Prima Secundae
125. Infused Habits and the Growth of Habits: Carrying Words Over, Greatness as Perfection, and the Four Opinions on More and Less
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[0:00] He's going to say the mass there in Japan. I guess that didn't pan out. But how many languages did he he what learn? You know, it's kind of amazing, huh? What was it, the Catherine of Siena? Yeah. What? Catherine of Siena, who who learned how to read and write because our Lord taught it to her. Yeah. Yeah. And also, Padre Pio. There's a wonderful biography by Rapin is it, or Ruffin, or something like that, where there were a number of people who were healed, but it was purely through God's grace, because physically the impediment seemed to still be there.

[0:37] Yeah. For example in the vision Oh yeah. The vision. Yeah. Like the girl, she could. She was born without curly. Yeah. And people's names, but notice the difference between these two reasons, right? Huh? Because the second reason is to produce, a what, A virtue or power that could be acquired by us naturally, right? Right. But the first one is one that's more essential, right, to God's infusing, right?

[1:03] Because here you have a habit that you need to have, right? Huh? But cannot be produced at all by what? Nature. By nature. Yeah. It won't be all. Yeah.

[1:14] Now the first objection there, right? Why does God do this for man? Doesn't he treat others unequally or something, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that God, although he regards his own nature, has himself what equally towards all, right? Huh? But according to the order of his own wisdom, for a certain reason, what he gives to some, he does not what give. Yeah.

[1:48] Yeah. But that's because he sees the need of this particular thing, right? It's kind of interesting, you know. I was reading Thomas there, was talking about divine providence and how it extends to all things and so on. And yet, you know, one of the objections is well, bad in the human race for the most part. And how can you say that you're acting for an end when, for the most part, you're failing to achieve the end, right?

[2:20] And so Thomas has to stop and talk about why you have this situation of malum in specie humana, ut in pluribus, right? Evil in the human race for the most part. And he gives two reasons. One, of course, is from original sin, right? But the other is kind of taken from the nature of man that he's born what not having the various virtues that he needs to be well disposed towards his end, right?

[2:48] So he's kind of like a a what? Aristotle says in the De Anima there quotes it. It's like a tablet on which nothing's been written, right? The blank page, right? Huh? And he quotes Averroes, you know, saying that the man's mind is like prime matter in the beginning, right? So it's open to all things, right? And there's more ways to be bad than to be good, right?

[3:13] So if you just, you know, the chances are, then you're going to be bad unless you get brought up well, right? Aristotle says that even, you know, from human point of view, in the ethics, you know, it makes no little difference. He says how a man is brought up, right? What habits he's brought up in makes he says a great deal of difference, and then he says, or rather, all the difference.

[3:35] And when Aristotle talks about the the end, he says such as a man is by his habits, right? So does the end appear to him, right?

[3:50] So if your your habits are are lusty, you know, then these sense pleasures are going to seem to be the end and goal of life, right? And if you're ambitious, you know, in an an ordered way, right? Then to you know become king or become, you know, like Richard the Third to be king, right? Or or Macbeth does, you know, right? It's going to seem you know everything is going to lead to that.

[4:18] Even if you have to kill somebody, right? On the way, that's the thing to do, right? So to be well disposed towards your end, right? You need these what virtues, right? So if you're born without these virtues, right? Then you're kind of open to anything, right? And then probably what since there's more ways to miss the target than to hit the target, right? You're more apt to what end up bad in some way, right?

[4:49] They have these silly programs on TV there, you know, where they have four chefs, you know, and they've got them. They're suddenly given some ingredients in a basket. Now they've got to make a main course, right? And then they judge who's the best, right? Something wrong with this guy's thing because he didn't do this right or something, you know. And there's so many ways to wreck a meal, right?

[5:12] And he just, you know, starting from scratch, right? Most people would, you know, probably make some mistake. Too much of this, or too little that, or this was too dry, or this was too seasoned, or something, right?

[5:30] They always tell the story with my little relatives there, and supposed to make coffee cake or something, you know, and these coffee grains instead of instead of coffee, you know, instead of that's coffee, you know. So everybody's eating this thing pretending not to like it, but there's so many ways to go wrong, right? I mean, just you know.

[5:56] It's innovation, right? Yeah. Trial and error. You see how essential it kind of struck me, you know, how essential it is this whole consideration of virtues, but end up being brought up with these what virtues, huh?

[6:18] That your Aristotle insists you can't be prudent, right? If you don't have what the virtues whereby you're well disposed towards your end, because of what he said there, right? Such as a man is by his habits, right? So does the end appear to him, right? So if you got the wrong orientation towards the end, you can't decide what is suitable to the end, because the end is not suitable in the first place.

[6:45] And but this is behind kind of the ut in pluribus for the most part in men, right? So you have a civilization that used to have that tradition of trying to instill habits in children. Then the civilization changes, and they are jettisoning all this, even the whole concept of virtue and virtuous habits. Yeah. And on the individual level, it's a disaster. But the collective, all the collective of all the individuals, when they're all on board from virtue, the societal or cultural impact is going to be disastrous.

[7:24] You have people, you know, talking about ethics now without talking about the virtues and the vices, right? This this could be done. So now we've got to the second objection, is it? Okay.

[7:46] To the second, it should be said that this that God in all things acts according to their mode does not exclude, but that God some things he does some things which nature is not able to do, right? But from this it follows that he does nothing against that which is suitable to what nature, right? Huh? Okay. So I mean, you know, it's a natural desire of man to understand, you know, things to know their cause and to know what a thing is, right?

[8:23] Huh? You can't really know what God is, strictly speaking, unless you see him face to face, right? So I mean, is that contrary to our nature that he gives us the medium vision? No. It's kind of

[8:39] fulfilling what is natural to us, right? But over an abundant way, right? Huh? To know the cause and to know the what, right? Huh? Mere Aristotle says, you know, philosophy begins with wonder, wonder. Wonder is a natural desire to know what and why, right? And ultimately, to know what God is, and that He's the cause of all things, right? And so, you're not going against nature when you give man the beatific vision, right?

[9:10] Right. To give him something that nature is not able to attain itself. Okay. Now we get to the next question, which is. Oh, which is the third objection? Yeah. Okay. That's the thing. Objection is saying, well, since a habit is produced by repeated acts, right? Aren't you going to get another habit here, right? To the third, it should be said that the acts which are produced from a infused habit do not cause another what habit, but they confirm the habit that already exists, right?

[9:55] So, when I make a confession of faith, right, like you do on Sunday, there. in Mass and so on. You're not producing another what? Faith in you, right? Huh? But you're confirming or strengthening the virtue you have already, right? Just as medicinal remedies are administered to a man that's healthy sometimes by nature, and therefore they would not cause another health in him, right? But the health that he had before they corroborate, right?

[10:30] Okay. So the act of love that proceeds in the virtue of charity does not produce another habit of charity in your idea Okay. But it what confirms the love you have, right?

[10:52] Okay. So now we're going to come to the topic of the growth of habits, right? Huh? Okay. I've seen this in the early Greek philosophers. Now they'll talk about the growth of habits, right? Huh? The learning causes the mind to grow, right? They'll say that, right?

[11:16] Then we ought to consider about the growth of what habits, huh? And about this, three things are asked. First, whether habits grow, right? They're increased or not, huh? Secondly, whether they grow by what addition, huh?

[11:40] Which is the way a city grows, right? That's the way habit grows. You have a few houses there, you know, and then we had some more houses along here, right? You know, and I live in Shrewsbury, you know, getting kind of busy now in Shrewsbury, and more so than when I first moved to Shrewsbury, and I we moved there in '69, right? Huh? So now it's getting kind of crowded, you know.

[12:05] I was coming home from. Might have been from here, yeah. I was going to go to the drugstore and get pick up some of my medicine, right? I said, well, I'll go to the second entrance to Shrewsbury, you know, because then I can drive around more easily, you know, and accordingly go into the thing. But the cars line up all the way down to 298. What? You know, you know.

[12:30] So, but notice, huh? That's the way a town grows, is by what additions, right? Huh? When we first moved there, there were still some farms in town, right? I remember we used to stop, you know, en masse after Sunday, you know, with the kids, you know, and stop and talk to the horses there, you know. There's one ranch, you know, because the kids like to watch the horses, you know.

[12:50] And so we'd stop and park right next to the the fence there, you know, and talk to the horses, right? Those are all gone now. The horses, they don't have their their houses there, you know, where there were, you know, some farms left, you know. So is it the way habits grow, addition, right?

[13:11] And third, whether each act or any act, right, causes the habit to what grow, right? Okay, Because there have to be a number of acts.

[13:26] To the first, then one goes forward. Thus, it seems that habits are not able to what to grow or to increase. Huh? For growth is about quantity, as is said in the fifth book of the physics. But habits are not in the genus of quantity. We saw that they're in the genus of what quality.

[13:51] Therefore, about them there cannot be what growth, right? Okay. Well, obviously the word growth is what equivocal, right? Right. And but it's seen first in what quantity, right? As Monsignor Dionne says, he can't move the word, right? Okay. Thomas will explain how the word can be moved here, right?

[14:19] That's a good way he begins with an objection, right? It makes you stop and think. Moreover, a habit is a certain what perfection, as is said in the seventh book of the physics. But perfection, since it implies a what end in turn, does not seem to be able to receive more and less, right? You reach the end. That's that's the end, right? You can't go any further.

[14:49] Okay. As Aristotle uses in the fifth book of wisdom, as one meaning of perfect, what has reached its end, right? Therefore, habits a habit is not able to be what increased, right?

[15:09] Moreover, in those things which receive more and less, there happens to be what some kind of alteration. For something is said to be altered when, from being less hot, it becomes what. Yeah, you have the water on the stove there, right? It's cold, and then it becomes warm, and it becomes hot, right? So it's more and less, huh? But in habits there is no alteration, as is proven in the seventh book of the what physics, huh?

[15:45] And therefore habits are not able to grow, increase. But against this is that faith is a certain what habit, huh? How do you translate the word "fides"? You know, we just say faith, right? Yeah. But you could say also what belief, right?

[16:11] Belief meaning accepting without question. Yeah, yeah. But I think sometimes the word faith, at least in English today, you know, they kind of mix it up a little bit with hope. Sometimes, right? You know, so we might say, you know, I have faith in you. I trust you, right? You know, is that is that belief in you or is that hope? Hope, yeah. So sometimes I translate "fides" by faith, but sometimes I translate by what belief, okay?

[16:48] And actually, you can speak, you know, you know, use faith or belief sometimes for human belief, right? Okay, like I I believe Euclid, right? You know, even before I see the demonstration, right? You know, because I see them show one thing after another, right? So he says something is so, you know. I expect he's going to prove it, right? So before I see the proof, I expect that.

[17:16] But this is, of course, talking about believing God, right? This is a theological virtue. Now, faith is a certain habit, and nevertheless, it what grows, right? Huh? Hence, the disciples say to the Lord, "Lord, what increase our faith, right? " And I don't. This seems the other text there with the the man is that the boy that is sick or something, you know, and he Christ says, you know, do you believe or something that effect, and man says, yes, but help my unbelief.

[17:52] Yeah, he wants to grow in it, right? Okay. Therefore, habits are what increased, right? Habits do but grow. No problem about translating "augetur right? I can translate it as "grow" and "increase," right? But

[18:13] it seems kind of funny to say habits are growing, right? But but different habits grow. You could say that. Okay. Now Thomas says, "Answer should be said that growth, just as other things, what, or maybe other words pertaining to quantity, right?

[18:38] From bodily quantities are what transferred, carried over, right? To what spiritual things? Okay. This is what Thomas often will speak of, right? The carrying over of a what. Word, right? The word is placed upon this first, right? And they'll say in Latin that's the prima, the first impositio, which means the placing upon, right? And then reason picks up that word and carries it over, right? And places upon a second thing for some reason, right?

[19:20] If it's a word equivocal by what? Reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a student comes to my class there last night, and his name is Richard, right? Huh? Said, well, my oldest brother is called Richard too, right? So is there some reason why these two guys have got the same name, Richard? No. So that's kind of a common example of a name is equivocal by chance, right?

[19:49] So my brother Richard is older than this guy, right? Huh? But some reason to come along and take this name and place my brother Richard, and say we'll pick this up and we'll carry it over. and place on this guy because of some you know similarity or something, right? He was no connection, right? Okay. But in the case of a name equivocal by reason, there's a reason why it's what carried over, right?

[20:17] And sometimes it's by what the ratio of the second thing to the what first, first, right? Okay. So being or thing is placed upon substances like man and dog and so on, and then it's carried over to what accidents like the shape of the man, the the size of the man, or the disposition of the man, right? Or the dog, right? Because it's something of the first, right?

[20:52] Huh? There's a connection, right? So the shape, there's the shape of the man, right? The size is the size of the man, right? So by reason of that, it's carried over, right? But sometimes it's carried over by reason of a certain what likeness, right? Okay. There are other ways that things get carried over, huh? So he says the word growth, just as other things pertain to quantity, are carried over, transferre right?

[21:25] I've talked about that word transferred. You see, in the Latin word translatio, right? Translatio means a carrying. Translatio is carrying, right? And trans is across, so it's a carrying over, right? And translatio and the Greek word metaphora have the same what etymology, right? Metaphora, phora means carry, and meta means over, right? So, but it's kind of funny the way these words are come into English, right? Because in the case of metaphor,

[22:06] what do you do? What you carry over the word, but you don't carry over the same meaning, right? Okay. So honey is placed upon the substance that the bees produce, right? Huh? And then the husband carries it over and places it upon wife and calls her honey. And

[22:46] this is what you carried the word honey over, but not the same. Doesn't mean the same thing, does it? Okay. Now I see the word translation, which has the same etymology as metaphor, and translation. You're carrying over what the word?

[23:08] No, the meaning. You're carrying over the meaning, yeah. And you're trying to find a word in your own language, right, that means the same thing as this word in the other language, is it? Yeah. So I might carry the word homo over and say what man, right? Okay.

[23:29] Or anthropos and carried over to man. I didn't say anthropos that you do in anthropology, do but I mean you say man. Man is not the same word as anthropos, right? But it means has the same what meaning, right? So it's kind of funny that although metaphora and metaphor and translatio have the same exact what etymology carrying over, we've borrowed them and borrowed both these words and made an English word out of them, right?

[24:02] A one for a case where you're carrying over the word but not the same meaning, right? Other where you're not carrying over the word but you are carrying over the the meaning of it. Right. Okay.

[24:19] So, but in Latin there, Thomas will speak of a translatio nominis, right, which would be like what metaphor, right? But where the name is being carried over, right? Translatio nominis, right, which is not the way we use the word translation in English, right? Okay. So he's saying here there's a transferre, and that's the verb form, right? Trans is you know ferro is from what to carry, right?

[24:48] So it's carried over. So he says the word augmentum or growth, just as other words pertaining to quantity are carried over from bodily quantities to understandable spiritual what things, right? Immaterial things. Now why do we do that, right? See, well on account of he says, right, the connaturalitatem, connaturality, of our understanding to bodily things, right, which fall under the what? Yeah, yeah. So Thomas says that all of our words seem to be taken from the imagination, right, from the continuous, right.

[25:41] And if you look at these words that are equivocal, you know, by reason, huh, the common words, the first meaning of them seem to be something in the continuous, right, something that can be what imagined, right? So

[26:02] we can imagine our bodies being in this room, right? And that's the first meaning of to be in, to be in a room, right? And then it's carried over to be a part in a whole, right? And then it's carried over to a genus and a species, and a species and a genus, right? And then form in matter, and then whole in the parts, right? And then I've got you into my power and funny.

[26:30] Do I left my heart in San Francisco, right? But the first meaning of in is tied up with the imagination. What's most evident of that, right? To bodily things, huh? What's the first meaning of beginning that Aristotle gives? This is the beginning of the desk here, right? It's in the continuous, right? The point is the beginning of the line. The line is the beginning of the what?

[26:53] Surface, right? The surface is the beginning of the body, right? Okay, that's the first meaning of what beginning that Aristotle would give in the fifth book, right? And then he says we don't always begin at the beginning of the what?

[27:11] Of the of the magnitude, right? So when I go to Boston, I don't go to the beginning of the road that goes to Boston because I don't live near the beginning of the road. I live somewhere in the middle of the road, right? So that's my beginning, right? In other words, convenient to begin, right? But still tied up with you know place, right? Okay. And then he says the third meaning is the fundamental part of a thing, right?

[27:41] So the foundation is the beginning of a house, right? And the keel is the beginning he says of a ship, right? And some thought the beginning of a man was his heart, right? That's that's known, right? The fundamental part and the foundation is the beginning of a house, right? Now all of these beginnings, those first meanings of beginning, the beginning is in the thing of which it is a beginning.

[28:09] Like the point is in the line of which it is a beginning. The foundation is in the house of which it is a beginning, right? But then you get to the fourth sense of beginning, where the beginning is not in the thing which is a beginning. So I'm the beginning of my children, right? The carpenter is the beginning of the table, right? That's a different meaning now of beginning, right?

[28:33] Much much more different, right? And then he carries it over to the beginning in the mind, right? So the definitions that Euclid begins with, right, are the beginning of what geometry, right? And the axioms and the postulates that he gives, right? That's the beginning of geometry. That's the fifth sense of beginning, right? And then the sixth sense is. But any cause can be a beginning, so even an end can be a beginning in that sense.

[29:05] But but the first meaning of beginning is something tied up with the what, like he says here, yeah, on account of the naturality of our understanding to body things which come under the what imagination, right? That's why geometry is the science most proportioned to us, right? And actually, we geometry in a way is more fundamental than arithmetic, even. It's more imaginable.

[29:41] Okay. So now it's interesting. This carried over even even to God, right? Okay, because God is said to be great too, right? But let's not go all the way to God today. Now that is said in. bo In corporeal quantities, right? Something to be what? Magnum, right? Great. According as it is what brought to a suitable perfection of its what quantity, right?

[30:19] You know, so we'd speak of somebody as being fully grown, right? Or we'd speak of this plant as fully what grown, right? And you know, different kinds of trees they have a certain what height, you know, for their kind of tree, right? And these different animals have a different height that they go to, right? So the ant doesn't grow to the height of an elephant, let's say, right?

[30:49] And fully grown means fully means kind of perfect, right? You know. So this is the idea, huh? Things grow to their what suitable perfection of their quantity, right? Huh? Whence some quantity said is regarded as great in a man that is not regarded as great in a what else? So you might call somebody he's a giant, you know, huh?

[31:22] Whence also in forms we call something what? Magnum. From this that it is what perfect, huh? Now what man was called great in Thomas's experience? Albert the Great. Yeah, yeah, Albertus Magnus, right? Albert the Great, huh? Some people want to start to have it now, calling John Paul the Great, right? Okay. But we have some of the popes were called great, right? Huh? Gregory the Great, huh?

[31:57] Leo the Great. Yeah. Whence in forms we call something great from this that it is what perfect, right? Okay. Or we called you a little man, right? I thought it was necessarily insulting to call you a little man. Get on my way, little man. But little man is you haven't quite reached the full size of a man, right? Huh? You know. Okay. It's kind of funny, you know, these these girls going around buying these high-heeled shoes.

[32:33] You know. I remember, I forget where it was, you know, when these girls had these high-heeled shoes, and she had some accident with the car, you know, because the thing is kind of hard. Yeah. Why do you wear those stupid shoes? You know, well, it's because some girls, you know, I'm too short or something, you know, huh? They wanted to, you know, they didn't have the the height to be the perfect height, you know, for a woman, right?

[33:01] And you know sometimes, usually a girl wants to dance with a man who's taller than her, right? Huh. But certainly not a man that's shorter than her, right? Huh. All of a sudden, you see these odd mixtures, you know, in couples. But but usually the man is a little bit, you know. Yeah. So you kind of need what a some perfection of size, there, right? Huh. So it's because that idea of perfect that he says is carried over, right?

[33:26] Huh. And because the good has the notion of something what perfect, right? Huh. Then count to this and those things. Now, how do they translate "mole" in your English text? If you have English text there. Let's finish quote from Augustine.

[33:49] And therefore, in things which are great, but not in quantity, to be greater is the same as to be better. Yeah. Augustine says. Yeah, but what is "mole" in his a little more concrete meaning, doesn't it? What do you have? Is it Latin or what? This is Latin. I'm looking at this thing. I don't know where it is.

[34:12] Okay. And since since good has the character of perfection, therefore, in things which are great, but not in quantity, to be greater is the same as to be better. Yeah,

[34:23] Augustine says. Mole, it's not such a size that's more concrete than I forget. What means exactly? What do you have in your text further? Yeah, that was. And things which are great, but not in quantity, to be greater is the same as to be better. Okay. We should look up that remark. In the Latin, of course, you have all this what alliteration, right? In Isque non mole magna sunt two M's there, right?

[34:48] Huh. It's the same thing to be maius, more that melius, better, right? Huh. So you have four words beginning with what M's. They call that what alliteration, right? See, rhyming is is at the end of the words, right? Alliteration at the beginning. So Shakespeare says, you know, in Tempest, "Full fathom five thy father lies." Like medieval poetry, Beowulf and others, the earlier medieval stuff, to alliteration, worse and worse poetry.

[35:19] But Augustine, being a rhetorician, right, he he he knows these things, right? But suppose you can't you can't translate these things, right? And keep the what alliteration, right? Right. Just like I used to kid the French there, you know. How do you translate "full fathom five thy father lies"? Well, father is pair and and five is same, you know. They don't alliterate in French, right? Right. So you can't really what translate, right?

[35:47] Right. I think it's Samuel Johnson said, you know, that the poets force us to learn the language, right? Now, because you can't really translate it into another language, it loses the what. The spirit, right? Huh? I remember my the French and Spanish teacher there in the lunchroom one time arguing with this dumb guy in education, right? Say, oh, you can read things in translation, not in the original, you know?

[36:09] Like nothing's lost, you know, like that, you know? But anybody who who can read it well, you know, with ease in the original, he realizes the translation what loses something, right? Huh? They tell this story, you know, one of the anecdotes about De Koninck and Dion, right? And Dion first read Shakespeare, and he read him in a French, you know, translation, no? And De Koninck says, no, forget about that.

[36:35] And he gave him a copy of Shakespeare in English, right? And so one time I was up in Monsignor's room there, you know, and I referred to something Shakespeare, and so we just went to look at the text. I mean, and several editions of Shakespeare, and he gives him one of them. One of them got this inscription from De Koninck you know. There's truth to the story, right?

[36:57] But the point is, you know, you know, Father Bole would come in, and he, he, he, you know, always Shakespeare in English, right? And Monsignor, he's in class, he'd read in English, right? Huh? And they kind of embarrass us because they seem to know Shakespeare better than we do, you know? And we're as a native language, right? Huh? But you lose so much, right? By this, right?

[37:20] Huh? And so, but the same way with Augustine, Augustine's language is more what got these things like alliteration, and a lot of times beautifully said in Latin, you know, but but the English translates more there by quantity, and you know, you lose the alliteration, but not as the end all of all things, but makes it nice, you know, nice taste in the mouth, right? And his quo non mole magna sunt idem est esse maius quam melius Oh, the French can say much better than I do, you know.

[38:00] Pronounce it much better, but ole magna maius quam melius so you kind of realize when you read Homer there, even a good English translation, you know, say this kind of great poet he is, you know. But if you're reading him, you know, at ease without a dictionary, you know, in Greek, you know, you would be even more impressed, you know. Just marvelous. I was I was at this library sale, you know, and picked up a copy of this last Sunday of Hesiod's there, you know, Theogony and The Works and Days and so on.

[38:46] And the translator was talking about how you translate it. It's like the Homer writes in dactylic, right? When dactylic, you have what three syllables, and the accent or the length and the Things on the free syllable, right? So, I think Shakespeare says, "Merrily, merrily, shall I live now." That's what dactylic, right? Now, but in translating

[39:13] *Hesiod*, in English, it's easy to put it in the anapestic, you know, which is just the exact reverse—two unaccented and then an accent. Do it right, and so it's kind of funny, you know, that it was coming out the way it did, right? But it's all, you know, note of the translator, right? So, but there's a problem about translating. You know,

[39:36] you can translate a philosopher in some ways better than a poet, right? Even though sometimes the problems of translating the proper word. So, I don't—I have not translated *Episteme* in English. I translate it now by a speech, on I say um uh a reasoned-out understanding. or reasoned out knowledge, right? I don't try to find one word in English to correspond to episteme. And episteme in Greek has the sense of coming to a halt or a stop, right?

[40:14] So it's an understanding that is after a motion, right? So therefore, I translate it as a reasoned out understanding, right? As opposed to the natural understanding that's at the beginning.

[40:28] There's problems sometimes in in translating the philosophers too. You know the word category, right? Well, category kind of comes from the Greek word for what accusation in the courtroom, right? I told you how my friend Warren Murray says

[40:53] he translates the title of the categories. You know, the ten supreme accusations, the ten highest accusations. Maybe catches your attention, right? But you lose it when you use the word category, right? Loses

[41:10] the piquancy, you know. Because it got carried over in English into what? Is it because it got carried over in English to that second meaning? And we we don't you'd never say category in English referring to accusation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, It's always in the sense of the term category, yeah. When they're accusing Christ there, you read the Gospels, you read the Gospel in Greek there, they have the word kategoria in there.

[41:38] He's being accused of this, right? But it's very striking because if I want to, you know, try you, I've got to accuse you of something, right? I've got to say something of you. You're a robber, or you're a thief, or you're a murderer, or something, right? And then I'm going to try to prove that, and then try to give you the punishment that you get for robbery or for murder or whatever it may be, right?

[42:00] I got to say something of you, right? Right. And so this is tied up. Now the Latin word that they use for category is is predicamentum, which comes from the Latin word for set up.

[42:15] Now the word predicament just come into English, right? Predicament. Pronounced it right. And Deacon used to be kind of amused by that because a predicament is a situation that you can't get out of, right? And that makes for the original meaning, you know, the one of the categories or one of the the genera, right? If you're in the genus of quantity, you can't get into the genus of what?

[42:39] quality. Yeah. And if you're in the genus of relation, you can't be in the genus of substance or quantity. You're stuck in that genus, right? And can't get out, right? And you know, square can't get out of the genus of quadrilateral, can it? I look at radical surgery. Yeah, no way to get out of it, right? It's stuck in there, right now. So we kept a little bit of the meaning of it, but with this word predicament, right?

[43:08] That's kind of funny the way that word is worked this way in English, with the meaning that it has, right? And and it doesn't have much of the sense of set up, you know. But it has something of the fact that these categories were things you couldn't get out of it.

[43:28] People, of course, are always afraid of being labeled, you know, and stuck with something title. That's where they kind of destroy people, you know. They kind of put you in the pigeonhole, you, and then they get rid of you that way.

[43:42] So he sees a connection here of growth being carried over for what? To perfection, right? You can see how that is so, right? When when you when a plant grows, right? It's reaching its perfect what size or height, right? Okay. And you know when Thomas explains the the sacraments, baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, right? He compares it to the what living soul, right, which has these three operations: generation, right, which corresponds to baptism, and growth, which corresponds to what?

[44:27] No confirmation, right? And and nutrition or eating, right, to the Eucharist, huh? And so, in a sense, what confirmation is? You're growing to your what full height, and now you're being constituted, as he say, a soldier for Christ. You got to take that slap on your cheek there. And and depending how how much he wants to emphasize that, you know, he's a pretty gentle one, you know.

[44:54] But but if he hits you, a good whack, you know, you realize that you're supposed to be ready to now what? Receive a blow, you know, for Christ, right? And and so this is growing to your what? Yeah, perfection. Yeah. So you can see how why it's connected with growth.

[45:17] Now, next next paragraph, though, he gives a what? He sees a distinction, right? And subtler. Now he says the perfection of a form can be considered in what? Two ways, right? In one way, according to the form itself. Now it's a little hard to see what that means exactly, right? In another way, according as the subject partakes of the what? Form, yeah. Okay.

[45:55] So, insofar as there is noted a perfection of the form according to the form itself, thus it itself is said to be what small or great, right? As great or little what health, right? Or great or little what science, yeah? So I don't know what that means. That mean that if I know, you know, a whole lot of theorems of geometry, then my geometry is great, huh?

[46:29] If I know just one or two theorems in book, there's what in Euclid there's what thirteen books, right, huh? So in book one there's forty eight theorems, right? So if I know two or three theorems, what would you say? I know a little geometry. Yeah, I know a little French.

[46:51] Okay. Or large or small what health, right? Okay. I got a little healthy now. Okay. Munose he says it said great or little health, great or little science, right? Okay. Insofar though as is noted the perfection of the form according to the subject's partaking of it, right? It is said to be more and less, right? As more or less white, more or less what healthy, right?

[47:34] Now this distinction does not go forward according to this that the form has some being aside from what the matter or aside from the subject which it is, huh?

[47:51] But because other is a consideration of it according to the notion of the species itself, another according as it is partaken of in the what? Yeah. Okay. That's a distinction there. It's kind of hard to see, but. Um.

[48:17] But notice, huh? I might understand the same theorem that you understand, right? But you understand it better than me, or I understand it better than you, right? Huh? That's more my what? Participation. Yeah, on the side of the subject, right? Okay. But if I know ten theorems, you know only one, right? Then my geometry is greater than yours, right? That's even more on the side of the form itself.

[48:51] Anyway. Now Thomas goes into other difficulties here, right? He's making things difficult for us today. According to this, therefore, about the intensity and remission of habits and forms, there were four opinions among the philosophers. As Simplicius now we met Simplicius a lot here, right? Huh? Yeah. He's important guy here. As he narrates in his commentary on the what, Predicamentorum, right? Huh? That's the genitive of predicamentum, right?

[49:27] So in Latin they called the book on genus, species, difference, property, and accident the predicabilia, right? And the book on substance, quantity, quality, relation, and the other ten, right? The predicamenta, right? Huh? So, but we call it in Greek here the categories, right? Huh? Okay. So as Simplicius narrates in his Commento predicamentorum, notice in both the word predicabilia. and the word predicamentum, it's tied up with the word predicare set of.

[50:07] You see So what the book when you know when Porphyry begins this thing he says we're gonna he says he says to Chrysarius who asked him about these words right he says

[50:23] to know genus, difference, species, property, and accident he says is useful he says not only to know the categories of Aristotle which is why he asked him about this right but also for understanding division and definition and even demonstration right okay because one of the most important divisions is the division of a genus into its what species like Euclid divides quadrilateral into square and oblong and rhombus and rhomboid and trapezium right huh and he divides number into odd and even or into prime and composite and so on and so but also for definition right is a definition is speech making known what a species is through its genus and differences huh so the definition of square as a equilateral and right angled quadrilateral makes known

[51:25] the species square by its genus which is quadrilateral and its differences which are equilateral and right angled right okay and it's useful for understanding demonstration he says huh because in a demonstration you prove a property belongs to a species through a knowledge of what that species is which is through the genus and the differences right so my goodness I mean not just to understand this guy is trying to understand the categories of Aristotle and Aristotle talks about genus and species and differences whatever other things right and so he asks you know the great Porphyry you know to explain these right and so Porphyry brought together things that Aristotle says in various places about genus and species and difference and so on and put them together

[52:14] but he says it's useful Chrysarius he says not only to know the categories of Aristotle but to understand division and definition and demonstration I mean you've got to really know this right but one thing Porphyry doesn't bring out I mean Porphyry doesn't bring out is that he's really dividing name said of many things univocally okay and I didn't realize that until I was reading Thomas there in the Summa contra Gentiles where he's talking about the name said of God and creatures and so on right and he asks is any name said of God and creatures univocally.

[52:57] And Thomas gives many reasons why it's not right. But one of the reasons is an either-or argument, right? That every name said univocally of many things is either their genus or their species or their difference or their accident. That's a complete distinction, right? You might say a complete division, right? Of every name, right, said univocally of many things. That's marvelous thing, right? Yeah, of course. See. Now the categories of Aristotle is about what?

[53:31] In the highest genre, right? And there's ten of them we find in the categories, right? And these highest genera are said of everything that is below them, all the species below them, all the way down to the individuals, right? So substance is said of bodies, and bodies are said of animals, and animals are said of man, and is said of me and you, you know. And so you realize in the titles of these words, especially in Latin, predicabilia and predicamenta, right, that they're tied up with something said of something, right?

[54:12] The genus is a name said of many things other than kind, signifying what they are, right? And so when Thomas is in the metaphysics, right, and Aristotle is leading us by the hand from logic, and then leading us by the hand from natural philosophy, right? And he says, he says very briefly,

[54:41] in one case he's leading him per modum predicationis, by way of how this is said of that, and that's to lead him from logic, because it's logic that is about the way this is said of that.

[54:58] But it's very brief, you know, the brevity of wisdom, right? He just says per modum predicationis, right? And then later on Aristotle is leading us per modum motus, son, by way of motion, and this is the way of the natural philosopher, right? Okay. So this is all into natural science, right? You're being led by way of what? Motion, right? And but and that's the way proper to natural philosophy, right?

[55:28] So he's taking us by the hand from natural philosophy and meta ta physika, right? And it's up to to what comes meta after ta physika, the books, natural books. But in the seventh book of wisdom, he's getting you know per by way of how this is said of that, right?

[55:47] And so that's what logic is about, right? Then you get into say the next book in logic, actually categories, the Peri Hermeneias, which is about statements, right? Then you find out that a statement is, you know, composed of a noun and a verb, but the verb signifies the sign of something said of another, right? So you speak of the subject and the predicate, right? So you get the idea of predicate again.

[56:16] Then you get to the book of the Prior Analytics, which is about the syllogism in general, right? Then you see it's all based upon the said of all and the said of none, right? You have to have something said of all, and therefore, if A is said of all B, then A is said of whatever B is said of, right? And if A is said of none of B, then said of none of B is said of, right?

[56:40] And but it's the idea of said of, right? And then you get into the Posterior Analytics, and then he talks about how in demonstration things have to be said of something necessarily, and per se, etc., etc., right? But again, you're talking about the way something is said of something, right? And you get into the book on places, which they call topics, which is a very transliteration not a translation, but should be said the book of places, right?

[57:11] But then the places to examine whether this is said of that is an accident or not, whether it's said of that is a genus or not, whether it's said of that is a property or not, whether it's said of it is a definition and so on, right? But how it's said of, right? You can see how logic is kind of kind of dominated by that, right?

[57:32] But that's because this is said of that where? In the mind. Yeah, this is rational philosophy, yeah, logic, logic, you know. So this is this is the the way of of logic, right? Consider the way this is said of that. That's very important, right? But you know, when Thomas gets into then you know to to the consideration of substance, right? He starts from the way something is said of substance, right?

[58:08] And he breaks it down to the way something is said of it substantially, right? And then, but you get into theology, and you know the care that Thomas has the way something can be said of God, right?

[58:23] And he's always quoting you know Dionysius, you know, Dionysius says, well, you can say it but it's imperfect, so you can deny it then of God, and then you can say, but it doesn't belong to God, but in a higher way, you know, and so on. So he's always distinguishing the way this is said of that, right? Important.

[58:48] So anyway, according to this, therefore, about the intention and remission of habits and forms, there were four opinions among the philosopher. As Simplicius narrates in the Commento Predicamentor, right? In the commentary in the Latin word predicamentor. Plotinus in them and other platonists

[59:13] lay down that qualities and habits receive more and less on account of this that they are what material. Yeah, like the water can be more or less hot, right? Yeah. Your your

[59:36] candy can be more or less sweet, right? Huh. Bittersweet is not as sweet as other ones, right? Huh. Okay. Wine can be sweeter, less sweet, right? Dry, you know, a dry wine.

[59:55] So on account of this, that they are materials, and from this they have. A certain what indetermination on account of the unlimited quality of what matter right.

[1:00:14] Others, contrarily, lay down that these qualities and habits in themselves do not receive more and less right. But they are said to be things that are qualia. That's the what the concrete there, qualified right. Are said more or less according as a diverse what. Presentation. Yeah. That justice is not said more or less, but what. Justice. Yeah. Now, if you take these things kind of in the abstract like that, don't seem to be more or less right.

[1:00:52] Is heat more or less, or what? Or is heat something you can partake of more or less? Right. Okay. So justice is not more or less, but I partake of justice more or less, right? Man has his price, son. I'll

[1:01:21] take much more for me to reach my price, right? That I'm more just than you, or less unjust. In this opinion, Aristotle touches upon in the predicamentis right? That's the Latin word for that. How do they translate predicamentis in the English there Predicaments Yeah, predicaments. yeah. Predicaments But you don't see the idea "set of" there, right? Like you're doing the Latin "perdicari," right? Set of.

[1:01:56] The third was the opinion of the Stoics, huh? Middle between these, huh? They lay down that some habits in themselves receive more and less as the arts, right? Some not as the what virtues, right?

[1:02:19] The fourth opinion was of some saying that immaterial qualities and forms do not receive more and less, right? But material ones receive more or less, huh?

[1:02:41] So it's quite an abundance of opinions, right? Now Thomas has got to sort things out, huh? You see these descriptions of Thomas, you know, where he would fall down and start to pray. and think of, Ah, now I see it.