Prima Secundae
87. Natural Beginnings; How Pleasure Perfects Activity (I-II q.33 a.4) and the Case That All Pleasure Is Bad (q.34 a.1)
Class of 2012-10-25
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/087-natural-beginnings-how-pleasure-perfects-activity-i-ii-q/

[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. Father, enlightenment, Guardian Angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, or to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Pray for us. Help us to understand what you have written. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:37] I was talking to the students last night again about this phrase of Aristotle, which you find explicitly in the beginning of the book on Sophistical Refutations, that we want to start from the natural beginning. And I pointed out the similar text at the beginning of the book on the Poetic Art, right, where Aristotle again speaks of the natural beginning, right. And so, if you are talking, say, about a play or a painting, right, or a statue, or even music, what's the natural starting point to talk about such things?

[1:19] A work of art No. No. This is what I thought. What's the natural starting point if you want to talk about a play and plays and paintings and statues and even music? It's a natural starting point. A likeness. Yeah, it's a likeness, right? Whereas Aristotle said imitation, but you've got to carefully word imitation has been degraded because of our commercial use of the word. But it's a likeness, right?

[1:53] And then he says that all these are likenesses, but they differ in in what they imitate, or what they imitate, or how they imitate, and then he starts to exemplify those things. He's got the natural starting point, you know, to go into these things. And

[2:12] it's interesting how he gives in that order, right? In what they imitate before what they imitate. Now you can see where that would go before how they imitate, but why in what they imitate before how they imitate before what they imitate? That's perceived first, right? Well, you see, when you when he defines tragedy, he's going to define it as imitation of an action that is serious, etc., etc.

[2:40] He's going to define it first by what it imitates, rather than by that in which it imitates, right? In the definition, right? So he gives the difference, you might say, from the object imitation, right, before that in which it imitates, huh? But when he first distinguishes the imitative arts. He does by that image imitate before what imitate?

[3:12] Matter or form or something? Well, if you stop and say, you know, you say Shakespeare's written tragedies and comedies, right? But they're both made in words, right? Mozart, you know, the heavenly twins there, five fifteen, five sixteen. One is in G minor, one is in C major, right? One is the minor key, which is sad, right? And the other is in the major key, which is joyful, and but it's the same art, right?

[3:40] Or a painter might do a painting of you know some of the joyful expression, something else of the sad thing after the thing. So the unity is more in art, as far as the art is concerned, in what imitates. So, for example, a carpenter. We divide the arts. Do you divide them by, you know, chairs and tables? No, you divide them. Those who make in wood and those who make in metal and those who make in plastic, right?

[4:13] And in and then you can subdivide, say, in wood you can make a chair or a table or a bed, right? In metal you can do the same thing. You can make a desk, you know. But it's first a certain matter you know how to work with. And then so that's really more fundamental to establish in the arts, right? Well, you're defining an imitation made by one of these guys, right?

[4:37] What's closest to being imitation is what's an imitation of? I like this. I like this. I like this of something. It's like this of something in something. But the first thing is that the beautiful the order Aristotle has there, right? So it's important to see the natural what beginning, right? So I was giving them the text from the master there of Aristotle, who was Plato, right? He spent 20 years in school Plato, and in the Timaeus there, right at 29b, Plato says this is the megiston thing of all, right?

[5:09] To begin archen isos katafusin archein ten koinen nature beginning right the natural beginning. That's that's the greatest thing of all. He says to do that, right? So I said this to them last night. I said, now what would be the natural beginning in ethics?

[5:36] It could be more than one thing, you know, because you know in in the book of refutations there, Albert the Great in the commentary is explaining how Aristotle has got the natural beginning, right? But he does a couple of things that Aristotle does there. Okay, he begins with you know, well, these are arguments that actually deceive people. You know, the ad hoc that's natural beginning. They exist, right?

[5:59] Just like in theology the natural beginning is does God exist, right? You know. And so Aristotle begins there, right? And then he comes to the the goal of the Sophist, right? You know, that's the natural beginning. See what he's he's aiming at, right? Before he talks about how he tries to achieve his his aim or goal, right? So Aristotle knows how to begin, right? What's the natural beginning of ethics, huh?

[6:24] And then the question is how it is Well, even before that, see, because that's that's something has to investigate through the whole of what of Book One, right? You know. That would do that for an end. Yeah. Yeah. What is man to act? Yeah. But the way Aristotle begins the Nicomachean Ethics is by a short induction to bring out that the good is what all want. So that's kind of the fundamental question, right?

[6:53] What is the good? What is good, right? And if you want to introduce people properly to that, you do it in the form of a Socratic dialogue, right? Where Socrates asks a boy, "What is good? " And like other characters in the dialogues, the boy gives examples of things that are considered good. But when you ask what is all having common, well, all you can think of is that these are all things he wants, right?

[7:19] He wants, you know, a baseball game. He wants candy. He wants, you know, coke and so on. And that's one natural beginning, right? The good is what all want. And then you can add the natural what question: Is it good because we want it, or do you want it because it is good, right? And the whole dialectic that that proceeds naturally from that. And I was struck by I think it was in in the De Vera Religione one of Augustine's works there, you know, where he begins, you know, quoting the definition of beauty that's like that definition of the good.

[7:55] The beautiful is what pleases when seen, and then right away, like the good Platonist that he is, he says, "Well, now is it beautiful because it pleases us, right, our senses, or does it please our senses because it is beautiful? " He has I have no doubt it's the second thing he says, you know, but you know that's kind of the key thing, you know, beauty is not in the eye of the beholder; it's in the thing, right?

[8:19] And Augustine sees that, right? But you start off with that beginning that the beautiful is what pleases when what seeing, right? And and there you see the connection between maybe the good and the end too, huh? That that's part of the natural beginning, huh? But the other part of the natural beginning is the one that that is not as explicit as it could be in Aristotle, but it's in Plato explicitly, right?

[8:46] And that is what is a thing's own act. And Plato defines a thing's own act as what that thing alone can do, right? Huh?

[9:04] So seeing, say, is the eye's own act, because the eye alone can see, or hearing is the ear's own act, or at least what it does better than other things. So walking is the feet's own act; it's not the hands' own act. At least some guys can get up and walk on their hands, but not so well as someone can walk on the feet. as before, it's already true for us, right?

[9:31] And so, and kids write with a knife, you know, but it's not as good as a pen for writing, you know. Writing is a pen's own act, and so. Well, that's a key thing because, as Aristotle, I mean, as Shakespeare says, that part of philosophy I treat, you know, I consider that treats of happiness by virtue especially to be achieved. Well, in order to understand happiness or the end of man. You have to know that a thing's own act is its end or what purpose, and more precisely, the thing's own act done well is its end, right?

[10:10] So the nice own end is to its end is to cut or to cut well, right? And the pen is to write or to write well. And so you have to figure out then what man's own act is, which is not too hard to do, if the act involves reason in some way and so on. And then when you talk about virtue and vice for that matter, you have to understand what thing's own act is, because virtue is the quality that makes a thing's own act what good, right?

[10:45] So sharpness is the nice own virtue, right? And dullness is a nice what vice, vice, you see. So it's kind of the natural beginnings, right? So

[10:59] that's kind of a marvelous thing that Plato and Aristotle both see very clearly, huh? You know, Albert sees that very well too, following these masters, Thomas.

[11:18] So now we're up to Article Four here on whether pleasure perfects what operation? Question thirty-three, Article what four? To the fourth, one proceeds thus: It seems that pleasure does not what perfect operation, for every human operation or doing depends upon the use of reason. But pleasure impedes the use of reason, as has been said in the previous article. Therefore, pleasure does not perfect, but weakens or debilitates human doing, huh?

[11:58] Human operation. Because that's not too hard to solve right now. Just talking about the pleasure in the body right now, which in number of ways, as we saw in the previous article, three ways impedes use of reason. The second objection is very interesting. Moreover, nothing is perfective of itself or of its cause, but pleasure is a what an operation or doing? It's not strictly speaking a what motion, right?

[12:33] Thomas used the word operatio for what perfect act, like seeing and pleasure and so on. And I talked about that simple way that Aristotle distinguishes the two. That in the activity called motion, it's always by its very nature incomplete. So when you're walking home, you haven't really walked home yet. And once you have walked home, you're not walking home. So whenever walking home exists, it's incomplete, right?

[13:05] While in the case of seeing, right, when I'm seeing you, I've already seen you. Can I see you without having seen you? Or as I said to my girl students, you know how, you know, love, right? You know, you know, when I love you, have I loved you yet? Oh yes, of course. But that's the idea of a perfect thing. But when Thomas turns use the word, you know, I think operatio usually for that, for one of a better name, right?

[13:40] And for a better name in English, I sometimes say doing, right? But so, delectatio is an operatio, a doing, which is necessary that be understood either what, either essentially or causality. Therefore, pleasure does not perfect what operation, be perfecting itself, right?

[14:03] Thomas has a nice apply to that. Moreover, if pleasure perfects operation, either it perfects it as an end, or as a form, or as a what, agent.

[14:20] Unless he takes three of the four causes, huh? And the three kinds of cause that are based upon actuality, as distinguished from matter, which is based upon its passibility.

[14:35] Now he's going to proceed by either or syllogism, right? But not as an end, because operations are not sought on account of what, pleasure, but more the reverse, huh? So does the teacher teach the students who enjoy the teaching? Or does he want them to enjoy the teaching so they will what, learn it better, right? So they will.

[15:09] Nor again per modum efficientis, an efficient cause, maker cause, because operation is more the what, efficient cause of the what, pleasure, right? Than the pleasure the efficient cause of that.

[15:29] So hearing, I got to hear Mozart's music before it's going to please me, huh? But I'm pleased as a result of hearing his music. Nor again as a form, for pleasure does not perfect what operation as a certain what, habit, huh? According to the Philosopher in the tenth book of the ethics, therefore pleasure does not what, perfect operation.

[15:59] But against this is what is said there, reading in the tenth book of the Ethics, that pleasure perfects what? Operation. Pretty straightforward reply. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[16:21] Now what does Thomas say? I answer it should be said that pleasure, in two ways, perfects operation. In one way, by way of a what? End.

[16:39] Not according as an end is said to be that on account of which something is, but according as every good that is coming upon something and completing it in some way can be said to be an end, right? And according to this, Aristotle says in the tenth book of the Ethics that pleasure perfects operation as something as an end coming upon it, right, or over it.

[17:19] In so far as above this good, which is the operation itself, there comes in addition, you might say, right, another good which is pleasure, which implies the coming to rest of the appetite in the good what presupposed. So you arrest that, right? So Augustine says that what happiness is gaudium de veritate, but it's kind of what not saying what what it is essentially. It's essentially the vision, right?

[17:51] He says the vision is the whole reward, right? But coming upon this reward, the vision itself is the gaudium de veritate, right? Which is kind of like a what a end supervenience. He says coming upon, right? What what I call frosting on the cake. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. What's the metaphor he uses in the tenth book of the Ethics? Well, he says it it perfects it the way beauty perfects youth, right?

[18:19] Yeah. Because what he's playing out there is that that that's not what youth is essentially. That beauty, right? But something that befits it, right? And perfects it in a certain way. This is the way I I refer to at least I can speak for myself. Others also that the vocation to this monastery. I didn't come here because it was Maronite, but the Maronite liturgy, it's like frosting on the cake.

[18:43] It's beautiful. I didn't come here to become a Maronite, but that's something that adds additional beauty. I like Brother Patrick who came here because he thought it was Armenian. Chrysolym. That's all. Hey, how is Chrysolym? Secondly, says in a second way, on the side of the agent cause, right? Strange to say this, not to be sure directly,

[19:18] because as the philosopher says in the tenth book of the ethics, that pleasure perfects operation, not as the doctor does the what health, health, but as what health, health itself. Health. But indirectly, in so far as the agent who delights in his what action, right, more strongly or more vehemently pays attention to it, right, and more diligently operates in or does it, right.

[19:54] And according to this, it is said in the tenth book of the ethics that pleasures what. Augment, you might say, their own what operations—the pleasure that's appropriate to that operation, right? And what? Impede other things, other. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Aristotle has a beautiful principle there in the book on the poetic art when he's talking about tragedy, and he's complaining about some people want the tragedy to have a happy ending, right?

[20:27] And of course, in the 18th century, there in England, there, you know, they produced a vision there, a version, I should say, of King Lear, which ends happily, right? You know, and and the wedding too, and something, you know, and and that was on the stage for a while, you know, and then finally, you know, Garrick or somebody, you know, had enough sense to go back to the Shakespeare the way he wrote it, right?

[20:51] But Shakespeare says, and it's Shakespeare, Aristotle says, one shouldn't seek every pleasure from tragedy, but the pleasure that is appropriate to tragedy, right? And that comes from the catharsis of pity and fear and so on. And so, if you want to have a happy ending, you're seeking the pleasure that's appropriate to comedy, right? And regardless of which pleasure is is greater or which pleasure is is more subtle or something like that, it's not the same pleasure to be sought in these.

[21:29] And you know, it's a good point, you know, that C. S. Lewis makes in the preface to Paradise Lost, right? How you should try to read Paradise Lost to enjoy it, right? And the same thing that Joseph Andrews there, the Fielding, you know, the novelist, right, says he's writing a a form of fiction that maybe is unfamiliar to the reader, and they should realize the kind of form it is because he may be seeking a pleasure other than one intended by the author, right?

[22:00] And so, I always and I always quote the example of my friend Jim there teaching English in high school there in Minneapolis, there, frustrated trying to get the kids to to enjoy Macbeth, right? And finally telling him that well, it's a mystery story, something like that, you know, he's kind of giving up the attempt, you know, you know, it's it's a kind of pleasure they can't appreciate, right?

[22:23] Okay. And a little bit like in drinking wine, I think that person first drinks wine, they're going to find a dry wine maybe unattractive or even you know they call it bitter. Oh, it's bitter! That drink is bitter. And they can't appreciate the pleasure that's appropriate to a dry wine, right? And so you give them a a white wine and a wine that's a little bit sweet, maybe you know.

[22:49] And you know this, I he always said there's always some sweet wine that's the big seller now, right? Not that that Zinfandel, rosé, you know, but but the sweet one, you know, and you can't hardly find a dry rosé anywhere in the world. It's hard to find one. And sickening wines, you know. And the

[23:11] I was at I was at a the pro life do there, you know, for the masses of life. Last Friday there, and someone went over and wanted Zinfandel, right? You know, somebody had a Zinfandel. And of course, he had this pink Zinfandel, and said, I don't think I want that. " You want a red, you know, you know, but didn't have any red Zinfandel. But people will like the white wine first.

[23:33] a deep foul make or something like this. So these are the things that these sweet wines. But after person has drunk wine for a while, then he starts to maybe you know seek a drier wine. He starts to enjoy the pleasure, right? And they get more pleasure. Anybody who's experienced the wine gets more pleasure usually from a red wine than from a white wine, huh? And but you have to be kind of what accustomed to it, right?

[23:57] Huh? I was talking to a young lady there in high school there, and talking about Shakespeare, you know, and I said, "What would you like his plays? " Well, she liked they have plays, but she liked tragedies, right? But I think the pleasure there is harder to what appreciate, right? But once you you get a taste for it, then you what you're hooked, you sort of say, and and you actually enjoy them more, right?

[24:24] Huh? You see, and so Shakespeare has about five comedies the way I classify them, ten tragedies, right? You know, um, I guess in the performances in Greece they had like two or three tragedies and they'd have comedy, you know.

[24:42] But we always, you know, exemplify the principle here in these simple things that someone, you know, he wants ice cream, you know, with his steak or something, you know, and say, well, he doesn't appreciate, you know, the pleasures appropriate to steak, right? Regardless of whether the pleasure of steak or ice cream is greater, I think that steak is greater myself. But even if the pleasure of ice cream were greater, you shouldn't put ice cream in your steak because you're going to you're going to lose the pleasure that's appropriate to steak, right?

[25:14] I always tell that little story from the newspaper. I remember we talked before. You know, used to have an advice column in the St. Paul paper for teenagers, right? Kind of like this advice column that you know the adults read and so called adults, but but the little girl is writing in saying, you know, that her problem was that her boyfriend wanted her to to wear this candy lipstick, right?

[25:39] But she wanted to wear, you know, adult lipstick, you know. What did I do? Well, the answer was brief. You don't buy him a lollipop. So he wanted to have

[25:51] this candy lipstick. He's seeking the pleasure of candy in a kiss, right? But pleasure is you know different pleasure, right? And I think you get the point, right? You know, so. You have to get the pleasure that is what appropriate to that act, right?

[26:15] I think the music of Mozart is much more enjoyable than this crazy stuff that isn't doing, you know. But people have to be educated, you know, to appreciate these things, huh? And at first, they won't what hear it or appreciate it, you know. You got to, you know, lead them in gradually with some, you know, more, you know, obvious music, right? But not so perverse, you know, and gradually them into the greater things,

[26:44] huh? Okay. So he says, "Direct actions out of gentleness; they increase proprious operations, right? The pleasure that's appropriate to that. Now, first objection: he says it's not too hard to answer. So the first effort should be said that not every pleasure impedes the act of reason.

[27:17] So enjoying, understanding something doesn't impede your understanding things, right? You try to understand them better, right? And your understanding is kind of perfected too, huh? By this added in, so to speak.

[27:35] But the pleasure which is bodily, which does not follow upon the act of reason, but is an act of the what concupiscible, which is increased through pleasure, right? But the pleasure which follows upon the act of reason fortifies the use of reason.

[27:57] That's the main point that Plato and Aristotle both make on that the multitude can't have no taste of the higher pleasures, right? And therefore, they what maybe tend to excess in the lower pleasures, right? And the reason for the

[28:16] fine arts have a role to play, right, in the education of ones pursuit of pleasure, you might say, right? And I just to you know give the little image there. You know, we have a nice room like this, you know, and we serve you a nice meal, right? And we see, you know, if you start to appreciate the nice food I'm giving you, right? And we have the wine that goes with the meal and so on.

[28:46] And I wait until you had many of these meals and seemed to appreciate them, the wine, right? And then one night, you know, after your meal, there'd be some music, right?

[29:01] And maybe there'll be a door at the end open up and another room there, right? And there's a string quartet or something. They're doing Mozart tonight, huh? And so you kind of you know tend to at this wonderful dinner you move into next room there and you hear the beautiful music right and then we wait you know months maybe whatever it is and then some night there's another door to the side of the music room and in there this beautiful editions of Homer and Shakespeare and so on right and then you see if you could appreciate those things right but we're graduating along right until finally you come to room that's got this guy here

[29:43] It would be a general shock in the beginning right But where's the beef? But the pleasures of the fine arts, you know, as we mentioned before, Ross we mentioned before, are too high for the beasts, right? And too low for the what? Angels, yeah. So, if my cat, I can share her appreciation of steak, and she seemed to like pork a lot, you know, pork chop.

[30:22] But I couldn't get her to to really like Mozart. try to pretend that she liked it, you know, but I think she was just sleeping, pretending to be contented, you know, with you know purring away at the Mozart playing. But I don't think that was the object of her purring. Sleeping that she enjoyed, especially after a nice meal. Yeah. Yeah.

[30:42] The second thing is interesting. The second should be said. That has been said in the second book of physics. It happens that two things can be to each other a what? Cause, right? Huh? This is one of the corollaries that Aristotle gives when he distinguishes the four kinds of causes, and he gives a number of corollaries. The first one says there can be many causes as such of the same thing, right?

[31:14] So, is wood the cause of this, or is the carpenter the cause of this, or is sitting the cause of this? Well, yes, all of them, but in different ways. And even the shape is a cause of it, right? But each of them is a cause in a different way. But they're all causes as such, not by accident, right? And then the second corollary is that two things can be causes of each other, but by what?

[31:38] Different kinds of cause, right? So he says one can be as an efficient cause, and the other as the what? Final cause of the other. And in this way, doing or operation causes pleasure as an efficient cause,

[32:00] but pleasure perfects operation by a manner of a what? Of an end, right? As has been said, right? But a supervenient end, right? It's interesting. And the third he says is sufficiently clear from the foresaid right? Huh? Now. I was comparing the treatise here on pleasure with the treatise on what love, because they both had a question about love itself or pleasure itself, right? And then a question on the causes of it, and then a question on the effects of it, right?

[32:41] But here you seem to have something in addition, right? It's interesting, huh? De bonitate et malitia delectationis Why didn't he have that on love?

[32:53] I used to say to students, which is better, knowledge or love? Well, of course the ladies club, right? I say, well, all knowledge is good.

[33:09] Aristotle himself, you know, the proemium to the three books on the soul says, "Behold, that all knowledge is good, but some knowledge is better than others, right? Because about a better thing, or because it's more certain, right? "

[33:28] But is all love good? So if I love to torture you, I love to rob the banks, I love to bully the kid in the classes, huh? Um so all love isn't good. So kind of forced admit that all knowledge is good, and some love is bad. Yeah. And so, what love is good in general? What's it's a reasonable love, right? If I love to eat too much, is that love good?

[34:11] So, but the reasonable is sharing for knowledge, right? So you say, to begin with, all knowledge is good, all love is not good, right? And then the love that is good has to partake of what reason of knowledge, yeah? So it's obviously knowledge is greater than love. They take up stones to cast them.

[34:39] It's amazing you survived so long. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot lucky man. You got to retire. One time, you know, they had this silly, silly thing in the psychology department, right? They were supposed to conduct a test, right? And everybody was supposed to jump up and run out of somebody's class, right? Stupid, stupid thing the psychology department does, right? So one day they jump up and run out of my class, right?

[35:07] I said, "Oh my gosh, now I've really done it. " They try to actually, what the reaction of the professor is going to be, you know, to this sudden exit from his class. I've seen psychological tests, you know.

[35:22] Who are they testing this too? Yeah, but yeah, it was quite nice. It was, I guess, I really, I really, we lost them now.

[35:34] Unfortunately, so the students don't react to it, This is part of a psychological test. Let's try to see what the reaction would be on the professor. Very well.

[35:44] That's when you go out and get ice cream. Yeah. Yeah. Take a day off. But I guess, guess Romney's getting much bigger crowds now, you know, than Obama, right? Oh no. Yeah. In two thousand eight, Obama had fifty thousand people. Now he gets five thousand, and Romney had ten thousand filling the stadium there, and the people trying to get in thousands out there. Wow. So I don't know.

[36:10] I hope he's gonna keep our prayers going. Yeah. Okay. Then we have to consider about the goodness and badness of what pleasure is, right? Why is this so important? Why does he have this. This guy's amazing. This guy. Yeah.

[36:34] And about this, four things are asked. First, whether every pleasure is bad. Plato sometimes seemed to be saying this. Yeah, or he must have been Irish who asked this question. Come back. Unless you enjoy it. Take pleasure.

[36:55] Second, given that not every pleasure is bad, right? Whether all pleasure is good Good, huh about the first thing in Shakespeare? There, now that you are virtuous, I think there'll be no more cakes and ale.

[37:17] Where's that from? No, was that from Twelfth Night? I guess. More cakes and ale. Yeah. So apparently, some pleasures are going to be bad, and some are going to be what good, Good, huh? Now it wasn't the English utilitarians, right? They kind of make pleasure, you know, pain the measure of good and bad, right? It's like saying that all pleasure is good, right? Just get maximal pleasure.

[37:50] That's that's the goal, right? Yeah. Not too good, I think. Happy Curious. Happy Curious. We're just reading. Third, whether some pleasure is optimum, the best.

[38:11] There you go. Now, whether pleasure is the measure or rule by which. When judges are good and bad, is judged in moral matters. Jeremy Bentham,

[38:27] when he comes out like that, he anticipates. Aristotle speaks this way, right? To the first, then one proceeds. Thus, it seems that every pleasure is bad,

[38:44] for that which corrupts prudence or foresight, I don't want to use the English word for prudence, and impedes use of reason, would seem to be in itself what malum. Secundum se malum, because the good of man is to be in accordance with what reason, as Dionysius says in the fourth chapter, divine names.

[39:14] I used to try to tell the students that a good human act is a reasonable act, right? And a bad human act is an unreasonable act, right?

[39:26] This is the good of man is to be in accordance with what reason, huh? This is very nature. But pleasure corrupts prudence and impedes use of reason, and the more, the greater the what pleasures are, huh?

[39:46] When in venereal pleasures, huh, which are the greatest, huh, it is impossible to understand something, as is said in the seventh book of the Ethics, huh?

[40:01] And Jerome also says upon Matthew, in that time in which conjugal acts are what carried on, the presence of the Holy Spirit is not what given. This is tough talk here. Even if the what prophet seems to be for being, I guess, I mean, doing a generation act. I'm not sure what he's referring to there. What serving the office of generation, right then? Yeah, so maybe like was it Jeremiah?

[40:35] Who was it was told to go into the providence and so forth? Therefore, pleasure is secundum se malum, right, huh? Therefore, all pleasure is what I don't know. Killjoys, these guys. Moreover, that which the virtuous man flees, right,

[41:06] and the one failing in virtue or falling short of virtue pursues, seems to be in itself bad and to be fled from, right. Because, as is said in the tenth book of the Ethics, the virtuous man is as the measure and the rule of what human acts. That's interesting thing about the incarnation, right? Because, you know, Thomas has kind of a little dialectic there, borrowed from Augustine, right?

[41:38] Huh? You know, man can be seen to be followed, right? But he's not the perfect thing to follow, right? God is the perfect one to follow, but he can't be seen. So how did God solve this dilemma? He became man, right? Huh? So that he could, we have a perfect model to follow, but and it could be known by us, right? And it's kind of you know a little tendency or a little tension there between Plato and Aristotle, you know, where Plato's emphasizing, you know, that the perfect is the measure of the imperfect, right? And therefore, the good itself, right, is kind of the standard, right?

[42:27] Aristotle is saying we need a standard that is known, right? So we had to take something for approximate, right? So that's the what the the

[42:40] human, the virtuous man, right? He's the measure, right? As if you know, it's like Plato's almost saying, you know, well, God has to be the measure, right? And you know, at the beginning of the great work, the last work, Plato's Laws, you know, the he had a quote different guys who said man is the measure of all things, and and the Athenians genius says no, God is the measure of all things, right?

[43:07] It's difficult to follow God if he's not very well known to us, right? So that we we it's hard to imitate God, right? So imitate somebody around us. So we need a a virtuous man to imitate, right? So parents are always looking, you know, for their children to have good friends, right? And to imitate the the good actions of these friends, right? But they have bad friends, you know.

[43:32] They're going to imitate them, and do they do as you know, and they're not astray, huh? You kind of see the the reason for the incarnation.

[43:50] However, that okay, okay. Middle of the second. Yeah, but the and the apostle says that the what spiritual man, right? The spirituality, the spiritual man, judicatomenia, right? He judges all things, right?

[44:15] But boys and beasts said together, in whom there is no virtue, they pursue what pleasures, right? But the temperate man flees them, right? And therefore, pleasures in themselves are bad and to be fled from, right? Like a real puritan.

[44:49] Moreover, virtue and art are about the difficult and the good, as is said in the second book of the Ethics. But no art is ordered to pleasure, right? What about the art of cooking? There you go. All right. Or what about you know the art of the playwright? You know, strive to please you every day, Shakespeare says in the epilogues of the plays. Therefore, pleasure is not something what good, huh?

[45:23] I'm glad those aren't the right answers. Just let me finish the article, you know. Don't leave me Don't stop now. Yeah, this is this is a hard teaching who can follow it. Reading that in chapter six there. I was like I was like Saint Bonaventure asked in his one of his works about whether we should do bodily penance, corporal penances, and one of his objections I like very much.

[45:49] He says, "Well, Saint Paul says that the spirit and the flesh are opposed, they're enemies, to each other. but Christ says, 'Love your enemies and do good to them. '"

[46:01] Very good. I'll prove that. Lent rolls around. Well, not going to do it this year. But against this is what is said in Psalm 36: delight in the Lord, right? Delectare in Domino, right?

[46:22] Since therefore to nothing of the bad does divine authority lead us into right, induces to. It seems that not every what pleasure is what bad.

[46:35] Close.