Prima Secundae
118. Is Habit a Quality? Aquinas on Question 49, Articles 1–2, and the Species of Quality
Class of 2013-04-18
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/118-is-habit-a-quality-aquinas-on-question-49-articles-1-2-and/

[0:00] Okay, so let's go back and reread now the first article in the forty-nine question, right? Which is seven times seven, by the way, huh? Just like in the famous what forty-nine words of Shakespeare, right? Which is the best short education to use reason that I have ever read, right? I have a standing offer, you know, to anybody in fifty words to give you a better education or even a hundred words, that might not You have a hundred words, no?

[0:33] Shakespeare did it in forty-nine words. Okay. To the first, then one goes forward. Thus, it seems that habitus is not a what quality. It's not in that genus of how, which is sometimes called quality, the abstract word, right?

[1:02] For Augustine says in the book on the eighty-three questions, this name habit is sent from this verb, which is to have. But to have not only pertains to quality, but to other genera. For one is said to have some quantity, right? And to have even money, right? Exterior things like that.

[1:33] You part of the money class, huh? And others of this sort, right? Huh? Okay. Therefore, habitus is not a what quality, right? Huh? Moreover, habitus is laid down as one of the predicaments. That's the Latin word for categories, right? As I mentioned, both the word category and in the Greek and predicamentum in Latin come from the word to predicare, right? To be said of, right? So you find in the Gospels, right, they use the word category, right?

[2:13] They're categorizing. They're accusing Christ of being this or that, right? As is clear in the book of the predicaments that we call in English the book of the categories in the Greek word. Okay. Now, where what is that one predicamentum that's called habitus? Well, that's one called echein in the Greek, which is the the verb, right? And habitus is called often in Latin, right? Okay. I have clothes on, right?

[2:45] Okay. Okay. But one predicament is not contained in another, right? Therefore, habitus is not a what quality, right? Moreover, every habit is a disposition, as is said in the predicaments. But disposition is the order of having parts. But this pertains to the predicament of situs, which we call position here.

[3:26] Therefore, habitus is not a quality, right? But against all this is what the philosophy says in the predicamentis that habitus is a quality, the difficile mobilis right? So he's saying it's a quality, right? He's later more precise, called this a disposition, right? But disposition is a quality too.

[3:56] So Thomas has got to clear up all these words. You can see people get lost at these. What is the great Jerome they're always quoting? Ex verbis inordinate prolatis, from words put forth disorderly, heresy arises. Correct. Yeah. Be careful about these words, right? Are there fallacies that come from words. How many? Seven. No, six. Six, seven, outside of language yeah. You've got to watch this, right?

[4:38] Not to be called the mother of God, but the mother of Jesus. The story says. So the story says, yeah, better watch that. I know

[4:50] as Thomas begins by agreeing with Augustine, doesn't he? Right. I answer that this name habitus is taken from what having, right? But incidentally, there, you know, in the book on specific refutations, when he talks about the fallacy of equivocation as being the most common one, and so on, right? And then later on, he says, you know, being aware of this fallacy, you know, makes you more attentive to words, and so on.

[5:19] And some words are very difficult, right? And it's these common words like being, he says, and one, and same, and so on, that are hard to what?

[5:30] See all the different meanings, yeah. And this is true about to have and habitus, right? From which the name of habitus is derived in two what ways?

[5:50] In one way, according as man or any other thing, right, is said to have something, right. In another way, according as something in some way has itself in itself or towards what another. Right.

[6:12] Now about the first, it should be considered that to have, according as it is said with respect to anything that is had, is common to diverse what. Genera.

[6:31] Whence the philosopher, right, among the what post Predicamenta lays down what a very right, because they follow upon diverse what genera of things. That's not the whole truth about the Post Predicaments, right? There's a lot of difficulty about them, right? That's the third part of the categories, huh? Aristotle in the first four or five chapters there he does the thing you have to know before you take up the predicaments, right?

[7:12] And then you have the taking up the ten categories, and then you have these post predicaments, right? And there are five of them, right?

[7:24] And the first one is opposites, right? And then before and after, or before actually, and then together, right, or hama hama, and then motion, and then to have. Why take these up, but there's different reasons for the five, right?

[7:55] But you see, for example, we not only want to know the different what highest genera, we want to place things in these genera, right? In order to place things in the genera, you've got to distinguish one from another, which involves opposites, right? And there's going to be an order inside this genus, right? from the highest genera to the lowest, and so on. So you have prior and posterior, and then hama, right?

[8:26] So dog and cat are hama, right? But dog and animal not hama. They're not together, right? But animal is before dog, right? And before dog, our animal is what living body, right? Okay. So there's you see why he takes up opposites and prior and posterior, right? So he can place things where they belong in the categories, right? Notice he used the word place there, right? Taken from the continuous, huh?

[9:03] And some things are not before or after, but together. So odd number, maybe an even number. You divide it into those two, right? And they're together, right? Not before or together, or animal to dog and cat or something.

[9:24] But then he points out a distinction. He's always seeing a distinction that nobody else sees, right? But among those things which are had, there seems to be this distinction that in some of them there is nothing as a middle between the haver and that which is had. And this is kind of a strange thing, right?

[9:50] As between the subject and its what quality or quantity, there's no medium between the haver and the had. Right. Some things there are in which there is some middle between the two, but only a relation, as one is said to have a companion or a what, friend.

[10:20] I know it's just kind of a way of speaking in a way, right? You know, he's talking about abstraction. You know, talking about relationships. I think that word all the time. You know, relationship is even more abstract than it is. It's the what it is, you know, a relation, you know, relationship. But we suddenly think of a relation as being between two people, right?

[10:45] But it's more what I'm towards you and what you are towards me, right? Some things there are between which there is some middle, not to be sure a acting upon undergoing, but something in the manner of what acting upon or undergoing, in so far as one is what adorning or covering, right, and the other is adorned or covered, right? Huh? Before you weren't you wear something for a long time and kind of what fits you, right?

[11:23] Now it's like it's been what attracted to your body, right? As if your body is acting upon your thing, right? Or you wear a shoe for a while, right? And if it's it starts to what fit better, right? Now you know it kind of adjusts itself to your what, your foot, right? Huh? And you have a hard time parting with it, right? Now, my brother Richard didn't want to part with his coat.

[11:47] Jack used to wear to school you know. So my mother was, you know, the woman who don't like this wearing the same thing all the time, so he didn't give up the jacket. So one time he came back from school and she's, oh, let me help you off with your coat. She took it off and she threw it over the flowers and the bushes, and all of a sudden they wanted to cover the garden.

[12:07] Now it's the end of his wearing that jacket, you know, wearing it out, right? But they do get kind of comfortable sometimes, don't they? Right? Yeah. And you know, on a man, especially. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, yeah, yeah, with men, that was one. So he says not to be sure an acting upon undergoing, right? But something in the manner of an acting upon undergoing, right? Since I'm conforming it to myself, right?

[12:37] Um. Sometimes you you got to wear glasses, then you get this kind of indentation in your nose, right, or behind your ear or something, you know.

[12:49] It's almost like parting, you know. You wear a watch all day long. It kind of starts to what starts to become a part of your body, almost, right?

[13:03] Yeah. Once the philosopher says in the fifth book of wisdom that habitus is said to be as it were, quam, right, a certain acting upon of the have or and the had, right.

[13:20] Just as in those things which we have around us, right, like our shoes or our clothes or, you know, a hat you have to well make, try to actually fit your head.

[13:35] You see these advertisements sometimes, you know, for, you know, individually made suit for you, right? You know, it's going to really fit you, you know. But even a suit that you buy, mass produced, you know, get it pretty close, and then you, quite, you act upon, and finally it does really fits you nicely. Yeah. And therefore, in these is constituted one special genus of things, right, which is called the predicamentum.

[14:06] In Latin, they call it habitus, right? Aristotle uses the Greek word. Sorry, I can't read my thing there, but. hexis right? hexis to have, right? Habere, right? Huh? They call it habitus, right? Which is the word he uses right here in the text, the Latin there, huh? I know what word to use in English. or Latin This is. English. Yeah, I know what to use the word, but if you have the Latin text, it says habitus there, right?

[14:29] Huh? Okay. So. You see, it's not that sense of what. Yeah. Yeah. We speak of you know habit here now. Since we're using it, it's not just habitus down here, right? It's a kind of an acting upon, undergoing, right?

[14:52] About which the philosopher in the fifth book of the wisdom, where he takes up some of these words again, that between the one having the clothing, right, and the clothing that is had, there is a middle of what, having, right, huh? Okay.

[15:13] If however one takes to have, in so far as a thing is said in some way to have itself, in itself, right, or towards itself, or towards another, right, huh?

[15:29] Since this way of having oneself is according to some quality, in this way habit is a what? Quality, right? Huh. About which the philosopher, in the fifth book of wisdom, right, in metaphysics, that habitus is said to be a disposition, by which, right, or according to which, one is disposed either well or what? Yeah.

[16:00] And either towards oneself or towards another, right? As health is a what habit, right? There and well disposed towards my own body, right? And thus, now we speak of what habit, right? In that sense, whence it should be said that habit is indeed a quality, right? Now the first objection, which is taken from Augustine's talk about the origin of the word from to have, right? To the first there, it should be said that that objection proceeds from to have taken in a common way, right?

[16:42] For thus it is common to many what genera, as has been said, right? To the second, which is taken from this habitus that's like a acting upon undergoing, right? And it's naming one of ten categories. To that second one, it should be said that that argument proceeds from habit, according as is understood to be something as it were in the middle between the one having and that which is what had.

[17:20] For thus it is a what, in so and right, a certain predicament, right? An highest genus. Now you have something like that, you know? Don't you call the monk's clothing a habit? Okay. So, touching upon that. Not to change and different habit, did you? Thank God. So we get to fit you

[17:53] after a while, right? We count plenty to get in somebody else's habit, right? It wouldn't fit you quite. It's not adjusted to you, right?

[18:08] No, they get when the belt there, you know, you tend to tighten up until you get tight enough, nothing too uncomfortable. It's kind of molded to your size of your your Midwest. Okay. And the belt doesn't fit me anymore, you know. Fitted me some years ago.

[18:35] Save it for next Lent. Give it to the kids. Now, in the third one, it gets more particular by this distinction of two kinds of disposition. He's distinguishing the one that's called what position, you might say that, right? Which is habit place, right? To the third, it should be said that disposition always implies what the order of something having what parts.

[19:11] And this happens in three ways, as the philosopher joins there. Either according to place, and that's the one that's a separate genus, right? Or according to potency, or according to species. But these are kind of the same, but one is imperfect, right, compared to the other. In which, as Simplicius says in his commentary on the predicaments, huh? he comprehends all dispositions. Partly ones in that he says secundum locum, right, according to place, and this pertains to the predicamentum, which in Latin they call situs sometimes, which is the order of parts in place.

[19:53] Okay. So if you just take the shape of the body, that would be. Not scattered, right? But if you take sitting or standing, you got to have something outside you to be sitting or standing or laying down, right? Unless you've got to have a magician there like that, you know. If you lay down, you've got to have a bed or something underneath you, right? Or mat or a floor at least to lay down on, right?

[20:20] Okay. So that's why it's put with the last six, you know. The reason it's something outside of you, right? So if I crouch, as you say, and I sit, my body could be more or less the same, you know, shape my body like that, right? But there's got to be a chair or something like that for me to be what sitting, right? So it's the arrangement of my parts around the chair, right, around the place where I am.

[20:51] Okay. But what he calls secundum potentiam includes those dispositions which are in preparation and suitableness, not yet perfectly, as science and virtue that is what begun. But when he says according to species, he includes the perfect dispositions which are called what? Habits. Yeah. As science and virtue complete.

[21:23] So we'll let Thomas have it then that habits is quality, right? Or he's going to talk about that habit is the quality. of this, but that way, right? Okay. But now he's going to kind of introduce us to the division that Aristotle made of the species of what quality, right? huh? You've got to be scandalized because there are four species. Okay. So Berquist always says, you know, this rule of two or three or both is what for the most part, right?

[21:59] Therefore, it's a good rule, right? You know. But if you have more than three, it's very hard for the mind to understand it, right? It tends to try to reduce it into either two or three to see that it's exhausted, right?

[22:18] Maybe we'll take a little break some longer Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. If you call these accidents, right, and these down here accidents, right, you say an accident is something that exists in another, isn't a subject, right? Well, that's true of these here, even the relations. But here, it's not so much something existing in me, right? I am clothed, right? I am a geometer. I'm a geometer because there's something existing in me, as in the subject?

[22:53] There's a little knowledge of geometry in my mind. When you say I am clothed, for example, right? Well, clothing is not really in me, right? Okay. So Thomas sometimes refers to these last six as not accidents. These are the accidents, adverbially, accidentaliter, right? Having themselves in an accidental way, right? Now what does that mean? Well, say I can be a man without being a geometry. I can be a man without being a father, right?

[23:25] Okay. I can be a man without being clothed, right? I can be naked, right? And so these things have themselves in some accidental way, right? I can go out of this room and I never won't know until next Thursday. I won't be in here. Okay. So it has itself accidentally, right? Accidentally, an accidental way. Something can be present or absent, right? And I'm still a man, right?

[23:54] I don't cease to be a man when I walk out this door. Don't cease to be alive. I hope not. Not yet. Okay. Now I just reread in

[24:07] my favorite book there, you know, the substance of this, and he's talking about the incarnation there, right? And how they had a hard time understanding the second person, God, who's God, becoming what, man? The word became man. And he says, in fact, well, this is something coming after what the word is. So it must be an accident or accidentally having itself to man, right? Well, when you study the substance of God, you realize it can what?

[24:46] It can't have an accident, right? Okay. And and man could not be an accident because man's the genius of substance. Well, therefore they thought it's got to be having itself accidentally, right? And therefore they're saying that God is in Christ as in a temple, right? Okay. Or is that clothed with human nature, right? Which would be down here. And that's, of course, heresy, right? But you know, they eliminated this sense, right, and tried to explain it in this sense, right?

[25:26] Okay. I was making more absurd mistakes, but you see why they're doing that, right? Okay. And you know, one of the scriptures says, you know, that the human nature is found in habitus, right? As if Christ was clothed, right? In time, so that's a metaphor, right? Because just as you know, a man through his clothing, you can see the kind of clothes. That's the part you see of the man for the most part, right?

[25:50] Clothes make the man. Um, uh, so the invisible second person becomes visible to his human nature, right? That's kind of a metaphor, right? You see, he's not really because he's taking on human nature to to be a man, right? Why I don't become a you know a suit because of what's wrong, you know? Isn't that so? These are accidents; they're different senses than these, right? Okay. But you know, it's common to both of these.

[26:25] It's something to be said of you in addition to what you are, right? But this is being said of you because there's something in you, right? Is it a subject, and this by something outside of you that has some reason to be said of you, right?

[26:52] So in some way, this ten is as complete as the Ten Commandments, right? You know, or the seven petitions of the Our Father, right? Does Augustine say, you know, nothing you really pray for that isn't already in the Our Father, right? You know, and he said it all, right? Now, I say a lot of praise besides our father. but I say, gee what I think somebody can say Our Father for this person.

[27:17] Yeah, I covered all faces, right? Okay, we don't have much time to start this one anyway. To the second one goes forward. Thus, it seems that habit is not a determined species of quality,

[27:44] because as has been said, that habit, according as it's a quality, is said to be a disposition by which, or according to which, we are well or badly disposed. Right? The thing that is disposed. But this happens according to what? Every quality, right? For according to figure, it happens that someone is well or badly disposed. I don't know what that's different to. the one's figure, I don't know.

[28:15] And likewise, according to heat and cold, right? And according to all these, right? It's too hot, too hot, too cold. Therefore, habit is not a determined species of what? Quality, right? Now, that's an interesting objection, right?

[28:34] Moreover, the philosopher, in the categories, in the predicaments, says that coldness and heat, heatness, hotness, coldness, are dispositions or habits, as health and what sickness, right? But hot and cold are in the third species of qualities. They something called sense qualities, right? Undergoing qualities. Therefore, habits or disposition is not distinguished from the other species of quality.

[29:13] You can see how difficult it is for someone to understand the categories without having a commentary on the categories by Thomas Aquinas, right? And Thomas doesn't have a commentary on the categories, right? But you can pick up things like this, you know. You're going to pick up a little understanding of quality here, right? And so I run around there, you know, stealing little things here and there, and it helps come back to categories.

[29:37] And now, oh yeah, now, yeah, now I see something, right? Moreover, the feature of the mobile, difficult to be moved or changed, is not a difference pertaining to genus of quality, but more pertains to motion or passion. But no genus is determined to a species through the differences of another genus, right? But necessarily the differences, come to the genus, come to the genus, as the philosopher says in the seventh book of the metaphysics.

[30:17] Thomas uses that principle that each genus has its own species. Aristotle does this in the categories, right? There's a chapter there in the ante predicaments, the before the predicaments, and he says, you know. One science is not different from another science by being two-footed or four-footed, right? Those are differences of the genus of substance. It's such a beautiful example, right? My old teacher Kasurik used to say, "he can tell a man's understanding by the examples he chooses."

[30:47] Right? Aristotle is so clear, you know. He doesn't take these, you know, flowery, you know, exciting, you know, things, but ones that are very clear, right? You know.

[30:59] And Thomas uses this when he's showing that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, because they have to have differences of what origin, because that's the genus in origin, right?

[31:17] So if the Holy Spirit didn't come from the Son, they wouldn't be distinct. Okay, so it seems here when you're saying that it's a quality difficile mobile, right? That you're bringing in a difference from another what genus, right?

[31:36] Therefore, it seems that since habitus is said to be a quality difficilemobilis, difficult to be changed. It seems that it is not a determined species of quality, right?

[31:50] Of course, sometimes you don't know the essential differences, right? So we use something more accidental to touch upon the somewhat unknown. But against all this is what the philosopher says in the Categories: that one species of quality is habit and disposition. I answer it should be said that the philosopher in the Categories lays down among the four species of qualities. I heard my logic teacher there in college, you know, saying, "No, but another species we don't know about."

[32:30] You know, well, it's kind of interesting now that because you enumerate them, right? It's hard to see what that's exhausted, right? It takes a great deal of experience, right? And you get in quantity now. The division of quantities into discrete and what continuous, right? So continuous quantity is one whose parts meet at a common boundary. The parts of a line at a point, or a plane at a line, and a body at a surface.

[33:05] And the discrete, the parts don't meet at a common boundary. Well, those are opposites. It's got to be one or the other, right? That seems to be exhausted, right? And so Plato's always dividing into two, right, and by opposites. Okay. So you can see, you know, that you know you get down even the more particular divisions. Like if you divide numbers into odd and even, you can see that's exhausted.

[33:28] Can there be a number that's neither odd or even? Well, it's either divisible by two or it's not, right? Or you divide numbers into prime and composite. It's either measured by another number, or it's measured not by another number, right? Only by one. You could do the same with perfect and imperfect. You want it to, right? You divide by opposites When you get to three. That's no more difficult, right?

[33:54] Although there's the famous sign that Aristotle says that three is the first number about which we say all, which is a sign, you know, how often it is that three is all there is, right? Okay.

[34:09] Now you got four. No wonder that logic professor. No wonder there's another one that we don't know. I mean, the mind can't see it, you know, as being complete. It sees most easily when there's just two, right? Opposites.

[34:30] Three, theological virtues, huh? Mm-hmm. Four. Deep deep deep uh deep uh requires a great deal of thought to see this is. Of course, the place where you don't have two or three most frequently is in what the names equivocal by reason, right? So we saw before in the beginning of class the eight chief senses of what in, right? That's eight. And we saw in the twelfth chapter categories you have four senses of before, right?

[35:18] The fifth sense begins. There could be, you know, attached to the second sense. Although it's a different sense, but you know, so it's harder to see. You know, is that all the chief senses? Of

[35:32] course, in the fifth book of wisdom, there he has it just three. But I follow the categories. Because the fourth sense is more remote, as Aristotle says. The better is before. It's quite different, right? From before in time, before in being, before in knowing.

[36:04] Now, the differences of these species is thus assigned by Simplicius. Now he quoted before, right? And I noticed when he quoted before. They had a quote on here. Clarissimus Aristoteles Commentator, but even the Clarissia may not be the equal of Thomas, huh? So in the comment on the predicaments the Commentator says that of qualities some are natural, right? Huh? Which by nature are in something and always, right?

[36:45] Some are adventitious. Some they come to it. There's the word made by something extrinsic, right? Huh? The the adventitious. The the adventitious. They they come to it from the outside, right? Okay. Okay. And they're brought to being by something extrinsic and can be lost, right? Okay. He's dividing into two. There's some Pichia, right? Huh? In far ahead of me, right? But Thomas will be far ahead of me,

[37:18] of course. And these which are adventitious, their acquired as it were, are what habits and dispositions, huh? Which differ according to facile. deficile. and miscible and They can be lost easily or difficult, right? Okay. So I think what we call a mood, right? Huh? A mood. You can have a mood in the morning, and then get your lunch or something, and your mood is changed, right? Huh? You know, the boss is in a bad mood today.

[37:50] You know, or the wife is in a bad mood, or something. You know, something's bothering so and so. You know, but that can quickly pass that mood, right? Huh? You know, and something happens when the person, changes completely. Right? But a habit, you don't go from being. If you're really a just man, you don't, you know, suddenly change to unjust. You've got to find the price first first.

[38:11] It's a more slow, slow thing, yeah. Okay. Um. But of natural qualities, huh? Some are according to that which is in what potency, ability, and this is the second species of quality, huh? This is inborn or ability and inability, right? Okay. So Thomas would place, you know, reason itself, which Shakespeare defines as a capability for large discourse, looking before and after, as in the second species of quality, right?

[38:53] And the ability to see, right? Ability to grow, ability to digest, right? You know, ability to reproduce, right? Um, the ability to get angry, right? Okay. We're talking radio today about Obama's real mad that his his gun law didn't pass the Senate, right? They say expected pass the Senate, which is in control the Democrats, and then it would be defeated in the House and he can find Republicans so awesome.

[39:27] When I was on the party, they'd run him in. So he's really mad, angry, right? So, but this is the abilities you have, right? Like

[39:39] we talked about in soul, right? The abilities of soul. Some are according to something that is an act, and this either in the deep, right, or according to the surface. If it be in the deep, it is then the third species of quality, which would be sensible qualities, right? Like I'm white or I'm cold. According to surface, it's the fourth species of quality, which is figure and form.

[40:08] Okay. Sounds pretty good to me. I have no objection. Yeah. But this distinction of the species of quality seems to be unsuitable, huh? For there are many figures and what? That's the fourth species that Aristotle is, and qualitates passibiles, right? That's what Aristotle calls them, the undergoing qualities, right? They are not natural, but what? Adventitious. Adventitious. And many dispositions that are not adventitious but natural, as health and what?

[40:52] Beauty, yeah. So I get the granddaughter there, Isabella, the rose. Her name is Isabella Rose. I call her Isabella the Rose. She said, "I'm Isabella Rose." She said. And I just got the idea. But Shakespeare saying, "From fairest creatures we desire increase, that thereby beauties rose might never die." That's kind of a metaphor from what species to genus, right? So beauty is what metaphor for beauty is the rose, right?

[41:29] And more way, this does not belong to the order of species, for always what is more natural is before. What a mind, that Thomas has. What a mind! I was so impressed with some speeches, right? And I was laughing it up, you know.

[41:53] And now Thomas is, you know, knocked him out. He's laying flat now. He's in that position of laying flat. What a man! Now, notice what Thomas says, "Right, always what is more natural is before, right? "

[42:13] Because nature is what's first in the thing, right? I was working on a talk there for Thomas Aquinas College, right? And I was going to talk about the order of nature and reason, right? And it's going to lead up to the ways in which nature is before reason, right? The nature before the reasonable. So I thought and thought about it, and I came up with five ways, right?

[42:44] And I was lying in bed the other night and said, "Ah, there's another way." So I got to six now, right? But they're all examples where the natural is before, right? And here's the thing: "Semper, always, what is more natural is before, right? "

[43:07] He sees it so clearly, Thomas. And therefore, in another way, ought to be taken the distinction of dispositions and habits, which is the first species, from the other qualities, right? Now, how's Thomas going to make some? For properly speaking, quality implies a certain what? Way of being, way of substance. Mode of substance, yeah.

[43:36] Now this is kind of strange, Sean, because you say it sounds like quantity, right? Now, but let's stick with Thomas for a while to see what he does. For mode is, as Augustine says upon Genesis, the letter, what measure, what? Prefixes take the sense before. Yeah.

[44:01] Remember one guy writing a doctoral thesis on the ball in the old days here, his thesis on the word modem. I don't know what he did then, but there's a lot to be said about it, huh? But you know, when Aristotle speaks about the the way of going forward, right? To put it in English, right?

[44:24] But the Greek word he uses for way there is tropos, huh? and in the Latin they'll say what modus, right? The modus procedendi, right? Aristotle says the tropos of going forward, huh? In English we usually just put the way of going forward, right? Say to say way of proceeding, but that's the Latin word, the way of going forward, right? Now, it's a very important word, proceed, right?

[44:53] huh With a Trinity too, right? You say here, this translation, mode is a is that which a measure determines. Yeah, yeah. A measure determines. Yeah.

[45:09] Now you see, Aristotle says the way of proceeding ought to fit the matter of the science you're in, right? So it's measured by what? Where it fits got the idea of what? Measure, right? He supposes measure, right? Huh?

[45:33] I go into the clothing store, the shoe store, and what's my size? I don't know. But you have to measure these things, right, to know what's going to fit you, right? Huh? That's not going to fit you, right? And so I think it's beautiful the Latin words there, right? And Monsignor Dion used to point out how sometimes the words in what one language are better than the synonym for it in another language, right?

[46:08] And many times, you know, Greek is very excellent there. Now when Thomas is talking about today, they're about why it was appropriate that the Word of God become man, right? Rather than the Holy Spirit becoming man, right? And he gives two main reasons. The first one is that God's becoming man is for the salvation of man. But the ultimate salvation of man is to know the first truth, God Himself, and therefore the one who proceeds by way of what truth and by way of the mind, it's appropriate that he become man to lead us to that ultimate salvation, right?

[46:52] And then he said, and there's a you know a harmony of the nature of man, right? And the word, and in Greek we call the word logos, and we call reason logos, right? So that's kind of a sign of the connection there between logos in the sense of reason, which is what defines man, and logos in the sense of word, which is used in talking about the one who became.

[47:22] flesh. Right, you see a certain excellence there in the English word logos, right? But I see something in the Latin word intelligere. I don't see the Greek word to understand, right? And sometimes they interpret the Latin word intelligere to read within, right? But? I see even more in the English word understand, right? I think the word understanding is a better word than the word intellectus in Latin or the word nous in Greek, right?

[48:00] So sometimes you know Greek has it over the the Latin or the English, and sometimes the Latin has it over one. But sometimes the English is I told you about the linguists of Laval, you know Warren Murray was telling me. You know, he he says the greatest invention of human mind is the English language. And it's interesting, huh? You know, this is a study of all these languages that he's made, right?

[48:24] You just see this marvelous, marvelous language that English deduces. This is for him the greatest invention of human mind. You know, I mean, that's whether you agree with that or not, I mean, it's kind of real testimony to to the excellence of the English language.

[48:42] So I see something here, you know, in the connection there between modus and what measure, right? Okay. But you can kind of see that in the way we speak in English that that the way of proceeding must fit.

[49:00] It's like my clothes got to fit my body, right? I'm going to be impeded, right? Huh? Or my shoes have to fit my feet, right? They're pinching me, or they're or they're too big, you know, and I'm slopping around. You know, I'm not going to walk so well if the shoe is what too tight or too loose, right? It's got to fit me exactly, right? But that's a question of quantity, isn't it?

[49:25] Measure, isn't it? To fit, and so it's something like that, huh? He's saying that the the way of proceeding has got to fit the mode, got to fit the matter, right?

[49:42] It implies a certain determination according to some measure, huh? And but of course, notice, huh? You say, what are you doing this, Thomas? Why isn't this more appropriate to the category of what quantity? Yeah, because the species of quantity are distinguished by the what the measure involved, huh?

[50:04] So you measure a line, you measure it maybe by what inches or something, right? But if you measure the top of the table, there, you got to measure it by what square inches. You don't measure a line with square inches, right? So different species have got a different measure, right?

[50:27] But quantity is carried over, right? Even to God in a way. when you say he's great Quantity implies a certain determination according to some measure, and therefore just as that by which is determined the what potency of matter according to substantial being is said to be what quality that quality which is a difference of what of substance, right? Now

[51:03] we spoke before the definition of genus, right? Well, the definition of difference is what a name said with one meaning of many things other than kind, signifying how they are what they are, right? The genus signifies what it is. Species signifies what it is, right? But the difference signifies quality. they'd say, in Latin, right? But in English we'd say how it is what it is, right? They distinguish the you know the substantial quality from the quality that's an accident, huh?

[51:44] But this is why even in grammar you can what signify the accident or the species making difference by what an adjective, right? Huh? So we can speak of an equilateral triangle or a green triangle, right? Grammatically, those are the same, right? Logician says they're not the same. No, because green is an accident of triangle, right? But equilateral is a species making difference of triangle, right? That's important to see, huh?

[52:26] Okay, so he's talking about that kind of a quality, right? About how that is a difference of substance, right? So also according to the as a potency or the potency of the subject is determined according to accidental being, there is said to be what an accidental quality, right? Huh? Which is also a difference, but an accidental difference, right? Okay. So the the in Porphyry the the predicate what they call difference they sometimes call specific difference species making difference, right?

[53:02] Huh? As is clear through the philosopher in the fifth book of metaphysics, huh? Now we better stop here, huh? Four twenty-six, huh? Okay. Leave you breathless? on the edge of my chair. Yeah. That's a cliffhanger. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.