De Anima (On the Soul)
67. Summa I, Q.75 a.5: Is the Soul Made of Matter and Form? Objections, the Answer, and Form Received Universally
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/067-summa-i-q-75-a-5-is-the-soul-made-of-matter-and-form-objections/

[0:00] Okay, the fifth article now is kind of a strange article, but you find, you know, sometimes the earlier writers speaking of some kind of spiritual matter for the soul, and so it's not so much a question for us, but comes up once in a while. To the fifth, he proceed. One proceeds thus. It seems that the soul is composed from matter and form.

[0:32] Now he says, potency or ability is divided against act. But all things which are in act partake of the very first act, which is God, huh? By the partaking of which all things are good and beings and living, as is clear through the teaching of Dionysius in the book about the divine names.

[1:03] Thomas wrote a commentary in the book of the Divine Names. It's kind of interesting because the the book is in between the two kinds of teaching that you have of Thomas. Thomas in his commentary in the Psalms, where he says, "Whoever teaches, right, teaches either things or words." Kind of a funny way of dividing it to first sight, right? He says when we teach the faith and morals, we're teaching things, right?

[1:35] When we teach sacred scripture, we're teaching words, huh? Okay. Now you got to understand what he's saying, right? Because obviously, in talking about the words of sacred scripture, you're going to talk about the things that they signify and so on, right? But up front, you got to explain the words in front of you, right? You see, everything revolves around the words. Well, in say the Summa Theologiae, you're talking about the thing.

[2:03] It's about God or it's about the Trinity or it's about the soul, right? You know, they're going to use words in talking about God or the, you know, soul. And occasionally, you'll stop and talk about the words you use, right? Nevertheless, up front, you're talking about the thing, right? Okay, that's kind of a nice contrast, right? Where is the distinction from words versus things? It's in the commentary in the Psalms, where one of the Psalms is talking about things and words, and Thomas, yeah, Thomas's commentary says, "Whoever teaches teaches either things or words."

[2:37] But he's contrasting the kind of work that the Summa Theologiae is. Let's say from his commentaries on John or his commentaries on Saint Paul, right? Okay, now

[2:53] if you take Cornelius a Lapide, and I have the Cornelius a Lapide in my office, and Cornelius a Lapide is commenting on the whole scripture just about. And the thing you notice is when you comment on the words of sacred scripture, you're going to find in many different texts it being said that God is what. Sure. What did you guys say?

[3:35] You find in many places that you're taught that God is what good, let's say, right? Right. Or you're taught metaphorically that God is fire, right? Huh? Or God is water, right? So if you're commenting on all the words of sacred scripture, every time the word "good" comes up to explain what that means, said of God, see. Well, then you'd have to be repeating yourself what many times, right?

[4:04] Okay. Right. So I noticed like in Cornelius a Lapide, I forget it might be in the Acts of the Apostles, you know, where the Holy Spirit comes down as a fire, right? It. Might be there that he's very expansive about the reason for calling God fire metaphorically, right? And then in other places where maybe the word fire comes up, he will what refer you back to that passage, right?

[4:29] Okay. Well, then you're starting in a way to what bring together, right? Everything that could be said about fire in one place, right? Okay. Okay. What the Divine Names is doing, and apparently some of his other works of Dionysius is what he's done is to take the names that are said properly of God, like good and just and so on and beautiful and so on, and explain those, right?

[4:58] So it's not in the context of one particular scripture place, right? But for the whole of scripture now. right. Anytime the word God is said to be good. We could go and read what Dionysius says about the word good said of God, right? So it's sort of in between what you do in the Summa, right? Yeah. And what you do in

[5:23] Scripture, right? Because when Thomas is explaining, say that God is good here, well, I can point where it is, right? You know, question what five and six, you know, four, five, and six about the good, right? Of God, right? It's all there, right? See, but if you are talking about Scripture, God is good here, God is good there, God is good there, right? You see, and you have to kind of talk about it many times, you know.

[5:49] And so Dionysius is talking about good in just one place, but the name of the book is about the divine names, right? So it's like he's talking about names, but now he's kind of not just in the context of a commentary on particular book of Scripture, right? Yeah.

[6:10] And we bring together maybe texts from different parts of Scripture to illuminate what good means said of God. It's the attributes of God that he talks about. Yeah, but I mean, I mean, the name of the book is is is not about God, but about the divine name. See, see, so he's talking about names, but kind of in a way like Thomas talks about God, huh? Yes, sir.

[6:37] But you can kind of see kind of transition there from just commenting on Scripture to talking about these things outside of Scripture, right? Yeah.

[6:56] Okay, so act is divided to get, or potency is divided against act, or ability is divided against act. But all things that are in act partake the first act, which is God, by the partaking of which all things are good and beings and living. It is clear through the teaching of Dionysius in the book about the divine names. I got a question. I mean, yeah, there

[7:22] there are non-living things that exist in participation, aren't there? I mean, yeah, he's not going to deny that they partake of God in some way too. So why are we saying that of living? Oh, he says bona entia beings. Beings are going to include everything, right? Okay, so God is I am, who am, right? Right. So all things that are, in so far as they are, seem to partake of God in some way, right?

[7:50] Or God alone is good, as Christ says, right? He's goodness itself. So all things that are good are partaking of the divine goodness in some way. They're having an imperfect way, but God has more perfectly, and God is life itself, right? So all things that are living partake of what life, which is God Himself, right? Now he's arguing by kind of analogy here. Therefore, whatever things are in potency, right, partake of the first what potency or ability.

[8:22] But the first potency is the first matter. Therefore, since the human soul is in some way in potency, which appears from this that man sometimes is understanding in potency, right? It seems that the human soul partake of first matter as if it were a part of itself, huh? Okay. Now notice that

[8:52] when Thomas is teaching that God is not material, is not a body, and so on, he sometimes mentions the opinion of David of Dinant, who most stupidly taught, as Thomas says, that God is what the first matter, right? Huh? Okay. Now Thomas is not just gratuitously insulting for David of Dinant, but he's saying that he's taking what is furthest away from God, right? Yeah. Because God is what pure act, and the first matter is pure potency or pure ability, huh?

[9:36] Get considered by itself, and everything else in between is what part being act and part being ability. So everything, insofar as it's an act, is partaking of God, right? So you might think everything, insofar as it has some potency or ability, is partaking of what is pure ability, right? I say, okay.

[10:07] And that's the way I'm proceeding, right? Huh? So since there's potency in the soul, imagine some people partaking of this. It reminds a little bit of the Manichean things, you know, where they say what God is goodness itself, right?

[10:28] So insofar as things are good, they what share in what God has, right? Huh? Okay. And then they want to imagine that there's a what badness itself, right? And

[10:46] so they have a good God and a bad God, right? And everything in between that has something good about it, something bad about it, is what and is sharing in both, right? Okay. Well, of course, if you know what badness is. You realize that that's a what impossibility, something to be bad itself. Because you find out that basically what the badness is is a lack of something you're able to have

[11:18] when you should have it, right? Okay. So therefore, you have to have the ability for something good and the ability something good that you should have, and when you don't have that, that's bad, right? Okay. So badness always presupposes something good, even in the thing that is bad. So there couldn't be something as badness itself; it'd be nothing. So there is no such thing as that, but there is a first matter that is pure potency, right?

[11:52] And so it seems like just as everything that is actual partakes of pure act, so likewise everything that is pure what is potential in some way must be partaking of pure potency, right? Just like if there was a badness itself, right? You think well, everything bad must be partaking of the badness itself. Insofar as it's bad, just as it partakes of God. Insofar as it's good, right?

[12:18] Okay. Interesting argument, huh? Moreover, second objection now. In whatever is found, are found the properties of matter. There is found matter. But in the soul are found the properties of matter which are to be subject to, to be transformed.

[12:51] For the soul is subject to what knowledge, huh? And to virtue, and is changed from ignorance to knowledge, huh? And from vice to virtue, right? Therefore, in the soul there is matter. Interesting argument. Yeah. Now, people should be prepared, kind of, to answer that because in your study of the anima, right? When Aristotle got to talk about the senses and about reason and so on, he said that sensing is an undergoing, right?

[13:24] Huh? And then he said that understanding is an undergoing, right? But he was careful to distinguish the meaning of undergoing there from the undergoing of what matter, right? Huh? But there nevertheless is an likeness there which can deceive us, huh? But you can kind of suspect that Thomas is going to point out what we saw in Aristotle already that these words are not univocally don't have exactly the same meaning when said of the soul, right?

[13:55] Instead of matter, huh? So you know one of the most important examples they always give is the fact that in matter when you receive one opposite you lose the other opposite that you had right. So for example if my body receives what health then sickness will be what out of my body right. And if my body becomes sick then health would be expelled right. But when my soul understands what sickness is an understanding of health is involved in that isn't it.

[14:39] When the soul understands what abnormal blood pressure is normal blood pressure is in the understanding of abnormal blood pressure isn't it. But my blood pressure if I have high blood pressure I don't have normal blood pressure at the same time do I. So one opposite excludes the other right that's the characteristic of change in the body right. So sometimes we say matter receives. The form of another as its own and loses the form it had, right?

[15:12] But in the case of the soul, understanding one contrary helps it to understand the other. That's why we say there's the same knowledge of what opposites, right?

[15:25] So the doctor knows both health and sickness at the same time, and the moral philosopher knows virtue and vice at the same time, and so on. So the way that the understanding receives is not the way in which matter receives, huh? So you're being guilty here of the fallacy of what equivocation, right? You're mixing up different senses of the word receive, huh? But nevertheless, you can see that this is a word that's equivocal, not by what chance, right?

[16:00] But by reason, huh? Because there's a real likeness of these meanings, huh? And so one is more deceived by a word that's equivocal by reason than a word that's equivocal by chance, because there's some connection or likeness of the meanings, and that could lead you astray, right? In the case of a purely equivocal word like the word bat, instead of the flying the flying mouse, instead of the baseball bat, no one's going to mix those two up because they're too different, right?

[16:32] But one can mix up two different meanings of the word undergo, right? Or receive, because it's a little more difficult to separate those. Further, those things which do not have matter do not have a cause of their being, as is said in the eighth book of the metaphysics. But the soul has a cause of its being because it's created by God. Therefore, the soul has matter, huh?

[17:04] Now there you'd have to know more the context of the eighth book of the metaphysics, huh? Aristotle is thinking about the fact that in material things, matter has existence through the form that it receives, and it receives the form through being what acted upon by an agent. Well, if he had a form that was not in matter, and therefore it didn't come into existence by the transformation of matter, in that sense the form would not depend upon what another for its being, right?

[17:41] Okay, it might depend upon a you know upon a creator, right? But not upon one who's transforming matter, right? In order to bring it in.

[17:55] Further, what does not have matter but is form only is pure act and infinite. This, however, Is of God only, therefore the soul has what matter? Now,

[18:17] see form, as we know from our study of the soul, form is an act, right? So someone might think that if something is form only, like an angel or a soul, that it's in no way in what potency, right? And therefore, it would be God who's pure act, right?

[18:40] But as we find out later on, we study God and so on. In God, what he is and his existence are the same, right? But in the angels, who are forms only, and in the soul itself, the soul and its existence are not the same thing. And the soul is to its existence as what ability is to act, and so there is a composition of ability and act, even in the angels, because the substance of the angel and its existence are not the same thing.

[19:20] But that's kind of a hard thing to see, right? And so when someone sees that in the angels there is not this composition of matter and form, and if you say the same thing about the soul itself, they think of the soul as being what pure act. Okay, when comparison to us, they do seem to be pure act because they're form only, right?

[19:46] But in comparison to God, they are not I am who am, right? And therefore, they're in potency to existence, right? But that composition of substance and existence is not the same as the composition of matter and of what form. And Thomas in the Summa Contra Gentiles when he takes it up, he has a whole chapter just devoted to pointing out the differences between those two, right? But that's involved in this objection.

[20:16] You can see how people can think that, huh? It's a little bit like you know when I get to Anaxagoras, if you remember Anaxagoras, and sometimes I have a little footnote there, and I say, is this greater mind that Anaxagoras has arrived at? Is this the divine mind?

[20:38] And most of my students will think, yeah, this is a divine mind. Certainly not our mind, right? So it must be the divine mind. I say, yeah, but look, Anaxagoras sees this greater mind as moving matter and ordering it and so on, separating it, but he doesn't see this greater mind as responsible for the existence of matter. Now, what kind of a mind is it that can act upon matter, move it?

[21:08] But doesn't bring it into existence. That's angelic mind. So he's actually arrived at the angelic mind, right? Not the divine mind. But compared to us, it seems to us at first to be what? The divine mind.

[21:27] I say to students sometimes, you know, we're talking about what a philosopher is, and I say, the legend about the origin of the word philosopher is that the friends of, associates or companions, people who knew the great discoveries of Pythagoras, they wanted to call him a what? Wise man, right? And Pythagoras discovered things like Pythagorean theorem and the other things, you know. He says, "Don't call me wise.

[22:05] God alone is wise. " You know what should we call you then? Why not call me something? Call me a lover of wisdom, right? So he refused the title of being wise, right?

[22:19] Okay, now I say, what did the scientists call man? What do they call him It's homo sapiens, right? Wise, huh? So I say, are they in contradiction with Pythagoras? What is it?

[22:50] Seems to be, huh? Well, that's not perhaps an absolute sense. I mean, yeah, yeah. I say, let's translate this Latin, right? You see, I tell them, you know, that the word Homo originally in Latin meant man, right? But the scientists are using it in a broader what meaning, right? For a man-like thing, right? So popularly, you could say, ape. Okay, so I say the scientific name of man is the wise ape, right?

[23:27] Well, then I quote the fragment of Heraclitus, which says, "As an ape is to a man, so is a man to God. " And here's another one like that: as a boy is to a man, so is a man to God. Right. Well, if you compare the man to the ape, man seems wise, right? Yeah. Okay.

[24:02] But if you compare a man to God, man doesn't seem wise, huh? Yes, sir. So that's necessarily a contradiction, right? Okay. Because you're saying he's the wise ape in comparison to the other hominids, as they call the ape-like, more or less two-footed erect things, you know. We're the wise one, right? Huh? See. And likewise, to the little boy, daddy seems to know everything, huh? And therefore, he appears wise to the little boy, right?

[24:33] Huh? But in comparison to God, man seems to know practically nothing, right? Huh? Yes, sir. So an angel compared to us seems godlike, huh? But compared to God, no. I mentioned there how my old teacher, Kasurik, used to say, you know, when your soul separated from your body and you meet your guardian angel, you say, Ah, this is God." You know? He said, "No, no, no, no."

[25:01] Like Saint Paul refuses to be treated by the Ephesians there like a god. You remember how they came out? to? Sacrifice to him, the priests and so on from the pagan religion. He tore his clothes. You know, I'm not a god. the angels do something like that, you know. You know, but he used to be so wonderful. This must be God. How could it be anything as great as this?

[25:26] You know, so this is God, right? And so you don't realize how excellently the angel is, huh? You know, that's why Thomas thinks, you know, that Satan, with probability, huh? Nobody knows for sure that the that Satan was the highest of the angels, right? Because you know he couldn't be so enamored with himself. He wasn't really enamored. magnificent creature, you know. Danger that, huh?

[25:57] So I'm saying that because compared to us, the angel would seem to be just act, right? And we're what? Composed of matter and form, right? Huh? Okay. But likewise, if you take the soul. The human soul can subsist by itself. Huh? It's form only, right? And therefore, it seems to be act only. And therefore, it seems to be what? But God is. That's what God is. Pure act, right?

[26:23] See, so they're saying. Well, therefore, you can't just be form, because then you'd be just act. Okay. But against this is what Augustine proves in the seventh book of his commentary on Genesis to the letter. I guess that's he got criticized, was it by Jerome for being a little sloppy in some of his things. So he wrote a book upon Genesis or about Genesis to the letter, right?

[26:51] It's quite a work, right? His commentary on Genesis to the letter. That the soul is not made is not made either from corporeal matter nor from what? Some kind of spiritual matter, neither one. Okay.

[27:13] Let's look at Thomas's reply here now. But I think sometimes you have even in some of the church fathers this kind of an idea of spiritual matter. But it's kind of they're they're searching for some way to express the what fact that the soul is not pure act, right? And they don't know exactly how to express that, right? Huh? But Thomas does. I answer. It ought to be said that the soul does not have matter, right?

[27:46] And this is able to be considered in two ways. First, from the definition of the soul in general. This is true then about the soul of the animal, the sensing soul, and even about the feeding and reproducing soul, right? That it's a form, for it is of the definition of the soul that be the form of some what body, right?

[28:19] Now either it is the form by itself as a whole, or it's the form by some part of itself. If by itself as a whole, it'd be impossible that a part of it be matter, right? If matter is said to be some being in potency only, because form, in so far as it is a what act, or excuse me, form, in so far as it is a form, is an act, right?

[28:48] Of course, no, Aristotle. When he defines it, he often will use the form, the word act, instead, right? He'll say the soul is the first act, right, of a natural body composed of tools, huh? You could also say it's a substantial form, though, right, of a natural body composed of tools. But that which is in potency only is not able to be a part of act, since potency is repugnant to act as being against act, divided against act.

[29:23] Now the whole ninth book of Wisdom, by the way, is about act and ability, right? And so if we study Wisdom sometime, which we can after we study the soul, right, then we can get a much fuller understanding of ability and act. But you first meet you know ability and act in the study of what matter and form, and in the study of motion, like we did in Natural Philosophy.

[29:48] If, however, it be form by some part of itself, it's that part that we would call the soul, and thus the matter of which it is first the act, we would say what is the first thing that is what animate, huh? Could we go through that a little bit more there? What are you saying? Yeah. By the argument procedure, you mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he's just excluding the other possibility.

[30:27] This is the second part, right? Yeah, he's saying it is a form by itself as a whole, right? Right. Or part of it is form and part of it's matter, but then if that were so, we'd call the form of that composite the soul and not the matter, and the matter would be what was first animated, huh? What was the living body? I'm sorry. What was the last thing you said?

[30:56] You'd be saying that the if you say that the soul is not a form by itself as a whole, but just by part of itself, right? And the other part is matter, right? Well then, that matter would be actually the subject of the soul, right? Oh yeah. That would be the animated, and that would be the soul, right? Okay, yeah. Sure.

[31:23] Um, you know, you can point that out in a way about form in general, because it's kind of interesting way that we kind of syllogize and talk about

[31:36] form. Um, go back to my old simple example: the word "cat" you were using before, right? Okay. And you say now, the word "cat" is made out of the letters C, A, T. All agreed, right? Okay. Now, so is the word "act," huh? Okay.

[32:00] So there must be something the word "cat" besides the letters C, A, and T, right? Uh huh. And that, in this case, would be the order of the letters, right? Uh huh. Okay. So you can make two different words, right? Mm hmm. Out of the same letters, huh? Right. By arranging the letters differently, right? Mm hmm. Okay. Now, would you all agree that these two words are made out of the same letters?

[32:25] Not numerically the same, but the same. Right. Okay. And you'll admit that there's two different orders, right? Okay. Now, are those two orders made out of those letters too? No. Now you get

[32:50] into a real problem if you say that the two orders, right, are made out of the same letters too, because insofar as they're made out of the same letters, they don't differ. Mm hmm. So if you had two different orders made out of the same letters, they have to be an order of the order, right? Oh. Right. The form of the form, right? Yeah, infinite regress. Yeah, and then ask the same question about that: Is that made out of the same letters, right?

[33:19] And if it is, well, that doesn't explain their difference, right? So. Yeah. So you're going to go on forever, right? Yeah. So you've got to stop at the beginning and say that the order of the letters is not made out of the letters, huh? Mm hmm. So the matter of the word, which is the letters, is not a part of the order. therefore, the matter in which the soul is is not a part of the soul, just as the letters in which the order is is not a part out of which or something out of which the letters, the order is made rather something out of which the word is made, right?

[34:02] Mm hmm. Do you see that? We take another example here, right? You could have a wooden table and a wooden chair, or take even simpler example. You could have a a a clay ball and a clay what cube, let's say, right then, okay. And in this case, the sphere and the cube are made out of the same material, right? Clay. Well, why is this a cube and this a sphere then?

[34:31] They're both made out of clay. Well, in this case, the shape is different, right? Mm-hmm. And the shape would be the form, and here it's the order, right? Okay. Now, is the shape of the clay ball made out of clay? And the shape of the cube made out of clay?

[34:53] Well, if the two shapes are made out of clay, ah, why would they differ? Right. Well, they have to have another what form of the form, right? Mm-hmm. And so on forever, right? So. it's. Better to say in the beginning, right, that the shape, the two shapes of the sphere of clay and the cube of clay are not made out of clay.

[35:20] Now, Plato saw that saw that, but then he gets kind of carried away and thinks of the what, the form then is something just kind of comes to the matter, right?

[35:30] Right. Whereas Aristotle saw that the form came to be, came into existence when you what, transform the matter, right? Now, secondly, he says we can show this in a special way from the definition of the human soul, in so far as it is understanding, huh? Like Shakespeare says, my understanding soul.

[35:58] To bring a little bit of Shakespeare's words about the soul sometime for your enjoyment, manifestation. Now, how is he going to reason here? He's going to reason a little bit differently than he did in the article where he showed that the soul is subsistent. He's going to give another argument which Aristotle develops incidentally in the first book about the soul. Okay. For his manifest, he says that whatever is received in something is received in it according to the what, way of the receiver.

[36:32] So, as a teacher, I always try to remember that, right? Huh? You know. And when they correct exams, teachers, you know, says, "Well, I don't know where they got that." Not what I said in class. But it's amazing, you know. I mean, how how it get distorted by the way it's received, right? But I mean, you can come into class and give a lecture to ten students, and some of them will what?

[36:57] Understand much better than others, right? Huh? So it's received according to the what? Receiver, right? Huh? Okay. For thus is each thing is known as its form is in the what, knower, right? But the understanding soul knows something in its nature, and he says absolutely, he means what? He's knowing it universally, right? As such, huh? He's knowing what a man is, right? Or what a dog is, right?

[37:34] For example, he knows stone in so far as it is what. A stone, huh? Therefore, he says the form of stone, absolutely speaking, according to its formal definition, is in the understanding soul. The understanding soul, therefore, is a what? Soul that doesn't depend upon matter, absolute from matter, not something composed from matter and form. Now, how is this follow? Well, he shows it in the form of a reduction to the absurd.

[38:14] If the understanding soul were composed of matter and form, the forms received in it would be what? Forms would be received in it. It's individual. Why? Because matter is a source of what? Individuation, right? So I put the the shape of of a sphere in this clay and in this clay and this other matter, right? It's what? Individual spheres, right? Okay. So if the soul was composed of matter and form, what's received in the soul would be received according to the way of the receiver, right?

[38:49] Which would be something material, and therefore it received the forms as individual, but it receives them in universal form. Its proper object, as we saw in the De Anima, is the what it is as something sensed or imagined. It's something universal. It's man, therefore, absolute in the sense of what? Separated from individual men. What's received in matter is received as what? Individual. It's received here or there, and therefore individual.

[39:21] And thus it would not know except the singular, just as happens in the sensing powers, which receive the forms of things in a body organ. For matter is the what? Principle of the individuation of forms. You could be more precise and say matter is what? Extended as continuous, right? Is the source of there being many individuals of the same sort. That's what I was saying. You know, why can't you have many window panes exactly the same and kind over here?

[39:50] See? Because you have enough glass, right? Why can't you have many chairs that are exactly the same, right? Because you have enough metal, right? So it's matter as quantified that is the source of what? Individuation, huh? So something's received and something material It's going to be received as what? Individual. But things are received in understanding as universal. Like Boethius says, "On the thing is singular when sensed, but universal when understood."

[40:34] It remains, therefore, that the understanding soul, and for that matter, every understanding substance, right? Knowing forms absolutely without their individual matter, lacks the composition of what? Form and what? Matter.

[40:59] So this is kind of a second way that Thomas is showing that the understanding, the ability to understand, that is to say, is immaterial, right? Huh? That he sees the forms of things, he says, absolutely right, rather than singularly. Huh? The other argument was the one that Aristotle first gave, right, That if he sees all the what?

[41:23] It understands all material things, right? And therefore, it has to be lacking, right, in the nature of any material thing to receive all their forms, just as the senses must be lacking in the object that they are in potency to receiving. Okay, do you see that? Yeah. I was just thinking again why why he asked this question to begin with, and I was wondering, wouldn't it just be excluded that from our first understanding that that soul is not a body, that therefore it cannot be of some matter?

[42:02] Yeah, but you'll you'll find that there are some, even when the church fathers, you know, are kind of confused about this, right? Well, that's what you're talking. Okay, yeah. Let's see. The go back to some of the earlier thinkers. You'll see that you know you don't realize how difficult it is to kind of rise above what matter, huh? Yeah, therefore thinking, huh? You know, I always go back to the fourth book of Natural Hearing, the fourth book of Aristotel's Physics, so called, right?

[42:35] Where he quotes the common opinion of the philosophers that whatever is must be somewhere. I mean, somewhere it doesn't exist, right? And he says, if this is true, he says, then then place would be the first of all things, right? Then he quotes the poet, you know, Hesiod, you know, first all the yawning gap, you know, and then then the broad bosomed earth, you know, and then love and so on.

[42:58] But he said Hesiod seems to be saying you got to have a place for things before you can be anything. Yeah. So I mean, if this is true, place would be the first of all things, right? Yeah. But people think that, right? Whatever is must be somewhere. I mean, somewhere it doesn't exist, right? That's the opinion out on the street. And isn't that Newton? Doesn't he have an idea like God is place or something like that?

[43:26] Well, I guess he speaks of spaces. The sensorium of God, so God is somehow spread out in space. You know, he's kind of confused there. You know, I guess someone's telling me who's you know I guess they're they're looking more at Newton's you know theological works, right? A lot of those things. You know, I guess he's an Arian. I doesn't believe in the Trinity. He's an Arian, so it's unfortunate.

[43:53] There's some suspicion too. You know that what's his name? Milton is that too? You know that? Oh. Yeah. So you go astray there when you don't have Rome, you know. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I'd say, Dionne an interesting observation in time, you know, of how the mysteries of the faith

[44:16] were first defined more carefully in Latin than in what Greek, right? Although Greek is a better language for this than Latin, and he attributed to the presence of Rome, right? Oh, you know, because of the papacy and so on. It's kind of interesting. I'd say Dionne his native language was French, right? And he wasn't too good in English, but but he was firm that English was much better than French for philosophy and also for for poetry.

[44:52] Wow, better for for both purposes. Um, and the same with Father Boulay, whose native language was French too. You know, he was firm in that opinion too that English was much better than French for philosophy and. And for poetry, for both of those. If I said that, you'd say well, Berquist is not that at home in French, you know." But here is people whose native language is French, you know.

[45:18] When I go up to Monsignor D'Anne and I would talk to him about certain things that I was teaching in my classes, and right down to some of the, you know, choice words that I thought were appropriate, you know, and and he would approve of them, but then he, you know, say, you know, you can't speak that way in French, you know, and then he'd mark a house superior.

[45:37] English was, you know, and I had heard this movie, you know, that Monsignor D'Anne, when he first read Shakespeare, he read him in French, you know, like he might do, you know. Sure. And then De Koninck you know, gave him a copy in English, you know. And one time I was up in Monsignor's room there, and we were talking about something, and I was reading some passage in Shakespeare.

[45:59] So, you know, on the shelf and got a couple of Shakespeare's off the shelf and gave me one, you know. Well, one was from De Connick, so maybe this is a true story, you know. But you realize how, you know, uh Father Boulay used to use the um André Gide, you know, the he's a famous French writer, you know. But he he writes the preface to the Pleiad edition of Shakespeare.

[46:20] These Pleiad are these kind of standard French editions of classical works, you know, in different languages. But I mean, they're all translated into French, right? Right. Kind of expensive now the Pleiad. I have the Pleiad Descartes, for example, you know. Oh. And and all these French things, but the Pleiad Shakespeare, of course, you know Shakespeare's plays translated into French, and André Gide, you know, is talking, first in general like Thomas does, about the difficulty of translating anybody from one language to another language, especially a poet, right?

[46:50] Because a poet adapts himself to his language. So, but then talking about the particular difficulty of translating Shakespeare, the greatest of poets, into French, right? And he speaks of the French language as a language presque antipoétique almost antipoetic Wow. That's kind of strong, And Andre Gide is supposed to be a master of French prose, you know. Sure. And so, but but of course, in general, you can't translate a poet.

[47:23] I mean, I always give the example. You know how would you translate alliteration? You know, full fathom five thy father lies, and of his bones a coral made. Right, but how would you translate that? Full fathom five thy father lies. Because obviously, the words would mean the same thing in French, wouldn't what alliterate, right? So the words that rhyme in one language don't rhyme in another language.

[47:47] You know, you know how the dove is a symbol of love. Well, it happens in English that dove and love rhyme. Yeah, yeah. So the poets can make use of that, you see. But the word for dove and the word for love in other languages would what? Not see. Now you see, you read Augustine. Augustine's, you know, was a teacher of rhetoric, right? And so he has a more, you know, a rhetorical style than Thomas does.

[48:15] Thomas, Thomas can do that if he wants to, but he didn't do the Summa, right? If you see Thomas's dedication, you know, of the golden chain to Urban the Fourth, the Latin is much, you know, very hard to read. It was very elegant, you know, you see. But Augustine is is often writing that way, right? But you know, he's saying that the the soul is more where it what loves than where it animates, right?

[48:43] But in Latin, you see, the soul is more ubi amat quam animat. It's going to be what, rhyming, you know. So I mean, you translate, you know, a more flowing style there. You know, it has some meter or has some what, rhyming or something like that. You are going to lose that, right? Or, or if you try to do it, you have to change the words a little bit.

[49:09] The meaning, you know. So that prayer of Thomas' is, you know, the adoro te devotee, right? Mm-hmm. Well, it's, which in quatrains, and and and the first and the second line will rhyme, and the third and the fourth will rhyme. And then there is a, I think there is a meter there too. You know, it seems to me to be trochaic in a lot of cases, huh?

[49:30] If you translate that into English, exactly the the meaning of the words, you are not going to be able to get it into the same what, you know,

[49:42] rhyme. Didn't someone tell him a proverb about that? I don't know if it's Italian something like traduttore traditore Yeah, Translators are traitors, I guess it means. Yeah. Every translator, is a traitor Yeah, yeah. I mean But I mean that happens even, you know, I mean when they translate Aristotle, you know, from Greek, they do it bad, you know. Yeah. Which you have to admire of Merbeke, you know, when they look at Merbeke's translation of Aristotle into Latin, they say after they lost a Greek text they could reconstruct it for the Latin it's so exact, you know.

[50:12] Yeah. And and that's the one that Thomas has, you know, with the commentaries, huh? Merbeke, he's very. But it's kind of amazing once in a while Merbeke doesn't have exactly the right word, and Thomas understands it rightly, despite having, you know. Wow. And kind of amazing the way Thomas does there, because Thomas probably didn't have any direct access at all to Plato, right? So you know, Plato kind of second hand, but he seems a very good understanding of yeah of Plato through Aristotle and through the great Saint Augustine, yeah.