De Anima (On the Soul)
11. The Equivocation of 'Body': Matter Receives Forms in Order, from Friendship to Geometry
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[0:00] Form of the form. Would it also be that an ability with the act? Well, see this example here, right? The word cat is made out of different letters than the word dog, right? Okay. Right. The word cat is made from C A N T, and the word dog from D O G. Okay. Now the word cat and the word act are made from the very same letters, right?

[0:33] Mm-hmm. So the letters are like the matter which the thing is made, right? Well, how does the word cat differ from the word act?

[0:43] In this case, you say the order of the letters, right? Right. And the order would be considered not as the matter which the word is made, but as the form, right? Right. In this case, huh? Okay. Now, there's a different order in the two words, isn't there? Mm-hmm. The order of the letters is different. But now, is that order of the letters, those two orders of letters, are they made out of those same letters?

[1:12] No. Well, that's the problem we begin. If you said that the two different orders are also made out of the same three letters, as the words are made out of the same three letters, right? Then how would those two orders differ being made out of the same letters? You have to have a form within that, right? And then you ask the same question about that form. Mm-hmm.

[1:37] Was that made out of those letters, right? And it's made out of the same letters, but how does it differ? Well, you have to have a form of a form of a form, and so on, even there, right? So it's much simpler to say that the order is not made out of the letters, right?

[1:58] Even though it exists only in those letters, right? Okay. So you speak of material substance, you're talking about something made out of some matter, right? When you speak of material form, even here, you know, now speaking of a form that is made out of matter, right? But a form that exists only in matter, right? Okay.

[2:28] That's a different distinction, the one we're talking about over here. But the word body, right? Huh? Can be used in what? To name the composite, sometimes, right?

[2:44] Or body can be what? Be part of material substance, huh? Okay. Another word that, like I think, is kind of interesting. Going back to this example here, you could say, body, in one sense, is a subject part of substance.

[3:28] The other example would say, composing part of substance, of material substance. Give another example of that. I think I've touched upon it before. Another word.

[4:02] If someone asked me what is philosophy, they said to me, "No, the G is philosophy." Sometimes I will say that philosophy is a reasoned-out

[4:17] knowledge. Other times I'll say it's a reasoned-out understanding. There's a reason why I use both of those at different times. And I'm talking about the proportion of Boethius, right? That understanding is to reasoning as, or reasoning is to understanding as motion is to rest, right? I want to emphasize the word understanding because it comes from the word to stand, therefore from rest, right? And just as rest can be before or after emotion, right?

[5:08] So understanding can come before or after what? Reasoning. Philosophy is understanding that comes after reasoning. So it's a reasoned-out understanding as opposed to this natural understanding we have before reasoning.

[5:30] But sometimes we use the word knowing in a broad sense, or sensing is one kind of knowing, right? Okay. So I know the taste of licorice. I know the taste of. Chocolate, right?

[6:01] I know the taste of wine. I know the taste of all kinds of things, right? But that's my what? Sensing, right? You see that?

[6:17] And what would you use though for the knowing of reason? What word? Yeah. Understanding. Yeah, understanding. Yeah. Like Avicenna says, a thing is singular and sensed, universal and understood.

[6:44] So their understanding is a what? Subject part of of knowing. Okay. Meaning it's a subject and it's a predicate, right? Knowing is said. Sensing is one kind of knowing. Understanding is another kind of knowing. Okay. One thing to see or imagine, let's say a triangle. Another thing to understand what a triangle is.

[7:16] Okay. So in this example, then understanding is a subject part. I might even say part subjective, but it's the only subjective subjective part that sounds good. Which is why you know this subjective so much is huge, right? So it's a subject part, not a subjective part. But sometimes, we'll see in the third book. Sometimes you divide knowing into two parts. There's grasping.

[7:55] And what? Judging. So you deal with the thinking of some philosopher. It's one thing to grasp, to understand, so they say, right, what he means, right. And another thing to judge whether what he says is true or false. So sometimes you use the word understanding there to mean what? Grasping, right?

[8:29] Now the perfection of knowing is not in understanding what is being said. That's part of it, right? But in judging it to be true or false, huh?

[8:42] So Thomas will talk about that when he gets to the third book when Aristotle starts to talk about the reason, right? So sometimes you use understanding to mean the grasping of the mind, right?

[8:56] I understand what you're saying. I don't know whether it's true or false. You know my complaint about the modern philosophers sometimes and other people in their obscurity, right? You spend so long trying to understand what they mean, you have no time left over to even judge it. Arthur Schopenhauer says, "Water Or if a guy comes out and says Water is the beginning of all things." I think I understand that.

[9:21] Not even going to talk about what that's so or not. But I say the proportion is all wrong. The ratio is all wrong, right? You should spend most of your time trying to judge whether something is true or false. Now, what does that mean, right? You know, I was taking example my colleague out there at the University College when I came out there, you know, to teach there for three years with my brother Mark and Ron.

[9:44] Joe there was trying to figure out what Heide meant by "beating right? He hears he still doesn't know what he means Doesn't So um I mentioned that Professor there Dane. there my brother Richard had who had a particularly large vocabulary, right? That even exceeded those of most professors, right? So he would step into some of his big words, and no one can understand what he's saying. And they don't want to ask him what the word means because that looks kind of, you know, one upmanship, you know.

[10:16] And how can you attack? You know what guy means, right? And anytime you try to attack these people, then say, "Well, you misunderstood me," you know.

[10:26] So that's understanding is only a part of knowing, right? It's integral part. It's an integral part, or a composing part, right? Of of knowing, but actually the inferior part. huh

[10:51] It's just by the light of reason that we judge huh That's the perfection. huh. That's why we speak of the wise men most of all, but judging, huh?

[11:04] So sometimes I'll say reason understanding, philosophy understanding, but then reason understanding as a what subject part of knowing, right? Other times, because we often use the word understanding, right, to mean what part of knowing, a composing part. Then I call it reason out of knowledge. Because philosophy involves not just grasping, but more so judging, right? You see why I do that? So I use both, huh?

[11:57] In other words, philosophy is not primarily about what people mean. Yeah. I know it's necessary to understand what people mean, at least some people, but some people we can dismiss as there as Thomas says there about the theological poets, right? No one can know exactly what they were trying to say, right? Since he despised us, he said. Okay. That seems to be what most philosophy courses are out there.

[12:25] Is in this whole sense of sort of historical study, all you want to do is try to understand what they mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[12:37] Yeah. The same way, the word "body" here sometimes is taken as meaning what material substance, right? The complete substance, right? And then would be a species of what substance, right? I can always divide substance into bodies and angels. Let's say, okay. Then body would be a species, huh? A subject part of substance, right? But then you can what? When you speak of say, man is being composed of body and soul, right?

[13:22] Well, then body doesn't mean the subject part of substance, but a composing part, right? Okay. Sorry, kid. Yeah, the word body. When I say that there are two kinds of substances in the world, right? Bodies and angels, right? Okay. Body there is a subject part, right? A substance, a species of substance, species of the genus, right? When I say that man or a dog is composed of body and soul, right?

[14:10] Yeah. Then body is being used in a different meaning there. Body there is a what? Composing part, right? Yeah. Of material substance, huh? Okay.

[14:25] Now those two meanings are connected. It's not purely equivocal, right? But those are different meanings, nevertheless, huh? Now, as if as if the body in that sense is like the matter, right, in the genus of substance, and not a complete substance in the second sense there. Something imperfect or incomplete, right?

[15:00] Remember when I was talking about about whether nature acts for an end. Remember that, right? And we wanted to consider the arguments for and against, right, and the weighty arguments and so on. And that was to prepare us to judge whether end is or is not a cause in the natural world, right?

[15:23] I mentioned how some people deny that nature acts for an end because of custom. Remember that, okay? And some men deny it because they misunderstand what it means, okay? And they said

[15:40] that's not really an objection to nature acting for an end, but it does influence people's thinking about this thing, okay? Well, their misunderstanding was opposed to what?

[15:54] Understanding of which of the senses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't understand what is meant by this, right? Okay. And do you see that distinction there with the two meanings of understand? Yeah. Okay. Well, that's that's the same kind of distinction I'm making here with two meanings of the word body, right? Huh? Okay.

[16:47] Of course, to some extent, you could say what the soul is in reference to body in a sense, right? Okay. You could say, for example, if you take the term living body,

[17:03] you say man is a living body, right? The dog is a living body. The tree is a living body, right? And a living body there is naming the what? Matter, form, or the composite of the two. Composite. Composite of the two, right? Okay. And I could say that

[17:28] the soul, right, is the form in that composite, right? Okay. And sometimes in our text, you know, where St. Thomas maybe speak that way, right? Huh? That's the way of kind of identifying what the soul is, right? Okay. But as he says in the commentary here, we don't want to define maybe the soul by that by saying it's the form of a living body, right? Because then we're in a way defining the soul by itself, right?

[18:11] Like saying, you know, the spherical shape is the form of a spherical body, right? Or if I should say, health is the form of a healthy body.

[18:27] In a healthy body, body is the subject and health is the form, right? Exemplar form form in this case, right? Okay. And so I might say health is the form of a in a healthy body.

[18:45] That's true, right? And a way it points to to health, right? What it is, but it would seem to maybe be in some way defining health by itself, right? Because in healthy bodies included health, right? In the meaning of healthy body, right? So if I say health is the form of a healthy body, then I'm in a way defining health by what itself, which seems to be

[19:19] circular, right? Okay. Nevertheless, there's some reason to point out that health is the form of a healthy body, right? Because healthy body, the composite, in a way, is more known to us than the parts, right? We have to distinguish the parts, one of which is as subject or matter, and the other is form, right? And in that composite of subject or matter and form, that we call healthy body, healthy health is form, right?

[19:51] The body is the matter, right? Okay. You see that? But now I can also take the body in some other sense of being a what? Composing part, right? Then you're thinking of the body more in the sense of the matter in the genus of substance, huh?

[20:27] And you say, well, isn't the matter in the genus of substance pure ability, right? How can you call it a body, right? Okay. Well, this is something again that's often misunderstood in the sense of how that's explained here.

[20:48] When we say that that the first matter, right? As we learned in the physics, there the first matter is pure ability. It's an ability to all these substantial forms,

[21:06] as Aristotle sometimes points out in Thomas more explicitly. it's inability for these forms in a certain what order, right? Okay. So as matter receives one form, let's say to take the simple order of science, right? That matter under the form, let's say of earth or air or fire or water, is in potency to what? The form of a compound or a mixed body, as they would call it.

[21:36] And under the form of a mixed body, it's in potency to maybe being a living body, right? Okay. Okay. So you want to bring out what the soul is, or what's private to the soul that distinguishes it from other forms. You want to bring out that last perfection that it brings, right? That's unique, huh? To it.

[22:07] That's hard to understand, right? Huh? Okay. That's a little bit like if I was to say to go back to this comparison that Plato started, in Aristotle follows in the eighth book.

[22:28] That forms are like what numbers? Okay. And when is something able to be something? I'll take a simple example here. I'm able to know what a square is, right? And I'm able to know what a cube is, right? Okay. You can take somebody and teach him geometry, right?

[23:17] But are they able to know what a cube is before they know what a square is? I might want to, you know, group a little bit about that, right?

[23:37] Because I got a newborn son there, huh? My grandson, I should say. And is he able to to learn what a cube is? I hope so. Is it? But in the strict sense, he's not able to know that before he knows what square is.

[24:05] So he has an ability to know what a square is, an ability to know what a cube is, but in a certain order, right? And his ability to know what a square is must be made actual in his little head, right? You know that takes place before he will really be able to know what a cube is, right? Okay. So in the strict sense, you could say he's not able to know what a cube is before he knows what a what square is, right?

[24:35] Although in some loose sense, you might say he's not able to know what a cube is, right? But it's a very remote point he has right now, right? See, okay. But the more more important point to make is that he's an ability to knowing these things in a certain what order, right? You see that? Okay. That's why you have to learn these other parts of philosophy before you can learn what wisdom, right?

[25:03] See, are you able to learn wisdom? Yeah, yeah. But if you don't know any logic and don't know any natural philosophy and so on, right? Then you're like that baby boy, able to know what a cube is, but doesn't yet know what a square is, right? Strictly speaking, you're able to learn wisdom once you've acquired the what? Some natural philosophy, some logic, geometry, and so on. That takes a lot.

[25:37] So it's last in the order, right? Yeah. Well, Aristotle talks about ability in a strict sense, you're inability to do something when you're one step away from it. You see that? So the same with numbers, right? Two is able to be what? Three.

[26:02] After becomes three, then it's able to be what? Four. That's the way forms are, right? There's an order among the forms, right? And the higher form gives what the lower form does, but something more, right? Okay.

[26:28] So I might say that four is what? Three plus one. Three plus one, yeah. And then am I looking at three as a different number from four?

[26:43] Is four a three? No, no. But three is like what? The matter, so to speak, right? The subject which is able to be a four if you add one to it. So, I'm kind of looking at what?

[27:03] Four since being composed of three and one, right? And three is is what is able to be a four, and the one makes it actually four, as opposed to what? Looking at three as a complete different kind of number than four, right? Okay. You see what I mean? It's like that, huh? So in trying to understand the soul as a form, right? It gives what the lower forms give, but something more, right?

[27:36] And the corporeality that it gives, right? You know, it's three dimensional and so on, right? That is still something in ability to the form that is the soul, but it has above, right? okay?

[27:57] You see that a little bit? It's difficult to see, right? But there's a little to see equivocation there in the word body, right, huh? So the body could be equivocal by naming sometimes the the pure ability and sometimes the

[28:27] form of matter which is next. Well, you see, it doesn't ever name exactly the pureability, right? But the pureability is an ability to being the soul, right? In a certain order, and that's what the word body is bringing out, right? Okay. So

[28:53] matter could be equivocal for the body or the ability. Yeah, but matter would more name wouldn't tend to name at all the the complete substance, right? Okay, well we could use the word body to name one of the species of substance, right? So sometimes you know when they divide up the category of substance,

[29:19] you might divide it into material substance and immaterial substance, right? Okay, because you tend to divide by opposites, so you have material substance and immaterial substance.

[29:40] But you could also have as a name for material substance, you could call it what body, right? Okay. And immaterial substance, well you might borrow the word that we have from theology, right? okay? um But usually in philosophy they call them separated substances, right? But separated from matter, they understand that. But we want to avoid a phrase like that, right? We might call them what? Angels, right? Okay, angels.

[30:16] Okay. So and we could subdivide these, right? Put into the three hierarchies and nine orders of angels, right? Okay. And divide these into what?

[30:33] Living body and the non-living, right? And then into what? Animals and plants, right? But notice in this whole division and subdivisions, you have a genus and species, right? And you know from logic that the same thing can be a species of a higher genus, right? And a genus of a what? Lower species. So body in this sense here is a subject part, a species, a particular kind, right?

[31:08] Of substance, right? Okay. And you know he seems to be almost starting from that notion there when he says bodies seem to be substances most of all, right? Okay. And of these, the natural ones, right?

[31:26] Okay. But when he gets into defining it, he seems to be using the word body in the sense of a what? Composing part of the living material substance, right? You see. Okay. As I say, part of the reason why he uses the word body there to name that rather than the word matter, right, Because if you just say matter, you're thinking that pure ability we talked about in the first book, right?

[32:01] Well, that's in potency in a very remote way to the soul, right? It's in potency in a certain what? Order, right? Huh? Okay. But strictly speaking, it's not until it has some what?

[32:26] Perfection, right? That it's capable of the soul, right? The same way when a man dies, his body doesn't go down to pure matter right away, does it?

[32:42] It breaks down. Now it seemed to Aristotle, and and it is probably true, right, that when in the generation say of a man or a dog, right, what you have first of all is only something like growth in the. Fertilized egg, right? You don't seem to have sensation at first, right? Then later on, you have sensation, right? And finally, you know, reason seems to develop, right? Okay, it's hard to say exactly when when sensation begins, but certainly begins in the womb, right?

[33:21] So you see kind of the order there, right? The one presupposes the the other, right? Okay. So this is something that sometimes is misunderstood in the position of Aristotle, you know, apart from the truth or falsity of it now, right? As if the first matter is, as we're x equal, right? Equally in potency, right, to all these things. It's a little bit like we sometimes say, you know, some people imagine human mind to be like the center of a circle, right?

[34:00] And everything we can know is out here in the circumference, right? And we can go off in this direction, know that, or go off in that direction, know that, or that. As if our mind is what equally related to knowing all these things, right?

[34:16] So you know, you can say this science, I'll say that science. No, no, that's not the way it is at all. No. You know, when we call metaphysics meta ta phusica, that's in some ways a very precise name, right? If you understand it. Meta means after, that was it, right? We like for us to call solid geometry meta ta phusica right We like to call it solid geometry Meta ta plane geometry, right?

[34:44] After plane geometry, right? So we're in ability to know all these sciences, but it needs certain order in able to know them. Okay. You see that sort of a thing, you know, when you talk about love and friendship there, and

[35:11] well, take for example, have you ever seen Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, that little piece on love he has? It's in that. I guess it's in the Cistercian series, but anyways. Next little word. I. Used to have the students, you know, one one thing they could write on, you know, for their papers in the love and friendship course. Now, if I remember correctly, huh? Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, he distinguishes four stages in our love, okay.

[35:42] And he says, in the first stage, we love ourselves. you know, don't love God at all. But then we develop become aware of all kinds of needs, right, and our insufficiency, right. And then we turn to what God, right? And we see Him as being what. Useful, helpful, okay. So we love God then as being useful for us, right? Which is not really charity, is it? We're not loving Him for His own sake, but as what?

[36:23] Helpful, useful to us, huh? Necessary for us, huh? Which is like what we call useful friend in ethics, right? It's the lowest kind of friendship as Aristotle says, right? Okay? We all have needs, right? That we can't satisfy ourselves, right? And therefore, we need other people, right? Okay. And sometimes you even see that expression "need love," right? Okay.

[36:52] That's not the highest kind of love, right? But it's the kind of love that comes what? First, huh? Okay. Then what happens is that we turn to God in prayer because we need His help, right?

[37:11] And then we become somewhat familiar with Him, right? Acquainted with Him, so to speak, right? And as we become acquainted with Him and His goodness and so on, then we begin to what? Love Him for what He is, and not for what He can do for us. But we have to love Him what He can do for us first, before we can what?

[37:39] Become familiar enough with Him, right? We have to turn to Him in our need. and it's not until we become familiar with Him, then we begin to realize, you know, He's lovable apart from what He does for us, right? Okay. That's another stage now, right? Okay. And the last stage, he says, where you what love yourself for the sake of God, which he says is hardly ever fully realized in this life, right?

[38:07] For the next life, right? Okay. So we have this need love of God, right? This love of God is a useful friend, a helpful friend, right? Is a lower kind of love than to love God for His own sake.

[38:33] To love God for your own sake, for your good, is a very imperfect love of God, right? But we have to go through that first, as Bernard tells us, huh? So You see Until we can rise to the what? Higher stages of love of God, right?

[38:55] So we're in potency to these things in a certain what order, and it would be a mistake to think that you could love God.

[39:07] For his own sake, you know, without any reference at all to your needs to begin with. Yeah, you see. Favorite psalm of mine, at least the way the translation I have when I memorized years ago, but says, "Enter his gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise, Give thanks to him, bless his name, for his good." But it struck me, you know, I don't know, you know, that you know translations are perfect or not, but it struck me, enter his gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise, as if one was entering in through thanksgiving, and then when one got fully into the court, one praised God, right?

[39:47] You know, sometimes they distinguish three or four things that you pray for, right? But two of them are things where you pray for, like in the Our Father, right? Good things that you depend upon him for forgiving right, give us this day our daily bread, or evils that you're seeking to be removed from, forgive us our trespasses, you know, deliver us and evil and so on. Okay, but there I'm thinking of what I'm turning to God because of my needs, right?

[40:17] I need him for my good, for my good. I need him, you know, to escape from these evils that, in most cases, I got myself into. But anyway, you see, okay. But after he has answered my needs, right? Okay, He's giving me my sins and so on, gives me my daily bread and so on. Then I can go up to a higher stage, which is thanksgiving, right?

[40:48] See, and when I thank God, I'm not quite as selfish as I am when I just what asking him for things, right? See, But you see gotta thank someone before you can ask for more things? There's still some of that in there, right? See, but still, thanksgiving, in a way, still looking back to what we received from him, right? See, but then you get to to praise, you know, then you're praising God for what He is in Himself, right?

[41:23] You know, apart from what He does for us, right? Okay. So, but like when Christ, you know, says, "why do you call me good call me good?" Right? Talking about his human nature there, right? God alone is good, right? You know, well, that way of speaking there is where you're thinking of, I'm not even thinking of your good anymore, you know. God alone is good, right? Huh?

[41:53] You know, so you honor Him, you praise Him, you you glorify Him, right? Huh? You know. And then you're, but that's not the way you begin, right? You begin in need, right? Terrible need, a need for good things, a need to be, you know, freed of the evils that we under go, right? Are in, right? And then you can have thanksgiving, right? And then finally, praise, kind of an ascending order, it seems to me, right?

[42:36] Okay. Now you can see that in a in a lesser way, but in a similar way, in regard to what human what friendship, right? Huh? See, because sometimes a man turns to another man out of need, right? Huh? Okay. But then the men get to know each other, right? And begin to enjoy each other's company apart from the need, right? My father used to buy. Father had a company there, his manager, And he'd get pain from this one man, right?

[43:14] Okay. Obviously, this man was interested in selling my father paint because all these wagons, my father's producing his other stuff had to be painted, right? A lot of paint to be used there, right? Okay. So my father was useful to the paint salesman, selling a lot of paint, right? Or buying a lot of paint, right? My father needed the paint salesman; he needs paint. You know, can't make the paint himself.

[43:35] He needs the paint, right? But the two men became sort of friends, right? And they'd go out to the baseball game together, right? You see, And they would have to conclude a deal or some more paint or something like that. But they enjoyed each other's company in the, you know, you see, okay. Or in Saint Rose of Lima, right? You know, you read in the life of Saint Rose of Lima a young man who came courting her because she was apparently a very beautiful woman, and she, you know, swayed him from this particular interest he had in her.

[44:05] But then she started to what, you know, convert him, right? Huh? And so he became, you know, again kind of a saint himself, right? Okay. But I mean, he was you know attracted to somebody because they're beautiful or something like that. But then you get to know them better, right? And you see there's something you know more better reason than that to love them, right? Huh? But you're first attracted them because of the outward beauty of the Rose of Lima.

[44:33] In this case, huh? Do you see that? Yeah. So this is a kind of a, of a order in which these things have to be realized, huh? Yeah.

[44:53] So that's part of the reason why we don't say that it's the substantial form of pure matter. I mean, of pure ability. You see, in a way, it is, right? You see. But pure ability, the first matter, is in potency to the soul only in a certain what order, right? In other words, matter has to be already somewhat organized, right? Before it can what

[45:31] receive a soul, right? Okay. Whether it be from the parents or the soul comes from God, right? The body has to be already, to some extent, developed to some degree, right? It's like you have to see solid geometry only after you've already been perfected by plane geometry, right? Okay.

[45:54] But nevertheless, it's your reason that's being perfected by solid geometry, right? It's matter that's being perfected by the soul, but it's giving all the lower, right, Perfections, huh? And again, it's a little bit like friendship there, you know. And Aristotle distinguishes the three kinds of friendship: the useful friendship, the friendship of pleasure, right, and then the noble friendship, right. And he says that the noble friendship is based on what?

[46:25] On virtue, right? Okay. But will such a person be pleasant to be with? Will such a person be useful? Even more so, right? Okay. So if my friend is is wise and courageous and so on, he's going to be more useful than other friends who are just a little pleasant and foolish and so on, right? And you know, someone can be pleasant because they have the same what temperament that you have, or something like that, right?

[47:02] But the virtuous men are are like in things that are naturally pleasant. My two thieves, you know, they are like in their thievery, right? Or two drunkards who are like in their in their being drunkards, right? Are like in something that is not naturally pleasant, right? And so it's going to be less pleasant that friendship than the friendship of Peter and John, I'd say, right? Okay. So you're going to have what the lower halves, but in a what higher way, right?

[47:38] My old teacher used to make the comparison there between the animal that has blood, right, and the tree that has sap. And there's a likeness between blood and sap, right? Because blood does, in a way, for the animal body what sap does for the what tree. I mean, transports materials, you know, and enables it to grow and so on, right? But blood has all these recuperative powers, right?

[48:02] You know, and disease and so on that sap doesn't have. So the higher has what the lower has, but in a what in a better way. I had a question. You mentioned that two people could be friends or

[48:32] find pleasure in one another's company because of the similarities of temperament. Or then you mentioned they could be friends or attracted to one another because of something because of that which is naturally pleasing. Is there a distinction between? Yeah. Could you explain that a little bit or. Well, I'm just saying that there are some things that are naturally agreeable, right? A drunkard is not, right? Sure. See.

[49:01] Or just take another example here. You know, take the virtue of courage, right? There's something naturally attractive about courage. You know, we kind of spontaneously admire somebody who's courageous, even if we are not courageous ourselves, right? You see, we admire the brave man, right? Huh? So if you are and I are alike in being brave, right? We have more reason to like each other's company than if you and I are alike in being both cowards.

[49:32] See, because to be cowardly is not, you know, as such agreeable, right? And even the coward himself, you know, might not like his own cowardliness, right? We might hang around another coward because they both want to avoid service or something, right? Do you see the same thing? The same way in in being drunkard, right? Huh? You know, to be a drunkard and throwing up all this sort of stuff is not naturally. pleasant. or agreeable, right?

[50:01] See but you might hang around with somebody who drinks too much because you want to drink too much too, and it's annoying to have people say if you've had too much and you want to have some more. You see, but I mean, so you are alike in something that is not naturally agreeable, so you have less reason to enjoy each other's company than the two men who drink moderately have for enjoying each other's company.

[50:25] Okay. So you can go through the various virtues and see that, huh? And they can each enjoy the virtue within the other. Yeah, yeah. So you have generosity, right? You see, generosity is naturally attractive, right? So even the stingy man might enjoy the generous man for obvious reasons, huh? So two generous men have more reason to enjoy each other's company than two stingy men have to enjoy each other's company.

[51:06] Okay. So this is a principle that you find in a lot of things, right? That something can be in potency or an ability for a number of things, but in a certain what? Order, right? You see.

[51:37] And and that's true in in every kind of education, right? You know, you know, I talk about you know the 5BX plan, which I know in Canada, right? The Royal Canadian Air Force, right? Physical development, you know, thing. Okay. I mean, you got to find where your level is, and then you start to what build your body up, right? Huh? Okay.

[52:05] So is your body in in potency to let's say a hundred push-ups? Well, maybe you could build up to doing hundred push-ups, right? But maybe right now you can't do hundred push-ups, right? Okay. But you're able to do ten push-ups, right? So you do ten push-ups for a certain period of time, then you start to do, let's say, fifteen, right? And then you do that for a while, and you do twenty, you know?

[52:32] Okay. So you're in potency to ten, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, all up to hundred, maybe, right? But in a certain what? Order. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[52:45] And maybe there's something like that even in in the education of of taste, right? You know, maybe you should read fairy tales or something like that when you're a child, and you know, Tolkien and people like that, right? And and eventually brought up to you know to Shakespeare or somebody right, but your imagination isn't ready for Shakespeare, is it? It's a little child maybe. But there are forms of fiction that are appropriate to the child, and that kind of dispose them for for something better later on.

[53:21] See that? But then something like that in the education of the mind. Okay, education of love we were talking about before, right? Okay. What did the cynics say? It says a man looks upon his wife first as a mistress, right? Then later on, life is a friend, and last of all as a nurse. "

[54:05] See, so yeah, the best friendship in the middle there, right? See, you know, to friend, right? Friendship, mistress is friendship of pleasure, right? But as a nurse, it's like a need, right? But in in a way, Aristotle makes the same point, right? He says the young are characterized by the pursuit of friendship of pleasure, and you can see that, you know. I mean, the parents say to the kid, you know, when they come home playing with the kid down the block, "Did you have a good time?

[54:31] " You know, and if you had a good time, you didn't have a good time, right? But you like to play with somebody, you have a good time doing, right? Fun to play with so and so, right? I think that's a friendship of pleasure, right? The old is such a characterized by the need for the friendship of utility because they're independent upon others, right? And so you have you know these old folks, you know, where you know, each of them calls up to every day, you know, "How are you doing?

[54:54] " You know, and of course they don't ask the phone you know when they call the medical team or something, you know. But it's kind of looking after each other, you know, but in a useful way, right? See, but then in the prime of life, you can have more of the friendship that is, you know, you don't have the the needs of old age, and you're a little more mature than just a good time with the young, right?

[55:19] But who was talking? Was it somebody said? Was it? I know it was. I know it was talking. It's something like that. Something that's fairly well known. Something about how you know the strong friendships are usually framed or formed in early youth, right? You know, and and see by the time you're out of college, let's say, right, huh? You probably won't form as close of friendships as you did with somebody in high school or college, right?

[55:44] You know, there's some truth to that, right? I mean, it might be too that those early friendships were first, you know, friendships of pleasure, right? Because the younger I think, but then they meld into a higher kind of friendship, right? You know, that the friendship of pleasure disposes for the highest one, huh? See, when Aristotle speaks of friendship in the full sense, you love somebody for their own sake, and not for the sake of you, right?

[56:13] Okay, but if I love you because you're useful to me, right? That's further removed from loving you for your own sake than to love you because you're pleasant, right, to be with. It's more loving you for what's intrinsic to you, than loving you because you're pleasant to be with. I'm getting closer to true friendship or full friendship.

[56:37] So, so yeah, you could um malform somebody by either giving them good things or teaching them true things, but not in the right order. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[57:05] Quite true. So, body now here then means in the definition of soul. Would you say it means like a secondary matter, a formed matter, or the it means the? We're getting careful. We're getting careful with it because you don't you don't want to say if the soul comes to a substance that is already what formed. Yeah, and it's no, it's a form on top of a form, because then the soul would be an accident before, right?

[57:39] Yeah. Okay. So the soul is going to replace any substantial form that's already there, right? Okay, in the origination, huh? Um, and it's going to what?

[57:55] Give matter that perfection that the lower forms give, right? Okay. So that when a human soul, say, comes, you're going to have in a body not only what's peculiar to man, but you're going to have sensation, which is what the animal soul has, right? And you're going to have digestion and growth, reproduction, which the plant soul has, right? But you have those things in a higher way than the lower things, huh?

[58:28] Okay. So you don't want to say that the subject of the soul is a body with another substantial form. That's that's a mistake that that some of the Arab philosophers made, you know, from Avicenna and so on. Okay, and or like Plato, we have one kind of soul in this part of the body, another kind of soul in that part. You have one soul in one body.

[58:55] That's one substance, as you're saying before, right? So, if there's any substantial form in matter before the soul, that Substantial form to be placed by the soul, right? Which gives the perfection that that lower form gave, plus higher perfection than that. Okay.

[59:21] So, what do I say? I have a body. This is my body. Then, using that to name now a composing part of yourself. But if you said, "I am a body, not an angel," right? I'm a living body. I'm a living body, with sensation. I'm a living body, with reason, right? Then you're thinking of body as a what species, right, or a genus,

[1:00:08] rather than a part of a species or a part of a genus. Okay. So I mean, you got to be careful there. The word body, I'm trying to warn you. And Aristotle says in the in the book on specific refutations, the most common mistake in thinking is to mixing up the different senses of a word, right? And as he says in that same book, it's when a word is equivocal by reason, right, rather than equivocal by chance.

[1:00:39] they're going to have to make these mistakes, huh? And especially with the more general words, huh, like being and one and body is fairly general.

[1:00:54] Another example of the equivocation of the word body is sometimes body is spoken of as a species of substance, like we divide substance into body and angel, right? But it's also given as a species of quantity, huh? You divide quantity into discrete and continuous, and continuous in one dimension, line; two dimension, surface; two dimensions, body, right? Well, body in the genus of quantity and body in the genus of substance two different meanings of the word body, but they're connected, right?

[1:01:35] And body in the genus of substance, as we said before, nature loves to hide, as Heraclitus said, nature loves to hide, right? And so we tend to identify this kind of substance. It's a body that has length and width and depth, right? It's a substance rather than length, width, and depth. We define a body that way, right? We're kind of dividing, we're kind of defining it by its accident, right?

[1:01:58] Because the inner, inward nature of it is kind of hidden from us, huh? Okay. I think he uses the word body rather than the word matter because he wants to bring out that the soul is perfecting matter in a certain order, right?

[1:02:25] And so the bodily character is on the side of the subject, right? And involving all that order leading up to it. Okay. When I say my soul moves my body,

[1:02:52] move my arm, my soul is moving my body. And body there is naming the the part that composed, yeah. Okay, but it's not just the it's

[1:03:18] there. It's not just the matter that is seems it includes in the body. Yeah, yeah, you're thinking there a little more of how the soul is moving one part to another part, right? For one power than another power. Let's wait to get to the third book where he talks about that power, right? Power of local motion.