De Anima (On the Soul)
34. De Anima III.3: Imagining vs. Thinking, the Estimative Power, and Digressions (Trinity, Hegel, Irving)
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/034-de-anima-iii-3-imagining-vs-thinking-the-estimative-power/

[0:00] Okay, now he's starting to distinguish in that preliminary way here, reason from the senses. Therefore, it is apparent that sensing and judging are not the same, for the one is present in all, but the other in few of the animals. Not trying to be too precise yet, right? Because some of the higher animals seem to have something like reason, right? In that they can what judge, right?

[0:31] Okay. Now, a second argument here in two ninety nine. But neither is an applying not to understanding more than judging. Neither is understanding in which there is correct and incorrect. Is this the same as sensing? For sensation of the proper is always true and exists in all the animals, while thinking can also occur falsely and is present in none in which reason is not. That's kind of interesting the way he does that, right?

[1:09] So he gives ten kids there, huh, a piece of candy, and they're all going to say what? Sweet. It's sweet, right? Okay. He gives somebody else something, does something sweet, something that's what? Bitter, right? They're going to what? Right away.

[1:29] Now they're deceived, right? But you ask them, you know, some philosophical question, and you probably get what? Ten answers, right? Isn't it? So how could these be the same thing? Sensing, right? And thinking, right? Understanding. Kind of, it's a very, very humble way, but a very what? Proportioned way to us to see a difference between them. Okay. Now, but it's much more important and much more difficult to see the difference between imagining and what?

[2:08] Thinking, huh? Because in the case of of the outward senses, we can see the limitations of these, right? The eye knows only color, and what's happened with color doesn't know, you know, sweetness and so on. While reason will talk about color and sweetness, et cetera, et cetera. It's universality. But with the internal senses there and the imagining, you seem to have something like universality, so it's harder to separate the two.

[2:41] Now Aristotle is going to have some very subtle ways of separating imagining and thinking or image and thought, right? Okay. But most people can't separate the two at all. And if you read John Locke, let's say, huh? John Locke.

[3:02] He uses the word idea. An idea can mean what? In English, sometimes it can mean an image, right? And sometimes a what? Thought, right? Okay.

[3:24] So if the philosopher says I got an idea, it should be a thought. But the girl says the boy, I don't get ideas. He's probably what? How about images there, right? Okay.

[3:39] Kids probably doing too much thinking now, say. And you'll notice how we tend to use the word imagine and the word thinking almost interchangeably, right? I imagine that's so. I think that's all right. And if you look at the the beginning of Henry the Fifth, you know where Shakespeare is appealing to his audience to use their imagination, right? And how how can he reproduce, you know, the Battle of Agincourt on this little scene, you know, and you see one soldier, you don't think of hundreds, you know.

[4:16] But but he goes back and forth between these two words, right? You'll notice in daily speech, people say, "I imagine that's so. I think that's so." They almost say that interchangeably, right? Aristotle wants to separate these two, but in Locke, I think there's a certain confusion of these two. And I mentioned how

[4:43] Locke and Berkeley got up in the idea. Is there a general idea of triangle, right? And Locke says, "Well, he's attacking the idea that the general is more known to us than the particular, right? " And he's trying to talk about the difficulty of general ideas. And he says he takes example there of the general idea of triangle, right? Is it equilateral, isosceles, or scalene? Is it right-angled or acute-angled or obtuse-angled?

[5:20] The idea of triangle in general. He says it's all and none of these. Okay. Notice this problem, right? He's trying to imagine a triangle, right? When he's trying to think about triangle in general, and any triangle you imagine will be either equilateral or isosceles or scalene, right-angled or obtuse-angled, but it won't be all of these, right? But if it's just one of these, then it doesn't fit them all, right?

[5:53] So it's got to be all of these, and yet what? None of these, huh? Well, then along the scene comes Berkeley. He quotes those words, huh? He says, "Not to make any sense, huh? " So we have no general ideas. So, in a way, what Locke is doing is imagining the general idea of triangle to be all these particular images, right? Rammed together, you know, in some way, you know, and you've got this all and none, right?

[6:25] So you can't really separate the idea of an image from a what? Thought. You can think about what the equilateral, isosceles, and scalene triangle have in common, right? And you can define that without any of those differences, right? But you cannot imagine what they have in common because any triangle you imagine will be one or the other. You see? So he's mixing up the two, huh? Very common, huh?

[6:57] Okay. The next thinker there, among them, Hume. There, you know, he speaks of thoughts as if they're faded images, huh? Not so vivid anymore. So it's not, you know, the ancients are not, you know, limited in these ways, huh? Well, when De Koninck you know, would lecture on the physics there. You know, he would, you go through the commentary of Thomas, you know, but he always, you know, after whites, every once in a while, he'd stop, you know, and then he'd bring in Bertrand Russell or some modern, you know, who's in the same difficulty as ancient Greek is, huh?

[7:33] And so you find the same mistakes being repeated again and again, the same errors that men get into. Now, so in 300, he's going to introduce now this question of the, or this business of the difference between them. For imagination, he says, is different from both sense and thought, and does not come to be without sense, and without this, there is not belief.

[8:04] Now he's going to give two arguments here, one in 301, and one in 302, right? Okay. The difference between imagining and believing might be better than say thinking here.

[8:20] Now the first difference. Our first way of showing the difference is this, huh? He says that I'm free to imagine, right? Just about anything, right? Okay. But I'm not free to think just anything, huh? Okay. Now the simple example I always use is this one. I say I can imagine a terrorist out there with a machine gun, right? Who hates monks or hates philosophers or whatever, right?

[8:51] And he's about to come in here and and mow us down, right? I can imagine. I can't you? You want his guide? You know what the hoods on, so on. Okay. And a big machine gun. Okay. I could also imagine a man out there with a cart with you know nice drinks and things to eat and so on. Who's going to come in here and give us a little party here and now?

[9:14] I can imagine that, right? See? Okay. I'm free to do something good or bad. Imagine something good or bad, right? But am I free now? Am I free to think that there's really a terrorist out there? No. I need some kind of reason to think there's a terrorist out there, right? As I say to students in class, I could imagine myself winning the the Massachusetts lottery or something.

[9:38] You know, fifty million dollars, I'd say, right? You see? But am I free to think that I've won? I haven't even bought a ticket. So. You know, I have no reason to think, right? See? So I can't really think I've won, but I can imagine myself winning. Having this, right? You see? I can imagine myself being in you know in Rome right now. You know? Do I think?

[10:08] I don't think in Rome. Okay. So, another example there's taken from what something like discourse. We have a reason for what you think, right? Your mind goes from one thing to another, right? As if that's what's most known to us, right? It's a kind of confirmation of what Shakespeare does, right? He defines reason first of all as the ability for discourse, right? The ability to know one thing from another, right?

[10:38] And there we see the difference between reason and imagining. Can imagine things anyway. That's what that's what. Nietzsche does, right? You know, in the eternal Nietzsche has this idea, you know, that

[10:56] the world repeats itself in a cycle, right? So that I will give this class to you people. Some we're in the future, right? We'll all be back here in the same room, you know. And Aristotle will be back in their room, giving their lectures, right? This will go on and on forever. It's kind of interesting. It's imagination, right? No reason to to assert that this is true, right?

[11:20] You know. But this is somehow, you know, the, you know, way out of his despair or something. I don't know. It's pure imagination, right? There's no reason for it all. So,

[11:35] that's the first way he points out. a difference between them Right? I can imagine something, right? Good or bad, without any what reason for doing so, right? But I can't really think that something is or is not so without having some what reason to think so, right? Okay.

[11:58] And the second thing he points out is is from the consequences of the two. Because if I thought there was a terrorist out there, I would be thump thump thump, getting very nervous and scared, right? And yeah, opening the door, out the window, or something, right? But now, when I imagine a terrorist out there, I'm I'm quite brave about it. I don't feel any fear, right? If I thought I'd won fifty million dollars in that thing, you know, I'd be kind of, you know, I'd go crazy, right?

[12:30] But imagine myself winning fifty million dollars; I don't get particularly, you know, out of my mind, right? You see that? See? So there's a real difference then between thinking and imagining. He says to imagine something good or bad is a little bit like seeing in the theater,

[12:49] and not the same thing as to think that somebody's really dying, right? Somebody dies on the stage, you know, it's not like yeah, he, you know, somebody's really dying in front of you, right? And so he says, imagining is a little bit like seeing something in the play. See that?

[13:12] So that's the second argument there in 302. Now, 303 is just again the side that you saw in the proemium to wisdom, where he says we don't have to talk now about the differences between science and opinion and prudence. Those are talked about somewhere else, right? In the Nicomachean Ethics, he talks about those differences, right? But now he's just concerned with seeing the difference between imagining and what thinking, right?

[13:40] Okay. Now, in the part we're going to look at next time, which starts in 304 and goes to the end of this chapter, which is five and six in Thomas's lessons, Aristotle's going to stop now and explain a bit what imagining is, right, or what an image is, right? Okay. And that will add something to our understanding of the sensing, right? But then, assuming you know from what has been said here, the arguments we just saw that there's a difference between sensing and understanding, right?

[14:17] And between thinking and imagining, and so on, then he's going to start to take up the part of the soul by which we think and judge, and so on, right? And that'll be chapter four. But next time, I say we'll look at lessons five and six in Thomas, which is the rest of this chapter. Okay.

[14:41] There's the common sense, and then another power, which in animals is called the estimative power, sometimes. But in man, sometimes called particular reason, but it's still a bodily thing, right? Ah, but the second one perceives things that are not really what sensible, right? Like, for example, the animal perceives what something to be a friend or an enemy, right? Not because the sense qualities of that thing are agreeable or disagreeable, right?

[15:13] But in seeing the sensible qualities, it judges us to be a friend or an enemy. something to be run from, you know. And I remember one one incident there with the with the kitten there went down to see. My friend Roy Monroe and he rescued a little kitten from the tree outside his house, right? And you know, kittens like in the little boxes and places. We put the kitten in the drawer, right?

[15:36] You know, kitten likes to steep in there. You know, that's kind of funny that way, yeah. And you know, you know, if you if you leave a like a drawer in your bedroom or something open, you know, the cat would jump in there. I'd be afraid of being enclosed in there, but they do that. So we get a little kitten. Now we start playing with the kitten, see.

[15:55] And we're we're using you know our belts, right? And you know, belts are pretty stiff, and you lay it down, and hit the cat, you know, like that, you know. So we just kind of play with it, and then Roy had a a a belt that was kind of I don't know, like it it had striated or things, and when he put that down on the ground after been playing with the cat.

[16:20] She was afraid of it, and and if you try to hold her, one of us, you know, they would make the little belt, you know, she was she was funny, you know, and afraid of the thing. And the only I could figure out was that it looked like a what snake, you see, because the the pattern on the belt really did make it look a little bit like a snake.

[16:39] And the cat, being I mean, a little kitten, you know, saw that as a what something an enemy or something dangerous, right? As Thomas says, as the beginning or the end of some passion or action, right? And just as a mother kitten, when she smells her little ones, right, you know, then she

[17:01] goes to feed them, right, protect them, right. Um, but that's not because the smell of her little ones is agreeable, right? And the smell of somebody else's animals or something is disagreeable, right? But because of this other power, right? Huh?

[17:23] And they always talk about these little birds, you know, that are victims of the bigger birds, you know, that come down, you know, and then they're they're very young, you know, and they're in the cradle, so to speak. And one of these birds flies over, you know, they they spontaneously what crouch, right? And it's not because the shadow or whatever is that bird flying over is is painful to them that they're reacting to as as if in pain, right?

[17:44] But because they see it as an enemy in some way, right? That's it. Something dangerous, huh? Is that instinct or that? You'd call instinct, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thomas used the term "estimative power, " right? And so you have basically these two powers: the common sense, which is

[18:07] the common terminus of all the the proper sensibles, right? And then you have this other power, which in animals knows something, right. It's not sensible as such, right? That this is a friend or an enemy or someone to be nourished or someone to be fought or something of that. sort, right? You know, I must say with a kitten, you know, if you look around a corner, the cat you know, they'll you know they'll study, you, you know.

[18:45] And is it just that's kind of a instinctive thing, as you'd say, to enemy, right? Yeah, you know, or someone that you have to watch, right? That's you know, is it? It depends on how you approach them. They'll be afraid of you. yeah, yeah.

[19:09] So Aristotle going into everything we said here about the inward senses, Thomas a little more complete there in the Summa Theologiae. We'll look at that sometime, but then, but then he has two more powers. There, Avicenna, which he had two more powers to preserve what either of these have, right? And

[19:28] that's based upon the idea that it's not the same one that can receive these things and that can what retain them, right? But based upon the idea that in material things, right, in these material organs, what easily receives something doesn't retain it, right? And vice versa, what what receives a difficulty will retain it, right? More. And so water, for example, very quickly takes on the shape of something, but it doesn't.

[20:00] You know, easily loses it, right? While you have a piece of metal, you know, receives the shape of something or a difficulty, but it holds on to that shape, right? So they have two more powers that would

[20:15] retain, and of course, what they call it gets confusing between Latin and English because they'll call memory, I think, is the one that receives retains what is gotten from the estimated power, right? And imagination what receives

[20:31] keeps the common sense, right? But we tend to use the word memory, imagination a little differently, I think, in English, you know. But whatever you name the two powers, there the powers that that that keep, right? What the other ones have here now, right? Would that be the sense memory? What you call? Yeah, yeah. I say we might use the word memory for what retains the common sense, you know.

[21:00] And I, you know, if I am a wine taster, I have many memories of the taste of different wine. You know, somebody gives me a wine, I am not that good at it, but I mean, Brother Mark, you know, he'd kind of maybe tell you what the wine is, right? Okay, so he has. So you might use the word memory, you know, for what retains something gotten from the common sense, right?

[21:22] But Thomas, I think, uses the word memory. And more in Latin for what retains what the estimative power has, right? An imagination of what retains. An imagination, yeah. And we tend to use the word imagination for our memory and the other sense, in our sense, right? And the ability to transform these images or combine them and that sort of thing, right? But so there is a little problem with how you would translate these things, right?

[21:52] But what's clear in the animals is that they, the act or react, right? To things that they sense, right? Not because the sense quality is such, right?

[22:13] They might, you know, if you're, you know, breeding them or something, right, you know, that sort of thing. But but they say, you know, it's how how animals will sometimes sniff out somebody, right? And then they'll react either friendly way or unfriendly way, right? See, I remember when I was one of the first cats we had there. We didn't know what to do We'd go on vacation.

[22:39] We'd do it with the cat. Couldn't take the cat on vacation, right? So we didn't know what to do. So we went down and boarded the cat at this pet place, right? Okay. Well, the cat hated that boarding, right? And

[22:56] and of course, there was a smell of the dog or anything else down there, you know. So when he came to pick her up or pick him up, said he, ah, the cage. Just do another. Wait, I have to get my clothes. You know, I have to go up there. You know, and I just went over and opened the cage, stuck my hand in, right? Came out to me, right?

[23:14] Or he came out to me, right? I put him on my shoulder, and of course he tugged into these. But then you know, we took him home, right? Saying, "We're on all his

[23:28] spots, " you know, and he, you know, so happy to be home, you know, because he cried all night. So we, whenever boarding a cat again, we didn't know what to do, you know. I mean, now when you go away and I get to see the grandchildren, you know, still the one cat the house, and

[23:44] maybe hire one of the little girls and they would take her and feed it, you know, because it's really kind of mean, you know, the thing. But I mean, the point is, what I'm trying to say is, you see,

[23:55] they'll sniff you out, right? See, and that's where they know their their offspring to some extent by the thing, yeah. And the smell, but not because the smell is agreeable that they come out to that I smell better than the other guy. You know, he stuck his hand in. Yeah, because the cats are on the defensive, you see, because you know, because you know, you smell dog around there and everything else, right?

[24:19] So the cat is. You know, say I mean. So there is something in them that recognizes me as a friend, right? And it's not because they smelled it. You say I mean. I say, okay. And

[24:41] they say that a lamb might know a wolf is being bad, right? The first time they see it, you've never really been taught to see, but but it's not because the shape of the wolf is is painful to their eyes or something, right, or too bright to their eyes like that. But there is some, you know, it's a per accidens sensible, right, to the common sensible, right, even, right.

[25:07] So, but that shape, which is a common sensible, you know, when when the animal sees that, then it recognizes something as something to be fled from, right? So the way Thomas expresses it, it sees it as the beginning or end of some some. passion. or action, right? Okay.

[25:32] We had another cat out at the lake one time one summer, you know, and the cat got awfully afraid of the dog coming around, and tramped a tree there, and it got scared, ran under the bed, you know, and come out for a deer. So finally, wouldn't come out, just stayed under the bed, you know, under the bed, we had these beds, out in the thing. Finally, coaxed it out, you know, to eat something, get hungry, gets like that.

[26:00] He went to the door, looked out, and saw that dog, and it ran. But why is it doing it? Because the shape of the dog is is painful to it. I don't think so. No, no. But he recognizes that as to be fled from, you know. Is it? So they have a power other than the common sense, right? Or by the recognize something as as to be pursued or not, right, or to be fled or whatever it may be, right?

[26:34] Because it's it seems even in the recognizing itself, apart from how they react, they're able to recognize something. Is it something kind of more general?

[27:07] Like some of these naturalists, you know, they'll try to do different things to see what exactly it is. Like, you know, the the like uh Conrad Lorenz said, he was walking, and all these birds, like crows, started like swooping, attacking him, and he tried to figure out what it was, and it was his black swimming trunks. But and but so he was wondering, is it because it's black?

[27:35] Or so he got a camera, was black. They didn't do anything. Yeah. It had to be something floppy. Yeah. And black, and they thought it was like he was taking one of the birds away. But he said, but they didn't really think of it as a bird. It was just when they saw anything floppy and black, they did. That's what they would do. But it's but they're kind of sensing something a little more general than just a black bird.

[28:03] Yeah. You know, my brother Mark described some little amount of time that he and to do with Ron McCarthy and some other people, right? Yeah, I guess you know my brother Mark and the other guy was in better shape than Ron McCarthy, right? So Ron McCarthy was a little far behind them, right? And the the buzzards, or you know, the the vultures. They start circling over your head, and sometimes you know if you just kind of like that, they'll come right down to you.

[28:34] You know, you gotta whack them away with the thing, you know. And because you know, we joke about it. You know, you know, it's idea you know that it's kind of like a lesson to be in good shape, right? You know, but I mean, I was just thinking of it now in regard to this thing. You know,

[28:57] when it sees that guy falling behind the others, right, kind of going slowly, kind of, you know, then it recognizes it as what You know, a possible meal, right? You see, yeah, something that's dying, right? Or about the because they feed a dead flesh, right there,

[29:18] and so they start circling around, right? See, so there is something in them, but it's not because of it being per se pleasing to their senses, right?

[29:38] This this one woman who's autistic, she's she designs a lot of the cattle facilities in the United States. She's designed, I think, like a third of them or something, because she can she can go herself through. You know, they want the cattles to go through these things and and not to just stop or run away to go smoothly, and they get afraid of certain things, and the ranchers won't exactly know what they're afraid of and what they like.

[30:09] Yeah, and she could she would go to one of these places and go through herself and be able to know what makes the cows afraid. Just some shadows or something. She would see that, but nobody else would know that these shadows or something would make them afraid. But somehow she has that, so she could design them so the cows like to go through. Yeah, but she said she talked about how she sometimes she feels more comfortable with cattle than people.

[30:42] But I guess it's that sense, you know, that somehow she has that power a little bit more active. But she said she has a problem. She said most philosophy books she can't understand. It's very hard for her. She says when she reads words, she sees images, and she says she's like she says something like words like to be. She said that doesn't mean anything to her because she can't imagine.

[31:15] She has these other interior senses are too strong, I guess. You know, no, see, like if I if I put on a Mozart CD, right, no reaction on the cat at all. But if you do like, you know, scratch, you know, on the sofas and like that, you know, a scratching sound, you know, yeah, see, because that sound is recognized by this other power, right, as something to do with hunting or, you know, I will say something, right?

[31:57] And and I always think back upon that that little kitten there with Roy Monroe and and how he's definitely afraid of that bigger belt, right? Maybe an older cat would would would have a more developed aspect of power and would not be deceived by that. What

[32:21] was it? Was it the Indians used to put on the you know the animal skin, right, and then get in among the flock and so on? They

[32:32] accepted it. See, actually, was it was the I don't know. They ever worked those things? They call the scarecrows, you know. Scarecrow to keep birds away or not? I don't know. You know,

[32:50] because huh? I think maybe initially birds get smart. I think maybe that was initial. So you've been reading Shakespeare. So he's been reading Shakespeare. I was thinking back upon the word "part" too, right? And the first meaning of "part" is really, you know, quantitative parts. And when you think of quantitative parts, hi, you are thinking of the fact that you know those are parts that meet at a common what boundary or limit, right?

[33:35] See, then you you carry the word "part" over to to other meanings that we give in in the fifth book of wisdom. But take one of those other meanings. Take the idea of matter and form, right? You take take some example of a piece of clay and its shape, right? There is some distinction between the two because obviously you can mold the clay into different shape, right?

[34:03] And but the clay ball, I'd say, is composed of the ball of the clay and the and the shape, right? Okay, but does the form and the matter meet at a common boundary? No, no. And

[34:26] that seems to be kind of obvious, but maybe it's something. Think about a little bit, right? Because if they don't meet a common boundary, you can't really what separate and divide them, right? If they met a common boundary, you could really separate them, like you cut the line into two parts, right? Or you know, cut the page in half or something, right? And they're not really coming together in that way, yeah.

[34:58] Because the the union of soul and body, which is that of a of one kind of matter and form, is really before quantity. Quantity is a what accident, right?

[35:16] But you know, the atheist biologist or oritian, whoever it is, or you know, I never found the soul and the parts there and it come to the body, right? You know We're kind of imagining falsely, right, that the soul, if it is a part somewhere, is going to be, you know, cut cut offable from the other ones, and it's not that kind of a, of a whole and part.

[35:46] I think, you know, a priori, the case of the universal whole and its subject parts, they don't meet at any common boundary, do they? You wouldn't think of the equilateral triangle and the isosceles triangle, and the scalene triangle meeting at any common boundary, would you? No, no. And then when you get into definition, which is the other remaining sense, is the genus and the difference, say, in the definition, do they meet at a common boundary?

[36:17] It seems to me that the reason why they don't, in one way, one way of showing it, is the fact that that they're like matter and form, and the, the, the difference is really determining what is already in the genus, in ability, right?

[36:35] So when I say an equilateral triangle, right, you don't have two sets of three lines. And so the equilateral, in that sense, seems to be determining something intrinsic there to the triangle already. It's their inability, you know? But if it was outside, like the left side of the line is outside the right side of the line, it couldn't be determining there. You know, the left side of the line can't determine the right side of the line intrinsically, can it?

[37:12] Because it's outside of it, right? But, but, form is not outside of matter. That presents on the outside. Because then we have some kind of a boundary between the two, right? Now

[37:39] don't go outside the yard, tell the little kid, right? There's got to be some kind of a boundary there, right? And, and they train these dogs now with this, you know, system, is it a joke or something, right? Yeah, I mean there's a certain boundary where one is taught, right, not to go beyond that as a child, maybe, you know, don't play in the street or whatever it is.

[38:05] Don't go into that nasty neighbor's yard or something, right? My cousins, cousins near a guy who, you know, if you touched one foot on his lawn or your ball bouncing in his yard, you wanted to get the ball, he'd call the police. The police got used to it a while, you know, but they had to come out against anyway because he called the police. They kind of took a lot.

[38:30] So anyway, but you have to understand about me, right? So, but we tend to fall back upon, you know, what we can imagine, right? So, is is is is the form of the matter, the form of the matter outside of each other? If I ask you this about the continuous,

[38:53] or you know, is the left side outside the right side? Yeah. Is the left side the circle outside the right side? Yeah. Um. How about you know, you know, form and matter?

[39:13] Are they outside each other? See. How can they be distinct? You know, you realize that the distinction is different than this here, and then you start to realize that

[39:32] they're on the thought that the one thought is not outside another. The continuous has part outside, part right. Yeah. We speak like the soul leaves the body, but it's not in place. What happens at death? The soul just stops animating the body.

[39:57] Yeah, it's not going to be in the body, right? But it's not in the body; i's in a place. That's the point. It's in the body in a way, but not in place. Yeah, yeah, it's in there as a form as in matter, see? Yeah. And that's that's the fifth sense of it, right? Form and matter. Yeah. Go ahead.

[40:20] But people, I mean, will falsely imagine the soul to be in the body, quote, either penetrating the body or something. What's interesting about that going from the continuous to what is not continuous is that there's sort of likeness, right? Whereby we carry the word "or," right? So we carry the word "part" or from the continuous to these other kinds of wholes, right, and parts. But then, in seeing the difference between them, we we see the difference that this these parts are not continuous.

[41:01] It's kind of amazing thing, right? What's your thought about a triangle or about a square? You say, well, I think of it as being a quadrilateral. It's only part of my thought about what a square is. You know, but how these parts come together, right? You know.

[41:22] You know, we speak of you know, adding, you know, the difference to the. The genus, right? In the way you might add frosting to a cake or something, right? To finish the cake, right? But the frosting really is outside the cake, really.

[41:46] Only the other part of the cake, anyway. But when I add the minor premise to the major premise, or add the difference to the genus, right? There is one outside the other, one here, one there.

[42:09] I was reading one of my notes where he said when we think about God, we think about it, and we just drop the genus or the genus. So, like when we say God is just, we drop the habit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that that's important to be able to understand that, and being able to understand God. I am not sure how well I understand it. Yeah, yeah, because the image of Trinity and then the footprint of the Trinity.

[42:44] And you know, the image of Trinity in some ways easier to understand because he says, "Well, if our mind understands itself, right, and forms the thought of itself, that's the mind understood, right? " And if the mind understands itself, and then loves itself, then there is the mind loved. Okay. So you got the mind as the word itself, and then the mind understood, and then the mind loved, right?

[43:16] So you can see the image of Trinity there, right? Okay. And then he says, "But in the irrational, you know, creatures, there is a more remote likeness, which, eventually, he says, is called the vestigium. You know, the footprint. I think that means. Okay. And

[43:35] I think he explains it sometimes in more than one way, but the way he explains the Summa Contra Gentiles is, he says that the the substance of the thing is one. And then it has a certain form, right? And then an inclination or order following upon that, right? Okay. Well, the idea that the that the inclination or order following upon the form is like the Holy Spirit, that makes some sense, right?

[44:09] Because that's kind of a natural desire, right? Okay. Um. So even the plant that say you know seeks water and sunlight and so on, right? Inclination towards what is good for it, right? So that's like the Holy Spirit. But

[44:29] why should he? It isn't spelled out, but but he's obviously going to compare the word to the form, other thing, right? And the father then must be compared to the unity of the substance, right? That's kind of a kind of a strange thing, right? You know, I see him explain the vestigium in other ways in this, but I can see at first better why he would call he would

[45:07] compare the word to the form, right? Because thought in a way is like a what we speak of forming our thoughts, right? Okay, formation of mind and so on. Why compare the unity of the substance of These things to the Father, right? Connection there, right?

[45:33] Kind of strange. It doesn't doesn't unfold it there, you know. So I was thinking about it. I was thinking about in terms of the of the fifth book of wisdom, right? Aristotle takes up the word one, obviously, right? And he says the property of the one to be a beginning. I wonder if that isn't the connection, right? Because the Father is the beginning of the whole Trinity, and therefore you might appropriate beginning, especially to the Father, right?

[46:14] Because he's the beginning of all things. So you have to see the connection between the Father and beginning, right? And beginning and one, and therefore the Father and one. You see? I remember when we were doing the Gospel Saint John, remember? And Thomas explains in more than one way the words of Saint John in the beginning was the word. But among the many explanations he gives of that, it could be taken the sense that in beginning, in the Father was the Son.

[46:49] Remember that? And that's kind of striking, right? Because their beginning is taken for the what? Kind of appropriated to the Father, right? But then you go and say in the fifth book of wisdom, Aristotle's very clear about that. That that that the one in the beginning, right, is going to go together. That the one to properly the one to be a beginning. It's kind of interesting. You see, the ancient Greeks, right, they looked for the beginning of all things.

[47:22] You know, they naturally at first look for something one, right? Until they had some reason made to think there couldn't be just one beginning, right? They naturally look for one beginning. In the same way, you know, the modern physicists always look for unity, you know, like like Einstein says or like Max Planck says, this is the goal, always the goal of science is unity, right? So they're looking for something for a beginning that is, and they think of it as being something what?

[47:47] One, right? So, so that to me that seems to make some sense, you know. And then I got thinking about another thing that I'd worked on a little bit when I was explaining

[48:04] Shakespeare's definition of reason. You know, is you know the ability to look before and after, right? Well, before and after in the fifth book of wisdom pertain to the particular names of the one. Okay, and because before and after tie up the beginning, and beginning ties up the one, right? And But

[48:29] I was trying to manifest that this is the way to go, by the fact that when you take up the transcendentals, the most fundamental one is being itself, right? But after being and thing comes one, right? But one comes before understandable, and therefore before truth and definition. And Thomas would quote Aristotle, you know, he who doesn't understand one thing, understands nothing, right? Something has to be one in some way to be what understandable.

[49:08] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like Heisenberg says there in the Gifford lectures, right? You know, he says you know first the world seems like you know kaleidoscope of all the things, but in order to understand we have to find some kind of order, and that means unity, he says, right? That's the way it goes, right? Before and after is order, that it's got to be some kind of unity, to have, the beginning of some sort of that.

[49:31] So it's interesting, right? And I was trying to manifest, you know, how Shakespeare hit the nail on the head, right? But you have to see that something must be one in some way to be understandable, and therefore to be true, huh? Well, now if the Father is the beginning of the Son per modum intellectus, right? And one is the what? Presupposed then there'd be two reasons, right?

[50:06] huh? Why the unity of the substance would be a footprint of the Father, right? The Father is the principium, most of all, right? He's a principium that has no principium right? Yeah And

[50:24] why the Son has the principium beginning, of the Father, right? And the Holy Spirit has a beginning, the Father and the Son as the one, yeah. So

[50:37] that's that's the first reason why one would be the footprint of the Father, but also insofar as the Father is the beginning of the Son by way of intellect, it's appropriate that the one be be one, right? Because only the one that is understandable.

[50:57] When God's understood, then he has a thought of himself, and that's the word. The Word was made flesh, but the word, huh? See Hegel, as far as I know, he probably takes you know the word is made flesh, you know, literally, right? You go from the from the first part Hegel's system to the second part, right? You know, thoughts all of a sudden becomes matter, right? How does that happen?

[51:22] Nobody can explain how Hegel himself can go from one to the other, right? But in his influence, you know, you always find these this crazy, perverse imitation of theology in, in modern philosophy, especially Hegel. So, so the word was made flesh. Thought was made matter, right? Crazy. So

[51:46] you end up getting the opposites in the matter, right? You know, and uh... For the first time, I met Charles De Koninck, He's going to give a lecture on Marxism. That's the time when the Marxists come to power in Russia you know, and that was a thing. And he came down and gave a talk there in St. Paul. I met him at Kasurik's house there, and he's kind of talking with Kasurik we were going to talk about that night, you know, and he was explaining about 1818 Hegel and Marx, and it'd be kind of beautiful to see that.

[52:15] But here is he's taking the word made flesh, and thought became matter, right? And you have later on the third part, you know, third matter, and gradually rises up into spirit, right? It's crazy stuff, anyway. Is he being taught in the universities, Hegel He dominated the German universities there around 1830. Right? We died 1770 to 1830 or 31. yes But I mean, when you know Marx, you know I always had a respect for Hegel, and but they all fell in the influence of Hegel there, you know.

[53:00] Um? They say philosophy since has been kind of a dismembering of the corpse of Hegel. Everybody grabbed a part Running off into some crazy way, A lot of parts. They used to say that the fight between the Nazis and the communists, you know, the Russian and Germany at one time, was left and the right wing of the right and left wing of the Hegelians.

[53:31] Even I knew a German priest, and he did his dissertation on something of St. Thomas in Rome. Yeah. Might have been the Angelicum, and he said that when he proposed to do his dissertation on this thing in St. Thomas, the

[53:49] teacher of the seminary said, He said, I don't understand. You're a German. Why aren't you doing your study of Hegel? You can be German, just do Hegel. " So still, a Yeah, Some big, big thing even in Rome.

[54:06] I guess because he has some letter of Hegel where he admits that he's purposely writing obscure because if he writes in an understandable way, people won't think he's so great.

[54:17] Probably, like I was saying earlier that you know, he's better to talk about what the guy means, you know, and you can't sit around and judge, you know. You said that Heidegger was obscure too with this. Oh, yeah. He's even worse, yeah. He's worse? Oh yeah, Yeah, He's worse. Hegel than Heidegger. There's some good things in Hegel, you know, from time to time. You know, I think Hegel Hegel has some very nice things about the.

[54:42] One time I taught the senior seminar, you know, philosophy and Tragedy, and we read the poetics and we read. There's a volume called Hegel on Tragedy. You know, brings together his writings on tragedy. He says some good things, you know, like when he describes that when he talks about the superiority of Homer's characters over the characters in the French tragedy. You know, the French tragic characters, like the one-dimensional people, you know, the kind of personification of some passion or something, you know, by by the characters of Homer, like a diamond, you know, many facets, you know, and you know, and you really, really, you can see how full the characters of Homer, you know, compared to the Characters of these French tragedies, and and then

[55:31] he has yeah some interesting things on on Homer's language, right? You know Homer's use of the simile, right? And some interesting things to say there, and the same way, you know, when Hegel talks about the all the so-called imitative arts or fine arts, and and I think I think his order is is correct, right? In other words, that you know tragedy is higher than music, right? As an art, but music is higher than what painting, sculpture, you know.

[56:11] I have a couple of colleagues there, you know, who still maintain, you know, painting is higher than music, and it's just ridiculous. I mean, part of the reasons why music is superior, you ought to know it, you know, without having to get caught these things, you know. And but same colleague there who ended up, you know, maintaining that Virgil's Aeneid is greater than Homer's epics, and it's just ridiculous.

[56:45] It's so clear, you know, when Kierkegaard is talking about these, you know, the excellence of the Don Giovanni, right? Now Don Giovanni is the opera of operas, right? And there never be a better opera than Don Giovanni, right? You know, if someone wanted to, you know, try to equal Mozart, he could do is write Don Giovanni, but he's proportionate to Don Giovanni is to opera, what the Iliad is to epic, right?

[57:06] There's never going to be a better epic than the Iliad. That's it. There's a perfect correspondence, you know. He says of of content and form, you know, you know it's it's something you recognize, you know, as being, you know, it's never going to be just like just like you know Romeo and Juliet, you know, young lovers, that kind of thing. There's nothing better than Romeo and Juliet.

[57:28] That's it. It's just so perfect, right? And I remember Monléon the guy I mentioned earlier, you know, he's good in these things too. But Monléon talking about how you know how art in a way is determined as opposed to prudence, right? As determination, and how you know, and when the artist is looking for the right word, even you know, he gets the right word, you know, he has kind of a judgment that this is the right word, the only one to say it.

[58:02] And it's kind of interesting, you know, if you read even Dickens, you know, he's not the greatest master in words, but but when he's thinking about what title to give some of his books, right, he just seems to get the right title, you know. Great expectations, you know. It's just it's just the right

[58:22] thing. Do you like Dickens, a lot? Do you- what's your, like great expectations? Yeah, I think yeah, some ways Dickens probably the greatest novelist we have. But but but man, I have to read his is Washington Irving, you know. He's really he's the master of English style. He replaced Addison, right? Did you ever see C. S. Lewis's paper on Addison? You know, Addison was taken as a master of English style, right?

[58:53] But then I guess Irving replaced him. You know, so in Japan they were learning English through Washington Irving. what English is supposed to be like, And it's simply marvelous, the way he writes. I mean,

[59:08] I can read some examples. Just incredible, incredible, you know, just just perfect, you know, just incredible man, incredible. He's the best writer America America ever had. Washington Irving, yeah, yeah, too much neglected now by the writers, you know. The way I got into him, you know, when when Christmas there, my brother Mark always thought he had a great style, you know. So one Christmas he sent me and Richard, you know these gift editions, you know, of the of the

[59:56] sketchbook, right? So it's occasionally nice. Five, you can think about this. I so we read this sketchbook. I read it and read it carefully. For I really got amazed, you know, how great, how well written. So I started, you know, looking and used bookshops, you know, for you know for volumes, you know, and uh, he gave me quite a bit of it, you know. It's really kind of it's kind of marvelous the way he writes.

[1:00:19] Just and there's something you know very healthy about his imagination too, you know, not his sick stuff, you know, that you get in contemporary authors, huh? He's a very healthy American writer. Yeah, oh yeah, no question about it. I really I can read

[1:00:44] something just just how well he phrases things, says them, you know, and something kind of inborn too, you know. Learn from the man himself. Irving himself, like like Goldsmith, you know, and he he wrote a biography of Goldsmith, and in the beginning, you know,

[1:01:22] it's kind of an honor to Goldsmith, you know. He quotes the words of Dante. There, it's kind of his. apotheosis not apotheosis but his kind of his hymn of praise there that he learned how to write from Virgil, right? And so you know, he learned from Goldsmith how to write, right, It's kind of, you know, kind of a praise like that. So I guess you know, later years, you know, somebody started attacking Irving.

[1:01:46] You know, he just borrowed Goldsmith's style, right? And Pierre Irving who was the nephew of Irving who collaborated with him at the end there. You know, he mentioned this to him, and Irving is a very mild man. He's kind of mild, you know. That is kind of a stylistic thing he'd done there. You know, you can't learn the style from another man, right? It has to come natural to you, right?

[1:02:10] And he didn't know where his style came from, but just flew from his pen, you know. And it reminds me, you know, of Mozart. You know, lived in a kind of vulgar age, you know. But he says, if writing music doesn't come to you like piddling comes to a cow, he says, you better not write at all. I mean, just this is an in a natural thing with kind of you know the style.

[1:02:32] Just, just see, see why he replaced Addison. He's much better than Addison, I think. But you know, if you look at the praise, you know, Irving that C. S. Lewis has of Addison's style, you know. But for Irving, see that you realize he is a master.

[1:02:50] But, but, yeah, he's not as profound as Shakespeare, but he. recognizes the excellence of Shakespeare, right? Now, you know, from the at the end of his life, there, you know, he's talking to Pierre Irving. There, he said, "It's really idle for the rest of us to seek any credit for what we've written, " you know. Shakespeare, maybe one or two others, you know. Shakespeare said it all.

[1:03:16] he said, you know, I can always find something in there. So I mean, he recognized that, huh? He came to recognize Mozart too, you know. Don Giovanni is the opera of operas, right? The glorious music of Mozart he refers to, right? He has, He has very good judgment there.

[1:03:36] Judgment of things. It's great, great, great. Yeah, yeah, we.