Prima Secundae
124. The Causes of Habits: Natural Habits, Habits from Acts, and Whether One Act Is Enough (Summa I-II q.51 a.1-3)
Class of 2013-05-16
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[0:00] Okay, now we come to question fifty-one. Then we're not to consider about the cause of the what habits, huh? Okay. If you look back at the preamble in the beginning of question forty-nine, there, he began

[0:40] the consideration of habits, right? He says, after the acts and the passions, one should consider about the beginnings of human acts, and first about the intrinsic or inward beginnings, secondly about the extrinsic beginnings. The beginning intrinsic is the power and the what habits, and those pertain to the first and second species of quality, right? Powers of the second species, and because about the powers, when it's spoken in the first part, it now remains that we consider the habits, right?

[1:20] And first in general, and then secondly about, in particular about the virtues and the vices, the good and the bad habits, and so on, and other sorts of habits of this sort. Which are the principles of human acts? Now we're in that general consideration of habits, right? And there are four things to be considered. First, about the very substance of habits, right? And that was question forty-nine, right?

[1:47] Secondly, about the subject of them, and that's the one we just concluded with the ad bonum doctrina. You know, the thing about the angel stone in, for a good measure. Now we come into the cause of generation and the growth and the corruption of them, right? And that's is going to be question fifty. They're beginning now, and then they'll be about their distinction, question fifty-one, right? It's interesting.

[2:17] Yes. Important, huh? Distinction is the most fundamental thing in the life of the mind, right? And in our life too, isn't it? I mean, you sit down to eat there. You have your soup, you know. You consume the soup, you know, and then you take the spoon and you put it in your mouth and swallow that.

[2:42] You should make some distinction between the food and the spoon that you used. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, distinction. You know, between a man and a woman. I think there's something that's kind of neglected nowadays. Notable. Yeah, yeah. But underlying, you know, all this thinking here is all these distinctions, right? Distinction of the ten highest genera, the distinction of the species of quality and so on, right?

[3:09] So it's interesting. we're going to have a question on. You know, we've got to restrain our desire to hear about that until we take up this. About the cause.

[3:21] Then we're going to have to consider about the cause of habits, huh? And first, huh? Oh my goodness, there are many questions. As regards their generation, right? Second, as regards their what? Growth, right? And third, as regards their diminution and what? Corruption, yeah. So fifty-one, fifty-two, and fifty-three. It says here. Oh my gosh. Okay. About the first four things are asked. First, whether some habit is by nature.

[4:04] Oh, very interesting. they should bring that up." Just read Hamlet talking about that? Vicious law of nature, right? Nature cannot choose its origin, right?

[4:22] Secondly, whether some habit is caused from acts. Now, if you know the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle talks about the virtues as being what? The moral virtue is by repeated acts, you know. It's like Hamlet tells his mother there to go to bed with that guy tonight, and then next time you know it'll be easier to say no and and so on, right? Huh? So you have to what?

[4:53] Exercise yourself in saying no. And third, whether by one act a habit can be generated, right? That might be appropriate time to say, "You could wouldn't you say, Joshua? One act, huh? One demonstration. And you got geometry just like that. Something of a habit anyway, right? By one saying no to the candy is not to be confirmed in virtue yet. And then, whether some habits are poured into men by God, right?

[5:37] Infused. These poured in, I guess, huh? Yeah. Okay. To the first one goes forward. Thus, it seems that no habit is by nature, huh? For of those things which are by nature, their use is not subject to the what will. But a habit is that by which which someone uses when he wants to, as the commentator says in the third book about the soul. Therefore, the habit is not by what nature, huh?

[6:18] Now, seeing some quotes that Thomas said of the commentator when he's talking about the names of God, you know, and so on. Of course, everybody's familiar knows Thomas. How many times he takes up criticizing Averroes for talking about the unity of the intellect and so on? You kind of feel sorry for Averroes and so on. But there are other things, you know, where Averroes is beautiful, and Thomas quotes him and with approval, right?

[6:47] And he's been quoting one text at him, quoted two or three times here. And I was reading this thing on the names of God and so on. And the commentator was saying that you say God is is is living, and you say God is what life itself, right? These are not what synonyms. Thomas quotes with approval, right? Huh?

[7:15] Because they don't signify the same way, do they? Because living signifies what has life, right? So it's you know, and when you talk about the efortiori, then you talk about say the justice of God, the wisdom of God, right? They both signify his substance, which is one and simple, but not according to the same what thought, right? So they're not synonyms, right? So Thomas is bring out this idea that these different names said of God, even though they don't signify different things in his substance, right?

[7:54] They're still not what synonyms. And Averroes sees that, right? And then when you get to the to the to the word perfect there in the fifth book of Wisdom, and Aristotle gives three senses of perfect there, which kind of fit creatures, right? And then he talks about something that is lacking in nothing, something that would be universally perfect. I mean, Averroes says, "Well, this is referring to God."

[8:19] Thomas says, "Yeah, that's what Aristotle is talking about the sense in which God is perfect. He has the perfection of every genus, right, in a simple way. You have to admire some of these wonderful things that Averroes says. right now, and these wonderful things that Avicenna says too, you know. quote Avicenna, Sometimes it would be very it would come down very much upon a mistake, you know. But

[8:50] I mean, after all, Thomas, you know, in the Katena Ori and so on. he'll quote Origen, you know, but there's some very serious difficulties in Origen, right?

[9:02] But he often quotes this this particular text here, you know. Moreover, nature does not make through two what it can do through one, right?

[9:14] But the powers of the soul are by nature. If, therefore, the habits of the powers were by nature, the habit and the power would be one.

[9:31] Moreover, nature does not fail in necessary things, but habits are necessary to act well. If, therefore, some habits were by nature, it would seem that nature does not fail, but that it causes all the necessary habits. But it's clear that this is false, right? We're running around with all kinds of faces, right? And pick up the daily newspaper, right? One after another. Therefore, habits are not what?

[10:03] By nature. by nature, right? But against this is what is said in the sixth book of the Ethics, where he's talking about the virtues of reason. And among the other habits, he lays down the understanding of what beginnings, of the axioms, which is by nature, right? So I call that habit in English, right, the natural understanding, right? They use the term reasoned out understanding for epistemic. but in Latin they just call it intellectus, and in Greek just nous, right?

[10:38] But it's by nature, right? You naturally understand, you naturally come to understand that a whole is more than a part, right? Well, let's see what the master says now. I answer: It should be said that something can be natural to something in two ways.

[11:05] In one way, according to the nature of the what species, huh? Just as it is natural to man to be capable of laughter, right? Visible, visibile. That was the old thing in the logic books, you know. That was the example of property of man, right? Because man is an animal that has reason, that's why he has laughter, right? He can make the sound and so on because he's an animal, but he can see the incongruity or the absurdity of something by his what?

[11:36] The reason, huh? Now we've had some pet cats around the house, but does a cat really laugh? Or does a dog really laugh? No, I don't know about monkeys, but

[12:01] it's natural to fire to be born upwards, right? In another way, according to the nature of the what individual, right? Just as it is natural to Socrates or Plato to be what sickly or what healthy, right? Some people are by birth, right? According to their own what makeup, huh Complexion So what Shakespeare or Hamlet is talking about there, you know, vicious mole of nature, right? Might be born with some defect, right?

[12:36] So some people are born, you know, apt to be what irascible, right? Other people are more irascible right Other people are more, capricious right? Many mothers will know that even with a child in the womb, or this one's going to be whatever. I've I've seen that with certain women, especially if they've had more than one child. Yeah. They can tell by the movement of the child in the womb what kind of disposition it has.

[13:01] Kind of curious. How active the child is going to be, or whatever, whatever disposition. Incidentally, which sense of the natural here is is the measure?

[13:29] You said you should you know live in accordance with nature, right? Shakespeare, as Hamlet says, you know, to the actors there. Or step not the modesty of nature, for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, right? Who's in both in beginning and now is to hold his word and mirror up to nature, and then he says to show virtue on face and scorn her own image, right?

[13:55] But he sees nature as the model, the measure of what is virtuous or vicious, right? Which sense of nature is that here? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In other words, by what is private to me, Duane Burquist, or private to Saint Francis de Sales or something, right? As an individual man, you may be well or badly disposed to being reasonable, right? So Francis de Sales, I guess, was given to anger by nature, right?

[14:22] And he overcame this, you know, by great discipline, right? And someone else, someone else might be, you know, playing some other vice, right? But. To be reasonable, something belongs to us by reason of our common what nature, right now. So some people become unreasonable because of their desire to drink, let's say, or something, right? Others because they're angry and they do terrible things, right? So on. Others because they're cowards, right now, you know.

[14:53] So they might not be, might run away in battle time or something, right? Again, according to both natures, something can be called natural in two ways. In one way, because the whole of it is by nature, right?

[15:20] In another way, because according to it, something is by nature, and something of it is from an exterior what principle, right? Just as when someone is healed through himself, the whole health is what by nature. When someone is what healed by the help of medicine, his health is partly by nature and partly from an exterior what principle, right now. That's a famous example there, because Aristotle and Thomas will use that example of health sometimes coming entirely from within, right?

[15:59] For the body doesn't take any medicine like that, but it what your body overcomes the disease, right now. And then sometimes you need this exterior help, right? And they apply that to to coming to know, right now. Sometimes a man is so intelligent that he can discover some great truth by himself, right now. But others, you know, what's within them is not sufficient, but they need a little exterior help, like the words of the master or something, right?

[16:27] And then that kind of what brings them to healthy state of mind. Okay. That's a famous distinction. In contrast, act with making a what a chair, right? That's holding by the from the artist, right? Nature doesn't sometimes make a chair. But nature does sometimes heal you, right? Without any exterior help.

[17:00] If therefore we speak of habit according as is a disposition of the subject, in order to a what the form or the nature. In both in either of the aforesaid ways, huh? It can happen that a habit is what natural. For there is some natural disposition which is owed to human species, outside of which no man is what found. And this is natural according to the nature of the what species.

[17:36] But because such a disposition has some latitude, right? It happens that diverse grades of this disposition can belong to diverse men according to the nature of the what individual, and this disposition can be either totally from nature or partly from nature and partly from an exterior principle, as has been said about the man or about those who are healed through what art.

[18:13] But the other kind of habit, which is a disposition to operation, whose subject is the power of the soul, it can be natural both according to the nature of the species and according to the nature of the individual. According to the nature of the species. According as it has itself on its on the side of the soul itself, which since it is the form of the body, substantial form of the body, it's a specific principle.

[18:49] But according to the nature of the individual, on the part of the body, which is where your individuality comes, which is a material principle.

[19:00] But nevertheless, in neither way does it happen in men that there are natural habits, thus that they are entirely what from nature. In the angels, this happens, however, in that they have what understandable forms that are naturally what yeah, which does not belong to human soul, as has been shown in the first part. So one time my little son Marcus was going to school, he says, "Why couldn't we be born just knowing everything we need to know, right?"

[19:36] I said, "You want to be an angel, not a man. That's what the angels are created, right? They know everything naturally, right? That they naturally know. We're not born that way, right?

[19:49] Stop looking." But it's not about being an angel, right there. Oh yeah It's a temptation sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. There are therefore in men some natural habits, as it were, partly existing by nature, right, and partly from an exterior principle. But in a different way, in the grasping powers and the knowing powers, and another way in the desiring powers.

[20:41] For in the grasping powers, there can be a natural habit according to its what beginning, right? Both according to the nature of the species and according to the nature of the individual.

[20:58] According to nature of the species, on the side of the soul itself, as the understanding of the beginnings, is said to be a natural habit. That's the nous, there is Aristotle calls it in the sixth book, right? Or intellectus is Thomas calls it.

[21:23] He gives an example for from the very nature of the understanding soul, it belongs to man that at once knowing what is a whole, right. And what is a part? He knows that every whole is greater than what its part, and likewise in other axioms, right?

[21:48] But what is a whole and what is a part? He's not able to know except through what intelligible forms taken from the images, right, or from the phantasms, which is the Greek word for image, there. And account to this, the philosopher at the end of the Post Analytics, right, shows that the knowledge, even of the principles, comes to us from the senses. Yeah. So in that sense, you know, I used to, you know, was thinking about Hamlet's definition there of reason, right, as the ability for a large discourse looking before and after, and I said, well, I often call this a definition of reason as reason, right?

[22:38] But if you wanted to extend it to include even reason as a nature, right, where reason knows some things naturally, right, that the whole is more than the part, which isn't included in the idea of discourse, right? Discourse there means what coming to know what you don't know to what you do know, right? So it seems like you know what you know by defining and reasoning and calculating and so on, and therefore you're just limiting it to what reason knows not naturally, right, but by discourse.

[23:14] But there's a kind of a discourse here insofar as you have experience of wholes and parts, and then you come to know what a whole is, what a part is, and then you kind of naturally recognize that the whole is more than a what part, right? So the way you kind of extend if you wanted to include even this, right? Huh? I don't think I'm mistaken in saying it's primarily, you know, definition of reason as what reason, right?

[23:40] Huh? Okay. So Aristotle has a chapter there in the Post Analytics where he's talking about how the the axioms, right, huh, come in some way from pre-existent knowledge, right? Insofar as the understanding of their parts, right, come from experience through the what senses, huh?

[24:10] Secondly, according to the nature of the individual, there is some what knowing habit according to a natural beginning, insofar as one man from the disposition of his organs, huh, is more apt to understand well than what another, right? Insofar as for the operation of understanding we need the sense powers, huh?

[24:41] One of his classmates of mine in high school was really good, you know. And he had a memory, you know. I mean, he he could take a a page, you know, the poem, you know, three four pages, look it over once, you know, close it up and recite the thing. But he's really good in mathematics, right, huh? And what the professor would do would, you know, it was time for him to take a course.

[25:05] He'd just give him the exam, and then, okay, you get credit for that course. And of course, the professor said, you know, actually asked him more difficult things that we didn't do in the course, you know.

[25:19] And he went on and got a PhD in mathematics, right? You know, but he's he was, but well disposed in some way for what mathematics, right? You have kind of a natural beginning there, right, Don?

[25:33] Was a Jewish somebody talking to me about some people who really good at numbers. On savants. Yeah. They used to call them idiots, savants, but now they drop the idiot because it doesn't sound nice. But they're kind of like I don't know if it's a kind of autism or something, but they have like they can't tie their shoes, they can't carry on an ordinary conversation, but boy, they can do math or some other.

[25:54] There's especially like one thing. Yeah. That's what the doctor was his name Jewish guy in London. Can't remember his name. He wrote a book. Sachs, Dr. Jonathan Sachs, I think is his name, and he wrote a book about a bunch of these different people. Two of them these twins, they were like in a mental institute. And he knows they wouldn't talk to anybody. Like you could try to talk to them, like they didn't recognize your existence.

[26:15] But they would just kind of whisper to each other, and they would grin, and finally he listened, and he found out they're telling each other prime numbers, and that was their universe of their happinesses. Then we come up with the next highest prime number, and then we all they have to get excited, and then a little bit later the other one come up with the next highest, prime number And then he he sat and finally he figured this out, and he's sitting with them, he's got a table of prime numbers on, so they they throw out a prime number, and then he threw out a prime number, and they both looked at him, and they looked at each other, and they grinned.

[26:46] And then and then he got well, they mentioned they got off the charts, and he couldn't keep going with it because they got off the charts of prime numbers. Well, that was their that was their joy. That was the one thing they could enjoy. And it was taken away from them. And then it was separated. It was a sad story. But that's some people. There's that's that's what Sandra Larsen told us.

[27:06] That's what this school done in Hardwick. Among other things, there's kids who are troubled in various ways. Some of it's autism and other things, but they specialize a school which is enormously expensive. Like you get people will send their kids there because they'll cultivate whatever that one thing is that these children can do, and so it's very it's very artsy things, and that's at Eagle Hill, whatever that school is done.

[27:29] And she was saying when they have these programs, they put on these shows, and whether it's music or whatever the plastic arts or different things, and it's just marvelous to go down there. But the kids are a mess. Their life is a mess. Whatever it is, I think they can they can specialize. They can sort of grow in some particular way, and that's what the school culture.

[27:48] is Beautiful Thank you So it's kind of unusual examples of what he's talking about here, right? We have a special habitus, cognitivus, secundum incohationem naturalem right? the natural beginning. Insofar as one man, for the disposition of his organs, is more apt to well understand another. Insofar as for the operation of understanding, we need sensitive powers, right now.

[28:20] And now he goes to discuss this in the desiring powers and the appetitive powers. In the appetitive powers, there is not some natural habit according to. What beginning on the part of the soul itself as regards the very what substance of the habit, but only as regards what certain principles of it, as the principles of what common law, common law, common justice, which are said to be the seminalia virtutum, right, the seeds in a way of virtues,

[29:06] and this is because the inclination to its own objects, which seems to be the beginning of a habit, does not so much pertain to the habit, but more pertains to the very notion of the what powers, huh? So the will naturally inclined to seek happiness and so on.

[29:26] But on the side of the body, according to nature and individual, there are some desiring habits according to natural inclinations. For some are disposed from the what complexion of their body, from the makeup of their body, to chastity, right, huh? Or to what mildness, right, huh? Or to irascibility or something. That'd be the vice, huh? Or to something of this sort, huh?

[29:59] It's kind of funny, you know. I got all these grandchildren there, you know, and each of them seem to have a little different, you know, personality as we'd call it, you know, but I mean, different to what they're inclined to, right? Yeah.

[30:20] Shakespeare talks about about humor. Some, you know, people are designed to have excessive humor, right? And others will not laugh even if Nestor declared it funny, you know. But then they got

[30:36] Byron there. He's in the middle, right? He's got the virtue of humor. Yeah. Now, to the first, it should be said, first objection, that objection proceeds about nature according as it is divided against reason and the will, right? But nevertheless, reason itself and the will pertain to the what nature of man, huh? I gave a talk one time there in this business, and couldn't do it again, but develop a little bit here at the talk out TAC there for the St Thomas Day, you know.

[31:27] Because you have to be very careful when you distinguish between nature and what reason, right? Because there's something natural in reason too, right? And something natural in the will. So there's some things that reason is said to know naturally, and some things that we will naturally, right? So Thomas says we don't really choose to be happy rather than to be miserable. We naturally want to be happy rather than miserable.

[31:54] And now what happiness consists in that we might choose something. Now you read Sartre, you know, for Sartre there's kind of like an absolute distinction there, right? So that reason, I mean, that the will doesn't will anything naturally, right? That it's got, what? To be honest, you know, it's completely free the will, right? Huh? You know, so you can choose to be miserable, right? Sometimes we say that about people, right?

[32:19] You know. But strictly speaking, you don't, you can't choose to be miserable, right? And strictly speaking, and then John Stuart Mill, right, in the essay on liberty, right, he talks about the importance of liberty of thought. You know, it's because we never really know anything, right? Before we got to keep this open mind, right? But he's denying that we know anything, what? Naturally, right? And

[32:48] so everybody's opinion is up for. Yeah, you can argue about it, but you never really resolve anything, right? I always remember what Whittaker. Chambers says, you know, when he became a communist. The communists were serious about what they thought, right? Huh? He came back to Columbia University, you know, and kind of despised his fellow students who regarded ideas as ping pong balls. He says, huh? I think it's beautiful, right?

[33:18] It's a ping pong ball, something you knock back and forth. But you don't take the ping pong ball seriously, and it gets cracked and tears, you know. Just knocked back and forth, right? That's what they do with ideas, right? That's what they do at Columbia. Ideas back and forth, and play with them, so to speak. But you don't really take ideas too seriously, because you can't really know anything anyway, you know.

[33:41] When Benedict said the tyranny of relativism, right? But this is the kind of tyranny that people are under now. So we can't really know anything. What I think is just as worthwhile as what you think, you know. You know,

[34:02] everybody's thought is equal. Okay. To the second should be said that something, even what naturally, can be added to potency, potency, which nevertheless is not able to what pertain to that power. Just as in the angels, it is not able to belong to what the understanding power that be through itself knowing all things, because it would be necessary there to be the act of all things, which is of God only, right?

[34:58] God is what being itself, right? So everything that is in any way partakes of what of God, right? So he's the act of every

[35:12] actus omnium. Now that by which something is known is necessary for it to be an actual likeness, of that which is known. Whence it would follow that if the power of the angel through itself knew all things, it would be a likeness in the act of all things, and then be being itself, right? And be I am who am. Whence is necessary, in that one add to the power of the understanding of him some intelligible forms, which are likenesses of things understood,

[35:59] because through the partaking of the divine wisdom and not through its own essence alone are they what? the intellects of them are able to be an act of those things which they understand, and therefore it is clear that not everything that pertains to the natural habit can pertain to the what power.

[36:25] Now the third objection. To the third, it should be said that nature does not equally have itself to causing all the diversities of habits, because some are able to be caused by nature and some not,

[36:44] and therefore it does not follow that if some habits are natural, that all will be what natural, Natural, right? And a little break here. Now, whether some habit is caused from acts.

[37:05] it seems to the second one goes forward. Thus, it seems that no habit can be caused from act. For a habit is a certain what quality, as has been said above. It's the first species of quality.

[37:26] But every quality is caused in some subject, in so far as it is receptive of something. Right. Since, therefore, the agent from this that he acts does not receive something, but more he what sets forth something from himself, emits something. It seems that it cannot be that some habit an agent is caused from his own what acts.

[38:03] Moreover, that in which is caused some quality is moved to that quality, just as in a thing that is what heated or cooled. Now, what produces an act causing a quality moves, as is clear about the thing that is heating it or chilling it. Right. If, therefore, in something was caused a habit through its act, it would follow the same thing with the mover and the moved.

[38:35] Shocking. The agent and the patient, right? Huh? Wait. Yeah. Which is impossible, as said in the seventh book of the physics, huh? So, if my reason by thinking causes a habit in my reason, the reason is acting upon itself, right? But then the reason is undergoing at the same time, right? So, same thing. Acting

[39:05] upon undergoing. Wow. No, it's definitely terrible. It's really terrible. It's destructive of all philosophy. Serious stuff here. No wonder that guy stopped reading books. Yeah, that's true. But I was showing something though, right? You really need hope to be a what philosopher, right? And this is what comes out in a beautiful dialogue called the Phaedo, right? Because they they would love to know whether the soul is immortal or not.

[39:38] They really want to know whether the soul is immortal, right? And then Socrates develops some arguments that the soul is immortal, and they're kind of satisfied, except for those two hard thinkers there, Simmias and Cebes, and then they come in with their objections, right? And all of a sudden, Socrates' arguments collapse and. You can't trust an argument, right? Can you look good in the next moment? You see, it's defective, right?

[40:07] So you kind of despair, or what? So Socrates, at that point, you know, he he tries to lead them out of that despair, right? And the guy who's you know narrating it, you know, says, "I never admired Socrates more at this time," right? And then the other guy who's listening to it says, "Yeah, how does Socrates do it?" You know, huh? And it's beautiful the way Socrates leads them out.

[40:31] Remember my cousin Donald being so amazed by this way that Socrates does it, huh? And it is really interesting way he does it, huh? But that's that's a duty in a sense of the teacher there to give hope to the student, right? Huh? And not to what? Of course. Yeah, I told you the example there with Monsignor Dionne there you know, where Kasurik was saying, you know, he didn't follow the class and so on.

[41:02] He had some questions about, it, so he came and saw Monsignor in the office there, you know, and you talk much differently in the office than he did in the class. He said, "Why are you doing that?" He says, "Oh, it's a business of the teacher to encourage the student." He said, "Is it to discourage him?" Right? Huh? You know. Now I was lucky to have Kasurik and and De Koninck and Dionne kind of in that order, right?

[41:27] Huh? Because Kasurik would encourage you the most, right? And and then the DiKanic would get more caution, you know, and with Dionne you know, as my friend Warren Murray says, you know, his principle of passion is fear, right? But that fear of being mistaken, right?

[41:44] and his first reaction to new ideas to reject it, you know, so yeah, you gotta justify it, you know, and so on. So okay, more of an effect cannot be more noble than its what cause, but the habit is more noble than the act preceding the habit, which is clear from this that it renders more noble acts.

[42:16] Therefore, the habit cannot be caused from an act preceding the habit, huh? But against all this nonsense is what the philosopher says in the second book of the ethics, where he teaches that the habits, the virtues, and the vices, and he's thinking there of the what moral virtues at that point, are caused from what acts?

[42:43] Thomas says, "I answer it should be said that in the agent sometimes there is only an active what principle, but act." Just as in fire, there is only the active principle of what heating, and in such an agent there cannot be some habit caused from its own what act. And hence it is that natural things are not able to be accustomed to something or disaccustomed to it, as is said in the second book of the Ethics, right?

[43:20] So it's hard to accustom your eyes to uh ear, right, or your ears to see, right? I just can't do that, right? I know. Keep on, you know, putting my ear to the the painting there in those books, you know, and I still can't. I can't taste the water like that.

[43:43] But there's found some agent in which there is both an active principle and a what passive of its act, as is clear in human acts, huh?

[43:58] I just need to. He's a logician, there. He makes me think of the syllogism, right? The conclusion of the syllogism, right, is something that my understanding is in potency for, right? But in the premises, I have an active what principle, right? The example is enough. What he's saying here, it seems, I don't know.

[44:28] For the acts of the appetitive power proceed from a what desiring power, according as it is moved from a grasping or knowing power representing its object, huh?

[44:48] And further, the intellective power, according as it reasons about conclusions. Hey, just I was saying. You read this before, didn't you? No, I did. I don't. I wouldn't be excited by it if I did. It has as an active principle the premise per se, what? No termite, Okay. Whence from such acts there can be what some habits caused in the what agents, right?

[45:23] Not as far as the what first active principle, right, huh? But as regards the what beginning of the act which moves the what moved, huh? For everything that undergoes and is moved by another is disposed through the act of the what agent. Whence, from the multiplied acts, is generated a certain quality in the passive and moved power, which is called a what habit. Just as the habit of moral virtues are caused in the appetitive powers, according as they are moved by what reason.

[46:10] So Plato compares that to a man taming a what a horse, right? And the habit of science is caused in the understanding, according as is moved by the first premises, which are the axioms, right? But then, as you go forward in geometry, you're moved by the previous theorems that have been shown, right? And they move you to the for the conclusion, right?

[46:40] To the first, therefore, it should be said that the agent, in so far as as an agent, doesn't receive anything. But in so far as it acts, moved by another, thus it receives something from the mover, and thus the habit is. what. caused

[47:00] To the second, it should be said that the same, according to the same, cannot be mover and moved, right? But nothing prevents the same by itself to be moved according to diverse things, right? Let's put it in the definition of syllogism, right? Speech in which some statements lay down another follows necessarily because of those laid down, right? So it's another, right?

[47:33] To the third, it should be said that the act preceding a habit, in so far as it proceeds from an active principle, proceeds from a more noble principle than is the habit generated, huh?

[47:51] But reason itself is a more noble beginning than is the habit of moral virtue in the desiring power through the what generated through the customs of the act, and the understanding of principles is a more noble principle than the science of what? Conclusions, yeah. Thomas puts intellectus above. scientia Wonderful. We get time for one more article, right?

[48:31] Whether one through one act a habit can be generated? Ah, I think it's the opposite side. To the third, one proceeds thus: it seems that through one act a habit can be generated, right? Oh, it's going to take the affirmative side. For demonstration is an act of reason, but through one demonstration is caused science, huh? There you go. Which is a habit of one conclusion. Therefore, habit can be caused from one act.

[49:09] Now you know what it's like to sit in Monsignor Dion's class, right? Habit being generated by one act, right? Something. Moreover, just as it happens that an act increases through multiplication, huh? So it happens that an act grows through intention, right? But acts being multiplied, habit is generated. Therefore, also, if one act is much what intensified, it could be a cause generator of a habit, huh? Moreover, but what about the repentant thief there, right?

[50:03] Yeah. That may do. Next question. Moreover, health and sickness are habits, but from one act it happens that a man can be what Healed Filled or sick. Yeah. I hear people going into chiropractic now. Oh, all of a sudden he's he's fixed. Yeah. Yeah. Therefore, one act can cause a habit.

[50:30] Against this is what the philosopher says in the first book of the ethics that one what swallows it does not make spring nor one day. So likewise, neither does one day make one blessed or happy, right? According to the habit of a perfect virtue, as is said in the first book of the Ethics. So as Thomas says, virtue is the road to happiness or beatitude, right? And vices are the road to what misery, right?

[51:05] And therefore, the habit of virtue, and also for the same reason, another habit, is not caused by one act. Well, I answer, Thomas says that it should be said as has been said a habit is generated through an act in so far as the undergoing power is moved by some active beginning.

[51:32] But for this, but in order that some what quality be caused in the undergoing, it is necessary that the active one totally conquers the passive, huh? And overcome it, you know. The orkini navi. Whence it seems that because fire does not immediately conquer its what combustible, it does not at once inflame it, huh? But little by little, Paulatum, it gets rid of the contrary dispositions, that thus totally conquering it, it impresses its what likeness.

[52:18] Yeah. Now it is manifest, however, that the active beginning, which is reason, does not wholly is not wholly able to overcome, right? Supervincturatio. The appetitive power in one act, huh? In that the appetitive power has itself in many ways and to what many things, huh?

[52:50] It is judged, however, by reason in one act, something to be desired, according to determine what reasons and circumstances. Whence from this is not totally what conquered the repetitive power that it be born to the same thing for the most part per modem nature, right? Because the virtue is like determining it to one, right? So it's said to be per modum naturae, nature not being able to be more than one thing, as the teacher Shakespeare says, which pertains to the habit of virtue.

[53:25] And therefore, a habit of virtue cannot be caused by one act, but to what many, right? So he's saying that the reason cannot entirely overcome it, right? And that's the way the sense of the man is trying to what play this comparison, make the horse docile, right? The horse first will pull the man off, right? And keep on getting on, but eventually he breaks down the horse, right?

[53:49] And my friend Washington Irving describes this, you know, with the wild horses in the West, that right? And it's fairly quickly that they get not even all at once, so you can't do it right. Can you train a dog all at once? On a sense, trying to train your emotions like training a dog or a horse, right? You can't overcome it right away, right? Resistance there.

[54:18] But in the desiring powers, right? I mean, using the apprehending powers, the grasping powers, the knowing powers, it ought to be considered that there is a twofold passivity, right? One which is what the possible understanding, the other the understanding which Aristotle calls the what passive one, which is the particular reason, right? And that's what a bodily organ, now. That is the vis cogitativa, right? With the memory and imaginative powers, right?

[54:59] With respect, therefore, to the first passivity, which is the possible understanding, there can be something active, right, that by one act totally conquers the power of the passive. Just as one proposition per se known convinces, right, the understanding to assent firmly to the what conclusion. What does not make or do a probable proposition, right? Like you have in dialect, right? And therefore, you need many probable arguments, right, to kind of bring reason into agreement.

[55:41] Whence from many acts of reason, it is necessary to cause the habitum opinativum your opining habitum. Even on the part right of the possible understanding, but the habit of science can be caused from one active reason as regards the what possible understanding.

[56:08] So when you do that first theorem in Euclid, right, you're doing something marvelous, right? But as regards the the what inferior apprehensive powers, it is necessary for the same acts to be many times what repeated or reiterated that something be firmly impressed upon the memory, right? Hence, the philosopher in the book on memory and reminiscence, and, memory and recalling, says that meditation confirms the memory, right? So you have to repeat the thing, right?

[56:47] So I'd say to Kasurik you're always talking about the same thing, well, you're going to have to put up with these things Repetitio manus to the or. Yeah, yeah.

[57:00] The bodily habits are able to be caused from one act if the active is of great power, just as sometimes a strong medicine at once induces sweat. Health, health, right? And so this is clearly the response to the objections, right? Huh? So it's mainly in regard to the appetitive powers that you need. This what? Interpretation. Yeah. So if you're going to be a parent someday, is that a

[57:33] repeat things here, huh? Don't do that. Pow! It applies in the last to you too. Yeah. Believe it or not. Believe it or not.

[57:51] I keep telling my mom. Just see. Gotta finish the project. So, in no instance can you have it because of that. Well, no, he said in in the understanding that could be, in the possible understanding, not not on the side of the of the sense powers that serve the reason, right? There, you have to repeat the thing, right?

[58:19] Yeah, I wonder. Just partly from a psychological, moral standpoint, as but Saint Alphonsus says, there are some they sin bad habits, especially venereal that the strength of the pleasure involved in the sin is enough to contract that habit. He says after one act. Now, I don't think he's arguing strictly, maybe, but he's but he's pointing out a psychological fact that if somebody's not inclined to practice virtue, and he's, I suppose, in some way he's cultivated vice already in himself, at least imaginatively, so that it's sufficient one time that he'll go back to it again, and again and again, as if it had happened after one time.

[58:58] That was what that lady said when she came here talking about child abuse, and we were talking about what if somebody says, well, it was just it was the first time it ever happened, and her her emotional response to that was there's never a first time. What I think she was talking about is that this kind of this kind of vice is something that once the first time you've got the habit.

[59:19] I think that was my interpretation of it because I remembered that from Saint Alfonso.