Logic (2016)
53. Act Before Ability, the Best Laws and the Best Life, and Feuerbach's Infinite Mind: 'Simply' vs. 'Somewhat' in Metaphysics, Politics, Ethics and Theology
Class of 2017-09-07
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/2-logic-2016/053-act-before-ability-the-best-laws-and-the-best-life-and-feuerbachs/

[0:00] But now we're going into even more serious mistakes. Aristotle has the ninth book of wisdom, right? And most of these people, you know, say it's a book about act and potency, right? Okay. Now I like to say act and ability, right? Huh? Because potency in English, right, you take "it over" from Latin, and the word "potent," you know, that word seems to be somewhat like the word "power" in English, right?

[0:39] It seems to be what stuck on the active sense of ability, right? Okay. By ability can be, you know, in common speech, can be said of the what

[0:54] passive as well as the active ability. Huh? So you could say, you know, that wood is able to be a chair or a table or a bookcase, right? And but you wouldn't say that it's so much as powerful, you know. Okay. But you can use the word ability for the active or the passive sense. Yeah. So the carpenter is able to to make a chair or a table or a door out of wood, right?

[1:23] And the wood is able to be formed into a chair or a table or a door, right? Okay. Makes sense, right? Okay. So I refer to the ninth book of wisdom as is about act and ability, right? But sometimes, you know, if you come from the texts of Thomas and so on, you the word potency, right, is used maybe more readily in Latin, right? But anyway,

[1:49] what does Thomas do in the ninth book of wisdom, right? Well, I think I've spoken about this before, but he distinguishes before he looks for order, right? So he distinguishes

[2:06] ability and act first, and then he considers the order of ability and act. Okay. We've talked about this before. How order presupposes what? Yeah, and I do so by what I call the axiom, right, or the beginning statement about

[2:34] before and after that nothing is before or after what itself. So there is always some distinction between what is before and what is after. So before you can see that this is before that, you have to see that this is what is is not the same as that, right? Okay. You couldn't distinguish between today and tomorrow, you wouldn't say that today is before tomorrow, would you? Or today or yesterday, right?

[3:00] Okay. You can't distinguish between the music of Mozart and Beethoven. You couldn't say Mozart's music is better than Beethoven's, right? Okay. Okay. Now, actually, the ninth book is divided into three parts, right? Because in the first part, Aristotle talks about the act that is called motion, right? And he distinguishes ability for motion. It's many distinction of what ability, but not universally. It's more particular, right? The ability for motion.

[3:46] And so, you're you're working with wood, don't you, right? So you have the ability to move wood, right? To form wood, right? And the wood that you're working with is able to be formed, right? Okay. I don't think you can do that with air too well, right? Air doesn't doesn't lend itself to. Yeah, it doesn't. We see the form, right? Or even water, right? Just as much fire I can get with water.

[4:15] Yeah, yeah, just temporarily. Okay. So he distinguishes those, and then he goes on and distinguishes between the natural and the rational ability to make things. Because the natural ability to move things and to form them, it seems to be determined to one, right? So in reproduction, you know, we always produce, say, what a man, a human being, but in making, we can do contraries, right? Opposites, huh?

[4:50] Okay. So Aristotle has, in a sense, the same knowledge of how to preserve a government and how to corrupt it. They go together, right?

[5:04] So. Now, what does he do in the second part of Book Nine? Well, there he makes a universal distinction of the acts, right? Where you have motion and operation and form and so on, right, and being itself. And then you mean many other senses of ability for these other acts, right? But then the third part he considers the order of ability in act, and he shows many kinds of orders, as we know from from our chapter, the categories, right?

[5:43] Okay. But the one that's most important for our purposes here is he says that in the thing that goes from ability to act, it's an ability before it's an act, right?

[6:01] But since it goes from ability to act, the reason is something already in act. simpliciter or simply act, or simply act is before what? Yeah. And that's the beginning to begin to anticipate now that the beginning of all things will be what? Will be pure act, pure, yeah. Okay. See in the sixteenth chapter, the first book of Summa Contra Gentiles, right? Huh? The last argument, for all the reasons.

[6:38] Okay. But in some way, somewhat, abilities before act. If you just consider the thing that goes from ability to act, right? That thing is an ability before it's actual. but because it goes from ability to act, the reason is something already an act. Simply speaking, in a verse, act comes before ability. So the beginning of all things in the universe is something that is pure act. Okay.

[7:09] Now what did the moderns say? What did the early Greeks say, right? Well, they saw matter as the beginning of all things, right? And so you know the first philosophers said that water is the beginning of all things, and someone else said that air was right. And before those even, the poets had said that what Mother Earth is the beginning of all things, right? Timon of Athens, there, huh?

[7:39] Timon of Athens, Shakespeare's play, right, is digging in the earth, they're looking for roots, and he addresses the earth, right? Common mother thou, he says, whose womb immeasurable and infinite breast teems and feeds all, right? So Mother Earth, right, which is a kind of matter, right, teems his birth to, right. It feeds all, right? So the early Greeks and the poets, huh? They said that what matters is the beginning of all things, right?

[8:17] That's a common opinion of the modern scientists, right? Okay. So they're saying what? And what is before someone is before what? Yeah, great mistake, isn't it?

[8:41] So by this kind of mistake, you end up being materialist rather than a what? Student of God, right? And that's kind of important, isn't it?

[8:54] I sort of think it is. Sort of thing. Simply, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna solve these two mistakes here, right? I'm going to study what mathematics, right? Because I want certitude, you know. That's a perfection of knowledge. right What is a perfection of knowledge, right? But it's not the perfection that makes it simply better, right? So I stick myself to what mathematics can know, but mathematics is tied up with what quantity, and quantity is tied up with matter, okay?

[9:38] Now over here, I think that ability comes simply before act, right? And therefore, matter is the beginning of all things, right? You see how they tie together, all the words. Things fit together, right?

[9:54] But you're making the mistake of what mixing up what is so simply in what is so in some imperfect way, right? Or somewhat, as I say, right? In this brief parenthesis, it's not so but there, okay.

[10:19] But because I mixed up which knowledge is simply better, I'm looking for that mathematical knowledge, and that's more appropriate for knowing what quantity, right? For knowing matter, right? Okay.

[10:35] See how unfoundamental important this distinction is, huh? Now I was at my my daughter's house there. I was looking at a copy of Plutarch's Lives, right? Okay. Ever read some of Plutarch's Lives? Every educated man must have read Plutarch's Lives. That's a piece to say in in

[11:10] you know 19th century at least in America. But so I was reading some of the lives, and I was reading the reading the life of Solon, right? Now Solon was a great what? Yeah, great lawgiver to Athens, right? And so much that we often call sometimes the senator what Solon. You find even that sometimes the Americans, right? We call the the senators Solons, right? Okay. So named after Solon, huh?

[11:47] Okay. I was struck by a little bit of conversation of Solon that Plutarch does us, right? Someone who admired Plutarch, right? I mean, excuse me, Solon asked him this question, right? Did you give, did you not give the Athenians, right, the best laws that a city can be given? And Solon replied, "No," he says. I didn't give the Athenians the best laws, right? The city can have.

[12:25] I gave them the best laws that they would accept. Now, here in political matters, right? What distinction is this? Yeah, do you see that? Now, when you pick up the politics of Aristotle, right now, he will distinguish between the best city or the best government, and the best government, and the best government for a given what people,

[13:02] and those aren't necessarily the same thing, right? And the best government, he says, the government according to a prayer, right? That you have to what have unusual circumstances, right, to establish the best city, and there's something more pray for, right? Then think there's within your power to have the circumstances exactly right. So this is a very important distinction for political philosophy, huh? You see, always make kind of fun of our state department.

[13:34] You know, we thought our government was the best government that there is, you know. But I mean, there wasn't always fitting in these different countries that we were what coming into contact in the what world, right? But Solon is making the same kind of distinction too, isn't he, right?

[13:51] You could also see it as far as the unique conditions that existed at the time of the formation of this country. There were exceptional sort of accumulation of conditions and people, and it's a real shame to see it being lost, furthered away, undermined. Yeah, yeah. Great, great opportunity lost. This is an important distinction, right? Okay. Now,

[14:25] when Aristotle talks about happiness, right? And happiness, of course, is the end of life, and therefore the greatest good, right? Now, okay. But Aristotle realizes the human situation, you know, and how things are. It's not naive. Yeah, he said an old man is not as hopeful as a young man because he's seen how many things turn up, right? You know, huh? And what was the famous joke there?

[14:56] A truthful joke about Sam Johnson, there, you know, about the man who was it a second marriage or something like that? You know, but a triumph of hope for

[15:15] hope over experience Plus, takes takes something from, but anyway, Aristotle talking about happiness there, right? Realizing, you know, the human condition, right? You know, you are going to die, right? And Thomas is talking about the imperfection of our happiness on this earth, right? Well, one thing he points to is the fact you know you are going to die, right? Well, then the condemnation, the sense of the happiness you buy there, right?

[15:42] Huh? You know, and and so on. So Aristotle, then the question is, is anybody really happy, right? Because this is a perfect good, you know. You know,

[16:05] well, finally Aristotle says, let us say that they are happiest men. Now, what is that saying? That they are happiest men. Somewhere. Yeah, that they have happiness somewhat. Yeah. And St. Augustine says it about heaven. He says that if we ever knew it was going to end, we wouldn't be happy. Yeah, yeah. It's not for them. Yeah. So you might say about someone in this life that

[16:36] he had happy life, right? So he had happiness as a man could have it, right? But was everything perfect? You know, Boethius speaks of happiness as a state made perfect by the cumulation of all the ones, right? You don't have that, though. Aristotle, in a sense, is distinguishing between happiness simply, which more God would have, right? And being happy as men can be happy, you know, virtuous life, but still kinds of things.

[17:10] Somebody say, I hate the world, you know. It's so wicked and so stupid. I hate the world. You know, the situation, anyways, you know, pretty terrible, right?

[17:32] That's pretty important to see the distinction of this sort. Okay. We're taking something from church here. I mean, from from the yeah, from the church.

[17:45] Is the celibate life or the married life better? Saving it. Is the celibate life or the married life better? What? Yeah. But does that mean that the celibate life is suitable for everybody?

[18:10] Because some people, you know, when they try to lead the celibate life, they fail, right? And they're worse off if they had what presumably married life, right? Okay. So

[18:28] the celibate life is better, simply. But for someone in particular, the married life might be better, right? But that's in some way, right, for him, right? Celibate. This government is not the perfect government, but it's the best they would accept, right? or? They could, they could live with, right? He said, "A lot of confusion about that. Sometimes people seem to want to do away with this distinction with regard to vocation, and they'll say, 'No, no, no.

[19:04] Whatever is good, whatever is best is best for you, and that's the best. ' Simply, well, I don't think that's true. That some people they want to do away with the distinction, simply, and then say that simply whatever is best for you is what's best. Yeah, yeah, yeah."I want."to do away with the distinction all again No, no.

[19:23] So the best life is not necessarily the best for you, right? Okay. When Aristotle talks about you know different you know lives too, you know, I mean, is it better to be

[19:38] professor or cook or something, or you know, is it, or is it better to be you know, king or to be a cook? See, as a how good he is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But but but what is a higher, better life? Simply is not maybe better for this person, right?

[20:05] You think a lot of times that a person like Mozart say or even Shakespeare, right? Would it have been better for Mozart to have been a philosopher than a musician?

[20:20] You know, but isn't a philosopher, you know, better life than being musician? Or you know, Shakespeare at least very wise, you know, but he's writing all these dramas, isn't it? You know, so is it better to be a dramatist or to be a philosopher? You know, you know.

[20:44] We'll leave you. You can write a reflection on that. You can write a reflection on that. Yeah, yeah. Now I often think of my of my father. You know, my father before he died, he said, he said, you know, he has three sons who are all professors, right, philosophers, right. He says you can have a better life than I had, you know. But would would the philosopher life have been a better life for my father than that of the the businessman, right?

[21:09] Maybe not, you know. You know, but you have to. So it's an important distinction, right? But you can get mixed up, right? So runs through all the parts of philosophy, right? This distinction. It's in.

[21:44] You know, going back to ethics a moment, which is better, the active life or the contemplative life? Yeah, yeah. But is that suitable for most people, right? My mother made this mistake when she was a little girl. She told me they were having vacation day in grade school. Yeah. And the sister was up there asking questions. What do you think of this? Yeah. My mother raised. her hand.

[22:10] Well, since the religious life is the best kind of life, that's what we should all be doing. And sister said, sister said, sit down and shut up because you don't know what you're talking about.

[22:23] She didn't see the distinction. Yeah, yeah. So that what simply so is what everybody should do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good thing she didn't fall otherwise you would be, You would be deprived. But see, there's another kind of mistake, you know, that that you find in Descartes too, you know, that he sees kind of the excellence of how geometry proceeds, right? The clarity which it proceeds, and so on, huh?

[22:58] And therefore, he concludes we ought to proceed in every science as we do in mathematics, right? Well, even if that way is is is most certain, right? Is it fit ethics and politics? You have the same certitude there, right? That you have in geometry.

[23:25] So you have to, but you have to find the method or or the way of proceeding that fits this what matter, right? And how our mind is related to that matter, right?

[23:48] You go through Euclid's Elements there. I don't remember any real inductive arguments. Let's see, go. They're all syllogisms, right? You know. But you know, medicine is a lot of induction, right?

[24:10] I was listening to Rush Limbaugh on the way up, and he was talking a little bit about you know he's down in Florida, you know, he's broadcasting Florida, and he's been through some hurricane defores. He was talking a little bit about these things, right? And but about the predictions that they make, and how it's not an exact science, right? You know, to say the least.

[24:33] But I wouldn't want to get the you know predictor there, you know, just syllogizing all the time, right? You know, but he's talking about different examples that he's known, you know, where they change, you know, where it's going to hit. It was all supposed to avoid, you know, one town and it hit the town, other town, and you know, it wasn't supposed to hit, and so on.

[24:55] These things are not very certain, you know. So you have to adopt the way that is what. Yeah, that may not be the best way, simply, of proceeding, right? What's the best way of proceeding here? Right.

[25:16] Um was it, Gregory the Great? One of the Gregories there. He's talking about how some people, you know, the contemplative life would ruin, you know, other people, the practical life would ruin them, and so because it doesn't fit the person, right?

[25:33] So the life that is, you know, I wouldn't say I'd like to go objectively, but simply so, simply best is not best for everybody.

[25:50] So married life might be better for somebody, right? than the what? Celibate life, Which is better, the monk or the parish priest? I get the word.

[26:21] Actually, when my kids were taking piano lessons, they're taking it from the wife of one of the Orthodox. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's kind of a middle thing there between the celibate and the married life. Yeah, that's what I know. Along those lines, are sometimes in the West, some people get the idea that if we had married priests, it would kind of alleviate the Yeah. vocations problem and so forth.

[26:50] Yeah. And our own now retired patriarch spoke to some of these bishops with these ideas because the Maronites have married clergy in the East, and some now they have over here too. But he said, "uh, you got to understand, a married priest has a family, and I can't send him wherever I need him as a bishop. I have to respect his needs and his family. So he's not as available.

[27:14] It's not as simple as you think it is. Yeah. We have a mixed clergy now, and that's going to solve all the problems. No, it might be appropriate in some circumstances to have a married priest someplace, but Yes. it's not just simply a solution to a change of problem.

[27:36] So I think this is a way to approach these fallacies outside of language, right? Because it's a little more hard to classify and to understand their distinction. But if you see many examples of them, right, huh? Then you see the frequency in very serious matters, right? Um,

[27:57] let's take now a supreme example of the fallacy of previous fallacy, right? The one that strikes me the most extreme example I know. Was in Feuerbach, eh? Feuerbach came right before Marx and Engels, right? Huh? And they became enthusiastic, what Feuerbachians, right? Huh? What was Feuerbach's argument? that so impressed, pleased. Marx, Engels, and so on. What was that? Feuerbach said that

[28:41] even the theologians tell you that the infinite is God, but man's mind is infinite. Therefore, man's mind is God. And if you looked at Karl Marx's preface to his doctoral thesis, you know they reject anything or anyone who does not accept the human mind as the greatest divinity. You know. Okay, but now what is

[29:16] the mistake that Feuerbach is making here? What kind of mistake is that? It's a mistake, obviously. That's a mistake in words, isn't it? A mistake in words

[29:28] Or is it a mistake of simply and somewhat? Well, if you go to the Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas, right? You look at the article where it says whether God is is infinite, right? The infinite is one of the five attributes of the substance of God, right? The two Summas, right? The Summa Theologiae, the first one that he shows is that God is altogether what simple, right? And he quotes Augustine's De

[30:17] Trinitate, where he says God is is vere and summe simple. He's truly simple and and supremely so, right? And it's a little different the way Thomas proceeds in the Summa Contra Gentiles to show this and the Summa Theologiae, because in the Summa Theologiae, right, the question of the simplicity of God has eight articles, right? And the first six articles are about six different kinds of composition. So God is not a body; he's not composed of matter and form.

[31:04] He's not what. There's no distinction between what makes him to be an individual, right, and his nature. And then there's no distinction between his substance and his existence. And then there's no accidents in God, and he's not an accident, right? So six different ways in which God is not what composed or put together, yeah. And after those six articles, then the seventh article is God entirely, you know, sume, as great Augustine says.

[31:38] And and he shows it universally, right? No doubt about it. Absolutely not. Okay. Now, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, the reverse order How can he do that, right? Because in question what 18, right, is the first one in book one where he shows that God is what is in no way composed, but simple universally, right? And then later on, he takes up some of these, almost all these particular ones, right?

[32:12] Okay. What is it? Well, the Summa Theologiae is written for beginners, right? And the same reason I'm giving you many examples, simply in some respect, huh?

[32:31] That's the way you lead a beginner, right, huh? All these particulars, right? And so, in the Summa Theologiae, he goes through the six kinds of composition that there are in creatures, He eliminates every one of them from God, and then he has an universal argument that can be accomplished from God, right? It's appropriate to a beginner to be led, what, from the particular to the to the general, right, huh?

[32:58] It's beautifully ordered, right? Because the first three are found in material substances, but not in the spiritual substances, the angels. The last three are found in all created substances, right? This is beautifully ordered, right? Okay. But now the Summa Contra Gentiles, they say the order is just the reverse, right? He syllogizes the question in chapter 18, right? That this God is completely simple, right? And then they don't say God's not a body, you know.

[33:27] So he's proceeding more syllogistically, right, a little more inductively, right, in the Summa, right? But the Summa Contra Gentiles was written at the command of the superior general, I might say,

[33:39] of the Dominican Order, to help the Dominican theologians are going down into what Spain and where Avicenna and where Averroes had been and so on, right? And one, you know, how to talk to these people, right? So it's based. So the Summa Contra Gentiles is divided into what? What can be known about God by reason as well as by faith, and what can be known about God only by faith, right?

[34:06] The fourth book, right? And so this is directed to the high-powered, you know, Dominican theologians, you know, we're going down there, you know, and going to be proceeding, you know, you know, syllogistically and so on. And so it's it's the powerhouse of the order, you know. So a little difference in the order there, right? You know, that's interesting. You know, to see the difference there. That's the first thing you show us in both, you know, in the Summa Theologiae, the simplicity of God, huh?

[34:42] And then the second thing you show is that God is what perfect, right? And it kind of ties together with the simplicity and perfection, because in material things, right, they're always composed, but the composed is more perfect than the simple. And God is just the reverse. See, so the the tree is more perfect than the stone, but the stone is simpler, and the tree is simpler than the dog or the cat.

[35:14] But the dog or cat is more perfect than than the tree, and man is more complicated than the dog or the cat, but he's even more perfect, right? So in material substances, the simple is less perfect than the composed. Why in God? Because all he is simple, he's universally like perfect. So Thomas puts those two together, right? In both what? Simultaneous, right? This is exactly the problem that Richard Dawkins and some of the other atheists stumble over because they assume that God must be much more composite or complex.

[35:57] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now Thomas studies the angels, you know, huh? The angel knows primarily himself, right? But knowing himself, he doesn't know everything else like God does. But the less perfect he is, the more extra thoughts you might say he needs, huh? So as you go up, if you could take a kind of Dante-esque, you know, ascent from your guardian angel all the way up to the nine orders, right?

[36:23] You'd find as you ascend, they became more perfect and more what? Simple. So in the immaterial substances, simplicity and perfection goes side by side, right? But in the material substances, more known to us, right? The composed and simple don't go together. I mean, the composed and the the simple and the perfect don't go together, right? Composed is more perfect, right? You know. So Thomas puts those two together, right?

[36:57] In both similitudes, right? The simplicity of God and the perfection of God. So you show together that God is, I mean, first that God is simple and perfect, okay? And then later on that he's what? Infinite and what? There's only one God.

[37:15] And but his being one is especially closely tied with his being simple. That's why in the companion of theology, the the unity of God is put in the consideration the simplicity of God, right? It goes together. And the the infinity goes to this perfection, right? God is there's no end to God's perfection. Okay. Now the the the place where they differ the most of course is in their consideration of the God being unchanging, right?

[37:44] Because in the in the arguments for for the existence of God, the parts from motion and so on, Contra Gentiles are much more developed than the Sub theologier, and so he starts off the consideration of substance of God by showing that he's changeless right? Or just assuming it, right, from the link before for them. Well, in the in the

[38:09] yeah, it's taken up fourth, right? The unchangeableness of God, right? Okay. But anyway, so when I come to here, is going back to Horvath right? He gets to in the Summa Contra Gentiles, or Summa Summa Theologia, right? He gets to the article on the infinite God, right? It shows that God is infinite, and why He's infinite, right? And it's immediately followed by a second article, which is what?

[38:39] Is anything infinite besides God? And their Thomas points out that in some way, any material substance like the angels, right, because they don't have what matter, right, is somewhat infinite. And our soul, right, which can exist without matter, is somewhat infinite, right? And insofar as we know, for example, the universal, right, universal, what covers everything, right? We know those things are a set of all, like being and one, and so on, right?

[39:15] And so. He's making a distinction, right? That the only God is simply what infinite, but I am in somewhat infinite, right? Insofar as you know the universal, see? Because even number, right? There's universality there, right? Number is a set of infinity of things, right? This is the large discourse, right? Discourse about the universal that Shakespeare talks about, right? Okay. So anybody who's read those two articles of Thomas and understands them, right, his first reaction is to just laugh at Feuerbach saying, man's mind is what infinite.

[40:02] The infinite is God, right? Well, God is what haplos, simpliciter, simply infinite. Man and a fortiori, the angels, right, are somewhat infinite, right? But not what? There's a joke with students, you know, they? Say, well, you know everything, don't you? What do you mean? Well, everything is something, and you know, but something that includes everything. Is that to be simply infinite in your knowledge? It's a very imperfect knowledge, right, you know, you know, you know.

[40:43] The wisdom in wisdom Aristotle talks not only about the cause of all, which he does in the twelfth book, right, at the end, but he talks about what is said of all, and he says the wisdom is about being in one, right? And he's always distinguishing, you know, the senses of being, you know, being per se, being per accidens, and so on, and so.

[41:12] But that's to be what man is. You know, how did philosophy name get its origin? Well it goes back to Pythagoras. Pythagoras, yeah, And the guy discovered it. Pythagorean theorem, right? Marvelous thing to discover. And so someone called him wise. He says, "Don't call me wise. God alone is wise, right? What the hell should we call you then? Well, you've got to call me something. call me a lover of wisdom, right?

[41:43] So there's a humility there, right? But you know, my true humility, right? Now when Aristotle talks about you know the proemium, right, he says

[42:00] either we should say God alone is wise, right, or only God is wise, fully, right? So God is wise, what? Simply, man is what? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[42:16] So Aristotle even speaks, you know, of natural philosophy as being somewhat wisdom, right? Because it's a wisdom about natural things, right? Okay. Or you can say ethics is somewhat wisdom, right? Because it's a wisdom about human life, right? What true happiness really is, right? And the necessity of virtue for true happiness and so on. What was Pythagoras thinking of when he said God, or say Aristotle? What would Aristotle be thinking of when he would use the term God?

[42:50] He was thinking of God. The one true God. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, how common was this concept of the one true God in in Greece? You know, from ancient times on, when because there was the pantheism. Yeah, yeah, but you might think that there was a supreme god, you know, among them, you know, who might have been the origin of the other ones to some extent, you know.

[43:18] Part of this, so, I can't remember. I don't know if it's in Father Desmet or not, but I've heard it said that many of the so-called Native Americans that when the missionaries came, you know, they had all kinds of gods of this and gods of that, but they all recognized. But there's one great spirit that's over all. Yeah, they all it's kind of natural to recognize that Yeah.

[43:40] And come to think of it, the Olympians—they were the offspring of predecessors. Yeah, because that's those guys whose brains kicked out, you know, the poets.

[43:50] That's the marvel of Chesterton's work, you know, in *Everlasting Man*, because he talks about the poets and the poets and the philosophers. I forget who he talks about. Yeah, I'll talk about it later. but My my my son Marcus was reading uh, Chesterton's thing, What's wrong with the world, right? Yes. very good very good I heard that long years ago. I did. You read it again. Who was the one that wrote the book The Feminine Mystique Betty Friedan.

[44:20] What year was that? In the sixties, I think. Wasn't that the reason? Somebody, somebody, I don't know, maybe Bill Buckley, somebody paraphrasing, spelled it the same Q U E on the end, but called it the feminine mistake.

[44:35] Well, it turns out that she was not exactly 100 honest in a lot of her analysis. She was Marxist and was a revolutionary. That's what I told you. That's my mother sized up feminism in the sixties. She was invited to a meeting. She just she came home and she said, "All bunch of Marxists. That's all she did, that's she just sized that up. Yeah. What did Chesterton say about the feminism?

[44:57] You know, that it's it's a contempt for anything that's truly feminine. Yeah. Or as I would paraphrase him, it's yeah, feminism means contempt for what is anything that's truly feminine. He said, "Yeah, it's contempt. " I like to paraphrase when I say it's the contempt for the chief feminine characteristics. And often lacking them as well. Yeah.

[45:22] You know, I told you I was reading a book, uh, the last part of Teddy Roosevelt's life, right? And he was talking about how we're all indebted, to women, for giving birth to us, right? And and for preserving the race, right? In a sense, right? And he's strong about that. Understanding of these things.

[45:46] That was something that's very common to early feminists in the nineteenth century. They recognized divorce and abortion were bad for. women. Yeah. yeah. Today they don't want to talk about. that Yeah

[46:02] So notice notice these fallacies now, you know, the materialist in a sense is thinking that matter is the beginning of all things, right? And it comes before everything else, right? What does in some way come before other things, right? Because nothing that goes from ability to act, it's an ability before it's an act. But because it goes from ability to act by reason of something already in act, when I put water on in the morning and it's it's able to be hot before it's actually hot if I make my tea, but it goes from ability to actually being hot by reason of the stove or something, electricity that's already actually hot.

[46:52] So simply speaking, act comes before ability in a sense. They miss that, right? And then they, they they want to be mathematical because that seems to be simply better than that's really only in some way better. And then the Feuerbach is kind of the last the last word, right? Man himself is God, right? Because the infinite is God and man's mind is infinite. That sounds pretty good, sort of, doesn't it?

[47:23] Not not to taking taking Marx and the rest of these guys. so Power of the negative. Power of the negative there Yeah. Hegel's system. you ever looked at Hegel's system. You used to the one we used to have the one edition there, would have the whole diagram You see when you think about being, you know, you seem to not be saying anything, really, you know. And so being turns into what none being, and then the the union of being and none being is becoming, right?

[48:11] So you have Hegel all over. Yeah. And for Hegel, you see. In becoming something, both is and not is.