Prima Secundae
229. Why Reason Is Not a Body (Thomas's Three Arguments, Sentences II d.19) and Custom as Law (Summa I-II q.97 a.3)
Class of 2015-09-10
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/229-why-reason-is-not-a-body-thomass-three-arguments-sentences/

[0:01] Sirik said, "Dwayne, you can start studying the angels anytime you want to." He said. I'd express some interest one time about the angels. So it's a good man.

[0:18] So I was looking at the sentences there to the second book there, the 19th distinction, right? And Thomas touches thereupon a very important question, and it's the question that Aristotle raises in the proemium to the three books on the soul, and that's the question whether the human soul survives what death, right? And Aristotle says we we would very much want to know this, right? Okay. And he hints at what the decision or the conclusion about this will be depend or what it will depend upon, right?

[1:00] What does it depend upon? As far as reason is concerned, now, right? Well, if the soul survives the death of the body, right? Then you have to have some evidence, right? That the existence, the being of the soul, the human soul, that is to say, right, doesn't depend upon the what body, right?

[1:37] And how would you show such a strange conclusion, right? Well, if you look before and after, you know that being comes before doing, right? Okay. Even Descartes knew that, right? I think, therefore, I am, right? Okay.

[2:04] So does the soul, the human soul, does it have any doing, any activity that is not in the body? And if it does, that would be a sign, right, that its being is not entirely, as they say, immersed in the body, right?

[2:35] Interesting way of speaking that Avicenna uses and Thomas takes over and so on. Whether the human soul is like other material forms, right, like material forms completely immersed in the body, right? Well, you know, when a ship is floating in the water, part of it is what immersed in the water, but part of it is not in the water, right? So is the human soul like that?

[3:00] or is it like a submarine. That's entirely immersed in matter, right? And therefore, if that's true, it would have no doing, no operation. That would be what?

[3:13] There would not be what in the body, right? Okay. Now I remember a student, you know, who I could kind of gather at the beginning of the class one time in assumption, fully convinced that the brain is the organ of thought, right? And the brain, of course, is the body, huh? And so I thought, you know, needed to belong a little bit to the student, and I said, a good sign of this is that what?

[3:46] Just as a blow on the eye interferes with seeing, right? So a blow on the brain interferes with thinking. Therefore, thinking is what the brain is the organ of thought, right? Or alcohol going to the brain, huh? Interferes with thinking. Guy's nodding his head, you know, and so on, huh? Okay. Well, then I took this example which I think I've given you before. Do it again. I said, suppose you and I were in a room with no light source except for a little light bulb that's in the ceiling, right?

[4:23] And I can see you, and you can see me, right? Now, a blow on the light bulb is going to what? Light. Yeah, and it's going to interfere with you seeing me. Therefore, the light bulb is the organ of your sight, right?

[4:43] Now, is the argument as strong as you really thought it was, huh? If a blow on the light bulb interferes with seeing, that shows there's a connection between seeing and the light bulb, right? But does it show in particular that it's a connection between organ and the activity of that organ, right?

[5:08] Now, what would you say, huh? Let's see a little simpler example. I can see Joshua now, right? Now, if Joshua goes out of the room, I would no longer be able to see him, right? Is Joshua interfering with my seeing, like a blow on my eye would interfere with my seeing? Is interfering with the organ? What's he interfering with?

[5:52] The object. The object. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Aristotle says that the images, right, are to reason, huh? Like the color in the wall is to the eye, right? The color in the wall is to the eye, not as its organ, but as its object in some way. And so the comparison there, the images to the what? Reason is like that of object, maybe, huh? In which case, you haven't shown that the brain is the organ of thought, right?

[6:32] But maybe you're interfering with the object in some way, huh? Okay. So now there are many ways you can reason to the soul, the human soul that is to say, in particular, having an activity that is not in the what? Body, right? And I've seen Thomas talk about these, Aristotle talk about these, and so on, huh? But what was interesting for me in this little text from the Distinction 19, I think it was, question the first article in there really, in the second book of the sentences, was Thomas gives three reasons, huh?

[7:21] And the order of them is very interesting, huh? The first reason he gives is the one that Aristotle gives in the third book on the soul. Now to appreciate this first reason that Aristotle gives for the soul and for reason being something immaterial

[7:44] is in the way he proceeds there in the third book and in the second book, huh? He takes up the senses before he takes up what? Reason, right? And among other things, you learn about the senses that sensing is

[8:06] an undergoing, pati, okay? That the object of the senses acts upon the what? Senses. The senses don't act upon their object, huh? So sound acts upon my ear, right? And color or something like that, or light acts upon my eyes, right?

[8:39] And even though grammatically speaking, it seems to be the opposite, right? That would be that last kind of fallacy in language, okay? We have a false imagination, right? Okay. Okay. My eyes fell upon the gold, you know. My eyes fell upon the something there that was on the ground, right? But did your eyes fall upon it, or did it really fall upon your eyes? So,

[9:19] sensing is a kind of suffering, right? A kind of undergoing. And then when Aristotle gets to take up reason, right? He'll say, "Well, then, thinking also seems to be a kind of what? Undergoing?" Okay. So he's seeing the analogy of the two, right? And you go from one that's more known to the one that is less known, right? But now there's a second thing that Aristotle points out when he's studying the senses, and that is that the sense has to be lacking in the object that it receives.

[9:57] And it wasn't lacking in the object that it receives,Then it's what? It's going to be impeded in knowing it. If my tongue was sugary, right, or sweet, like a candy bar or all day sucker, so I couldn't really what? Taste different things, right? Yeah, yeah. And you know, sometimes your your tongue is somewhat impeded right, eating something sharp or strong, right? Huh? My brother Mark, you know, the great wine connoisseur, huh?

[10:35] Would warn me about eating this or that before dinner tonight because that's going to interfere with my taste, right? Huh? And learned discussions as to whether smoking was interfering with your taste of the wine or the thing, right? And likewise, if the ear had you know sound in there all the time, right, that would interfere with your hearing all sounds, right? And if the eye had a color, right, huh?

[11:02] Like sunglasses built into your eyes, right? Huh? You'd see everything this color, right? Well, then Aristotle gets to reason. He says, reason seems to be open to knowing all material bodies, right? Huh? Well, if the knowing power receiving has to be lacking in entirely in the object that it's receiving or knowing, right? Then reason has to be what? Yeah, lacking in bodily nature, right? That's the first argument Thomas gives in this, huh?

[11:42] I see he's kind of following his master there, right? Huh? Where you start with what is more known to us, the senses, right? That's why you borrow words from the senses, like seeing can mean understanding, right? Or grasping, you know, can and you see this analogy here, right? Of both being a kind of undergoing, right? Although the undergoing of what the senses is not as far removed from the way in which wax undergoes something, right?

[12:13] Okay. But in reason, even further removed from it. But because reason is open to knowing all bodies, therefore it's what lacking in bodily nature. That's the first argument he gives, huh? Okay. Now what's the second argument he gives, huh?

[12:37] The second argument is taken from the way in which reason knows these things, huh? And the argument Thomas gives here is that reason knows these things universally.

[12:54] Why whatever is in matter is from the very fact it's in matter, it's what singular, right? So if reason is knowing things universally and not singularly, it's not knowing them in the body, in a body.

[13:17] So when I sense a man or when I imagine a man, right? Which are bodily, in a bodily thing, right? There's singularity there, right? I can imagine a black man, I can imagine a white man, a yellow man, right? A brown man, right? A handsome man, an ugly man, right? Socrates is said to be the ugliest man in Athens, right? But he was loved by his his students, right?

[13:45] Because of his his wisdom, right? Now sometimes I myself have have given an argument that is based upon the way the mind knows, right? And this would be a little bit different from the one from the universality, right? But the argument that you've heard me give it before here, I go back to my understanding of the continuous, right? And the continuous, um, as Aristotle develops it in the logic and in the sixth book of Natural Hearing, right?

[14:27] The continuous has two definitions. The first definition you meet in logic is that a continuous quantity is one whose parts meet at a what? Common boundary, right? So the two parts of the line meet at a what? Point. And the two parts of a semi semi circle parts of the circle meet at a line, right? And the two bodies meet at a surface. So a continuous thing like a body is is one whose parts meet at a common boundary, huh?

[15:04] The second definition is that the continuous is divisible forever, right? Why use those two definitions? And I say, now, isn't it strange when we study Master Euclid, right? And Master Euclid talks about the square, right? And he knows the square by what? A definition. The definition is something like this: a equilateral and right angled quadrilateral, right?

[15:44] Now here he's knowing a continuous thing, the square, right? By a what? Definition, right? But now from my studies under the father of logic, right? And so on. Do the parts of a definition, the genus and the differences, do they meet at a point or a line or a surface? No.

[16:10] So the definition is a what? Non-continuous knowledge of a continuous thing. It's a continuous thing, the square, received in reason in a non-continuous way. That's a rather strange thing to take place, right?

[16:32] Now Thomas, they say, had said that the singular is received in reason, what? Universally, right? And from that he can reason that the what? Reason is not a what? Body, right? Because what's received in a body is always, for that very fact, singular, right? Now Boethius's reasoning that what's received in a body is always what? In the continuous, right? So if it's received in reason in the form of a definition, it's received in non-continuous way.

[17:11] Now is the reason for that what you're receiving? No, what you're receiving in this case is something what? Continuous, right? Now what about the other definition of the of the continuous, that which is divisible forever, right? Now if you know the categories and so on, right? You know that these things are not divisible what? Forever, right? You get down to a highest genus. Therefore, it's only you get down to being or something, right?

[17:49] You can't, you know. Define that by something more universal, huh? Anything you'd use to define something would have to be something, right? And it doesn't get you anywhere, right? So, a definition definitions just like demonstrations, right? They're not divisible what? Forever, right? Okay. So from both definition of continuous, you can say that reason knows the continuous in a non-continuous way. What explains that? Not what you're knowing, because that is continuous, right?

[18:27] Therefore, it must be the nature of the mind, right? Huh? Whatever is received is received according to the way of the what? Receiver, right? Huh? You know, if I had a piece of dough here, I could probably mold it into some shape, you know? Huh? How about the water here, right? Huh? Well, I could mold the water. The water's got some shape, it doesn't it? Huh? You know.

[18:50] But if I poured this out, right? It wouldn't what? Retain that shape, right? So the shape is received in water and in clay, according to the nature of the shape. No, according to the nature of the what receiver, right? Huh? So if continuous things like squares, huh, are received in reason in an uncontinuous way, that must be their very nature in reason, right? Therefore, it's not a body, right?

[19:20] Huh? Okay. That's a different argument than Thomas's one, right? Thomas argues from the fact that what's received in the reason is what no longer singular but universal. And this is what the great Boethius had said, right? Did I ever often heard that quoted? A thing is singular, he says, when sensed, and universal when what understood, right?

[19:45] Huh? A woman is seen; it's a singular, right? She's understood; it's something, if she can be, it's something universal, right? Some consolation for that, right? Thomas says in Morality that you're not seduced by women in general, but by this woman. But notice, does it make sense that the argument that Thomas gives second, right, or the one that I put in that second way of proceeding from the the way we know something, right, that that should come after the first one that is taken from Aristotle there, then in the De Anima.

[20:43] Is it maybe more general in the first way, and this is more particular? Well, I don't know that, but it's kind of built up from what's known to the senses, right? That knowing power has to be lacking in the object that it receives, right? And then you see that the reason perceives or receives all the natures of these things, right? That kind of leads you on to the idea that it receives things universally too, right?

[21:26] Maybe a little more subtle, though it seems, huh? Because one can argue from this analogy to the senses, right? That reason is immaterial. Now, what's the third argument? Thomas gives. do you think? I've never seen him give these three in that order. You know, I've seen them you know separately and so on.

[21:57] Well, he gets the third one from what? Avicenna. Did they make him very good? Yeah. Avicenna has some marvelous things, right? He has some marvelous Aristotle, but but marvelous things, right? And

[22:23] now Avicenna says that no knowing power that is a body can know itself. The ear can know sound, but the ear cannot know the ear.

[22:47] The eye can know color, but the eye cannot really know what an eye is. Now, Avicenna gives a reason for that, huh? That a knowing power that is a body, huh? That is an organ of the body, the bigger body. Um. That organ or that body comes before it, and it's what, object, huh?

[23:17] Because this knowing power is not knowing it in separation from the body, but in the body and through the body, right? So a knowing power that is a body and organ, huh?

[23:32] That body or organ that it's in is before its what, object. But can it be before itself? No. Therefore, it can't know itself. Now you gentlemen, huh? Have studied under the great Shakespeare, right?

[23:53] And Shakespeare has given us the best definition of reason, which is Joshua. Do you know? What's Shakespeare's definition of reason? Um to do it to look before and after. Well That's part of it, yeah. But what's the part you left out in the middle there? The ability for large discourse, looking before and after. Yeah, yeah. So reason knows what reason is, right? A knowing power that is a body, right, an organ can't know itself, as Avicenna has shown, right, not by induction, but from, but for the reason, right.

[24:33] Therefore, if reason knows itself, if reason knows that it is the ability for large discourse, looking before and after, because my reason at least knows that, right? And your reason after your long meditation and Shakespeare knows this too, right? Then reason is not a what, body, huh? Magnificent thing, right, huh? Of course, notice when you say reason is the ability for large discourse, you're touching upon something involved in the first argument, right?

[25:05] In the universality of reason, right? And when you say large discourse, part of that meaning of large is what you knowing things universally, right? And finally, the definition itself is in the third argument, right? So it's magnificent the way Thomas has ordered those three, right,

[25:27] huh? Well, sometimes you know, although I've seen these arguments separately, you know, in different places in Thomas, right? Um, I don't remember him exactly laying those three down that order there, right? I think it's kind of significant that he does that, right? It's a beautiful text, huh? So I'm doing a little Kasurik with you, you know. I just kind of I was impressed with that, you know.

[25:53] And next time Warren calls me, I'll see what he thinks of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah I should come down you know I can see him coming down the hall there. I remember that. See him stopping me in the, I'm in front of my my little tin place there, and Dwayne, he'd say you know, so enthusiastic, like a child almost, you know, huh? You know. But you know how I was reading in the, just today was in Mark, you know, about how got to become like a little child, right?

[26:27] You know, suffer the little child to come to me, Grace's first. But then he goes on to say that you should be like a little child going into the Kingdom of Heaven, right? Well, it's something like that for what philosophy, right? Now, if you don't have that wonder, huh? That kind of enthusiasm, right? Huh? You have the third movement there, right? Mozart quintet, huh? You know, you don't have that particular thing, huh?

[26:50] I always I always give this example you know, when I think it was a course on place, you know, on the fourth book of Natural Hearing. huh?

[26:59] De Koninck was teaching that course, and I remember I was standing in the hall there before class, you know. and De Koninck came down to the hall, he stopped in front of me, looked up at me. He's kind of a short man. Looked up at me, he says, "Isn't this wonderful?" The way he says, you know, he could see he felt more wonder than anybody in the whole class, right?

[27:15] And here he'd been teaching, you know, the fourth book of Natural Hearing and other books of Natural Hearing from the 1930s, you know, huh? And I'm up here in you know 60, 63, there's some time in there, right? And he's got more wonder, you know, huh? Like a little what child, huh? You know.

[27:36] Does he talk about in another part: the the non-continuous knowledge of continuous things. I don't remember him saying explicitly. Maybe he does someplace, but that's the one that always struck me because I, you know, I had these two definitions on the continuous, and I saw you could argue from them, you know.

[27:59] Same way of demonstration. Demonstration is not divisible forever, right? There's not, you know, middle term and then middle term between those and middle between those, and so on, It'd make an infinite task, right? Huh? You know. Be Zeno's proof, as you never get to the conclusion. Yeah. Yeah, you would say A is B because A is X and X is B, but how do you know A is X because A is G and G is X, and so on, right?

[28:30] Yeah. And you know how when you're defining it, one way of defining it is to start with the genus, right? And sometimes a more remote genus, but then gradually divide to get to the thing you know you're trying to define. If you had to go through infinite steps, you'd never get down to the species you wanted to define right?

[28:51] So. that's when the computer crashes Yeah, yeah. even the computer would not be able to go through infinity of things, huh? Okay. So I hope you appreciate that, or appreciate Thomas there at least, huh? This is 19 of Second Book of Sentences Yeah, I think it was the first article in there, yeah, from right there. All kinds of things in there. I told you Monsignor Dionne gave me a course, you know, a forgotten text, you know, of the sentences Of course, you didn't see what the text is, you know, And we go on for a long time.

[29:31] because I forgot a text I was about to bring up, you know. It was a text that indicated how logic is closer to natural philosophy than to grammar, right? And yes, in some ways, right? Even though you know the Trivium, right, and the Quadrivium, right, the Trivium has got grammar and logic and rhetoric, yeah. So you might think that geometry is closer to logic, you know, than and those two are closer. than logic and natural philosophy, right?

[30:04] There's a way in which forgotten text. So we're on question 97, article three, huh? Where the custom is able to obtain the force of what? Of law.

[30:27] To the third, then one goes forward. Thus, it seems that custom is not able to obtain the force of law, nor to what? We're on move away at all, right? Remove it.

[30:59] For human law is derived from the law of nature and from the divine law, right? Huh? You heard about the woman down there that was refusing to issue these marriage licenses to homosexual or lesbian things, huh? By what law are you doing this? She says by the law of God, she's refusing it. But I said law of nature too. Yeah, yeah.

[31:27] Friend, that woman, she had kind of a rough marriage life, you know, many things. But but I guess she, her mother, dying mother, I think it was. She said, the lawyer said, he says you got to get straight with God, you know, and you got to. So she's a kind of conversion, right? And she's rejoicing there, and her being thrown in jail for six days and so on.

[31:53] But the custom of men cannot change the law of nature, right? Nor the divine law. She could have quoted this text too. Customs of men, huh? Therefore, also, neither is it able to change what? Human law, right?

[32:13] Huh? So there's some difference between human law and the law of nature and and the divine law that makes it possible in regard to the human law for it to change it, but not the others. I'm sure Thomas will enlighten us upon this, but we've got to confuse the issue first here, right?

[32:37] Yeah. Moreover, from many evils, there cannot come about what? One good, huh? But the one who begins first to act against the law does badly, right?

[32:52] Therefore, many similar acts being multiplied, huh? It doesn't become something good. But the law is somewhat good, since it is a rule of human acts.

[33:11] Now, what's his name there? Martin Luther King, right? The idea was, you know, sit down the counter and do this and sit that down. Eventually, going to change the law. But law is a certain good, since it is the rule of human acts. Therefore, through custom, one is not able to remove the law, so that the custom itself obtains the force of law.

[33:42] Moreover, to what put forth the law pertains to public persons, right? Huh? Those who are in the government, so on, to whom it pertains to rule the what community. Whence private persons are not able to make a law, right? So the cop wouldn't take it that I made the law. Was the speed limit was different here than the city had put down, huh? In this car.

[34:17] But custom is what in strength, right? Through the acts of private what persons. Therefore, custom is not able to obtain the force of law, through which laws you moved, huh? Okay. Now we cut off the rest of the article and say, "You think about this now for a day or so, right? "

[34:43] Now, against this is what a guy called Augustine says, right? Wherever he is, in the epistle to what? Casulan, right? He says the custom of the people of God, right, and the institute of what Greater case as you say greater ones should be held for what law, right?

[35:08] And thus the what? Violators of the divine laws, and those who have in contempt the what customs? Is that to customs, right? Should be coerced, right? Huh? Okay.

[35:25] I was thinking that old saying there, lex orandi, lex credendi, right? Has some something like this to this, right? Because credendi is a pretty important thing, right? But the lex orandi is something that you what custom, right?

[35:48] The whole church you know praise Holy Mary, Mother of God. Well, then I believe that she is the Mother of God, right? You know.

[36:02] Well, let's see what the master says here. See if he can untie this Houdini of theology here. I answer, it should be said that every law is what makes progress or is proficient, right? From the reason and the will of the legislator,

[36:27] the divine law and the natural law, from the reasonable what will of God. Mohammedans believe that I don't know the reasonable will of God.

[36:50] The human law, from the what will of man, ruled by what by reason, yeah. Now, just as the reason and the will of man are made known by what a word in things to be done, so also they are made known by what deeds, yeah.

[37:17] For this, each one would seem to be choosing as good that he fulfills by his deeds, by his work. Now it is manifest? It is manifest, however, huh, that by human word is possible for what to be changed and also be explained, right? In so far as it makes known the interior motion and conception of human what reason, whence also through acts greatly what multiply, which make a custom, right?

[38:04] A law can be changed and, what Expound, yeah. Does Augustine say that you have to go to the lives of the saints to see meaning of some of these things?

[38:18] And also for something to be caused, right? That will obtain the what power of law. In so far as through exterior acts multiplied, the inward motion of the will and the conception of reason are most what efficaciously declared, right?

[38:45] Whence, when something many times comes about, it seems to what Come forth on that deliberate reason judgment of reason, huh? And according to this, custom both has what the power of law and can abolish the law, right? And also be interpreter of the law, right? I remember hearing a canon law custom, best interpreter. Yeah. Thought you were an canon lawyer. Not very good.

[39:23] Okay. Let's see now. how Houdini won't tie these things, right? To the first, therefore, it, should be said that natural law and the divine go forth from the divine will. This has been said, huh? That's why they're not able to be changed, right? Whence it is not possible to be changed through custom proceeding from the will of man, huh? But they're only able to be changed through divine authority, right? And therefore, it is that no custom is able to obtain strength, right?

[40:06] Against the divine law, or against the what? Natural law. For as Isidore says in the book on what? Synonyms, I guess. Use or custom, his way to authority, right? And a bad what? Use or bad custom, law and reason. In this case, what? Come, yeah.

[40:37] That's why when the Supreme Court made their decision on June, right, I said we don't have to worry about this because it's obvious from the Constitution that the the the state has no other way to establish, sacraments, or change them, or corrupt them. What do you worry about? Of course, they'll persecute us anyway, but that doesn't doesn't change the sacrament. Yeah, yeah.

[41:08] And between that law and the even worse one about abortion, you know, I mean, the Supreme Court has done a lot of harm to us, to our whole country. We we believe that one thing on earth is infallible Not that majority. right Also, there's a change now in the language describing religious freedom, where we have freedom of worship, but not freedom to exercise our religion. There's a world difference between the two.

[41:36] Freedom of worship is, well, you're free to go to church on Sundays, but keep it to yourself. Yeah. But freedom to exercise religion means you live your faith, which means you're breaking to the public square. But Anthony Kennedy and other Supreme Court justices are truncating that, right, bit by bit, using freedom of religion, freedom of worship. Yeah. It's very insidious. Other things. they do as well Okay.

[42:04] To second, it should be said. This has been said above. Human laws, in some cases, right, are deficient, right? Hence, it is possible sometimes to act apart from the law. In the case in which the law itself what fails, and nevertheless the act is what not be bad, huh?

[42:38] You ever been at a stop sign, you know, where the it never turns green? No. Of course, I was in one. Was in Was in Boston. I think I was in Boston. Yeah. Was never changing, you know. What do you do in this case? That's clear Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's reasonable And for that other thing, this is a place we have to promote yourself. He said.

[43:04] That's the expression. That's right. There was a fellow we went to Rome, and it was a big intersection, but it was a holiday, so there was nobody in the street, nobody. Yeah, yeah. And English driver, and he stops dutifully at the red light. Yeah. Then the Italian guy says, It looks right. What do you stop for It's. " Just the red light. Go. There's nobody here. Go.

[43:25] Go. Where do you get this law, though? You could turn, you know, like right after stopping, you know, the stop sign, you know. Must be because people were doing it customarily, right? It made some sense, you know. And then it didn't spread, you know, progress. I mean, things are not stalled as much as they were, so. Then finally, make it law. I mean, a British law. I mean.

[43:54] And when such cases are multiplied, right, and kind of some change of men, right, then is manifested by custom that the law is what no longer useful, right?

[44:11] Just as it will be manifested, the law is contrary to the word what promulgated, right? But if already remains the reason the same and the kind of which the first law was useful, not custom the law, but law custom should what conquer, right? Huh? Except perhaps on kind of this only that the laws seem to be what useless, right? Huh? Because it is not possible according to the custom of the what, yeah, which was one of the conditions of what law.

[44:48] It is difficult to remove the custom of the what multitude. Now what about the third objection here, right? Go back. The objection. To see that's a little different.

[45:11] No, individuals are not supposed to do this. Okay, private persons. That is to say. To third, it should be said that the multitude in which custom is introduced can be of two conditions. If it is a what free multitude, right? Huh? Which is able to make for itself law. More is the consent of the whole multitude to observing something than the what, which the custom manifests, than the authority of the what prince who does not have the power of what.

[45:49] Yeah, except insofar as he carries the personal multitude. Superiority. Majority of the Americans are opposed to that. According to that, maybe too, but according to the the thing with Iran, you know. Oh really? Yeah, yeah. They're pushing through anyway, you know. That never changes politicians. Yeah.

[46:15] Hence, although individual persons are not able to what make law, nevertheless the whole people is able to make a law. Taxation or representation. If, however, the multitudes does not have the free power of what,

[46:37] or of removing the law laid down by a higher power, right now. Nevertheless, that custom in such a multitude prevailing obtains the force of law in so far as through what it is tolerated, right? Right. To whom it pertains to what imposed the multitude of law. And from this it seems what evidently to prove what custom what induces, huh? Remember one time I was sitting on an interview with a political science guy, right?

[47:13] Was applying for a job at the college, and so that's where a distinction he was making between the the law and the policy, right? And so he's trying to expand his distinction to to the students, right? He's got the students to know that there's a law as to what the speed limit is out there in the highway, right? Maybe the speed limit out there is 60. The law says 60 degrees, whatever it is.

[47:42] Now the cops, if you're going 65, maybe the cops would not what go after you. If you're going 70, they would. So the question is, what is the law and what is the policy, right? I'm not sure what the right policy, the right word there, but that was a distinction he was trying to make, right now. And so you might say, you know, you're okay if you don't go over 65.

[48:03] We pass it around, right now. But it kind of has now the force of law, right now. You're you're you're free to drive up to 65, but don't go beyond there, right? The machine court, you know, collects you as more than five miles, huh? I don't think

[48:25] so. Incidentally, here just. Make a little aside here about custom, right? Because here he's talking about custom in the practical order, right? Custom and what? Law, right?

[48:46] What's what's the role of custom there in in looking knowledge, huh? Knowledge, huh? Well, I always think of two fundamental texts: one in Aristotle and one in Thomas, right? And in Thomas, the one I always think of is in both Sumas. Before he tries to prove that God exists, right? He raises the question: Is the existence of God obvious, right? Here, say no to, right?

[49:29] And he's got to answer no to that question before he's going to ask the question, "whether it's possible to demonstrate that God is?" Right? And then finally, to demonstrate that God is, right? And some people think that the existence of God is what obvious, or per se notum, huh? And Thomas has to explain that this is not obvious, but why do they think this is so, right?

[50:01] And there he talks about the force of what custom, right? And Brother Mark used to be annoyed by these statements in books like today. We know the Earth turns on its axis, right? That the Sun doesn't go around the Earth, right? Even though we speak of when the Sun rose today and when it sets today, right? Mark says we don't all know that. In fact, very few of us know that, you know.

[50:29] But if you're accustomed to something, right, huh? It seems that that everybody knows that, right? Where were you when the brains are passed out, right? You don't know this, right? That was your expression, you know.

[50:48] So Thomas says, you know, if you're accustomed to hear God spoken of and have called upon and so on, right, huh? The time you're youthful, right, and so on, then it seems kind of obvious that God exists, right, huh? And so custom can make something that is not obvious seem what obvious, right? And custom therefore can make something even what false seem to be what true, right?

[51:17] Such is the great force of custom, right? Aristotle in the in the second book of wisdom, there he talks about the influence of custom on the way we think, right. And if you're accustomed to think in a certain way, because of the sciences you've taught, or because of your your your peculiar mental

[51:47] makeup, yeah, then you are what? Going to try to proceed that way everywhere, right? And Aristotle says, well, you shouldn't proceed in the same way everywhere, right?

[52:02] One of my cousins said to me, Dwayne, do you like that red wine? I said, yeah. But I kind of suspect, you know, that he's drinking red wine like he drinks beer. And if he did that, I would not enjoy it at all. I'd be, you know, spitting it out and so on, right? You got to take a little bit of red wine and sniff it, you know, and you know, I used grandchildren.

[52:30] I teach them how to do this, and only that week I enjoyed, right? Huh? You said I can't drink it like I drink, you know, glass of water. I'm really you know sweating or something. That you try to drink that way, you just even white wine. I'm not drink that way. So you've got to be educated how to drink wine, right? Yeah, you don't drink wine in the same way that you drink soda pop, or the same way you drink water, right?

[53:03] Or even orange juice, right? And so the same thing is true about what knowing, right? So if you've got very good eyes, should you try to use your eyes to know music? You've got excellent eyes, but you're you're kind of deaf, you know.

[53:27] I guess as time went on, how Samuel Johnson got more to appreciate music, right? Huh? He spoke of it as acquiring another sense, right? And Boswell, you know, who was a great admirer, as you know, Johnson wrote the famous life of Johnson and saved his his speech and so on, huh? But he would he would pass up an opportunity to be with Johnson to go hear Handel, you know, a cello or something, huh?

[54:00] Or vice versa, if you got very good ears, but your eyes are kind of bad, you know, you should go to the art museum and put your ear up against the painting, right? Well, that's an exaggerated example, right? It's just that the ear is not really a tool for knowing what. Yeah, for knowing paintings, right? And the eye is not really the main tool for knowing music, right?

[54:26] Huh? And some people, you know, they're like a you know nice, beautiful looking dish, right? Huh? You know. But that's not really the what pleasure proper to it. You know, Aristotle is a very interesting thing in the book on the poetic arts. There, he's talking about tragedy, right? And he talks about those who want the tragedy to have a happy ending. If you read the history of you know even Shakespeare's plays, right, their attempts, you know, in the 17th century, right, 18th century, there to change, you know, the unhappy ending of King Lear, so and so marrying so and so, you know, Desdemona marrying somebody?

[55:14] I mean, not just Desdemona but uh Cordelia marrying somebody, you know, and just you know travesties trying to find to restore the true Shakespeare, you know. But the point the point that he makes, right, is that what one should not seek every pleasure from tragedy, right? But the pleasure that's appropriate to what tragedy, right? And the pleasure that's appropriate to tragedy and the pleasure appropriate to comedy is not the same, right?

[55:48] And I remember you know Fielding there when he started writing Joseph Andrews, I think one of those novels, right? He has a little preface where he says to the reader he's writing a new kind of fiction here, you might say, right? And the reader, you know, they don't really want the reader to be disappointed by expecting a pleasure other than the one he's maybe accustomed to, huh?

[56:09] And some people can't because of their custom and the limits of their customs, they can't really what adapt to this, right? Friend of mine taught high school English, right? And trying to teach Macbeth to these high school kids right now, and funny, told them you know detective story, something I forget, but you can say he's given up, you know, trying to teach Macbeth in the way that Macbeth should be, what appreciated, right?

[56:38] But people are not a detective story is or crime story is or something like that, but that's not what Macbeth is really, you know, and they can't what adjust to that, right?

[56:52] I remember the first time I got adjusted to the Homer, right? My brother Mark had a you know lousy old paperback edition, you know that I couldn't get started on, you know. But I knew I had to do sometime into Homer. So finally, when I was first teaching Assumption, there I had a colleague who had some belonged to some literary society, and they had a beautiful big edition of Homer, you know.

[57:19] I'm going to get that, I said. So I had him, you know, paid him an order to his society, you know. So I'm going to read a book at night. There's like 24 books in Homer, right, in the Iliad. And so the first night read a book, you know. Second night another book. Find I can't put it down, you know. And all of a sudden I've what?

[57:38] Yeah, yeah. You know how sometimes it can happen in real life that that you don't like particular food, and yet you can get what accustomed to it and to enjoy it, right? But if someone insisted upon you know putting vanilla ice cream on filet mignon, I'd say you're you know you're not seeking the pleasure proper to to a filet mignon, right? Now, regardless whether the ice cream or filet mignon tastes better, right?

[58:10] It's not the same pleasure to eat a steak and eat an ice cream cone, right? It's not the same thing, right? So you have to multiply these things, right? Huh? I was I was just telling a little joke there, but it's a true story though. In class, there to make this point, used to have a advice column for. Teenagers, Did I tell you the story before maybe I did, and in the same fall newspaper they're back home, and we used to read just for the jokes,

[58:44] and these little problems that these kids have. Well, this is actually in the thing one day, the little girl was writing in right, and her boyfriend wants her to wear candy flavored lipstick, and of course she wants to put on real, real lipstick, yeah, but he wants it candy, and so, what should they, you know, what should she be done? What should they do? And the advice is very short.

[59:16] Buy him a lollipop. He wants to have this taste of candy when he kisses her, right? I thought the kids would understand this, right? Because the pleasure of a kiss and the pleasure of candy is not the same thing, right? You got to have, you know, candy flavored lipstick to kiss the girl. He's taking the pleasure of candy, you know, rather than the pleasure of a kiss.

[59:39] But that's the same thing as true, right, about tragedy and comedy and different types, right? And when I when I studied Shakespeare's plays and eventually I came to the conclusion that there's four different kinds of plays at least, right? And the pleasure that you get from each of these is somewhat what different, right? And if you're looking, you know, for this to be a tragedy, it's a different kind of play, then you're going to enjoy it as you should, right?

[1:00:10] And the same way in music, you know, I mean the same thing from a symphony and from a violin piano sonata, you know. I was going through my violin piano sonatas Mozart the other day and said, "Gee, was this stuff maybe even common men could like this pretty soon? You know? Maybe you wouldn't like right away the symphonies, you know, but you should go like this. These are really nice, you know.

[1:00:31] So the pleasure of the violin piano sonatas is something different from the symphonies, right? And so Aristotle is making this point though, huh? He's talking about fiction, right? But then he's talking about philosophy, right? He's talking about what each matter, each science, right, has its own way that of proceeding, right? It fits that particular.

[1:01:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not geometry. Yeah, yeah. You you find people you know who are looking for kind of imaginative thing in philosophy, right? Now, looking for something that's looking for in fiction rather than something you're looking for for in philosophy, right?

[1:01:26] The audio visual aids to better. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, notice, Thomas, in that one text that I was referring to there, in both Sumas, he's talking about how a statement, right, can seem to be obvious, right, through custom, right,

[1:01:48] but more generally, you know, a statement that is customary, heard, right, will be thought to be what known, right, or thought to be true, right. And

[1:02:03] if you heard something bad about somebody all your life, you you know it's pretty hard to think think of them as being good, right, huh? You know, even though they might be slandered, you know, and so on, huh? But the customary thing.

[1:02:24] That's why I used to make a study, you know, the customs of the modern world, huh? And I think I told you about the the way I divided them, kind of. But if you go to what Tocqueville says about democratic customs, right, that he says that the love of equality is even stronger than the love of what of liberty, right,

[1:02:52] huh? So they'll interfere with the liberty of religious, you might say, right, or you know, in order to get more equality, right, huh? And the whole argument, you know, for blacks and whites or females and males or you know, lesbians, is based on what equality, Equality, yeah, Okay. All love is equal, you hear. Them saying that, right, huh? But you realize the tremendous influence of what custom, right, huh?

[1:03:24] Custom is a tyrant. Custom is a tyrant. Yeah, yeah. That's what Shakespeare says, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But in calling it tyranny, you see, a tyrant is a man who rules the country for his own good, right, and for the good of a part rather than the whole, right. And that's what custom does to the mind, right, huh? It makes you what know one way of proceeding, let's say, right, and you try to proceed that way every time, huh?

[1:03:52] There's always a joke, you know, on you being a committee, a college professor in a committee, you know, and guy from economics, and guy from sociology, and the guy from English, and guy from philosophy. They all approach the same question differently, right? As if no one is really, you know, approaching it the way they should approach it, you know. I told you how the sociologist says to one day in a committee meeting, "I suppose you're doing a word count on Thomas."

[1:04:18] I said, "What the hell are you doing a word count for Thomas? " Maybe a sociologist does word count someplace. I don't know, but but I mean, he has no idea about how I might proceed, right, huh? You know, you talk to scientists, you know, and. What experiments is this based on? You know, was it Edmund Burke and or G. K. Chesterton who had the famous statement that customs is the democracy of the day, and that seems to imply that there are customs and then there are customs, former being transitory faddish sort of things like we see today, but perhaps a true custom would be something that withstands the test of time, something which is actually based in reality, human nature, natural law.

[1:05:11] Yeah, they say it takes a hundred years to know whether a work of art is worthwhile. You know, if it's still being appreciated and talked about a hundred years, but the one that's being talked about just today, you know, is. Yeah, that's G. K. Chesterton. I think fads or fashions and what you might call customs or something fads, by its very nature, pass. I mean, I mean, people will say, you know, the computer is a couple years old.

[1:05:36] Oh, it's it's it's old. You know, it was the hottest thing out two years ago. Yeah. Now nobody wants to touch it. You know, well that's that's not a custom. Some of the commentators note that there was a long march through the institutions, the cultural institutions of the West. There's a book called The Long March that goes through some of the leading cultural movers and shakers who radically changed the customs, the traditions, and mores that made our society possible and changed it for the worse.

[1:06:07] We can see in current events, but it's it's really quite fascinating to see the intense focus of certain political groups that have been trying to reengineer the West, its traditions, its culture, and human nature itself. But there's the question of just how durable are these innovations? And since almost all of them are very far unrelated to to the natural law, to human nature, they wouldn't, I think, take root and last too long, but they'll cause a lot of damage in the process.

[1:06:44] But it's through propaganda, through the child, through customs, through education, through getting the kids young and stuff like that. I mean, when they first proposed, you know, the Supreme Court 23 years ago, you know, these things about homosexuality, just dismissed it as, "Well, that's nonsense," you know. And I've seen things, you know, around, you know, after the Civil War and so on, you know, where doctors were very much opposed to abortion, you know, and so on.

[1:07:11] All, all the first feminists so called for, yeah, yeah, because it's a form of oppression. Yeah. We're going downhill there. Fair is foul and foul is fair. Hover through the fog and filthy air.

[1:07:31] Okay, Article Four here.