De Anima (On the Soul)
70. Q.75 a.6 continued: The Natural Desire to Exist Forever, Socrates in the Phaedo, and Replies to the Objections
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[0:00] He also gives in the last paragraph here a a sign of this, huh? That's very interesting to come and think about here. Um, and again, going back to the the Phaedo, right?

[0:18] But let me explain that after I look at the sign here. One is also able to take a sign of this thing from this. That each thing naturally, in its own way, desires to be. But the desire in knowing things follows upon their what? Knowledge. The senses, however, do not know existence except as its here and now, right? But the understanding grasps existence absolutely and according to all time.

[0:58] Once everyone having understanding naturally desires to be forever. The animal fights to to be here and now, but he doesn't apprehend existence absolutely and according to all time. Then he reasons that the natural desire is not able to be what? Empty, right? Nature does nothing in vain. Therefore, every understanding substance is what, Incorruptible. right?

[1:35] Now, remember how Aristotle at the beginning of the metaphysics there we looked at the proemium to wisdom, but he begins with the famous statement: all men by nature desire to know, or can be translated, all men by nature desire to understand.

[1:56] And first thing we you know we say about that statement, if you recall, when he talked about it, is what does it mean? And secondly, is it true, right? And of course Aristotle himself gives a sign that it's true: the fact that we all use our senses sometimes just to sense something, not always to do or make something. And another sign is that we all like stories to some extent.

[2:25] As a child and throughout life, but we want to know what happens. The little red riding hood, she gets to her grandmother's house, not because you are going to make her do something about this, right? But simply because our wonder has been aroused. But then the third question that we ask about that first sentence is, why does Aristotle begin with that, right?

[2:50] And one reason why he begins with that is to show the the goodness, the true goodness of knowledge, that something naturally desired. Now, the fact that something is desired is a sign that it's good, but it's not a necessary sign that it's good because sometimes we desire something that in fact is bad, right? But if something is naturally desired, right, that's a sign that it's naturally good and therefore truly good.

[3:20] So that's a very important thing. But another reason that Thomas touches upon in the commentary is that Aristotle is going to be talking here about wisdom, and someone might say, "Well, is wisdom in any way obtainable by man? Right? Or does that entirely escape man's power or ability? But if he has a natural desire for wisdom, right, it must be in some way what possible, huh? Okay.

[3:52] And this, as Aristotle says, is the fundamental principle underlying all natural philosophy. Says from the Greeks right through his own works, huh? That nature does nothing in vain, right? The nature doesn't give us therefore a desire for something impossible because that would serve no purpose. But you can see in the in the natural desires like hunger and thirst and and reproducing and so on, we don't always get food, or the animals don't always get food, right?

[4:21] They don't always get water or drink, right? They don't always succeed in reproducing, but it's not impossible. To find food, right? If it was impossible to find any food on this earth, or any water, or if it was impossible to reproduce, then nature would not have given the animal these desires because it would serve no purpose, huh? And so the fact that we have a natural desire to be forever is a sign that we will be forever, our soul.

[4:53] Now it's kind of interesting because in the Phaedo, Socrates, as I mentioned before, he has given three arguments for the immortality of the human soul, right? When he first starts to discuss this, and everybody seems to be satisfied except Simias and Cebes, right? They're kind of over in the corner; they're kind of talking. And Socrates says he notices them. He says, "You still thinking about this, or you're talking about something else now, you know?"

[5:27] And so we're still thinking about Socrates' arguments, right? And Socrates says, "Well, then come and you know share with us what you're thinking about them." And they come in with some objections, right? And then Socrates' arguments don't seem so good. And then they get to kind of a discouragement, the friends of Socrates there, and a kind of almost despair, right? And Socrates has to lead them out of that despair, right?

[5:53] Before he can take up the objections of Simias and Cebes. But around that time, Socrates says, "Now, if something else occurs to you, you know, if you have something in your mind that where it doesn't seem that argument is good, bring it out, you know, and we'll talk about it." See, he's encouraging them, in other words, to do what Simias and Cebes are doing. And he says, "Don't love me more than the truth."

[6:25] See, he says, "If you take my advice, he says, you'll love Socrates a little, but the truth much more." Now he had the same thing later on in the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle is going to object to some things the Platonists say, and he begins by saying that these men are my friends. But then he says, "But truth is a greater friend, huh?"

[6:56] And it would be impious, right, to prefer your friends to the what truth, right? Kind of interesting to use the word impious, right? Because then he sees truth as tied with God, right? So the way to be preferring your friends to the truth is to be preferring your friends to to God, right? And and Thomas Aquinas says, you know, it's interesting that he he takes this objection or this you know mentions this because he doesn't do so in other books where he attacks Plato.

[7:26] And Thomas says, well, he does the Nicomachean Ethics because friendship is such an important thing in human life. In fact, two of the ten books in the Nicomachean Ethics are devoted to what friendship, right? So that's why has a particular reference there, right? To say you know it seems to be against friendship to attack your friend's opinions, right? So Aristotle takes it up. Well, it's very pick with in the in the great dialogue, the the Phaedo, because this is the dialogue where Socrates is going to die.

[8:01] This is his last day in prison. He's going to die today. And Socrates is convinced that the human soul survives death. Now, if you think that Socrates' arguments are not so good, but you're the friend of Socrates, right? You might think in your mind, well, I don't want to disturb him now, right? If he thinks that the human soul is going to survive death, he's going to face death bravely even with a certain boldness, right?

[8:35] But if he loses confidence in his own arguments, he's going to be very you know disturbed right coming death. So you might not defend what you think the truth is out of friendship for what Socrates, right? See, and Socrates is urging them if they have objections to the arguments like Simias and Cebes do, right? If any of the rest have, to bring them up, right? We'll discuss them, right?

[9:09] But then he also says, you know, that that not only do they have their friendship for Socrates that might make them hesitate, right? But maybe he, Socrates, is not examining this as carefully as he wants to, as he should rather, because Socrates wants to think obviously he's going to his soul is going to survive death, right?

[9:33] Now, some might say, you know, well, Socrates is only looking at what would support the thought that the human soul survives death, right? Because he wants that to be true, right? And he's not examining the arguments on his side, like you know that Simias and Cebes are trying to bring out. That this is an example of what wishful thinking, right? Okay, like Shakespeare says there in Henry the Fourth, right?

[10:08] That wish was father to the thought. Okay, but in a way, Thomas here is turning the the thing on them, right? And saying that

[10:21] this desire that we have to be forever, right? Is not so much a reason for questioning our arguments for the immortality of the soul,

[10:35] but really the fact that that desire is a natural desire, right? Yeah, is a sign of the truth. Yeah, that's what you're saying, right? That's kind of subtle, you know. You're taking what the opponent might think as a objection, or at least a reason for questioning your thinking, right? Let me say something that's too good to be true. If you want to be true, but you know, it's too good to be true.

[11:05] Okay, but here he's saying, well, no, no. The fact that this desire is something natural, right? And natural desires are not in vain, is a sign of the truth of what the other arguments are showing. Question. Oh, yeah. I was hard on him, but um, uh. Okay, so so it's a natural desire of man to live beyond death or to live eternally. But what I'm just wondering, doctor, is um, why the distinction about natural desire?

[11:36] It won't be an unnatural. How do we know it's a natural desire? Sorry, it's sort of more than obvious, but. Well, natural means, of course, inborn, right? Inborn. Yeah. Okay. But the point is, you see, not only man, but all things trying to be, right? Sure. So you know, if you were trying to to

[12:02] kill an animal, right? Yeah. The animal, the animal fights, right, for its life. And what's the the old Aesop's fable there? You know, where the little animal was being chased by the big animal. Yeah. And the little animal got away. The other animals were laughing at the at the big animal. The big animal said, "Well, it's one thing to be running for your dinner; another thing to be running for your life."

[12:24] But no, both of them are in some way pursuing what existence, right? Yeah. Okay. But then he points out a difference. You see, where he points out first of all that that those things that know, right, their knowing is going to influence this desire for to be, right. But those that have only sensation, they know existence only here and now. Okay. And so they fight for existence here and now that they have.

[12:52] But man, having understanding, right? He understands existence in a more abstract way, a more absolute way, right? And he perceives existence over a course of time, right? Right. And even you know, like you said in the De Anima, there, man is the animal that has a sense of time, right? He doesn't just live in the here and now. And I know myself. I mean, a lot of things, you know.

[13:17] Um. Right here and now, I mean, you know, one sentence here, you know, um. By itself, doesn't make a great deal. You know, why not enjoy some candy or some wine or something like that? But you know, as these sentences are joined together, and you start to understand things and see things and see before, you know, and you see it, you're starting to live in time now, right?

[13:43] Huh? You're seeing this as part of a what? Of a larger picture, right? Huh? You see. Um. So, because man, um. Understands existence spread out in this way, right? Then the desire that all these things have to be, right, is going to be in man a desire for what? Existence forever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[14:14] Okay. Okay. And as it follows upon their knowing, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so you know, when the animal sees the. I used to watch the cat in the backyard sometimes. I don't know what these little animals were, but you know they run up the tree and the animal grabs and they crawl down the cat. You ever seen that? You watched that? Yeah, yeah. The other animals like kind of, kind of amazing to see that, huh?

[14:49] But you know the animal when it sees you know its enemy, it has that fear, right? Hmm. I'll tell you the example there one time my friend Raymond Monroe there rescued a little kitten there and they were playing with the kitten and so on. And we we had some belts there and we're you know you know just the cat jumping the belt and so on just like that.

[15:13] And then my friend brought a belt that was kind of like striped belt. Oh. And the little kitten got very scared of it, you know, and he started to push the belt towards it, you know. Oh. And you couldn't even hold the kitten; he'd be starting to get away from it. Wow. And and we we suspect that it must be instinct that that that's a snake. Yeah.

[15:30] You see, and probably an older cat would be wouldn't be deceived by that, right? Oh. But it's really amazing to see that because he was playing with you know the belt for a while, you know, and the cat was playing. And all of a sudden, you know, she was terrified. Wow.

[15:47] But the here and now is setting their life, right? All right. It's kind of interesting if you read Boswell's Life of Johnson. Now it's it's very interesting Johnson's attitude towards death. Right? He doesn't like the thought of it at all. Right. Oh. And and Boswell you know sees you know that Johnson doesn't actually like the fact that Boswell knows that Johnson's afraid of death. And

[16:19] a lot of subtle things if you read that that's kind of most famous biography right? You know, in English that we have Boswell's Life of Johnson, but

[16:32] for Johnson, the life is really trying to avoid thinking the fact you're to die. Oh. You see, see, you you don't animals don't look like that way, do they? No, they don't. See, but but man, you know, he's looking backwards and forwards, right? But it's interesting, you know, what some might take as as you know, well, you people, you know, believe in heaven because you know you want to believe in heaven, right?

[16:54] Right. You believe in immortality of the soul because you want to, right? Huh? You know. And yeah, something like that in in there's some passage in Abraham Lincoln there, you know, where he's speaking that way of not in sense attacking, you know, but but as if Plato wanted to believe in immortality of the soul, right? You know. But kind of maybe you know Lincoln was kind of a skeptic a bit, right?

[17:21] Didn't know about these things. I mean, what he really thought, you know? Yeah. I mean, it's kind of biggest what Lincoln meant by these words, you know. But

[17:32] what someone might use as a what argument to say, well, we can't really trust you people because you want to believe that, and therefore you're not using an open mind on the matter, right? You see, you say no. The fact that we want it naturally, yeah, is actually a sign that it's true. Yeah. And it's a little bit like you know, when you're teaching the

[18:02] question of whether nature acts for an end. And one of the objections against nature acting for an end is that nature fails at times, right? Mm-hmm. And you get a get a defective baby or something of this sort, right? A baby's born without an arm or a leg, and so on. Um,

[18:23] but actually, as Aristotle points out, nature's failure is a sign that it's acting for an end. Right. Because you cannot be said to to fail. Fail. Yeah. If you're not aiming at anything. Very success. Yeah. So as I say to students, you know, did I fail to teach you German this semester? Yeah. You can't really say that. I wasn't trying to teach you any German, right? I was hired to teach you any German, right?

[18:48] See, so you couldn't say Professor Burke was failed. He didn't teach you any German. That's that's. I'll grant that. Mm-hmm. But I failed to teach you any German.

[19:01] Can't be said because I wasn't trying to teach any German. I may fail to teach any philosophy of nature or something, right? Whose fault it is, but I was trying to get some across, you know. I wasn't trying to get any German into your head. Do you see that? You know. So actually, you turn what someone thinks is the basis for an argument against you to an argument, but for for yeah.

[19:27] And some of this is very obvious, right? You know, those things like you know that are self-defeating, like you know, a guy who says statements do not exist. You know.

[19:46] Well, he's actually confirming the very thing he's attacking, right? But you see, but in the sense of something like this with that desire. Okay. Let's look at the. Mm-hmm. Um. Reply to the objections. Can I ask about something about the first? The form. Yeah. What about the distinction of forms when speaking of act or existence as something kind of added to? Form as, like an act. Yeah, yeah.

[20:24] With the angels or something. Yeah. Well, it is a dependence upon God, right? Okay. But the fact that God has made these things with no what, um, no ability in their substance for not being right, is a sign that He's made these things to be forever. Okay. Ah, they refer you. You know, if you want to go into those things more, back in question one and four, article three.

[20:58] You know, question about God's, God's, um would God annihilate anything, right? Okay, that goes back to one and four, three. Okay. But we'll talk about that again in reference to that second objection, right? Okay.

[21:17] The first objection was taken from those scriptural texts, right? Huh. Now, part of the reply. to These texts are the fact that these are being said in the name of the what foolish right okay okay although it can also be understood part of it in terms of the body where we are has something in common with the the beast right so to the first it should be said that Solomon brings in that reason from the person of the what insipientium right the foolish right I think I mentioned how the Latin word for wisdom is taken from the word to savor sapida sapientia comes from sapor when Thomas says sapientia kind of etymology the word sapida scientia savory knowledge right and I think I was bringing the

[22:16] the words there of Shakespeare there magnusio there positum you know and when Romeo is going to foolishly take his own life right and he has kind of the metaphor that he's like a ship captain who's going to run his ship on the rocks right and he says come bitter conduct come unsavory guide so he's calling his own reason bitter and what unsavory now I was contrasting that with Thomas's words there in the Adoro te devote dulce sapere right he wants to savor sweetly our Lord in the what Eucharist right but there you have the opposite right that wisdom is a what is something sweet huh and savory right savory knowledge knowledge to be savored right it's not soda pop it's like wine that's to be

[23:21] savored huh in vino veritas right in wine there is truth huh but there's no truth in soda pop huh you see you don't savor that. But wine you let it roll in the sides of your mouth and breathe in you know and really you know savor it huh

[23:42] but it's also sweet knowledge huh has no bitterness to it as Thomas says according to sapiential books incipid foolishness is incipid right you know tasteless huh not savory huh so this is said for the person of what the incipientium the foolish right there you see that word huh insipientium

[24:10] yeah modern philosophy is very incipient yeah it's not not savory at all as expressed in wisdom too when therefore it is said that man and the other animals right have a like Beginning of generation, it is true as far as the what body is concerned, right? For in like manner, all the animals are made from the earth, as we read in scripture there. But not, however, as regards the soul.

[24:47] For the soul of the beasts is produced from some bodily what power, right? But the human soul from what God, huh? And to signify this, it is said in the book of Genesis, as far as the other animals, that the earth produced a living what soul, right? But as far as man is said, that he what breathed into his face the breath of life, huh?

[25:22] Now Aristotle, as I mentioned in the book on the generation of animals, right? He explicitly says that the rational soul doesn't come from the what parents in the bodily generation. The body is being prepared by your mother and father, but not the what soul, right?

[25:44] That's why we get this interesting objection later on, you know, about in the case of an adulterous generation of somebody, right, or some other, you know, an illicit generation there. Why is God cooperating by creating a soul, right? Well, he's cooperating with what is natural in the act, even in the adulterous pair, in the fornicating pair, whatever it is, right, or even the rape, or whatever it is might be, you know.

[26:14] He cooperates with with nature there, right? He's not cooperating with the sinner's disorder, you know. But I'm not concerned with that question right now. But I mean, it follows from the fact that he what creates the soul when there's a body prepared by the parents, right? That's a suitable subject for the soul.

[26:41] So Scripture expresses that right by the fact that God breathed right into his face the spirit of life, huh? And therefore he concludes Ecclesiastes that the dust returns to the earth whence it was. Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return, right? That's said even of us on Ash Wednesday, right? So that since we're like the beast, and the spirit returns to God, who what gave it?

[27:19] Who gave it? Yeah. Similarly, the process is the process of life as far as the body, to which pertains what is said in Ecclesiastes. Likewise, in the same manner, all breathe, right? And wind and so on, air in our nostrils and so on. But there is not a similar process as regards the soul, because man understands, and the brute beasts of the animals do not. Whence it is false what is said that man has no more than the what beast, huh?

[28:00] And therefore, there is a similar dissolution as far as the body, but not as far as the what soul. That first objection is really based upon not reading the scripture carefully enough, right? No, but it's important. He puts objection first because it seems to come from scripture itself, right? Sure. Okay.

[28:25] Now the second objection was dealing with the fact that the human soul is what created, right? And therefore, it's from nothing, huh? To the second, now to be said that to be able to be created, something is said not through a passive power, but only through the active power of the creator. Who is able to produce something from nothing? Thus, when it is said that something can be turned into nothing, it does not imply in the creature an ability to not be, but only in the creature, right?

[29:03] An ability or power to this that it could what If God wanted to, he could what not continue to flow in existence to the thing, right?

[29:16] But something is said to be corruptible through this that there is in it a what Power. A ability to not be, huh? Okay. So you know, take that simple example I had before: the clay in the shape of a sphere. It has an ability to be a cube, right? And if that ability to be a cube were to be actualized, it would cease to be a sphere, right?

[29:42] But something that is form only has no ability to be anything else that is. So there's not any corruptibility in it, huh? Although God could what could annihilate the thing, right? But he would not do that. But that's something taken up in question 104. Okay.

[30:08] But you're saying that a thing is corruptible or incorruptible by reason of it having in itself an ability not to be or not having such an ability, right?

[30:26] Something is said to be corruptible through this that there is in it a potency to not be, huh? Yeah. Okay. And that's why. Material things are corruptible, right? Okay, as I say to the students sometimes. In my body, I have an enemy. In my body, there's something that's able to be a lion, and they fed me to the lions. That become a lion, right? Okay. Right. So, in me, something in me,

[31:03] this composite of matter and form here, namely matter, right, that is able to be something other than a man. Do you see that? Yeah. In the healthy body, right, there's something that's able to be other than healthy, right? But in something that is. Form only.

[31:27] There is no ability to be anything else than it is. So there is in it no passive ability, right? Not to be, right? It could only cease to be if God was to cease to what? Cause its existence, right? And it would be kind of amazing to think about that, huh? It'd be much more clear to us in heaven, you know, the absolute dependence upon God, right?

[31:56] Huh? And and how foolish, right? It is to what? Revolt from God, right? I just remember the text there from Sartre, you know, with the students a little bit, and you know, using Sartre to exemplify the the modern exaggerated love of freedom, right? Huh? And Jean Paul Sartre is saying existentialism is not atheistic in the sense that it would exhaust itself in trying to prove that God doesn't exist.

[32:38] It's atheistic in the sense it makes no no difference to us whether he does or does not. I said to the students, I could see someone being maybe in some doubt as to whether God exists, right? For someone to say it's going to make no difference to how I live whether he does or does not exist, yeah, you know, shows kind of the will asserting itself right?

[32:58] In wanting this complete independence. of. Yeah. You can will anything he says, you know. Yeah. Provided it's in the name of freedom, right? Yeah. Of course, this particular passage that I was using with the students comes from the essay, you know, and that's reprinted in that volume of Kaufmann, you know, you know, existentialism from Dostoevsky to what Sartre, right? It's very appropriate that it starts with Dostoevsky because the young man in Crime and Punishment, right, he wants to, in a sense, assert his true freedom by murdering some old lady, right, to show that he's not in any way subject even to the law, right?

[33:40] He's completely free. It's kind of perverse idea of thinking freedom is some kind of absolute thing, right? Right. If I'm under the law, well, then I'm not completely free, am I? I'm kind of constrained by the law, right? And

[33:57] not so long ago, I saw some movie there was on TV or something, where these two kids had done the same thing, you know, committed a a murder, right? Not because they had anything to gain from it, but just to what? Kind of assert their their freedom, their independence, their I can do anything I want to. do. Wow. See how kind of crazy this thinking is, huh?

[34:22] A lack of thinking. Okay. But I say, when you realize how utterly dependent we are upon God, the Lord is King in splendor, robed, you know, because the the tempest is stronger, you know, than the waves and so on, right? Then it says, holiness befits His house, right? You know.

[35:08] Okay. Now the third objection, now. The third objection now is based upon the fact that we never in this life understand without what imagining, and so long as our soul is in our body, it's naturally turned towards the material. So as Aristotle taught us there in the third book about the soul, the proper object of our understanding or reason is of what it is as something sensed or imagined, but what it is, especially of a natural thing or of a mathematical thing.

[35:51] But notice, even in understanding what something is, the understanding of what it is is not in the body, right? It's not in the imagination, because the image is always of what the singular, right? And the image is always something continuous, but the universal is not in the continuous and it's separated from the continuous. But what you also learn in the De Anima is that something has to be separated from matter to be what actually understandable.

[36:30] So when the soul is separated from the body, then the soul will be what understandable to itself, and then the soul will understand in a way like the angels understand, even though it's not angels. We'll find out next article. So that the way of understanding when the soul is separated from the body is different than the way of understanding when it's what in the body, but in both cases the understanding is not in the body.

[37:01] But so long as the soul is in the body, it's naturally turned towards the body, and so it's understanding of what it is of something sensed or imagined by the body.

[37:15] But because its understanding is not in the body, its existence is not just in the body, and therefore it can exist without the body. And when it's separated from the body, then it's. Natural way of understanding would be to turn towards what the immaterial things. I see Plato thought. If you read the Republic, and if you ever had a chance to read the Republic, he speaks of philosophy as a what turning around to the soul, right?

[37:45] And and the Greek word has got the idea of turning around, but kind of going up, you know. See, like you see, if I was you know start to stand up here and and turn around the same time as I start to stand up, so the time I'm standing up, I'm facing the opposite direction of you people, and and I've gone up, right? It's a it's a what I think the Greek word is an anodos, a going up, a road up a road going up, right?

[38:14] I'm going up from the material world up to the immaterial world, right? And that's a going up, right? And that's what Plato says philosophy is in the Republic. It's a turning of the soul around from the material world up towards the immaterial world, right?

[38:29] Well, first out in a way that's what philosophy is too, in the sense that he's studying everything ultimately for the sake of studying wisdom, right? And wisdom, you're eventually going to know the immaterial things, right? But in this life, you're going to know the immaterial things through the material things, right? Not knowing them directly, but through the material things, huh? And this is the way we know God in this life, right?

[39:02] You know the famous text there that the church uses all the time is from chapter one, verse twenty there of the Epistle to the Romans, right? Where it says you know that the invisible things of God are known through the things that have been seen, right? That's one of the official texts the church uses in the Vatican one when it's maintaining that natural reason, right, human reason, even without the faith, right, can know something about God, right?

[39:34] And Saint Paul there's talking about the Greeks, Sure. And so, but notice you're knowing the immaterial through the material, right? See, but when the soul is separated from the body, then it'll be turned directly towards the immaterial, and even the soul itself will know itself through itself rather than this roundabout way knowing the soul through its powers and its powers through its acts and its acts through its object and so on.

[40:03] The soul will know itself directly, right? And that will be turned up towards the angels. And the angel will explain to you that he's not God. As I said last time, see, okay. And a fortiori, if you receive the eternal life there, the divine vision, right? You'll be seeing God, what? Face to face, right? But now, as Saint Paul says, we see him darkly through a mirror, right?

[40:35] Okay. So we know God partly by the what? By the likeness of these things to him, right? You know him partly as a cause of these things. But ultimately, we have to negate the imperfection of the likeness, and we have to negate the the deficiency there of the effect from the cause, right?

[41:03] So let's read again the reply to the objection. To the third, it should be said that to understand with an image is the proper operation of the soul, according as it is united to the what body, right? Huh?

[41:24] And that's. kind of natural because if the soul didn't need the body to get its fundamental ideas, it wouldn't be joined to the body, right? It wouldn't be. It would not serve any purpose. But separated from the soul, it has another way of understanding, similar to the what other substances that are separated from bodies, similar to the angels, right? As we'll below become more what clear, we'll get to that eventually.

[41:53] Question eighty nine. And he says another way of understanding. He doesn't mean that the understanding in this life is not immaterial. It is. Even this life, we understand the act of understanding is not in the body. Okay. And if it were in the body, it wouldn't be a knowledge of the what universal. Universal. It'd be knowledge of singular. Yeah. And wouldn't be open to knowing all material things like it is.

[42:28] But. But the soul naturally turns to the body, right? Mm-hmm. As a kind of foundation for what its understanding. Mm-hmm. Because its understanding of

[42:46] what it is of something sensed or imagined, huh? And Aristotle makes the comparison there, right? Huh? Go back to the proportion there, the dynamis He's saying that reason is to the images, huh? Like the senses are to the exterior

[43:23] sensibles. Okay. So when I see you now, right? I see your color. I see your shape, right? What am I seeing? I'm seeing the color or the shape of something out there. Right. I'm seeing the color or the shape of you. I'm seeing the color and the shape of the desk out there, the fireplace and so on, right? Okay.

[43:56] And so, if you were to walk out of this room, I would be unable to see the color or the shape of you, right? Okay. But is my seeing the colored shape of you? Is that seeing in you? No. No. It's in my eye, maybe even in my brain. Right. Right. Okay. But I can't see the color or the shape of you without you being there, right?

[44:22] Right. Well. Reason's object there is the what it is of something sensed or imagined. So when I understand what a triangle is, I imagine a triangle, right? And what I'm understanding now is the what it is of what is imagined there, right? And that's why I don't understand the what it is of the triangle imagined without imagining a triangle, right? But does that mean that the understanding what a triangle is is in the image?

[45:02] No, no. Any more than my seeing your shape or color is in you. Okay. You see the proportion there? I just did, yeah. Yeah. Right. And so,

[45:20] just as you're leaving the room interferes with my seeing you, even though you are no way the organ of my sight, right? Right. So likewise, the interference of the images by a blow on the brain or by alcohol going to the brain or you know blood clot or something there in the brain, right, would interfere with my understanding of what it is, because the image is no longer there, right?

[45:45] Okay. But the understanding is not in the brain; it's not in the image, huh? Okay. But that refers now to the way of understanding, right? It understands the what it is of a triangle. The soul turning towards the what imagined triangle, right? Because the soul is now in the body, right? But when the soul is no longer in the body, then it has no reason to turn actually to the body.

[46:19] But it itself will be understandable to itself, the soul, because it'll be separated from matter. And we know already that something's understandable to the extent it's separated from matter. Then the soul will be turned up towards what the angelic hierarchies, right? Okay. Yeah. And and in the the beatific vision there, the eternal life will be knowing God through God, right? Huh? God is joined to our reason, or our reason is joined to God, is that by which it understands as well as what it understands.

[47:03] In your light, we shall see light, as in in the Psalms, huh? But in this life, we know God through other things, huh? I tell you that interesting passage there, you know, in Saint Gertrude, you know, in her kind autobiography there. But she's always receiving visions, right? And as like Dionysius explains, you know, these are they're images, right? Like in Isaiah, he has the vision of, and and the vision that Saint John has there in Apocalypse, right?

[47:41] Yeah. So God is always instructing the great saint Pertrude the Great there with two images, right? Huh? And and really, they're beautiful images about them, but they're very interesting. And but one one point there, she turns and says, "Why do you do this?" And Pertrude says, "well, it's natural for a human being to be led in this way." It's kind of marvelous because I mean, it's the thing that Aristotle would say, you know.

[48:09] Yeah. Thomas would say, you know, but but here it's our origin, you know, to to the great Saint St. Gertrude, you know. I wish the Pope would get around to making her talk to the Church, you know. I think she she as much as you know the Teresa's and the Saint Catherine, you know, should be in there. I've never read her works. Yeah, yeah.

[48:39] Grace is supposed to say, "If you want to know where I am, I'm in the heart of Gertrude." Right. That's where he is. So it's very very interesting. Didn't you say that no one at that time loved him more than she did? Yeah, it's very very interesting.

[49:09] Should take a little break. Yeah, take a break for the fifty seventh article, right? Where's my water?