Prima Secundae
92. Sadness and the Pleasure of Contemplation (A5); Is Pain Fled More Than Pleasure Is Desired? (A6)
Class of 2012-11-15
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/092-sadness-and-the-pleasure-of-contemplation-a5-is-pain-fled/

[0:00] Okay, now what about contemplation? Right? Is any sadness opposed to that? To the fifth, one proceeds thus: it seems that to the pleasure of contemplation there is some sadness contrary, right? Huh?

[0:24] For the apostle says in the second epistle to the Corinthians that the sadness which is according to God, right, works what penance to a stable what salvation, yeah. But to regard what to look towards God, right, pertains to higher reason, as Augustine called it, huh? Of which it belongs to what

[0:59] leisure and contemplation, yeah. According to Augustine in the twelfth book on the Trinity, right, therefore to the pleasure of contemplation is opposed what sadness, So it's a difficult objection, there because you've got to know what higher reason is and so on.

[1:22] Moreover, of contraries, contrary are the effects, right? This is the whole one, if you're safe speaking, right? So in pedagogy, you start that, right? Love and hate, right? Because sometimes earth, air, fire, and water come together, and sometimes they separate, right?

[1:42] Just like we do with magnets, right? Sometimes they clack together, sometimes they what push each other away, right? Must be contrary forces, right? Because the effects are contrary.

[2:07] If therefore one of two contraries contemplated is a cause of pleasure, the other will be a cause of what sadness, huh? So I like thinking about virtue. I shouldn't be sad thinking about vice.

[2:27] And thus to the pleasure of contemplation is a contrary, but sadness, yeah. Is that going to be overcome by the same knowledge of opposites?

[2:49] However, as the object of pleasure is the good, so the object of sadness is the bad. But contemplation can have the aspect of something bad, for the philosophy says in the twelfth book of the metaphysics that some things it's unsuitable to think about, to meditate on.

[3:13] Therefore, to the what, there is a to the pleasure of contemplation. There is able to be a contrary, but sadness. No, Thomas has a usual number of rejections here, right? Three is kind of the average there in the Suma.

[3:36] Moreover, any operation, as it is not impeded, is a cause of pleasure, as is said in both the seventh and in the tenth book of the Nicomachean Ethics. But the operation contemplation can be in many ways impeded. That's for darn sure. So that either wholly it not be right, or they'd be with what difficulty, right?

[4:04] Therefore, in contemplation there can be a sadness contrary to pleasure. Moreover, the affliction of the flesh is a cause of sadness, but as is said in Ecclesiastes, last chapter, I guess, frequens meditatio carnis afflictio. It's an affliction of the flesh to be thinking them out, right? Huh? Tires you out, huh?

[4:37] Therefore, contemplation has a sadness contrary to pleasure, right? But against this is what is said in Wisdom eight verse sixteen, that the what. Company of conversation. Yeah. Of yet the wisdom that is to say has no what Bitter. does not have bitterness, huh? Nor what weariness, weariness, but laetitia, and joy, right? Huh? This is Thomas quotes this in Summa Gaia Gentiles, right? He has a little part there in the opening chapters there, the prologue where he says that no study, you know, is more what perfect or more sublime, more what useful and more joyful, right?

[5:33] Then that wisdom. Then he has a scriptural quote which is one of those four things, right? This is the one he has for for joy, right? Huh?

[5:47] But Thomas says, "I answer, it should be said. " That the pleasure of contemplation can be understood in two ways, huh? I guess he means what that that phrase, right, delectatio contemplationis, the pleasure of contemplation, has what two different meanings at least, right?

[6:13] In one way, that the what contemplation is the cause of the pleasure, right, and not the object itself, right? And then the pleasure is not about the what contemplation itself, but about the thing contemplated, right? That's something a little confusing. Yeah. In one case, it's the object that is causing you what pleasure, right, and in the other case, it's the what maybe that's what contemplation, huh?

[7:00] Then, so I think maybe it's on the one hand, it's one way, and then the second sentence, dilectatio, is on the other hand, yeah. And so sometimes the pleasure is not about the contemplation itself, but about the thing contemplated, right?

[7:20] Now it can happen that one contemplates something what harmful and causing sadness, just as something suitable and what pleasing, right? Whence, if pleasure is thus taken in what contemplation, yeah,

[7:44] nothing prevents what to the pleasure of contemplation that there is a contrary what sadness. That's on the side of the what object, I guess, huh?

[7:56] In another way, one can speak of the pleasure of contemplation because the contemplation is its what both its object and the cause, as when someone delights about this very thing that he what yeah, and thus, as Gregory Nissa says, and in my footnote there it says the other guy, the other Gregory, right, Nyssa Yeah Nicius To that pleasure which is, to that pleasure which is according to contemplation, there is not opposed any what sadness, right?

[8:35] He's quoting him as a virtue there, and the philosopher says the same thing in the first book of the places and the tenth book of the ethics, right?

[8:46] But this. Should be understood what? Per se. Speaking per se, the reason for which is because sadness is what? As such. Yeah. Per se is contrary to the pleasure which is about the what? Contra object. Contrary object. Just as to the pleasure which is about what? Heat is opposed to sadness which is about what? Cold. Coldness. huh?

[9:23] And I had too much heat in those days, I guess. huh? In the monasteries. In the califactory. Now, to the object or object of contemplation, nothing is what contrary. And this is the famous reason, huh? Because the reasons, the definitions of contraries, according as they are apprehended, are not what contrary, but one contrary is the reason for knowing what? The other. So my knowledge of what virtue is doesn't what isn't contrary to knowing what vice is, but my knowledge of what virtue is contributes to my knowing what what vice is yeah.

[10:14] Okay. Same same knowledge of contraries, huh? What? Advice person And they used to use that as a argument there, you know, for saying that reason is immaterial, unlike the matter of the body, right? Because in the body, one contrary what excludes the other, right? So health excludes sickness, right? Beauty expels ugliness, right? Huh? Vice versa. And and strength weakness and weakness strength, right? But in terms of knowing, right?

[10:58] Knowing what beauty is helps you know what ugliness is, right? And even I suppose knowing ugliness is helps you to know what what beauty is, right? Okay.

[11:10] So it's kind of a sign that the mind is what immaterial, the way opposites are in the mind huh? Suppose the way they are in matter. It's a very convincing argument, you know, about the immateriality of the understanding, the reason.

[11:33] So he says to the object of contemplation, nothing is contrary, for the reasons, huh? Of contraries, according as they are what grasped are not contrary, but one contrary is the reason of knowing the what the other. Whence to the pleasure which is in contemplating, there cannot be, hearsay speaking, some contrary what sadness, huh?

[12:12] But neither does he even have a what sadness joined to it, huh? Just as bodily pleasures, right, which are as medicines against certain what molesting things, right? Ah, just as someone delights in drink from this that he is suffering under thirst, right?

[12:43] And when the thirst has been what repulsed, then the pleasure of drink ceases, huh? As my brother Mark said, the first sip of the beer is the best. And the first beer is such beer. In fact, it's only the first sip, of the first beer that's good. it says. Goes down after that. Yeah.

[13:19] For the pleasure of contemplation is not caused from this that excludes some what annoyance huh. But from this that it is by itself what pleasant, Pleasant, right? For it is not a generation like in the bodily thing, but it's a perfect what operation, right? For that case it can be found even in what God, right? Because the perfect operation in God.

[13:58] Now that terrible per accidens I can't avoid. per accidens however, there is mixed what sadness to the pleasure of what of grasping, huh? Now, how is this what takes place? He says in two ways. In one way, on the side of the what Organa.

[14:27] In another way, from the impediment to what grasping, right? Now he said, on the side of the organ, there is mixed sadness or pain with apprehension directly in the what grasping powers of the sensitive part, because they have a what bodily organ, right? Or from the object of the sensible, the sensible object, which is contrary to the suitable disposition, complexion of the organ, right? Just as the taste of a bitter thing, right, huh?

[15:08] And the smell of a fetid thing, huh? Or from the continuity of a suitable thing that is suitable, which through the what continuous makes a what excess of the natural habitude right? Or comes a side to side above. Yeah. And thus the sensible grasping, which before was pleasant, now becomes what weary, tedious, huh? Okay.

[15:49] But these two directly in the contemplation of mind do not have place because the mind, the reason, huh? Does not have a what? Yeah. Just using the word "mens" here, right now. The word "mens" is related to the word "what"? mensura, right? Okay. Mind, the mind is what measures things. Okay, both in the narrow sense of measure, right, quantitative sense, but also in the higher sense, where Plato says that God is the measure of all things.

[16:27] Whence it has been said in the authority of Deus, and that's the one that he says in Summa Contra Gentiles too, that the contemplation of mind has neither what? Bitterness, right? No weariness. See, no weariness, huh?

[16:57] Now, lassitudo is opposed to what? What the senses can have something that's disagreeable to them, right? Okay. Or tedium, I guess, because it's prolonged, right? Huh? Assiduous, as it says, right? Huh? But because the human mind uses in contemplation, right, the what sense, knowing, grasping powers, in whose acts there is what, lassitudo, right? Therefore, indirectly, there is mixed some affliction or sadness to what contemplation, right? So, as a student there at the College of Saint Thomas, there, you know, we had a special reading room.

[17:39] There were some famous paintings on the wall, right, or copies of famous paintings, and get tired in a reading this black and white page here, you know, and sit back and look at this and look for a few minutes at that beautiful painting. Yeah, yeah. Or you know, if you have a beautiful scenery or something, right? You can look up, you know, and so on. When I first moved as a bachelor into Worcester, there, I had a room and had a super windows like that.

[18:05] So I put the desk right in front of the super windows and looked out beautifully, you know. But then I found I was being distracted, so I put the desk in front of the blank wall. This, I suppose, helps your concentration, right? You know.

[18:32] So. But in neither way, right? He says, "Is the. Sadness, right, joined per accidens, right, to contemplation, is it contrary to its what, pleasure, right?

[19:10] For the sadness which is about the impediment of contemplation, is not contrary to the pleasure of contemplation, but it more has affinity or agreement with it, as is clear from the things said above. But the sadness or affliction which is of the bodily weariness does not refer to the same genus, right? But it's wholly disparate.

[19:43] And thus it is manifest that to the pleasure which is about the contemplation itself, no sadness is what contrary, nor is adjoined to it some sadness except what per accidens huh? So now that should encourage you to study more, huh?

[20:12] Cell, huh A little advice here, Thomas. If you want to be wise, enter into your cell, close the door, right, and so on. Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that that sadness which is according to God, right? Huh? You know how the church fathers and the spiritual writers, you know, warn about certain kinds of sadness as being bad, right? Huh? But there is a sadness which is secundum deum, as he says.

[20:51] Right? It's not about the contemplation of the mind, but it's about something that the mind contemplates. To wit, about what? Sin, right? Huh? Which the mind considers as contrary to the love of what? God, right? Huh?

[21:13] This should be sad about your sins, right? Huh? Not rejoicing in them, like the Aaron there in Shakespeare's play Titus Andronicus evil he's done, huh? He's mad he doesn't see it and all the evil things he planned, right?

[21:38] Now, what about contraries having contrary effects, right? Well, they're not really contrary in the mind, right? Virtue and vice are not contrary in the mind, huh? As objects. To second, it should be said that those things which are contrary in reality, huh, in in rerum natura, according as they are in the mind, do not have what contrariety, huh? For the what thoughts of contraries are not what contrary and exclude one another.

[22:10] But more, one contrary is the reason of knowing the other. And in count of this, there is one knowledge of contraries. Huh? That's what Plato and Aristotle both insist upon all the time, huh? Pointing that out, huh?

[22:30] So it's not one ethics about virtue and another ethics about vice. It's the same one about virtue and vice, and it's the same one about this virtue and vice as opposed to this, what? And logic is supposed to be both about what correct reasoning and incorrect reasoning, which we studied in another vocation. And

[22:58] I told you what the student they had at St. Mary's, you know, said we shouldn't be teaching ethics, right? Because you learn both how to be good and how to be bad, you know my virtue advice. people are inclined to be bad, so you make them worse. That's a darn good argument. The kind person is teaching of ethics, right?

[23:23] But can you teach someone how to be good without teaching them how to be bad at the same time? What do you say, Father? I don't think it's possible. Yeah. You can tell them which way to belong. But I know that wasn't that what the Arabians did? They wanted to know they didn't have to know what was bad. Well, of course, you know they think that they they wanted to know the future contingents, right?

[23:49] So they could guide themselves and wouldn't require any what direction from God, right? So it's a very intellectual sin, right? Because they didn't have the sort of you know sense appetites that we have, but they had to be a sin of the what of pride, right? And they wanted to be able to direct themselves even in these what things that they can't really foreknow, right? Just foresee the results of doing what you want to do, right?

[24:19] Well, a lot of times you can't foresee what's going to be the result of doing this or that, right? The soldier knows what's going to happen when he goes this way or that way. Doesn't know, right? Might be the end of him, right? Might be victory, huh?

[24:39] So it'd be nice to know whether. It's going to be a good or a bad result of doing whatever you do, right? But sometimes you don't, right?

[24:49] You know these great tragedies. These great tragedies are about what people who don't foresee what's going to be the result of their actions, right? Oedipus is trying to do something good to, you know, help Athens, right? But horrible things he brings down upon him, right? Creon thinks he's doing good, right?

[25:13] You realize that tragedy and comedy arise because man has fallen, right? And sometimes they're really about mistakes, tragedy and comedy. But a tragedy, the mistake you make, you know, makes is worthy of pity, right? When Othello thinks that his wife is unfaithful, right, he kills her, right, and then shortly afterwards he discovers that he's been deceived by Iago and so on. huh? It's very pitiful, right?

[25:43] But then in the comedies, the mistake is what is laughable, right? Huh? It doesn't do any harm, permanent harm, right? Huh? And it's kind of funny to see the mistakes, right? But whether they're tragic mistakes or comic mistakes that we make, the mistakes we make because we're fallen, right?

[26:05] So. I don't know what humor would be like in the Garden of Eden if they'd not fallen. Some of these late English comedies, there, they have kind of a unreal situation, but it's where the guy is going to marry a nice-looking girl, right? But they substitute another girl, right? When they see have the veil on and so on, and then after he gets married, of course, it wouldn't be real.

[26:38] It would really be married, right? But you know, no. And the one character says, "He was going to stick between me and happiness, right? " But God has, you know, decided to put a little purgatory in between there to this very plain-looking young lady here.

[26:55] So. So Malvolio, the trick they play upon him, you know, is kind of outrageous, but it's humorous nevertheless. He writes what seems to be a letter from his mistress, right? I mean, the lady in charge, you know, as if she's fallen in love with him, you know. Oh.

[27:18] Starts to put on errors and all kinds of things. Anyway. Now, what about this thing that Aristotle touched upon there? Well, you need Thomas's commentary, by the way, to understand when he's talking about there and he's approaching what God's knowledge is about, right?

[27:51] To third, it should be said that contemplation, as such, never has the notion of something bad, right? Aristotle says something like that too in the beginning of the of the De Anima, right? Huh? That all knowledge as such is what good, right? Huh? Okay. I told you I used to kid the kids, and they'd say, "Which is better, knowledge or love? " And the kids would always say, "You know, at least the girls love, right?

[28:18] " I said, "Yeah, but all knowledge is is good as such, right? But is all love good? No. See, love is sometimes good, sometimes bad, but knowledge as such is always good.

[28:35] It's ignorance or error that is is bad, right? So knowledge is better than. And then, of course, it's it's the love that is directed by knowledge, right? That is good, right? So it gets its goodness from knowledge, so knowledge is obviously better than love, huh? They fumed down there, you know, but they couldn't do anything about it.

[29:05] For contemplation is nothing other than the consideration of true, of the true, which is the good of the what, understanding. But per accidens only can it be what, something bad, in so far as the contemplation of the what, vile, right, impedes the contemplation of the what, better, right, huh? So people, you know, slouch down in front of the TV set, you know, and then they, you know, spend several hours in front of a TV set, and they go, what did I spend all that time, you know, with, that dumb stuff, you know?

[29:43] So the contemplation of something vile, right, has prevented you from the contemplation of something better, right? You could at least be reading Shakespeare, right? If you can't get up to the level of Thomas, huh? So

[30:13] that's kind of the choice you make, though, when you go into college or something like that, right? But you're going to study, right? Study the better things or the lesser things, right? And you study the lesser things was going to prevent you from studying the higher things, right? Time-wise, at least. Or it can be on the part of the thing contemplated, to which the appetite is what.

[30:37] Affected. Disorderly affected. Now, to the fourth, it should be said that the sadness which is about the what impediment of contemplation is not contrary to the pleasure of contemplation, but it is what There's an affinity to it. as has been said, right? I don't know if that's referring to the sadness I have when I can't understand something. That makes me want to what study more, right? And try to understand it.

[31:15] So I say to myself, I've understood it a little bit, but not fully. Maybe next time I read it, I'll understand more. Not going to make a cause solemn here or this thing, you know. Maybe this is as far as we get, huh? This understanding, huh?

[31:36] I'm thinking that was that made me like your students when you told them that knowledge is better than love. They were sad, so they wanted to study more philosophy to see if they could refute you. My oldest student I had in California, you know, he was always thinking some objection that he's going to get me today, you know. Well, I had heard all these objections, but they're already in the text, you know.

[32:00] So, you know, but he come for it like this, you know. He posed objection, you know, and then he saw me answer, and then he kind of got act like this, you know. He'd be like that quiet the rest of the class. And after the whole course was over, you know, he said, you know, I'd come in every day. I thought I'm going to get him today, you know.

[32:20] But you don't realize how you know most of the objections you've heard, you know, and and you can sometimes I state the guy's objection, but he can state it. Oh, yeah, that's Menzib is wrong for this, you know. As like De Koninck would be at these things where Marxists were speaking, you know, and there'd be a question period afterwards, and someone asked a Marxist, "What did Marx say about this?"

[32:42] And sometimes the guy wasn't too sure, you know, and De Koninck would, you know, volunteer with Marx. Oh, yeah, yes, we would say, yeah, then it's wrong for this reason. But once he knows better, you know, the guy than the guy who's presumably defending him, right? He's got a little, you know, in the position there, to be listened to with authority, you know when he says what's wrong with it.

[33:09] The affliction of the flesh is what parochiends, right? And indirectly has itself to the contemplation of the mind. So Kasurik used to say, you know, you go out and have a good meal now, huh, to reward your tongue, which has been your slave in your lecture, right?

[33:31] So your mouth gets kind of dry, you know, and you're tired out and so on. And then you refresh the your tongue, right, with the wine and the meal, right? But with with Shakespeare or Homer, right, you refresh the what imagination, right? The imagination is tired, right? Because imagination is the slave of reason in philosophy, right? And so, imagination being a bodily organ, gets tired, right? So you refresh it with a little bit of Shakespeare, you know.

[34:01] Scene or two of Shakespeare, you know. Two more. Especially some of those curses in Richard the Third refreshes. They're great. Look, look up that

[34:19] play there. I think I have that one. Richard the Third, huh? Lawrence Olivier. Yeah. He plays Richard the Third. Okay, should we take a break now or? So

[34:37] now this is interesting. Article 6 here, huh? Whether pain should more be fled than what pleasure desired, huh? To the six, one goes forward thus: it seems that sadness should more be what fled from than what pleasure should be desired, huh? Interesting question, huh?

[35:10] table talk was like that. To the six, one goes forward thus: it seems that more should be what sadness should be fled from than pleasure should be what desired, huh?

[35:33] For Augustine says in the book on the eighty-three questions, huh, that there's one who does not what flee more what. There's no one who doesn't more flee what pain than he desires what pleasure, right? Okay, so can't turn the TV without having some remedy for pain being advertised, right? So I think there's more advertisements than TV to get rid of pain and to please you.

[36:09] It's a kind of a you know if you're in pain you want some immediate relief, you know. Now that in which commonly nemo, right?

[36:27] Agree. All consent would seem to be what natural, right? Therefore, it is natural and suitable that one flees sadness more than one desires what pleasure, huh?

[36:43] However, the action contrary makes for what swiftness and intensity of emotion, huh? For hot water is more quickly and strongly what frozen. Frozen, as Aristotle says in the book of meteorology. I don't know what kind of science that is, but but the flight the flight of sadness is from the contrariety of the what thing that is causing the sadness, right?

[37:17] But the desire of pleasure is not from some contrariety, but it more proceeds from the agreement of the thing delighting one. Therefore, more should be fled sadness, right, because it's contrariety, than the desire of pleasure, right.

[37:36] Moreover, the more something is what repugnant, according to reason, to a stronger passion, the more it is what praiseworthy and what virtuous, huh? Because virtue is about the difficult and the good. So Thomas always would call them. He talks about the virtues and say, you know, if there's a special goodness here, there's a special virtue. If there's a special difficulty, right? Then you require a special what?

[38:05] Virtue, right? And he gets down to the details of these things, huh? It's kind of interesting, you know, if you look at the these

[38:18] distinctions and to whom does it belong to see these distinctions, right? Well, if you're talking about the distinction of the powers of the soul,

[38:29] which Aristotle calls the parts of the soul, right? That really belongs to the De Anima, right? So to distinguish between the senses, say, and reason, right? Or between the will and the sense appetite, right? Now the distinction of the what virtues and the vices belongs to ethics, huh? But where does the distinction of the emotions that we're going through right now? Where does that belong, right? Huh?

[38:57] No, rhetoric. What? Rhetoric. Yeah. Well, you see, it's interesting that Thomas, when he gets into these details about the emotions, he sometimes quotes the rhetoric, you know. Um. There are some things I'll say in the De Anima about epithumia and thumos, huh? the concupiscible is only irascible, but not a great deal of details. Know myself when I first studied this distinction of the emotions, in part in the Summa, but also in the De Veritate and so on.

[39:29] I said, hey, this is useful for ethics because some virtues are about the emotions; they have to know virtues. It's useful for rhetoric, right? Because to move the emotions and to sedate them and so on is one of the means of persuasion that are studied in rhetoric. It's useful for ethics, right? I mean, for the poetics, right? Not only because the characters have emotions, but because different types of fiction are moving different emotions; they have to understand these things.

[39:57] Those kind of universal importance, right? But you say now, to whom does it belong? The rhetorician, as you're saying, or to the you know the moral philosopher, or to the the poet, huh? Or the poetic art, rather, or the book about the poetic art, and or does it belong to the dianima, right? You know, but Thomas seems to have it in this this part of moral theology in a more complete way than you find it in in the texts come down to Aristotle, and you find more details in Aristotle, and you see the rhetoric and places like that where he describes the virtues and.

[40:35] But for a particular purpose, right? You know, well here it's kind of fundamental, right? It's useful for ethics, which is the reason why he takes it up here, you know, mainly. But it's also useful for rhetoric and for understanding. You know, when someone says that tragedy moves us to pity and fear, we have to understand how pity is a kind of sadness and what fear is, and so on.

[40:57] If comedy moves us to mirth and and hope, and so on, you get to know what hope is and mirth is, and so on. So this is kind of universal foundation for these these all these sciences and art, ethics, rhetoric, weddings, right?

[41:21] So, but the fortis, and the courageous man who resists right emotion, by which one flees what pain, is more virtuous than temperate, right? By which one resists emotion, by which he desires pleasure, right? So, you know, there's a medal of honor that we give to people, right, for being courageous, right? And they can win the medal of honor for one glorious afternoon, right? But I can be just all my life, and they won't give me a medal of honor.

[41:57] I could even be temperate all my life, which is unusual, unlikely. But that could be a medal, you know, for you know, he's never been drunk, or he's never been. That could give me a medal of honor for that, right? So this is you know, and I was reading. as I mentioned Coriolanus again recently to purge me from the election, so. And but they're praising you know Coriolanus because he's what courageous, huh?

[42:23] And the guy says that this is considered the greatest virtue, right? Courage, huh? And of course Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, he begins to talk about the virtues. In particular, the first virtue talks about is what Courage. courage, yeah. And of course, the word virtue itself, or the Greek word corresponding to virtue, they both seem to be tied up with what? Courage. With courage, originally, right?

[42:51] So that seems to be the virtue, right? But isn't that more you know concerned with what standing up to pain and sorrow and so on, as opposed to what temperance, right?

[43:08] It seems to be harder, you know, to go into battle and be brave than to resist the the bottle or resist the candy or resist the chocolate cake, or, whatever it is that you're trying to resist. The deal, you know, you know, no big hero there you don't be a hero resisting the chocolate cake.

[43:28] Now he quotes the philosopher in the second book of the rhetoric, right? Fortes and justi right, maxime honorantur right now. So if courage is more honored than temperance, right, isn't this? Therefore, more vehement is emotion by which one flees sadness than emotion by which one desires what pleasure, right now? Okay, but against all this nonsense, huh? The good is stronger than what? The bad, huh? Because the bad has power only through what?

[44:06] The good, right? Okay. The bad has no power except through the goodness that it might have, some part of it being good or some resemblance it has to the good, right? But of itself, it doesn't have any power to move us, right? The good is what all want, huh? If you want something bad, it's because in some way it appears to be good, right? This is also clear. To Dionysius that Thomas respects greatly, right?

[44:35] In the fourth chapter of the Divine Names, huh? And these two famous books of Dionysius, the Divine Names, and then the what? Celestial hierarchy, and Thomas has a commentary on the Divine Names, and today's namesake, Albert the Great, is one on the what? Celestial hierarchy, right? So Thomas uses the celestial hierarchy and talks about the angels, but he doesn't have a commentary on that particular work of the great Dionysius huh Of course you may have thought Dionysius was the Dionysius.

[45:08] Yeah, that Saint Paul converted there in Athens, right? So he became known as Dionysius the Areopagite and then suspected he wasn't that guy, and so he's called the pseudo. The liar, the pseudo. Yeah, so I don't know if he's, but he had a great deal. I think it was it was Gregory the Great. I think brought him back, didn't he? The works of Dionysius from Constantinople.

[45:35] I suspect he was a Syriac monk, and so Thomas, you know, you know, thinks he's you know far inferior to himself to Dionysius, right? So, okay, a lot of interesting things in Dionysius. But pleasure is the what is desirable on account of the good, right? Which is its object, but the flight from sadness is an account of the bad. Well, since the good is stronger than the bad, fortior is the desire of pleasure than that the flight from sadness, right?

[46:10] Okay. Now, Thomas is a man who sees what the before and after, and therefore is a man who sees what distinctions, right? And these two most universal kinds of distinction that you seem to meet all the time in in in in the fourteen books of wisdom of Aristotle is the per se and the per accidens, right? And then the what simply and not simply, right? So Thomas is often seeing this.

[46:49] We've seen the distinction being used here before, right? So if you say I'm a philosophical grandfather, that's to be a philosophical grandfather is being of what kind? Per

[47:14] accidens, yeah. Because to be a grandfather and to be a philosopher happens to the same person, right? So therefore, right. Okay, Catholic, Catholic geometer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, now there's a way. I'm a Christian geometer, but there's a way to become a Christian, get baptized. There's a way to become a geometer, which is to study Euclid, maybe. But is any way to become a Christian geometer?

[47:49] So did I ever become a Christian geometer? See, it's almost nothing, right? Huh. So Aristotle, you know, you know, he says Plato's not far off when he said that what science is about being and dialectic about becoming and sophistry about non-being. Because the chief thing the sophist does is to fallacy of the accident, right? And the accident seems to be almost what nothing, right? Huh? What is a Christian geometer?

[48:21] It's one thing to be a geometer, another thing to be a Christian. But what is it to be a Christian geometer? Is there such a thing? There's something by which I'm a Christian, there's something by which I am a geometer. But is there anything by which I'm a Christian geometer? Hmm? By happening. There's nothing by which I'm a Christian geometer. You're the same geometer whether you're a Christian or you're.

[49:00] Yeah, I mean, there's no way to become a Christian geometer, is there see? Yeah, so if you're a Muslim geometer or a Christian geometer, the geometer is the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Christian has more grace. So there's nothing by which you are a Christian geometer because there's no such thing as Christian geometry. And there's no way by which you become a Christian geometer, so it hardly is, right?

[49:23] See, yet Aristotle says, but there's still one sense of being, right? Accidental being, right? No, it barely is. It's the joke. Affirmative actions about accidental being.

[49:45] And so I mean, in some sense, it does exist, right? Huh. And and if I have a Christian academy and I want to hire a Christian geometer to teach geometry, right? I suppose you could find a Christian geometer out there somewhere, right? Right. So in some very diminished sense, they are out there, you know. So

[50:13] I'm always suspicious of modern philosophers because I never see them, you know, pointing out this distinction, this kind of distinction, the per se and the per accidens. Have you ever seen that Joshua? The moderns.

[50:26] No, I see it over and over again in Aristotle and Thomas. I don't know. Something, something vacant there in the moderns. I don't know what it is.

[50:43] Remember, Kasturi could be getting a letter from De Connick. He got a letter from De Connick, He says he feels like jumping off the bridge. He's been reading the moderns. It's

[50:55] really you know, I think you have to hunker this, you know. And suddenly you look at how mixed, mixed, mixed up their mind is, you know. Because sir, you could say, "how are you going to straighten this guy out?" You get it? I mean, there's just so many things that he's all mixed up on. Anyway,

[51:16] when you see how you know far Greek philosophy got right, of course Homer was the teacher of all the Greeks, huh? And then we had, you know, the English philosophers had Shakespeare, and they got nowhere. You know, I'll show you how corrupt the you know philosophy was among the English, right, in the moderns in general, right, huh? We have even a greater man, maybe than Homer, right?

[51:39] You know, to start off with, and our, you know, Shakespeare, but so it's really a scandal, you know. It's really a scandal. So, I answer. It should be said that per se loquendo, the desire of pleasure is stronger than the flight from what sadness, right?

[52:08] The reason for this is because the cause of pleasure is a suitable what good, but the cause of pain or of sadness is some repugnant bad thing, right? Now it can happen that some good is suitable without any what dissonance, right, huh? But there cannot be something that is bad what totally, totally without any goodness in it, right? Without some what agreement, repugnant, right? Whence pleasure can be what whole and perfect.

[52:50] That's what I was saying there. You know, Aristotle says whole and perfect mean almost the same thing, right? Huh? So it's kind of beautiful to see that. But sadness is always secundum partem, right? Huh?

[53:05] Whence naturally greater is the delight of pleasure than the flight from what sadness, right? It's it's funny how people object to the, for example, the abuse of children by some of the clergy. They find that awful, but then they're all in favor of abortion. I said, well, which is the worst child abuse? To kill the child, To abuse? Yeah. Neither is good, but which is worse? Yeah.

[53:35] Yeah, abortion is the ultimate child abuse. Another reason is because the good, which is the object of pleasure, is desired on account of itself, right?

[53:53] But the bad, which is the object of sadness, is to be fleed from in so far as it is the lack of the good. But what is per se potius est is stronger than that which is through another, right? So now that distinction is not entirely the same: the per se and the per accidens and the per se and the per aliud right? But, what is so through itself is always more so than what is so through what through another, right?

[54:26] So my salt is more salty than my French fries. My sugar is sweeter than my candy, because candy is sweet through the sugar. Unfortunately, you didn't put any in your coffee there, but if you put a little bit of cream in there or something, still your coffee would not be as sweet as the sugar or the cream, right? Because the sugar is sweet through itself, and the coffee is sweet only through the sugar.

[54:54] The coffee's not sweet at all. You don't put sugar there. Not that I would put sugar in coffee anyway. But okay. That's a very important. It's almost like an axiom, right? What is per se potius est illud quod est per se quam illud quod est per aliquid, right? So if you know the conclusion of the syllogism through the premises, right, and eventually you know what, sometimes the premises through other premises, right?

[55:22] But the first statements to which you know other statements will be the ones per se known, right? And they'll be known more than the others, and that's what the axioms are, right? One axiom is that the per se is potius, the per aliquid, right?

[55:43] A sign of which appears in natural motions, right? For every natural motion is more intense in the end, right? When it approaches the what? The term, the limit, suitable to its nature, right? Then in the beginning, when it recedes from the term not suitable to its nature. So the stone falls to the ground, as it falls, it goes faster and faster, right?

[56:09] As if nature more tends to that which is what suitable to itself than it flees that which is what unsuitable to itself, huh? Now what about you know? I was just thinking about the the mind and the reason, right? Does the mind seek truth more vehemently than it flees error?

[56:33] I think so. In order to flee error, you need to seek truth. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when you think of yourself as a as a well disposed student, I'll give you that benefit. From the art. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't think you came to class or you pick up the the book of the master, you know, because you're seeking to know something.

[56:57] Isn't that more per se to you, you know, more principal than to escape some errors, right? You know. Say, I picked up I picked up Thomas. I want to learn something. I want to come to know something I don't know. I don't pick him up so much that I'm trying to escape some error. I'm sure that it'll help me to get out of some errors I have, maybe, but but that's not my primary motive, is it?

[57:25] Is it? I don't think so. Is it? Do I listen to Mozart because I want to escape noise? No, I hear it because it's beautiful music, right? And it

[57:47] enables me to escape the noise of rock and roll and this and that and this. I told you that I was working in the package store there, and I see the guys coming in with, with. Oh yeah. Grateful dead. Grateful dead, because I don't follow these things, so I didn't let his name of a band, right? So I just thought of something that was sick slogan, you know, that said, "Put me out of my misery," you know.

[58:15] I'd be grateful. I thought for a while. So, what a sick thing to walk around and think thinking, "Grateful dead," I mean," I'd be glad to be dead. When I found out. That's modern philosophy, right? Yeah, then I found out it was the name of a band, you know, and then they rejoiced to be called called Deadheads. Now they, their fans are called Deadheads. But. So am I a seeking more beautiful woman or or fleeing ugly woman?

[58:54] I think I'm a seeking more beautiful woman, isn't it? You know, you go to the the dance and you try to find a good looking girl, right? High school or college, you know, or something. You know, find someone nice nice to dance with. Hence,

[59:16] the inclination of the appetitive power, per se loquendo, vehementius, tends in pleasure than in fleeing what sadness. So Einstein talks about that science, you know. Einstein talks about fleeing boredom, right? Huh.

[59:36] Well, I thought it had something to do with it, right? You kind of, you know. But isn't it knowledge that you're seeking mainly? You know, more seeking knowledge than fleeing boredom. Boredom is a sadness produced by the lack of an object worthy of your consideration. But per accidens, it can happen that someone flees what sadness more than he desires what pleasure. Right? How can this be right?

[1:00:08] And this, on account of what three things? First, on the side of what apprehension of grasping of knowing. Because as Augustine says in the tenth book of the Trinity, love is more sensed, right? When what need produces it? Yeah. For from the. What lack need of the loved proceeds what sadness, huh? Which is from the loss of some what loved good,

[1:00:48] or from the what Or from the incoming coming in, running in of some contrary evil, right? Huh? But pleasure does not have the what need of the loved good, but it rests in it already what achieved, huh?

[1:01:13] Since therefore love is the cause both of pleasure and of sadness, right? The more one flees what sadness, to the extent one more flees sadness, the more one senses love from the fact that something is contrary to the love, right?

[1:01:39] Secondly, on the part of the cause causing sadness, right, inferring pain, which is more repugnant to the good what loved than what which one takes delight, huh? For we more love the what natural consistency of the body than the what food, yeah. And therefore the fear of pain, which comes from whips, right, nothing of this sort, which are contrary to the good what consistency of the body.

[1:02:23] In order to what avoid that, huh? We what dismiss the pleasures of food and the things to this sort, right? So we can even keep the dog off with the whip, maybe with a piece of meat, huh?

[1:02:38] And third, on the part of the effect, in so far as sadness impedes not only one pleasure but all, right, huh? Okay. If your body's in pain, you can't enjoy anything, right? Okay. Let's go.

[1:02:57] Let's see how he handles these sections. To the first, therefore, it should be said that Augustine says that pain is more what fled from than pleasure is desired. That's true. What per accidens huh? And non per se per se. And this is clear from what he adds that sometimes we see the what most unmanly beasts, or the best is the most brutal, yeah, to abstain from the greatest pleasures by the fear of what.

[1:03:39] Pain, yeah, which is contrary to life, which is most of all what loved, yeah. Now, what about this here? Swiftness of the thing. The second should be said is different in the motion which is from the inside, and other in the motion which is from the outside. For the motion which is from the inside, more tends in that which is suitable than it recedes in the contrary, as has been said above about the natural motion, right?

[1:04:17] But the motion which is from the outside intends more from what? Yeah, it's more tensified, right? Because each thing, in its own way, strives. To resist the contrary, right? As for the conservation of itself, whence a violent motion is its reverse. It's intended in the what beginning and mid and the end. So when I throw, you know, the rock up in the air, it goes slower and slower until finally it stops and then comes down.

[1:04:53] Then it goes faster and faster. So it's just the reverse, right? So the violent is something what outside the nature. It's not the nature of the rock to go up, but to go down, right?

[1:05:13] Now the motion of the appetitive part is from the from within, since it is from the soul to what things. And therefore, per se loquendo, more is pleasure desired than what sadness is fled. But the motion of the sensitive part is from the exterior, as it were, from things to the soul, right? That's kind of the contrast Aristotle makes between knowing, you know, and and desiring, right?

[1:05:43] Whence more that is sensed, which is more what contrary? If I'm sticking to the pen, you sense it more than you sense the air here acting upon you now, right? It's more contrary. And thus also per accidens insofar as the sense is required for what pleasure and sadness, right? When more flees what sadness than pleasures desired, it's more sensed.

[1:06:22] To the third, it should be said that the courageous man is not praised from this that according to reason is not conquered by what pain or sadness, but from that which consists in the dangers of what death, right? Now, which sadness is more fled from than is desired the pleasure of what food or venereal things about which is temperance, just as life is more what loved than food or coition.

[1:06:56] But the temperate man is more praised from this that he does not what does not pursue the pleasures of touch, than than from this that he does not flee the contrary what pains. It is clear in the third book of the ethics, right?

[1:07:18] So he's more praised for his not what pursuing the pleasures of touch than he is from. Not fleeing the sadnesses, that contrary. I got to go up to Tribune tonight. They'll be there at seven o'clock for the board of trustees. So I better take off. It takes me an hour and a half to get an hour and fifty minutes to get home.