Prima Secundae
222. Aquinas on Law, Part 2: The Precepts of the Natural Law, Virtuous Acts, and Whether the Natural Law Is the Same for Everyone (Q94 a2–4)
Class of 2015-06-04
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/222-aquinas-on-law-part-2-the-precepts-of-the-natural-law-virtuous/

[0:00] The second one proceeds thus: it seems that the natural law does not contain many precepts, but one only. It reminds me of the Aristotle talks about natural understanding, which is the way I translate this nous intellectus, right? That habit, as opposed to reason out understanding, which is science. And they say Aristotle says that

[0:32] there are many things you understand naturally, but the natural beginning of all of them is that something cannot both be and not be at the same time, in the same way. So it's a natural beginning of all the axioms, huh? So maybe get some distinction like that. We'll see.

[0:52] For law is contained in the genus of what precept, As has been had above. If therefore there are many precepts in the natural law, it would follow that there are many natural laws. We don't want to say that, do we?

[1:16] Yeah, my natural law. My natural law. Moreover, the natural law follows upon the nature of man, but human nature is one as a whole, even though it is multiple in its parts. Either, therefore, there is one precept only of the natural law, on account of the unity of the whole, or there are many according to the multitude of parts of human nature, and therefore it is necessary that even those things which are of the inclination concupiscible pertain to the natural law.

[1:57] Just doing what comes natural, right? You have your natural law, and I have mine. As Falstaff said, I've got more flesh, and therefore. Therefore.

[2:13] Moreover, the law is something pertaining to reason. This has been said above, but reason in man is one only. Therefore, there is only one precept of the natural law.

[2:31] Now the sed contra is taking the comparison right to natural understanding, huh? Aristotle calls nous, and in Thomas's, think if you remember that, is called intellectus, right? Okay, called understanding, right? Because there's no discourse required there, really, to speak of.

[2:55] But again, it says this, because just as the precepts, of the natural law in man, are with regard to the operable things or doable things, so also are the first beginnings in what demonstrations. What my friend Euclid, right, calls the axioms, right?

[3:15] Like my axiom that nothing is before or after itself. But the first indemonstrable beginnings are many, huh? So Euclid in his limited enumeration of them, you know, but he says quantities equal to the same equal to each other. If equals are subtracted from equals, results are equal, right? The whole is more than a part, and so on, right? He has about five axioms there, right?

[3:44] But the first indemonstrable beginnings are many. Therefore, also the precepts of the natural law are many, right? See? So he's arguing there from a what proportion, right? You know, to use the technical term, synderesis is to the practical, but natural understanding is to the speculative looking, right? Looking knowledge. So the natural beginning of looking knowledge contains many what axioms, many statements that are known naturally to themselves.

[4:17] So should be the same way in the practical, right? Even more so because of the the detailed character of the practical. And also Thomas begins his reply with the proportion, right? One time I was giving a senior seminar, you know, and I just thought I'd devote it to seeing proportions, right? So everybody had to do his paper on proportions in this or that part of philosophy, right?

[4:47] So one guy would take it in the dianoia, you know, one guy take it in the ethics, and the guy take it in logic, right? And so on, right? Huh?

[5:00] So definition is to the simple unknown as what demonstration is to the complex unknown, or argument is. What's the virtue of a knife? Sharpness. Yeah. See. And sharpness enables a knife to do its own work well. Now, so what's the virtue of man? What's the virtue of the eye, right? And so on. You see all these proportions, right? They run through here. So Aristotle says the first matter is known by a what proportion?

[5:38] First matter is to man and dog as clay is to sphere and cube, huh? Proportions, right? One of the tools of dialectic is what? Tool of likeness, right? Aristotle says you're exercising this tool, especially when you have a likeness of what? Proportions, right?

[6:01] Of course, he says in the book on the poetic art that the most beautiful, you know, metaphors are from what? Proportions, huh? Like is the waves make towards a pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to the end, right? We felt these proportions.

[6:37] So, no, St. Thomas replies here. I answer it should be said that as has been said above the precepts of the natural law in this way have themselves to practical reason, right? As the first principles of demonstrations have themselves to looking reason, right? Let's say what? Proportion. Okay. See that? Proportions defined as what? A likeness of ratios. So, two to three is a ratio, right? Four to six is a ratio.

[7:13] Three to four is a ratio, right? But four to six is like two to three. Three to four is like two to three. Well maybe succession of numbers Yeah, yeah, But, but is four to three like three is to two? See, but six is to four, and three is to two, right? I see. Now, if you're kind of slow there, think of the four as being two twos, and the six is three twos, and three twos are to two twos like three is to two, right?

[7:49] Yeah, yeah. No, I see it. Yeah. But I mean, you first see proportions in math, right? You know, and the I call the fifth and sixth books. You could sometimes the proportional books, right? Because he's emphasizing that, right?

[8:07] But you know, you read the great physicists, and they say what? The most useful thing to find a new hypothesis, right, is a what? Proportion. Okay. That's how wave mechanics was discovered, right? Seeing proportion, right? And Einstein says how many of these things were found by seeing proportion, right? In developing it, right?

[8:36] So that's a very important thing to see that, right? But you usually start by giving the idea of ratio and proportion in in math or in in numbers, right? And then you apply it to other things, huh?

[8:55] So St. Thomas begins here, right? Then the the body of the article. And notice what he says: for both are certain beginnings, per se nota, right? Known to themselves. You know the famous distinction of of Boethius that Thomas quotes, huh? There are some statements that are what?

[9:24] Per se nota to everyone, and others they're per se nota to sapientibus, right? Okay. Where did he say that? Boethius in the the Trinitate yeah, yeah. Yeah, other places. Okay, here's per se nota omnibus, right? Okay, good. Something is said to be per se notum dupliciter It's another distinction now. he's making, in one way in itself, another way towards us, right?

[10:09] For in itself, every proposition is said to be per se nota, whose predicate is of the notion of the what, subject, right? But it can happen that someone being ignorant of the definition of the subject, for such a person, such a proposition will not be what, yeah.

[10:32] Just as this statement, man is rational, is known to itself, according to its nature, because who says man is saying something what, that has reason, yeah. And nevertheless, to the one knowing, ignorant of what is a man, this proposition is not what, per se no. And hence it is that just as Boethius said, and this is one place where he says it, in the book De Hebdomadibus huh?

[11:03] The days of the week, I guess. But three of Boethius's works, huh? And the De Trinitate huh? First of all, De Hebdomadibus lecturing on that, you know.

[11:19] Some dignities, now that dignity is kind of Latin word for what, axioms, yeah? Because axiom is something worthy of being believed on its own grounds, right? Dignitas huh? Some dignitates, which is kind of the defining, or propositions known to themselves, communes omnibus to all, right? And these are those propositions whose terms are known to all, as every whole is more than its part, right? Everybody knows what a whole is and what a part is, right?

[11:56] They say, can you eat your steak or your apple or something, you know, without experiencing whole and part? I mean, do you take your you eat your apple in one thing, your steak, you know? Then you might not become aware of whole and part, right? When you drink your beer in one at the at the what they do at the beer things in the or in Munich there, you know, the the Oktoberfest, you know, somebody tries to drink the whole thing down without stopping, you know, and he succeeds in doing it.

[12:31] Everybody cheers and claps if he does it. It's kind of a stupid thing, you know, huh? But you can't live without experiencing whole and part, right? You can just eating, you experience whole and part, right? So everybody knows what a whole is and what a part is, and everybody knows therefore that. Whole is more than a part, huh? It's only a sophist like Bryson. I told you how I convinced the students, you know, that sometimes the part is more than the whole.

[12:56] But the students can untie the sophistical argument, right? Remember that one I told you that? I see. I used to say to them, I began with my mother, and I'd said, my mother didn't like it when I said that man is an animal. She didn't like that. She didn't think that was quite right for me to say that. And I said to my mother, boy, he's not just an animal.

[13:21] He's an animal that has reason. My mother never went to college. She said, that's better, Dwayne. That's better. So I say then, animal is only a part of what man is, huh? And they all agree to that, right? And then they say, but animal includes besides man, dog, cat, horse, elephant, right? So sometimes the part includes more than whole. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But it shows you how weak the human mind is, right?

[13:55] Because what you're doing here is confusing what two senses of whole and part. There's the whole that is called the integral whole or the composed whole, which is put together from its parts. And such a whole is always more than one of the parts that are put together to make it, huh? And then there's the universal whole, which is not put together from its parts, but is set of its parts, right?

[14:22] Like the genus is said of the species, like animal, dog, cat, and horse, right? So if you stick with one sense of whole and part, the whole is always more than the part, right? But what I did here was when I said animal is a part of man, I'm taking a part of the definition of man. The definition is a what composed whole. And one part of the definition of man is animal, and the other part is yeah, yeah.

[14:51] And so the definition of man contains more than animal, right? The whole is more than one of the parts that compose it, right? But then I turned around and took animal as universal whole, which is set of man and dog, cat, and horse and elephant. But the universal whole is always set of more than one of its parts, right? So animal is set of more than dog.

[15:18] Number is set of more than odd number, right? You know, quadrilateral is set of more than square, and so on, right? So it shows you how weak our mind is, though, right? Even with something obvious like that, right? You can by a sophistical argument. The most common sophistical argument is the one from what? The senses of the word. Yeah, yeah. It's the most common mistake being made.

[15:45] A person can think he doesn't know, but he does know, right? And Aristotle, in the second book of the Physics, there, the Natural Hearing, he argues that men can think they don't know what they do know. He said that's kind of a strange situation to be in, and so it goes back to the great Socrates, right? And everybody knows from Socrates' life that men think they know sometimes what they don't know.

[16:16] Well, if they can think they don't, they know what they don't know. Can they make the reverse mistake of thinking they don't know what they do know? Well, you think that what? You know what you don't know because you can't always separate what you know and what you don't know. So then you can make the mistake going either way. If you couldn't distinguish between a a lemon and an orange, and if someone makes a mistake of thinking a lemon is an orange, then can someone make the mistake of?

[16:45] Yeah, yeah. Sometimes you get a an orange, a big orange that looks a little bit like a a little grapefruit. You ever seen that? You know. So if you can make the mistake of thinking a grapefruit is an orange or an orange is a grapefruit, can someone make the reverse mistake? Or if you can think that this man is a woman, can you think that some woman is a man?

[17:06] That's very common. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Aristotle says we know people make the mistake of thinking they know what they don't know. Therefore, they can make the reverse mistake of thinking they don't know what they do know. And that's to be in a terrible situation as far as the life of the mind is concerned, right?

[17:28] And the great Hegel, right? Hegel thought that something can both be and not be, right? And it's because he couldn't solve the argument, you know. You can say when what is not a sphere becomes a sphere, right? There's a time in which it is not a sphere, right? But that doesn't go on forever. That time is it? So there is a last instant in which it is not a sphere.

[17:57] Likewise, there is a later time which it is a sphere, right? And therefore, there's the first instant that is a sphere. Now, those two instances the same?

[18:09] Well, if they're not, right? Then you'd have a time in between them, right? Which is neither a sphere and not a sphere, which is impossible, right? So they must be the same instant, the last instant which is not a sphere and the first instant which it is a sphere. And that's a moment of becoming, right? He says. And that moment of becoming, it both is and is not a sphere.

[18:37] He says it's ridiculous to say you can't think that. Hegel says, right? The beautiful article, I think I mentioned it before, of my teacher De Koninck there, which is Le Vrai et le Faux philosophique. Some of his articles there are in English, you know, and some are in French. This one's in French, but it's called the Paradox de devenir, Paradoxe du devenir par la contradiction. And so he shows that difficulty, right, with Hegel, right?

[19:12] But Thomas, Thomas uses that thing that Aristotle shows: when what is not a sphere becomes a sphere, right? There's no last instant in which is not a sphere, but only a first instant in which it is a sphere. As I was telling my students, I think I told you on Tuesday night, when you're dying, right? Is there a last instant in which you're alive? No, but there's a first instant in which you're dead, right? Aristotle shows why this is so, but this way you avoid the contradiction, right?

[19:53] But if you can't solve or untie the contradiction, like Hegel can't, and then you know Marx takes it over from Hegel, right? Dialectics is the study of the contradiction within things, right? As comrades says, Lenin. Okay. So, so even these most obvious things, right? People can think they don't what know them, although they do know them, right?

[20:26] Just like my students could think that a whole is not always more than its part. Sometimes its part is more than the whole. Yeah. Yeah. Remember one time in class there, I I was showing the excellence of Hegel's method, right? Yeah, I thought it was kind of a joke, really, you know. But anyway, I walked out of class and I am walking on there and says student kind of talking and he says that was something today.

[20:53] He says, you know, somebody finally found a better method than Aristotle's. So I can go back and explain this to this class by showing the excellence, you know, of Hegel's method, you know.

[21:10] But you know they kind of referred there to the to the Eucharist, right? And so he says there is a time in which it's not the body of our Lord, but it's bread. Now if you think there is a last instant in which it is bread, then you have a problem, yeah. See, because are the last instant in which it is bread and the first instant in which it is the body of our Lord the same instant?

[21:39] So then you got heresy, right? And they can't be if they're not the same instant. It seems like you got a time in between, which is neither one nor the other, and that's heretical too, right? And well, the solution is that there is not a last instant in which it is what bread, but there is a first instance in which it is. Yeah. Now I think I was mentioning I think last time wasn't I?

[22:05] It's fresh in my mind, but what is worth saying can be said more than once. as Empedocles said, right? He's talking about the justification of the soul, right? And he says, well, first the soul is guilty of something, right? And then it's in grace, right? And can it be in grace? Can it be freed of its guilt without grace? Well, you see, if there is a last instant in which you are guilty, is that the same as the first instant in which you are in grace?

[22:40] Well, then you'd have a contradiction, right? So there must be different instances, right? Therefore, there's a time between you are guilty and before you are what, in grace. In that time, you no longer be guilty, right? That's the time in between being guilty and being in grace. And therefore, you could be freed of guilt without grace, which is horrible, right? Well, again, there's no last instant in which you are what, guilty in guilt, right?

[23:09] But there's a first one which you are in grace. Thomas says, "solves what Aristotle does in the eighth book. of Natural Hearing. huh You can't solve all kinds of difficulties, right? Can't solve these things. They're not easy to solve, right?

[23:32] Okay. So Thomas begins this beautiful proportion, right? You got to be careful when you argue proportions, right? But we sometimes reason from them, right?

[23:46] And sometimes we just use them to illustrate something by likeness. Okay. So he's come down to those distinctions then between the things that are known by all and by some, and so on. Some propositions are per se nota soli sapientibus, right? Only to the wise. It doesn't mean the wisest in the fullest sense, right? But

[24:19] who understand the what terms of the propositions? What they what signify, right? Can a perfect number be a prime number? Yeah, yeah. But see, the average guy wouldn't know, right? Now, my students didn't know what a perfect number is, right? Okay. Why is six called a perfect number? Well, because it's equal to the sum of everything that measures it and measures it evenly. You can see in strict sense.

[24:56] So six is measured by one, by two, and by three, evenly, but not by four or five. And one plus two plus three. Four six. Yeah. What's the next number? Twenty eight. Yeah, yeah. Chapter twenty eight of book one of the Summa Contra Gentiles. Thomas begins to talk about the perfection of God, right? I think that's maybe accidental, but it helps me to remember where he where he he does that, right?

[25:26] Huh? But anyway, that no perfect number can be a what prime number because a prime number is measured only by what, by the one. Yeah, yeah. That obviously doesn't add up to the whole number, right? You know, so it's obvious to to the. The wise man, in you know, like Euclid, right? Wise in tend to be wise in the fullest sense, right? But a man who's learned in geometry, he can see these things, right?

[25:58] Can an even number be prime? Just two. Oh, just two. But the other one would be measured by two, wouldn't it? So, just the distinction, right? Everybody would know that a whole is more than a part, right? And I used to say, you know, if someone says, "No, I don't know that," we'll give you part of your salary this week. We'll give you part of the of the dinner you ordered.

[26:26] We'll give you part of the book you you want, and so on, right? Because I don't think the whole is any more than the part. so, what difference does it make to you? Whether you give you the whole the whole steak or part of it, or the whole book or part of it, or the whole car or part of the car, right? The whole is no more than the part, according to your thinking.

[26:46] And they'll scream and yant, and really even so, if they so if they really know it, right? Okay. Is a difficult example though, just as to the one understanding that angel is not a body. It is per se known that he is not circumscriptive in loco, right? He's not contained in some place, which is not manifest to the rudibus, right? Let me see the second use of the word rudibus today.

[27:21] Augustine's day, De Catechizandis Rudibus, but those are beginners, right? Raw students, right? Now that are pretty raw material, yeah, raw material. Okay. Which is not manifest to the rudibus, right? Who cannot grasp this, right?

[27:40] Now, in those things which fall in the grasping of all, right, a certain order is found, right. Also, Thomas is looking for distinctions and also for ordering, just like my friend Shakespeare said. Now, that which first falls in grasping is what being, right, and very close to that is what something, right. So I used to tell the students, you know, everything is something, right? So if you know what something is, you know everything.

[28:19] The students say, "Oh, I'll go home and tell my dad that." I know everything. Yeah, but you do in some way, say "secundum quid," we'd say, "huh." To use Thomas's technical terms, right? In some way, we know everything, but not simpliciter right? But in some way, we do, right? Because everything is something. I know what something is, right.

[28:50] So something and nothing are almost like being and what non-being, right? Okay. So something has more to do, maybe, with the the nature of the thing, right? Then it's the

[29:05] now that which first comes in the apprehension of reason is being, huh? As Avicenna says, the understanding of which is included in all things, whatever that someone apprehends, right? We can say the same thing about something because it comes right after.

[29:27] Everything I understand, it's something, right? Even nothing, in some way. And therefore, the first indemonstrable beginning is sometimes said to be that you cannot at the same time, right, affirm and what deny, huh? Can't both be enough. Which is founded upon the notion of being and what, non-being, right? And upon this beginning, all the others are what, founded, huh? Yeah. As is said by who? Because whoever the philosopher is Yeah, said in the fourth book of the metaphysics, huh?

[30:08] Aristotle, right? Just as being is what is first that falls in the what, grasping simply, so good is the first that falls in the apprehension of what, practical reason, huh? Which is ordered to what? Do it. Yeah. For every agent acts for the sake of an end which has the notion of something what, good. And therefore, the first beginning in practical reason is what is founded upon the notion of good, which is that the good is what all want.

[30:48] Now, who said that? Aristotle. Yeah, but he didn't speak as if that was original with him, right? Huh? If no one else knew it before him, right? So, in the very beginning, the Nicomachean Ethics, he's going to talk about the good, right? He has an induction, right, showing that we always act for the sake of something good, right? Therefore, he says it's been well said, not necessarily originally by him, right?

[31:13] That the good is what all what, want, yeah. This therefore is the first precept of the law, that the good should be done and pursued, right? Huh? And the bad to be what, avoided, huh? And upon this are founded all the precepts of the natural what, law, huh? That all things that should be done or avoided pertain to the precepts of the what, natural law, which practical reason, huh?

[32:00] Naturally grasps the what, human goods, huh? Because the good has the notion of an end, the bad has the notion of the what, contrary of that, huh?

[32:21] Hence, it is that all the things to which man has a natural inclination, reason naturally apprehends as good, and consequently as to be pursued in one's doings, right? And the contraries of them as bad and to be avoided, huh?

[32:41] According, therefore, to the order of natural inclinations is the order of the precepts of the natural law, huh? Now, he's going to start to give us something of that. There is first an inclination in man to the good, according to his nature, in which he comes together with all what substances, insofar as each substance desires the preservation of its being, according to its own what nature.

[33:17] And according to this inclination, it pertains the natural law. Those things through which the life of man is conserved, and the contrary imputed, right? So, what they recognize nowadays, uh assistant suicide, right?

[33:38] So we oppose that, huh? The grounds that's unnatural and opposed to this first one he mentions here, right? This first inclination that is natural. First uh One of the what is the Hippocratic goal is to do no harm Yeah. Yeah.

[33:56] Secondly, there is in man inclination to some things more what special, not as universal, according to the nature in which he comes together with the other animals. And according to this, it's said to be of the natural law, the things that nature teaches all the what animals as a conjunction of man and the male and the female, right? And the education of the what children, of the free.

[34:28] That's something else that's being violated today, right? Yeah. Third, there is in man an inclination to the good, according to the nature of reason, which is proper to him among the bodies, huh? Just as man has a natural inclination to this that he know the truth about God, and to this that he live in what society, huh?

[34:55] And according to this, those things pertain to the natural law that regard what to which that we take into account this inclination, huh? That man should what? Avoid ignorance. Yeah. Yeah.

[35:16] Yeah. What is this guy Carson there, the medical man there, might run the Republican ticket, but run for the nomination? But he said it was him. Somebody recently just at the graduation said, you know, make a make a commitment that going to spend at least a half hour doing something new every day.

[35:42] That man avoid ignorance, right, huh? That he does not offend others with whom he ought to speak or live, and other things pertained to life together in society, right, huh? Okay.

[36:00] So apply now to the objections, right? He's going to carry out that proportion, right? Just like there's one axiom that is kind of the natural beginning of all the rest, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that all those precepts of natural law, in so far as they refer to one first precept, have the notion of one what natural law, right? They're all bound together, right?

[36:28] They're one in order, right? To the first one, that's true both about the natural understanding and the looking reason and the natural law and the practical reason.

[36:46] There's to be many things that are naturally known, but they're all one, yeah. Does Aristotle say at the end? I think it's a twelfth book. Thereafter, he shows that God rules the universe, and he quotes Homer, right? The rule of many is not good. Let there be one.

[37:10] But order depends upon something one, right? In the Pacific War, there, you know, there was a kind of a divided command there between MacArthur and in the Navy there, you know, and led to some problems, right? Which MacArthur was concerned about, you know.

[37:32] We the army have to, you know, you have to have one, one in command. Back to the one. That's what in this question concerning obedience, disputed question on evangelical perfection, Saint Bonaventure. The last question is whether everyone should be obedient to the Supreme Pontiff. And it's interesting that at Vatican One, when it's defining papal primacy, the bishops were all discussing that question. That was a pamphlet born around Rome.

[37:59] To the second, it should be said that all the what inclinations or whatever parts of human nature there are, as the concubus upon the irascible, according as they are ruled by reason, pertain to the natural law, right? And are reduced to one first what precept as has been said, which is the one that you should do good and avoid evil, right?

[38:34] And according to this, there are many precepts of the natural law in themselves, which nevertheless come together in one root. Sometimes it calls the beginning, sometimes a root, huh? To the third, should be said that reason. Although in itself it is one, nevertheless it orders all those things which pertain to men, huh? And according to this, under the law of reason are contained all those things which are able to be ruled by it, reason.

[39:12] So shall we take a little break here? Natural law, right? To the third, one goes forward. Thus, it seems that not all acts of the virtues are of the law of nature, because, as has been said above, it's of the notion of law that it be ordered to the common good.

[39:40] But some acts of virtues are ordered to the private good of someone. This is especially so in the acts of temperance, right? So your dinner is for you, right? Only so much. Yes, not for the common good, right? We can't share everybody at your meal. Therefore, not all acts of the virtues are subject to the natural law.

[40:07] Moreover, all sins are opposed to some virtuous acts. If, therefore, all acts of the virtues are of the law of nature, it seems, ex consequente, consequently, that all sins are against what nature, which nevertheless, especially, is said of some sins that they're against nature, right? We'll quote that today. Like Thomas talk about.

[40:38] Moreover, in those things which are according to nature, all come together. But in the acts of virtue, not all come together, for something is virtuous to one that is what vicious to another, right? Therefore, not all acts of virtues are of the law of nature, right?

[41:02] To the amount of alcohol that might be good for one person is not for another person, right? Ice cream. But against this is what Damascene says, huh? In the third book, huh? The Orthodox Faith, it says, huh? Third book, it's a famous work, huh? Therefore, virtuous acts are subject to the what? Law of nature, huh?

[41:33] Yeah. Now you got to be careful about that, right, huh? Because there's a natural inclination towards them, right, huh? And they're ordered to the natural good of man, but nevertheless, the habit is what not acquired, not by nature, right? It's acquired by repeated acts.

[41:56] Answer should be said that about the virtuous acts, we can speak in two ways. In one way, in the last article you begin with a proportion. Here begins with a distinction. Ah, we had distinction there too, but insofar as they are what virtuous, right? In general, I guess. Another way, in so far as such acts are considered in their own what species. If, therefore, we speak of the acts of the virtues in so far as they are virtuous, thus all acts that are virtuous pertain to the law of nature.

[42:40] For it has been said above that to the law of nature pertains everything to which man is inclined by or according to his own nature.

[42:56] But each thing is naturally inclined to the operation that is suitable to it according to its what form, just as fire to heating. Hence, since the reasonable soul is the proper form of man, or man's own form, the natural inclination is in each man to this that he acts in accordance with what reason. Nice people would say, you know, I don't know if that's so, you know.

[43:25] I said, well, which is going to get somebody mad? It's you to think more to say you're wicked, or to say you're stupid. Kids

[43:43] may actually rejoice in being wicked, right? But they don't want to be what stupid. And I took the example, you know, that I read a few years ago in the newspaper there. Someone downtown there tried to rob a bank or a savings bank or whatever it was, and he came in and he was he handed the paper, you know, put the money in the bag, you know, and and the woman played dumb, right?

[44:10] She says, oh, I haven't seen this kind of withdrawal notice. I have to check on this, and she walks. And so she played dumb, right? Didn't know what to do. So of course, you know, they say he's robbed. He runs out and he gets gets gets caught, you know. Well, he didn't get get the money, right? Well, what is he? Why is he mad, right? So stupid.

[44:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess no time in my hometown, Minnesota, there. The guy wanted to rob the the White Castle, right? So he said, to the kind of late at night, comes in and the little girl is behind the counter at the last. There's nobody else in there. He said, put the money in the bag, right? Okay. Yeah, of course he's he's he's got his what gun in his pocket, apparently.

[45:04] See, and so she's you know she puts them in the bag. When she passes the bag to him, he takes his hand out. She realizes he doesn't have a gun, right? And so he doesn't get a good grasp on it. She's got a better hold on it, and she pulls it away, right? He runs out, right? Well, if he had left his hand in his pocket there, pretending to have a gun, right, and tingle his left hand, but instead he's without thinking, he reaches with the hand that's pretending to have a gun in it.

[45:34] That's just stupid, you know. But he could go how he ought to kick himself, right? So kicking himself not because he he was doing something wrong, stealing, but because of the stupidity with which he he did it. I take examples like that to show that kind of you you identify more with your reason, you know, and you're more apt to get in a fight by calling somebody stupid, you know.

[45:57] Even even a criminal doesn't want to be called stupid, right? But he wouldn't mind, you know, being called wicked, huh? Some of these guys, anyway. Okay. Hence, since the rational soul is the proper form of man, the natural inclination each man is to this that he act in accordance with reason, right? And this is to act in accordance with what virtue, right? Hence, according to this, all the acts of the virtues are of what the natural law.

[46:36] For the one's own reason dictates to each one naturally that he act what virtuously, huh? But if we speak of the virtuous acts in themselves as they are considered in their own what proper species, huh? Thus, not all acts of the virtues are of the what law of what nature, huh?

[47:05] For many things are what come to be according to virtue, to which nature is not at first what inclined, but through the what investigation. investigation of reason, men what find them, huh? Yeah. As were useful to living what, well, yeah. Okay.

[47:30] Now, to the first, therefore, should be said that temperance is about the natural what desires for food and what drink and for what, yeah, the productive, reproductive aspects, which are ordered to the what common good of nature, right? Just as the other legal things are ordered to the common moral good, huh?

[47:59] Now, to the second one, which is the idea that what some things are especially said to be against nature, right? Okay. To second, should be said that the nature of man can be said to be either that which is proper to man, and according to this, all sins, in so far as they are against reason, are also against what nature. As is clear through Damascene in the second book, right?

[48:28] Or that which is common to man and the other what animals, huh? And according to this, certain species. spiritual sins are said to be against what nature, just as against the what mixture of the male and the female, which is natural to all the animals, right? Yeah, is the concubitus masculorum, right? Which is what they want. I guess the Supreme Court might not call that or something.

[48:59] I think whether this is could be natural or not or something. I don't know what's going to happen. But my guess is they might take it back to the states. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see what they do. Who knows what they're going to do. Which is specially said to be a vice against what nature, right? It's our common nature, right?

[49:34] Just like if you It's even more common, if you step out the window, right, you naturally go down. So that's according to your nature as something heavier than air, right? Not your nature, even as an animal, right? It's even more general, right? So we have to see how the words are used.

[49:54] Now the third objection. Let's look back at the objection. It's a different type of one here. In the acts, of the virtues not all come together, right? Something is virtuous to one that is to another vicious, and so on, right? To the third, it should be said that that argument proceeds about the acts considered in particular, right, according to themselves. Thus, for thus, according to the diverse conditions of men, it happens that some acts are to some virtuous, as it were, what proportioned and suitable to them, which are not so, what?

[50:45] Which are not vicious to others, which are nevertheless vicious to others, to which they are not what proportioned. huh? So that's what we've gone into. Are we going to, stop now! We're going to go on for another decor or what?

[51:04] Want to interfere with your your, your desire to eat or something, or. No we have to keep this full appetite Yeah I think we can finish I mean, I know you guys have got a natural inclination to eat or something, or. Okay, but you have an natural inclination to to learn too, huh? And we have supernatural inclination too. Yes. And this is food for thought Yeah. So Not being supernatural.

[51:30] That's above the natural. Now see? You're going to be in trouble with that word. Whether the law of nature is one before all, right? To the fourth, one proceeds thus: It seems that the law of nature is not one before all, right?

[51:55] So, on the islands there, they go without clothing, right? And that'd be vicious for us to do, but it's okay for them, right? So that's what they say, anyway.

[52:07] For it is said in the decrees, I'm the famous crown law work, I guess. I refer to one by Gratian down here, For it is said in the decrees, distinction one.

[52:26] That the natural law is what is contained in the law and in the what gospel. But this is not common to all, because as is said in Romans ten sixteen, not all obey the what gospel. And therefore, the natural law is not one before all.

[52:50] Moreover, those things which are according to the law are said to be just, as is said in the fifth book of the ethics. But in the same book, it is said that nothing is so just among all, that it is not what, but that it is diversified by some. And therefore, also the natural law is not what the same before all.

[53:20] Moreover, to the natural law pertains that to which man is according to his nature inclined, as has been said above. But diverse men are naturally inclined to diverse things: some to the desire of pleasures, others to the desire of honors, right? Others to others, right? Therefore, it's natural one man to pursue the pleasures of food and drink, and others to pursue honors, right? Kind of look down upon the pleasures of the table, right?

[53:54] Therefore, there's not one natural law among all, right? This is not to confuse you huh? Make you bother me It's pretty contemporary. isn't it Yeah.

[54:07] But against this is what Isidore says in the book of etymologies that the natural law is common to all the what nations, huh? I answer: It should be said that it has been said above. To the law of nature pertain those things to which man is naturally inclined. Now which is proper to man that he is inclined to acting according to what reason.

[54:42] Yeah, but to reason it pertains to proceed from the common to the what particular right? As is clear from the first book of the physics, huh? You still have the text of Aristotle there there, you know. He's talking about this is the common rule of all learning, right? where Aristotle is there on his sermons,

[55:11] but in a different way, has looking reason about this, right? And doing reason, right? That's my translation of these two. Speculative, you know, been too much influenced by the stock market and so speculation, right? It's a very and kind of a loose sense to it. You're speculating as what's going to take place, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[55:43] Just like the problem people have, I know when I grew up, you know, people cut feeling awkward speaking of the Holy Ghost, right? Because of all the movies about the ghosts, you know, so and they want to say Holy Spirit instead of Holy Ghost. Although Ghost is really English word for Spirit in a sense, but the other connotation is ghastly.

[56:11] Because looking reason, especially right, is concerned with what necessary things, right? That's why demonstration is defined by necessity there, which are impossible to be otherwise, huh?

[56:30] Without any defect, is found truth in its own what conclusions, like in geometry, right? It's very clear, just as in the common principles, huh? But practical reason is concerned negotiates about contingent things, right? In which are found what human operations,

[56:55] and therefore, although in the common things there is some necessity, the more one descends to what the particulars, the more is found what defect, huh?

[57:09] Thus, therefore, in speculative matters, there is the same truth among all, both in the beginnings and in the conclusions. The Pythagorean theorem, right, was just a conclusion, right? Not true for one man and false for somebody else, huh?

[57:38] Even though the truth is not known among all, right, in the conclusions, but only in the beginnings, which are called the common conceptions. In doing matters, there is not the same truth or practical rectitude among all as regards the things that are what private particular, but only as regards what general, yeah. And among them, about whom there is the same what rectitude in private things, there is not equally, it's not equally what known to all, right.

[58:23] Thus, therefore, it is clear that as regards the common beginnings of reason, whether looking reason or practical reason, there is the same what truth or rightness among all, right, and equally known. As regards, however, the private or particular conclusions of looking reason, there is the same truth among all, but not equally known to what all. For among all, it is true that the triangle has three angles equal to two right.

[59:05] angles better study your geometry, right? Although this is not known to what all, yeah. But as regards the particular conclusions of practical reason, there is not the same truth or rectitude among all. Nor is it also among all what the same equally

[59:38] known. Even where it is the same, right, it's not equally what known. Now, among all, this is right and true that they ought to act according to reason. Now, from this beginning, it follows as were its own conclusion that things what lenten or depositing should be returned, and this, to be sure, is true ut in pluribus, right, for the most part, huh.

[1:00:16] But it can be that in some case it happens that it is what damnosum, huh, damning, and consequently irrational if the what things lent are returned. For example, if someone asks firm. To what fight his country right? Okay. Or if he wants to borrow my, he wants me to return his what knife so he can cut somebody's head off. Okay. I used to take the example in class there, you know, of you're at the party and and they're running short of something and somebody lends you the keys to his car so you can go to the thing and pick up some more beer or some more chips or whatever the party requires.

[1:01:06] And then you come back, of course, this guy has has become drunk, right? And he wants the keys of his car, but maybe you shouldn't, in this case, give him the keys to his what car, yeah, yeah. Okay.

[1:01:24] Or if a man has lent you his gun, right? You know, so you can go hunting or something, right? And now he's in a rage with his wife or something; he wants his gun back. Maybe you shouldn't return his gun at this time, right? Huh? So not always should you return what you. Borrowed, should you?

[1:01:42] Most part, you should, right? But there might be somewhat exceptions, right? I told you, another in the military academy there, St. Thomas Military Academy, and they were inspected by officers who come usually in Washington D. C., right? You know, for and your your that was very important thing for the school because your rank, so on would depend upon what the inspectors did, right? Well, I was in charge of taking the the roll, right?

[1:02:09] And my our company was chosen to be the honor guard for these these guys, right? So we're lined up there in perfect order, and this guy comes running in at the last moment. I said, "Stay back! Don't don't go up there. " You know, I didn't want them to see the guy running in at the last moment, right? But I'll get marked absent. I said, "I won't mark you absent.

[1:02:31] " I said, you know, no, not mark you absent. Don't go up there. So later on, the guy thanked me for not him, but their their own local officer, right, for not letting him run up, you know, you know. But even though I was violating the thing of not reporting him absent, right? Huh? But it required, you know. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

[1:03:00] So you can find exceptions in these things, right? Yeah. Should it be true always, right? Return what you borrowed. It seems like you know. Shouldn't return what you borrowed? Shouldn't? Yeah. But there are exceptions, huh? There's no exception to the triangle. You're not going to find a triangle that has its interior angles equal to three right angles, or you have just one right angle or something, right?

[1:03:27] Really angry if your wife doesn't equal two right. Okay. Hmm. What's that? I've done that movie there where the the guy hits the woman in the face, right? And you'd say, as a rule, you shouldn't hit the woman, whack her, you know. But the woman was becoming what hysterical, right? And this kind of woke her up, you know. But it's my exception, you know, huh? You'd say.

[1:04:12] Um. The Thomas example is a good one, right? Um. So someone is asking them he wants to fight his country or he wants to assassinate somebody or whatever. And this is found the moral one descends to what particulars, right?

[1:04:37] If it be said that deposits should be rendered with such a caution or such a and such a way, because the more particular conclusions are pointed, the more ways it can fail, right? That it be not right either in returning or in not returning, right?

[1:04:58] Thus, therefore, it should be said that the law of nature, as regards the first common beginnings, is the same before all, right, or among all, and according to rectitude and according to what knowledge, huh? But as regards some particular things, huh, which are as it were conclusions of the common beginnings, is the same among all ut in pluribus, right? And according to rectitude and according to what knowledge, but in what few things it can fail, both as regards what rectitude on account of some particular impediments, huh?

[1:05:42] Just as generable and corruptible natures fail sometimes, ut in pauciori pores on account of impediments, right? And also as regards what knowledge, huh? And this, in account of this, that some have a depraved reason from passion, right, or from bad custom, or from the bad what habit of nature, just as among the Germans, huh, long ago, huh, Stevia was not regarded Nicholas as Nicholas, I guess that's his name, was at the Spartans, they say.

[1:06:22] Okay. When, Harvard is expressed against the law of nature, as Julius Caesar observes in his book on the Gallic War, right? King myself. Okay. The beginning of that I remember all of Gaul is divided into three parts. Yeah. that's three. Yeah. I used to quote that there when I talk about the division into three.

[1:06:55] What parts of this country is there besides the Midwest? East Coast and West Coast Yeah. Divide into three, right? And why are they called the Midwest, and not the Mid East.

[1:07:10] Because that was already taken. To the first, therefore, it should be said that that word in the decrees, decretals, should not be thus understood that all things which are in the law and in the and contained in the gospels, right, are of the law of nature, right? Since many things are treated there above nature, right.

[1:07:39] But because those things which are of the law of nature are treated there, what, fully, huh? Whence, when Gratian says that the natural law is what is contained in the law and in the gospel, immediately exemplifying, he what, adds that by which one is ordered to do what, to others what he would want done to himself. Okay.

[1:08:13] So, won't invite you to sleep with my wife, so I shouldn't sleep with your wife. huh? Makes sense, huh? One wants you to be telling lies about me, so I shouldn't go on telling lies about you. Okay.

[1:08:36] To the second, it should be said, huh, that that word of the philosopher should be understood about those things which are naturally just, not as the common beginnings, but as certain conclusions derived from them, which would in pluribus have rectitude, right? And

[1:08:58] in fewer, you know, they fail, yeah. To the third, it should be said, huh, that just as reason in man dominates and commands the other powers, so it is necessary that all the natural inclinations pertaining to the other powers be ordered according to what, reason, huh? Whence this is among all commonly right that one, what, that all of man's inclinations should be directed according to what, reason, huh?

[1:09:35] Okay. Where we should stop, huh?