this Christian brothers was playing us in some course there. We had to read all these Hardy novels, you know, and they're all kind of depressing, you know. So we read about ten of these novels, and this is too much, you know. I mean, but you might get tired of eating the same food every every meal, too, you know. And of

[55:25] course, we seen some place. They said that they they asked the great chefs, you know, what did they want for their last meal, right? The roast chicken. That's right. That's a steak, you know. Roast chicken, yeah, yeah. I suppose there's a way to do. I guess to keep it moist and so on, you know. I don't know. So we've got to stop now. But now Thomas is going to look before and after, right?

[55:53] At the cause of pleasure. He's going to read articles, right? The last one is whether wonder is a cause of pleasure, huh? That's for me, philosophers, right?

[56:06] And then he's going to have another one on the effects of pleasure, right? Huh? Very interesting, this Thomas guy, huh? He uses his reason, right? He looks before and after Shakespeare says so.

[56:26] Whether pleasure impedes use of reason, look at that. Whether pleasure perfects operation, whether pleasure causes thirst of itself or desire, whether it belongs to pleasure to dilate the soul.