De Anima (On the Soul)
20. The Nutritive Soul: Answering Empedocles, Food as Object, Nourishment, Growth and Generation, and the Sacraments
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[0:00] For a second here, I'll take a little passage here from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and it's section here on the body and the soul, right? But three sixty-five is the number of the reading. It says the unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the form of the body. And then he has a footnote there, two thirty-four, and that's the Council of Vienne, right, The one that we looked at before huh

[0:39] it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living human body, right? Spirit and matter and man are not two natures united, but rather union forms a what single nature. Okay. The next one talks about how the human soul didn't come from the parents, and about the immortality of the soul, three sixty-six. Aristotle himself says that in the book of Generation of Animals that the human soul doesn't come from the parents.

[1:08] That's about to say? yeah. But that's because he saw it was not dependent upon matter, right, and therefore it couldn't be produced by the transformation of matter. Yeah. The transformation of matter through the parents, you have a body that's suitable to receive the soul, right? But the soul itself is not brought into existence that way. Interesting that, he saw that, you know. Yeah. Sure. Saw the immortality of the soul, Arist too.

[1:39] So we're down to page twelve of your text there, number one forty-seven, which is in Thomas's division at the start of a new lesson, and the nuptios here which deal with the living soul, right, or the plant soul, the feeding soul, if you wish. Aristotle calls it here the what first soul too, huh? And it's first in what sense a first?

[2:12] Common and that in that sense, second sense, the others. Yeah. Yeah. Cannot be without it, but it can be without the others. Yeah. Just like when you go back to those grades of life, right? You can have the power of feeding, right, and reproducing, right, without having the powers of what sensing, right? And you can have the powers of sensing without having the power of understanding, huh?

[2:43] Partially even, or complete. There you can have the powers of sensing without the power of moving from one place to another, right? And you can have the power of moving from one place to another. Without the power of understanding, but not vice versa, in mortal things, right? Okay. Now perhaps it's before too in in time or generation.

[3:16] You know, after the you have the the seed of the fertilized egg. Let's say even the animal, what first appears is growth, right? Okay, and then later on appears the senses, right? And last of all, the use of reason, right? Okay, so it may be that too, right? Okay. But which soul is first? In the fourth sense, the first.

[3:44] The rational soul. Yeah. The understanding soul, as Shakespeare calls it. Okay. So he's going to talk about the first soul in that other sense, right? Yeah. And first, as Thomas points out, he's going to clear up some things that are necessary as a preparation to talking about this soul. He's going to answer a couple mistakes too.

[4:13] So, one forty-seven, he says, "Whence one must first speak about food and generation, for the nutritive soul, the feeding soul, right, is even in the other living things. At least they have these powers, right? And is the first and most common power of the soul.

[4:37] It's common to all living things, huh? And it must be before the other ones can be in mortal things. According to which living is in all living things, and the works of which soul are generating and what, using food. That's more clear, I suppose. You use food when you nourish yourself to maintain yourself, right? And you use food to what, to grow, right? See all these immigrants, you know, where the father is short and the son is towering above him, and maybe the maybe the daughters are taller than the mother too, and so on, right?

[5:15] They've got a better diet, right? So, but in a more obscure way, generation is tied up with what, food, right? Now, because he had spoken, Thomas says in the commentary, because he had spoken earlier more about the first soul as feeding, right, as being the feeding soul, he wants to manifest that generation very much pertains to a living thing. And he says some very interesting things here, following to some extent in the some words of Plato himself in the Symposium.

[6:05] For the most natural of the works for living things, which are complete, once you're a mature individual and not mutilated in some ways, right, like the eunuch, as Thomas says, or spontaneously generated. Aristotle and Thomas said the idea that some of these insects were spontaneously generated, right, not from seed. Maybe they couldn't find the seed or something, right? So we do not want to follow them, in that opinion.

[6:32] For the most natural of the works for living things, is making another like themselves, and this seems to be something that even in the non-living things you seem to have, right? Like fire seems to generate what, fire? And you can see in all these big fires we had down in Colorado and other places, California. They see these fires sometimes get so hot, you know, they come to the road there and just jumps across the road and starts to burn, you know.

[7:04] It's kind of amazing thing to see. My son Marcus likes you know a candle sometimes. You know, if you extinguish a candle and then you're smoking up, and then you can hold a match above the candle like that, and it jumps down. Do you ever see that? No. Yeah, just hold it and then it's smoking, All of a sudden there's a seed down the flame and light the candle again.

[7:24] It's kind of unusual to see that, but it gets so hot with these forest fires, you know. So he sees this idea of generating another as something common to all natural things, right? And therefore, also most natural to living things, huh? But then he goes on to something very subtle, and something that Plato had said before him in the Symposium. That in, immortal things, when they generate, right, another like themselves, they are also striving to be so far as possible like what?

[8:03] God, okay. Now this has kind of naturally occurred to a Greek in a way because if you know Homer, Homer sometimes refers to to men and the gods, right? But then it's almost synonyms for men and the gods, so speak of the what, mortals and the what, immortals, okay. So when the mortal is trying to perpetuate itself, to make itself immortal by generating another like itself, it's striving to be like the immortal, so far as what?

[8:41] Possible, yeah. That's very interesting that Plato, they both Plato Aristotle, the chief philosophers, as we said before, both see generation as aiming ultimately to be like God in some way, okay. And you know when you read the the Theaetetus of Plato, which is one of the very famous dialogues where he says wonder is the beginning of philosophy, and we've seen a passage in there before. It's also where he gives one of the two so-called Platonic definitions of philosophy, and he defines philosophy as becoming like God so far as possible.

[9:24] You might think, well, gee, was that's, um, putting philosophy awfully high. It is, but in some ways, all living things, right, when they reproduce, are trying to be in some way what? Like God, so far as possible. As he points out here, it's not possible for them as individuals to go on forever, right? But by reproducing something of the same kind, in a way they go on.

[9:53] If you look at the first twenty sonnets of Shakespeare, where he's kind of, you know, trying to persuade someone to get married, right? He's always emphasizing this idea, right? Like the first sonnet begins with the famous line, "From fairest creatures we desire increase, meaning offspring, that thereby beauty's rose might what? Never die. As the riper should by time decease, you know, this tender air might bear his memory, Okay.

[10:20] And I often say to students, you know, what does who's reproduced? You know, use the word reproduction there, huh? And who's reproduced? It's not the child. Producer, yeah. He's produced the first time. It's the parents reproduced, right? Okay. So in a way, there is a continuation, right? Yeah. Okay. So

[10:49] he's saying, for all things have an appetite for this, a desire in sense to be like God. And you may recall in the first book of Natural Hearing there, that Aristotle says when he's discussing Plato there at the end, he and Plato agree that the form is something what, godlike, right? Huh? So nature tries to form things to perfect them. In other words, is trying to be like God in some very distant way, but something like God, because God is universally perfect, right?

[11:25] So when these things grow to perfection, as we say, right? They are striving to be like God, who is universally perfect. But in particular, when they're trying to reproduce, they're trying to be immortal like God, huh? And the Greek has two words there: the "aei," you know, which means always, right, to be eternal and divine, right? Kind of coupling the two together.

[11:59] For all things have desire, appetite for this, and do whatever they do according to nature for the sake of this. So it's natural to seek to be like God, even for the plants. How they don't know they're trying to be like God, right? But their nature's trying to be like God.

[12:24] You know, Thomas is explaining the definition of the good in ethics there. Aristotle begins with kind of induction, then he brings out the first definition of good: the good is what all desire, right?

[12:41] And you can understand that in more than one way, perhaps. That each thing is seeking its own what, good, right? At least what seems to be good to it, but nobody can understand it. They're all seeking to be like what, God, who in one sense is alone good. Yeah. The good is what all desire, but you see that here, huh? It's very interesting,

[13:12] even in a perverse way. The Marxists and others are striving to be like God, huh? Yeah. You know, Marx says reject anybody who's not. You know, something in mind is being the highest divinity. Who is trying to be godlike in kind of a.

[13:31] Yeah, perverse way, yeah. But even these, you know, mad tyrants who are seeking, you know, big power over people, God is all powerful, right? And some sense they're seeking to be like God, huh?

[13:51] However, that for the sake of which is twofold, that which or that for which, huh? That's kind of obscure. That what Aristotle is saying, Thomas gives a couple explanations of that, right? We could say the doctor is acting for the sake of what? Health, right? Or for the sake of a what? Healthy body, right? Okay. One could be the good itself, and the other is that of which it is the what?

[14:18] The good, right? Huh? Or the other way understands it is more in terms of the end and what is for the sake of the end, right? Okay.

[14:30] But now he comes back to the idea of the trying to be divine. Since, therefore, it is impossible to take part in always being, huh? And in the divine and continuous way, huh? These mortal Things cannot go on forever, right? They have a lifespan, huh? Kind of amazing those trees in California, you know, that go on and on. Such a long lifespan, huh? Because not one of the destructible or corruptible things can persist the same in one number.

[15:02] Insofar as each is able to share, it takes part in this this one more and that one less. Some able to exist longer than others, right? I thought some of these bugs and so on they have a lifetime of a day or so, you know, and they go through their whole lifespan, their whole cycle, you know, in one day, huh? Okay. But none of these things go on forever.

[15:26] And the same thing does not persist individually, but what is like the same, not one in number, but one in species or what kind, huh?

[15:40] So the dogs produce a dog, and the cat a cat, and the oak tree another oak tree, right? And so on. Makes another like itself.

[15:54] And you have to have this understanding, I think, when you when you get into ethics too, you know. And Thomas is talking about sexual ethics, what we might call that. He's talking about you know misusing your sexual organs or using them other than their actual purpose and so on. He says, well, some people might say, you know, well, is there any sin in a man walking on his hands?

[16:17] You know. Because you see people, you know, who can walk in their hands a bit, you know, and got a pretty good balance to do that, and I don't think I could do that. But that's not much interfering with the good of man, right? Even though you're not using the hands, the hands are not really made for walking, are they? See. But when you realize that the sexual organs and so on are made for what reproduction, right?

[16:43] And they're ordered to what, Therefore, the common good of the species, but ultimately even to being like God in some way, right? You realize how those organs are ordered to a good much greater than the individual, and therefore he doesn't have what the leeway, right, of interfering with the order that they have to these goods that are greater than him. Now, sometimes I'll point to the fact that we interfere sometimes with the natures of the animals and the plants that we're using for our various uses, but they are subordinated to us.

[17:20] They're for the sake of us as you'll go on to say here in a short time here, right? But but in the case of the reproduction, there you're ordered to a good which is the common good of the what species, right? And ultimately to what becoming like God, right? So you're not really free to do whatever you want with that. It's just like you know. The order to truth, right?

[17:48] Truth is the common good of the whole universe. You are not just free to think whatever you want to think. You've got to make a real effort, you know, to have the tools you need and so on to find out what the truth is, in order to a good which is greater than what yourself. Yourself, right?

[18:14] As I mentioned here, Plato talks about this in the what Symposium, right? He has a kind of, I think, an interesting idea of of sexual attraction, right? In terms of this,

[18:31] I sometimes ask students, you know, why, other things being equal, right, are men and women more sexually attracted to a beautiful or handsome person of the opposite sex, right? You know, and they

[18:47] don't really know the reason for that. See, if someone else is more beautiful or is very beautiful, you can enjoy how they look, right? Because that's obvious. I am the beautiful is what pleases when seen. See, but I am saying, why is there a desire to reproduce with that person who is beautiful? See,

[19:10] I'll go back to those words of Shakespeare: "From fairest creatures, meaning the most beautiful creatures, we desire increase. Why, that thereby beauty's rose might never die. " huh? you want to perpetuate and make what eternal, so far as possible, the beauty that you see in this person, right? Without realizing it, right, you are naturally drawn to that person sexually, right? Because you have a natural desire to perpetuate the beautiful, not the ugly.

[19:43] Is it? That's actually very profound. He understands that, right? See, that the beautiful should delight your eyes—that's a separate thing. That's true, right? See, but this your desire to reproduce with the beautiful goes back to this, right? The desire to make perpetual that. And then, then Plato, if you read the Symposium, he goes on from the desire for the immortality of what of the beauty of the body to the immortality of the what beauty of the soul, right?

[20:15] And that's in a way what the teacher is after, right? See, because the teacher wants this knowledge that he has, right, to be what passed on to others, right? Just like you know, take Cecilia here, the patroness of music. You know, just like you know, if a man plays a violin, he wants other men to what? Be taught the art of violin playing, so that when he's gone, other men will play the violin down through what.

[20:44] Right, when Heisenberg said to Max Planck, "You know, shall we leave Germany? " You know, because Hitler had come to power come to power and so on, right? Of course, the Jews had to get out of Germany if they knew what they were facing. You know, Einstein and Max Born and those of Jewish blood, you know, saw the particular danger that they were in, right? And they left Germany.

[21:04] Planck says, "Well, if all you guys leave German science, well, what? Die, right? " Yeah. You see, so it's kind of a concern there for the the perpetuation of what? Truth. Of of the beauty of the soul, right? Which is which is knowledge and in virtue and so on, right? Okay. The same way that parents want to pass on, assuming they're good parents, right? They want to pass on their their virtue or something of it, right?

[21:34] In their children, right? I mean, honest man doesn't want his son to be a thief, right? Or courageous man his son to be a coward, or wants to pass on something of their son. At one forty nine, there he's going to talk about how the soul is a cause of these things. The soul, ever, is the cause and principle of the living body.

[22:09] But these cause and principle or beginning are said in many ways. Now, if you recall from natural philosophy, there from the second book of natural hearing, there are four kinds of cause.

[22:27] Which Aristotle gave there in the order of matter, right, form, mover, and what, end. So just recall for a second there, right? You take the chair that I'm sitting on, right? The matter is the what wood it's made out of, right? And maybe some metal and so on that's in it. The form is the what shape of the wood, right? And the order of the parts, huh?

[22:59] The angles at which they meet and so on. And the mover or maker is a carpenter. And the end of purpose is the what?

[23:11] Yeah, yeah. Okay. Now Aristotle's saying here that the soul is a cause of the body in more than one of these ways, but not in all four ways, but only in what? Three ways, right? Okay. Now, which three ways is it a cause?

[23:35] What else he says here? For the soul is a cause as whence is motion itself. It's a cause as a mover. Of course, that's kind of our first notion, almost, of life. We think that things are alive, that in some way what move themselves, right? So we think of the soul as a cause of motion. But he says it's also cause in the sense of in, and he gives the definition of in there, that for the sake of which.

[24:06] And finally, as the substance of in-souled bodies, animate bodies, living bodies, right? When he says substance there, he means what? As Thomas says, the form, right? Aristotle, I see in the Metaphysics, he often speaks of matter, and keep the word matter for that. But then substance in the sense of form, you'll keep the word substance, huh? Okay. It's kind of interesting that he does that. It's a little confusing maybe at first, but remember how the definition of form was the definition of what was to be, right? And of course, substance means what a thing is, right?

[24:48] That's one reason why he does it, right? Now he's going to manifest it in those three ways, but in no way is the soul a cause in the sense of what? Matter, right? Yeah.

[25:04] Okay. Let's look at the way he manifests these three things, and then we'll come back and talk a little bit about the significance of why it has those three and not the the fourth one, right?

[25:17] It is clear that it is a cause as substance or as form, huh? For in all things, substance or form is the cause of what? Being, right?

[25:33] Now, why does he say that? Well, let's take a very simple example of that. Huh? Wood is a chair or a table or a bed only in what ability, right? And when can you say that the wood is a chair or it is a table or is a door? But when it gets its what form, right? Okay. So to be a chair to be a table is through some what form, right?

[26:06] So he's saying substance or form is the cause of being, huh? By the soul is the cause for living beings, for living bodies, right? Of their living, right? Yeah. Okay. And he's taking living here now in the sense of what? The being of a what living thing, right? The to be of a living thing. Sometimes we take life to mean also the operations of life, right? But he's taking it here for the very being of it, huh?

[26:36] You say I'm alive and not dead, right? Yeah. But the soul is the cause and principle of this. We saw it before that the soul is the form of the body. Moreover, it's the what? Act of a being in potency, right?

[26:56] So we saw that definition of the soul. It's the first act of a natural body composed of tools, right? Okay. So those are two ways he's showing that the soul is a cause of the body in the sense of form, right? What was the second one again? How did that go Well, the second one is it's the actuality of the body, right? Okay. Yeah. Okay, that's what the form is.

[27:18] Is the first act of something, huh? Yeah. Or it's through the form of something as being. That's the first argument he has. Okay. So because through the soul the body is alive, it has the existence of a living thing, and the soul is a cause in the sense of substance or form. Yeah. And because it's the act of a body, right? Then it's also the form of the body, right?

[27:49] So it sort of seems like those two are the same. Is it Well, they're similar, but in one case he's talking about it being the beginning of the being of it as a living thing, right? In the other case, he's talking about it being the what act of the body, huh? Is the form of the body?

[28:14] Just like I might say, you know, wood begins to be a chair through its form, right? And you can also say the form is what an actuality of the ability of the matter, right? So you're not saying exactly the same thing, are you? But they're obviously connected, right?

[28:35] What's the difference? Well, just stop thinking that for a moment, right? You can say wood can be a chair or a table or a door, right? But its being a chair or being a table or being something is through its form, right? Right. So form is that through which something has being in some way, right? Yeah. See, just like my being a geometer, right? Mm-hmm. Is through my mind being formed by geometry, huh?

[29:10] Yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. Now you're comparing the form to the being, right? To the existence, right? Yeah. So through the soul, the body is alive, right? Is being in the sense, huh? Okay. But you can also say that the form of the chair or the table is the what act of the matter, right? Sure. It's the actuality of what the matter is potentially, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

[29:41] So in one case you're comparing it directly to its subject. Okay. In other case you're seeing it as the beginning of what The thing existing or being, huh? Just like geometry is a form of my mind, right? Huh? And through geometry I have a new kind of being, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. And say I am a geometer, right? Mm-hmm. See. So through the science or the art of geometry in my mind, right?

[30:16] I, Duane Berquist am a geometer. You see? Mm-hmm. Okay. So I have a. That's not my being simply, is it? No. But it's kind of being, isn't it? Okay. Just like through my health, you can say I am healthy, right? Okay. But at the same time you can say that what geometry is a what an actuality of my mind, huh? Yeah.

[30:49] So I can say in one case it's the source or the beginning of my being a geometer. I can say also it's the act of my mind, being the form of my mind.

[31:06] Would act be the genus? of, the soul is an act. Yeah, we've seen that before. Yeah, it's the first act, right? Okay. It would be its genus. then? What? It would be its act. Would be the genus of soul. I know. Yeah, you can see the you can see the soul is the first act, right, of a natural body composed of tools, or it's the first. You can see it's also the substantial form, right, of a natural body composed of tools.

[31:41] Okay. However, it is clear that the soul is also a cause, in the sense of, end that for the sake of which. That's the definition of end. That for the sake of which. Now, how does he manifest this? For just as the mind acts for the sake of something, nature acts the same way, and this is its end. Now, without going on to the rest of it for a moment here, notice what we saw back in the second book of natural hearing, what we saw that nature acts for an end, right?

[32:21] Okay. And one way Aristotle manifested that the last argument, in fact, was that nature what forms matter, right? And form is the what end of matter, right? Okay. Let me review that just for a second. When Aristotle wants to show that, in the second book, there he has a nice proportion.

[32:51] He sometimes compares the three arts. We've mentioned this before, I think. The art that uses the formed product. The art that forms the product,

[33:25] and the art that what Repairs the raw materials, right? Okay. Now. You find this those three arts again and again when you go through industry, right? Mechanic arts, huh? Like my father's company, Elco Implement Company. They made farm wagons, some of the other things, huh? So here's the trade name, you know, Grain King, right? My father's trade name, Grain King wagons. the best wagons ever made, say, for the farm.

[34:15] But what they're practicing, you might say, my father's factory then was which of these three arts? The art of forming. Yeah, yeah. Now, other people were delivering wood, right? Okay. Okay. Others were delivering what? Steel, right? Okay. So I've unloaded wood a lot, and I've unloaded steel down there. In fact, I dropped a steel bar, one time on my foot. So they took me. at my s really started bleeding there you know they took me to the little r restroom, and then took me down to the hospital, you know.

[34:54] They, guy sewed up my big uh toe, you know. He just put it kind of a painkiller in there, you know, and told it, told it bigger, bigger. So anyway, just show all the honesty afterwards. So notice, I was a loading steel.

[35:15] I can tell a good joke about that, you know. Everybody hated that job about unloading steel. And sometimes my father would hire somebody out outside the company, you know, to unload steel because everybody hated the job. One time the union representative can storm me down. I hear hiring people without a union. My father just called up the guy and said, shop. You guys want to unload steel?

[35:37] No, no, no. So after they left, these union guys said, "My father have to apologize. I have to go out and storm him, so I lose my job. I don't come down and complain about something. " So, but you have to special gloves to be a loading steel. You can't pinch your fingers, you know. You can't use gloves, you know, you can't pinch your fingers. But notice, my father's company is not making the steel, right?

[36:00] The bars and so on, or the wood, right? That's other arts of preparing the raw materials. My father's company was what forming the product, right? Okay, and it's me, the farmer, right, who uses the product then. And they did have kind of a farm that they went out to them. Sometimes they tried a new product, and so my father's engineer sometimes would design something new, and he'd say to me, "Now, we got an interesting idea here.

[36:28] " He says, "we're never going to see if it's any good. " But, As you make something according to that idea, the engineer, and then you take it out in the farm and see how it what performs, right? Just like Detroit takes a car out on the road, and maybe you see, you know, it will start complaining about this that going wrong, and then they have to go back to the drawing boards, right?

[36:51] Now, corresponding to these arts are three things. One is the use of the product, right? The other is the form, and the other is the what matter. Now, of these three arts, which art commands which art?

[37:18] The art that uses commands them. Yeah, the art that uses the product commands the art that forms the product. So if you get out there and start using the product, and you start to see some defect in it, right, like the soldier with his gun, right, as soon as he discovers the gun jams after a certain number of shots, or it overheats, or something happens out there, right.

[37:42] Using the product, well, then they come back and they, yes, so you got to correct that, right? And so then they redesign the thing, right? Now, in redesigning the thing, then they have to go maybe and what, get a different piece of metal, right? A different shape or a different size or something of that sort, right? So the art that forms a product, like my father's company, they would give orders, right, to the wood producers or the steel producers, right?

[38:12] One of these steel companies was run by a woman, you know, which I thought was very unusual, you know, that a woman could be a kind of steel company, huh? I don't know how she got into it or whether she inherited it, or what? My father's always very kind to her. Kind of the man's world there, you know, steel. But anyway, my father's company here for the art that forms a product gives orders to the what, ones that prepare the raw materials.

[38:41] First, I use that to manifest. What's the order then, of the use and form of matter? Why does the art, the use of the product, command the other, the art that forms it? Because the use of the product is the end or purpose of the what, form of product, right? But why does the art that forms the product, why does that command the arts that prepare the matter?

[39:05] Because the matters being prepared are for the sake of the form product, right? So just as use is the end of form, form is the end of the what, matters. Very concrete way the way Aristotle manifested in it. And you see if you get a farm wagon out on the farm. it's not leveled to farm, right? And the farm wagon is what, bending, right? As the terrain of the land.

[39:33] And these cheap wagons, not my father's wagons, you know, they don't have as much steel underneath or sort of thing, right? They cut short and then it what snaps out there. The farmer comes down to the Twin Cities and he's storming bad, right? And so he says, "Who makes a good wagon, right? " And they send to my my father, right. So we go up on Machinery Hill there during the Minnesota State Fair, where all the farmers coming in, you know, and my father would be displaying his wagon, other people would be displaying their wagons, and we go looking all the wagons.

[40:05] See, my father's are much more solidly built, you see. But notice if you discover out on the farm that with that size steel you're getting too many of these snaps, right? Then you go back and you'd what, redesign them with bigger pieces, and then you'd give a different order to the what, steel company, huh? Another fun story. One time in the stage fair there, we're out there, and the guy next to my father's got a young lady there with a little cut gown there, you know, and she's passing out their literature.

[40:38] My father went there laughing, see, because he says. Said they all go in there to look at the girl. They come over to my place to look at the wagon. So, this is the ultimate proof of superiority, of my product. So they can't get them in there without that girl out there. So, if the soul is the form of the body, right, the substantial form of the body, then it's the end of the what matter.

[41:11] Therefore, it's a cause not only in the sense of form, but also of the end, huh? And sometimes we say that form is the end of what generation, right?

[41:23] Yeah, Leo's on with chipping away at the marble. I mean, at a certain what form, huh? In the matter. It goes on to say, and this is interesting, that the soul seems to be not only the end of that natural body, but also of the whole of what natural bodies, huh? Because the plants use the what non-living world, right, like the water and the elements in the soil, right, to build up their body and so on, right.

[42:02] And the animals use the plants for food, right, and sometimes other animals for food, and man uses the animals and the plants all of these naturally for his needs, right. So if the soul and ultimately the human soul seems to be the end of the whole what natural world, huh?

[42:26] In living things, the soul, according to nature, is such. For all natural bodies seem to be in some way tools of the soul, and just as some are of animals, so too some are of plants, as being for the sake of the soul. Okay, he repeats again that distinction that we saw earlier. So in a way,

[42:49] the human soul is the end of the whole natural world. He's hinting at here. That's very interesting for what it points to, because if an understanding soul is the end of the whole natural world, right,

[43:07] and light produces light, right, then you think of there being a greater what mind, right, or understanding behind nature, right, that is directing this whole thing towards what the understanding soul in some way. Okay. But before that, it's directing what generation to be like itself, right?

[43:32] So when he said God is is the end of the universe, he's not the end of the universe in the sense that he gets anything from the universe; he doesn't need anything, right? Nothing can be added to God, right? But everything is directed towards God. At least, insofar as it is what, trying to be like God, so far as what possible, right? But then, when you get to to the understanding soul, and even more so, obviously with the angels, then you have something that can not only become like God in some way, but it has two operations, understanding and loving, which can attain God in Himself.

[44:14] So, when you eventually see God face to face. Only through our reason, understanding, can we do that. Though we need God's help to do it, obviously. With our only with the will, you already love God, huh? So that cat around here, cat back home, we have Moppet there. Moppet is unable to what. Love God, in Himself, right? Okay. Although in reproducing and being a mother as Moppet was, she's becoming like God so far as possible, right?

[44:51] Immortalizing her, her kind, right? Now 153 says, "But indeed the soul is also that whence first is motion according to place. However, this same power of moving one place to another is not in all living things, right? But only in the higher animals and in man, of course.

[45:18] Now he says, 'Sense seems to be some alteration. ' He just says that because he's not yet shown how different sensing is, right? From alteration, as we'll see if we take up that. Okay.

[45:32] Now notice that those three causes, or those three kinds of causes that the soul is, they're all tied up with what actuality, right? Because the form is the act of the body, right? And the end is also the act of what ability, as Aristotle will show in the ninth book of Wisdom. Ability is for the sake of what act, right? The ability to see is for the sake of what seeing, right?

[46:06] The ability to understand is for the sake of understanding. The ability to play the piano is for the sake of playing the piano, and the ability of matter is for the sake of form. Okay, so

[46:21] end is always based on some kind of actuality, and form, he says, is an act, and then was able to move things because what is in what in act, right? Okay. Um.

[46:40] So the fire, which is actually hot, right, causes the air, which is hot in the ability to be actually hot rather than to warm, right?

[46:53] But matter is essentially, as we saw back in natural philosophy, in the beginning, natural philosophy, matter is essentially what is passive ability, right? So the soul being an act cannot be what matter.

[47:12] I think we mentioned that before when we were talking about the four kinds of causes and how you can, in different ways, sometimes divide those four, right? And one way you can divide them is form, mover, end against what matter, right? And the basis for that division is that matter is essentially ability, the passive sense, and the other three are all based upon what actuality, and.

[47:48] Something can act upon other things and move them, insofar as it is an act, then. Because act is what you give something else. You give ability. You give it an act. So, insofar as you are an act, you're able to give some act to something else. So, those three causes are based upon actuality. And I think I mentioned before that when you take up God's causality, we say God is a cause, right?

[48:17] And how many of the four kinds of cause is God a cause? Two and a half. Two and a half. Yeah, yeah. He's a cause in the sense of the mover or maker. He's a cause in the sense of end. I got to be careful. You see, he's a cause in the sense of form. He's a cause in the sense of the what? External form, right? Like the model after which you model something.

[48:45] So we're said, or our soul is said to be made in the what? To the image and likeness of God, right? Okay. So, but the soul is an intrinsic form of the living body. Nevertheless, there's some likeness there between the soul and God, right? That the soul is also like God. We see it for the soul before we see it by God, right? The soul is a cause in three ways, but it can't be a cause in the sense of what?

[49:18] Matter, yeah, because it's it's act, right? And when you see that God is pure act, you realize he cannot be a cause in the sense of matter, even more so, right? But he can be a cause in the sense of the mover or maker, very much so, in the sense of the end. But form, you got to distinguish there, right? Because if he was a a cause in the sense of the intrinsic form, he'd be to some extent like a part, right?

[49:47] And parts are like matter in some ways, right? And therefore, there'd be a certain what? Potentiality there in God, right, with respect to the the whole, which he's a part. And God is in no way a what? Part of anything. Sounds kind of unfair to say, but God is in no way a part of anything. Does that make sense?

[50:14] That's why we use the word partial always for something incomplete, imperfect, right? So, no way can you say God is a part, right? Okay. Got to be careful to say God as a whole, because that may imply that he is parts, right? Okay. But the the completeness of the whole is found even more in God, right?

[50:36] So what did Thomas say? You know, I consider the body, so I might consider the soul, right? I consider the soul, so I might consider what angels, and I consider angels, I might consider God, right? But here, this consideration of the soul here, and it's being a cause in three ways. In a way, it kind of prepares our mind for seeing that not identically, right? Because that distinction we made, but that God also can be a cause in three ways, but not in that what fourth way of matter.