De Anima (On the Soul)
80. ST I q.76 a.4: Is There Another Substantial Form in Man? The Objections (with Digressions on Antonomasia, Synecdoche and Mixture)
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[0:01] See that? Yeah. Yeah. Look how it's going through. I think we're four articles in similarities. I think it was three we did last time, and four they went in today. So we'll see how it looks there.

[0:14] Name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. God our enlightenment. Guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, or the luminary images, and rouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and help us to understand all that you have written. In the. Name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.

[0:41] I was looking at a book there when I was out there. These little tan books wasn't on, you know, angels and devils and so on. Really, kind of little things in the lives of the saints and so on. But it was one there with Padre Pio, right? I guess the there was singing in the chapel, right? Of course there's no, no monks or no brothers, no priests in the chapel, right?"

[1:06] So one of the monks or brothers calls attention to this. He says, "Well, that's just the angels singing. You know, some souls being released from purgatory up to heaven, so that's the angels singing. So kind of interesting. Anecdotes against the angels singing there, you know. So Shakespeare's not too far off, you know. And when

[1:29] Horatio says, you know, now cracks a noble heart, the night sweet prince and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. I was quoting Shakespeare there, right? But Padre Pio is this other thing, yeah. And so

[1:52] in Article Four here, Question Seventy Six, whether there is in man another form, meaning another substantial form, besides the understanding, what soul? Now, to the fourth, he proceeds thus. It seems that in man there is another form besides the understanding soul. I notice this is somewhat like. Article what three? Because article three was asking whether there are other what souls in man besides the understanding soul, and in some sense that's dealing with more particular substantial forms.

[2:35] But here you're kind of thinking of even a substantial form that's more fundamental than the souls, namely the one that would make something be a body, right? Yeah. Okay. Now, you ask three and four here, and you say kind of it kinda strikes you kind of strange some of these positions sometimes. But why do men get into these positions? They, well,

[3:06] they know to some extent that the understanding substance is an immaterial substance, and therefore the understanding substance seems to be just form, right? And these material substances can't understand,

[3:24] and so if the understanding soul was a form of a body, then it seems that it would have existence only in the body, right? And therefore, it would have no activity or operation except in the body, and you know they can't understand this

[3:50] nature of the human soul, right? That it's the form of a body, right? And gives to a body what lesser forms give to the body, but in addition, its existence is not entirely immersed in the body, and so it has certain abilities like the ability to understand and the ability to to choose and the ability to separate something understandable from the images. It has these abilities that are not in the body, right?

[4:24] And they can understand how that's possible, right? And is a kind of a what strange? We are kind of a strange being, shall we say, right? And the the Arab philosophers sometimes said that man is on the horizon between the material world and the immaterial world, and so he's got like a one foot in the material world, one in the immaterial world, and they want to make something either entirely in the immaterial world or entirely in the material world.

[4:58] And if it's entirely in the immaterial world, it doesn't have a body really, and it's not tied up with the body really, or else it's entirely in the material world, immersed in it, and it can't understand anything. And yet, man obviously, and we know this from our own intimate experience, he's in some way in the material world. He has a body, right? And I don't know if you ever had a, you know, you see how your arms and legs and so on, but if you ever had a tooth pulled or even like this, right?

[5:32] You have kind of a feeling of having lost something, right? And in a fortiori, if you if you've had an arm or a leg or something like that amputated, right? This is not, you know, the living room chair, you know, losing a leg. This is you losing part of yourself, huh? And so you're very much in the material world, huh? They were showing one of the old Ronald Reagan movies one time on TV, you know, where he loses a leg, you know.

[6:02] And of course, you know, you're you're sedated when when they do this, then you wake up, right? And you discover you don't have a leg anymore, right? And Reagan, he's acting, in the role, of course, But you know, you know, where's the rest of me? I mean, it's kind of a terrible, I think it's a horrible thing to to have that, huh? And

[6:25] so I mean, that's very much a part of you, right? Okay, may not be the the best or the best part of you, but it's something very much a part of you, huh? So there's no doubt that man is something material, right? On the other hand, we still have the experience of understanding and understanding universal. And if you stop and think about it, the form by which you understand something universal is not going to be a form in matter, a form in the continuous, because such a form would be by that fact tied to the singular.

[7:01] And so that's hard, kind of hard to understand that, right? So they want to put the human soul either entirely in the immaterial world or else, you know, they want to put something else there and place the human soul to form the what body, huh? So I mean, you end up in a few strange positions, right? That the form by which

[7:30] I'm a body, like here, or the form by which I'm able to digest and grow and reproduce, or even the form which I'm able to sense, see and hear and smell and taste, that this is something different than the form by which I understand. But then you see, as you read these articles, the greater difficulties people get into. See that they kind of what split up man, deny the unity of man, and so on.

[8:07] And so when you see the difficulties that gets into, you're kind of forced back to the truth, which is that the soul by which man understands also has the perfection, Right or gives the perfections that the lower forms give, but something what more, okay?

[8:29] And it's a little bit like you know when I compare it to what Aristotle says about friendship, you know when he distinguishes the useful friend, right, and then the friendship of pleasure, and then finally the the the perfect and complete kind of friendship, which is based on virtue.

[8:54] But you realize that if you have a friendship based on virtue, there's more reason to enjoy each other's company than that of those who are not virtuous, huh? You know they they say that you like somebody, I like you because you're like me, okay? So even if you and I Are both bad, and alike in that we can get a certain pleasure in each other's company, right?

[9:31] And we like the same devilry, so to speak. But that's a friendship in something that is not naturally pleasing, huh? So if you and I are cowards, and I like you because you are a coward, we're going to fight together. But cowardice is not something that's naturally pleasing, huh?

[9:57] But if you and I are both courageous men, and we like each other because we see that courage in each other, then we have more reason to enjoy each other's company because we're not only alike, but we're alike in something that is naturally pleasing, huh?

[10:17] But at the same time, if you possess the virtues, you are going to be more useful to me, right? Than someone who doesn't possess the virtues, huh? So a courageous man is going to be more useful to me than than a coward, especially in the time of battle, right? And a man who's wise, or a man who has foresight and prudence and so on, he's going to be more useful to me in advice and so on than a man who's ignorant and foolish and so on.

[10:50] And the old saying, you know, with friends like that, you don't need enemies, huh? So the highest kind of friendship gives you what the lower friendships give you, but much what? Much more, right? So it's kind of hard, you know, to see that sometimes. But if you think of maybe things that are more known to us, like the friendship, you see that the higher form of friendship, the friendship that's based on virtue,

[11:29] not only gives you something unique, but also gives you what the lower friendships give you: usefulness and and pleasant to be with, and so on,

[11:46] huh? And this is the way the the soul is, right? And as Thomas says, all the higher forms, huh? The higher form gives what the lower form gives, the higher substantial form. Plus, it gives something, what? More. More, huh? Okay. And that's why they compare in the eighth book of wisdom, and Plato already done this before Aristotle, but they compare forms in some way to numbers, right?

[12:19] So. Like four contains what three contains, but something more. But it also contains what the three. And three also contains what two, but something more. And so the higher form contains what the lower form does, but something more.

[12:44] Okay, so you can see kind of the background of where these difficulties get into, right? People couldn't understand how the human soul could give what other material forms give. That is to say, forms that exist only in matter, right? And whose existence is tied to matter, and whose activity or operations are only in the body and through the body, right? They couldn't understand how the human soul could give that to the body, right?

[13:13] And yet has something in common with the angels, huh? That to the human soul, I have something in common with the cat. Cat was around the table last night. We're having some ham there, and she wanted some of that ham. So my son was giving a little tidbit of his ham, and she was enjoying this, and he was hand down to to pet her after the his fingernail, but it didn't hurt anything, you know.

[13:44] I just thought there was a more piece of ham there. So I was enjoying the ham too. So I mean, I mean, I had something in common with the cat. We, I used to when he had the other cat before that.

[14:01] Dead now, I guess. But the other cat, I used to say, you know, we're going to have something nice, like steak or something. And I said, we're having steak tonight. You're you're invited too, you know. And I used to kind of pretend to myself that cat was too, but she seemed to understand in a way, you know, that this is going to be a good night, you know.

[14:16] So I do have something in common with those cats, huh? You see, as to liking meat, anyway. But they don't have as diversified, you know. I do have something in common with them to enjoy that meat, and they seem to appreciate good meat, and they know it's something better than than they're getting in the cat. But then I have something in common with the angels, huh? I see, understanding and willing.

[14:47] So I have what the what the lower has, but in a better way. I have emotions, but my emotions are somewhat more elevated than the cat's emotions. And I have understanding and will, but they're kind of depressed compared to the understanding of the angel, right? And the will. So I have the higher in the lower way and the lower in the higher way. That's kind of interesting, huh?

[15:19] But then you have to stop and think and understand that that is that is so, right? So let's look at the objections here. It seems that in man there is another form besides the understanding soul. Now the first objection is taken from the very definition of the soul. For as the philosopher says, that's Antonomasia, right? I told you that I put the word on the board, right?

[15:54] Yeah, Yeah, yeah. So, so, and so. So we don't really have a real English word, you know, for it, huh? That's taken from the Greek Antonomasia. And in very brief, that means again, it's. Well, you're giving a common name, the name of the general to the particular, or vice versa. You can do it either way, because that particular stands out, right? So if I say that Aristotle is the philosopher with a kind of a capital P, well, he's not the only philosopher, but among all philosophers, he stands out.

[16:44] And in the book on the poetic art, Aristotle calls Homer the poet. And I mentioned how in the Federalist Papers, there when they quote Shakespeare, they don't say "and as Shakespeare says," they say "as the poet says." You know, a long farewell to all my greatness. But they're arguing, you know, that if we don't have this union, right, we're going to be picked off by the European powers and so on, and whatever claims to greatness we have are going to be lost, right?

[17:16] But they kind of, you know, quote, and as the poet says. Well, years later, I found this in Henry the Eighth, right, in Shakespeare's play, right, in the downfall there, tragic downfall, a long farewell to all my greatness, huh? But instead of you know saying Shakespeare says and Shakespeare says, they say as the poet says, huh? Sure. And it's interesting, huh? That

[17:43] Peter and Paul are called apostles by antonomasia. So Thomas will often refer to Saint Paul as the apostle with a capital A. Sure. And I guess in the other letters that we have there, the other apostles don't call themselves apostles, but Saint Paul often does in the address in the letters. So Peter and Paul are the apostles, and I know you know the phrase that our Holy Father uses sometimes.

[18:11] He'll call Peter and Paul the princes of the apostles, right? Okay. And of course, Christ Himself is named by antonomasia, the name Christ. Huh? It means the anointed one, right? He's not the only one anointed. Sure. But among all those who are anointed, he is the anointed one. And the Bible itself is named from what? Oh, yeah, the book. Yeah, it means the book, right? See, now you can have antonomasia the other way around though too, where you give the particular name to the general.

[18:50] So we might say about somebody that he's a Romeo, or he's a Don Juan, or he's a Casanova. Huh? We take some famous lover, right, real or fictional, right? Instead of saying he's a lover, we say he's a Don Juan or he's a a Romeo, right? Sometimes there's a there's a tendency to call a man who is kind of hesitant to act to call him a Hamlet, huh?

[19:18] See, and so they take the name of a particular man who stands out for that, huh? Like calling somebody an Einstein or something like that because he he has this excellence, huh? In that area, right? Okay, so but it's more common the reverse where you give the name of the general to the particular. Plato in in the in the symposium there he speaks of how he gives two examples there.

[19:53] He doesn't use the term Antonomasia that comes from the rhetoricians, right? The name for this figure of speech because you see a lot of these names came from the rhetoricians. That's where they were first named. And you know if you if you see the use of these in a speech, I always remember Senator Everett Dirksen. You know, he's the guy who nominated Senator Taft for the presidency there in 1952.

[20:17] But you know, it comes to the end of a speech. You know, I give you Mister Integrity, Mister Republican, my friend Bob Taft. So Bob Taft was known as Mister Republican, right? Well, he's not the only Republican, right? But he's Mister Republican, right? You see, like he kind of stood out, you know, because of the position of the time there, right?

[20:45] But I'm calling you know some famous ballplayer Mister Baseball or something like that. So Thomas wasn't original Thomas. I mean, other people have been calling Aristotle the philosopher, right? But Thomas uses that Antonomasia a lot of times when he quotes Aristotle. How does the second form? This always hangs me up. How does the second form of Antonomasia, whereby the particular name applied to the general, how does that differ from synecdoche, where you might call?

[21:24] Isn't synectiki similar to that second form? What is synectiki? Part. Right, meaning synectiki. Yeah, yeah. And also the difference. Yeah, see the difference between in one case you're dealing with the composed whole, right? Right, so that's the only difference. Yeah, yeah. Then it's composed and integral And the other guy is universal whole, right? Yeah. So, but when I classify the figures of speech, I put those two next to each other, right?

[22:11] Because of their similarity. So you say, "In the word was made flesh," they're giving the name of the what part to the whole, right? See, you know, sometimes the heretics. Misunderstood those words, right, and said that he didn't have a human soul, but in place of human soul was his divinity, right? The word was in place of it. But actually, the word flesh there is used like it's used elsewhere in scripture sometimes.

[22:43] To you, all flesh must come, right? But sometimes in scripture, you know, they talk about how many souls perished, right? Meaning how many men perished, right? And there are reasons why you might, you know, have synectiky from the better part, the soul, in some cases, right? And another from the lesser part, right? Because in Saint Paul's, too, or may not Saint Paul, but Saint John, emphasized that Christ went all the way down, assuming even the what the lowest part of us, you might say, the flesh, right?

[23:18] Okay. But whatever the reason for emphasizing that part by naming the whole from that part, it's an example of synectiky, right? Yeah, yeah. They tossed a law. French king says on the state, you know, it's me, you know, I am.

[23:45] Can rise to say when they connect, died, you know, half the faculty is gone, right? Say is the faculties, so to speak, right? Or right? Yes. Um. But again, that would be synectiky, right? Where the part

[24:05] is said to be the whole, right, or vice versa. So he's a brain Say he's a brain. Say he's a brain. Is it more rare in this instance to go vice versa the other way, like it's more common this way for the part as opposed to? I suppose in the case synectiky, yeah, even more apt to just the opposite of yeah, yeah, Thomas, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so it's it's good to understand those parts of those figures of speech, both for reading what scripture, right, and for for reading fiction, right.

[24:46] But also, as I say, they're they're used in speeches, huh? You know, and Pericles has a famous funeral oration where all the young men in Athens, you know, some had been killed. He sits as if spring had been taken out of the year, right? That's a beautiful metaphor, right? So, spring there is a metaphor for the young men, huh, for the city, okay. Where the old man might be called metaphorically winter.

[25:15] Okay. So he says the philosopher, meaning Aristotle, right. In the second book about the soul, says that the soul, and now he quotes the definition, except for one word there. The first act, right? It's the first act of a natural body. The physici there is not so much a translation as a transliteration, right, of the word natural. Because the Greek word for natural is what

[25:58] phusis, right? Or for nature, nature is phusis, right? Okay, so physical would actually mean in Greek what natural, right? So actually, what they call, you know, in biology they speak of physiology. That's one part of biology, but actually physiology means really natural science as a whole. You could ask, you know, why that that got to be named, but.

[26:31] So it's the first act of a natural body having life, right? In potency, right? I mean, the operations of life. So he says the soul, therefore, is compared to the body as a form to what matter.

[26:53] But the the body has some substantial form, to which it is a body, right? Therefore, before the soul, there is some what substantial form preceding it in the body, huh? And that's the way that objections understand the definition, huh? You're saying that the soul is something of, namely, the first act of a natural body, right? Having life in potency. So the soul is one thing, the natural body, right, is something else, right?

[27:27] Yeah. And the natural body is a body through something other than the soul, then, right? Otherwise, it wouldn't exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And Thomas says, we'll point out in the reply to the objection that you're misunderstanding the definition there, right? Okay. And we'll see the way he he he solves that, right? Okay. You see how the objection proceeds, huh?

[28:00] Moreover, man and every animal moves itself, right? Something that moves itself. In fact, that's kind of the common meaning of life, right? Self-motion. But nothing moves itself, huh? And so everything moving itself is divided into two parts. One of which is the mover, and the other is the what moved, as is proven in the eighth book of natural hearing, or the physics. But the moving part, the mover part, if you want to call it that, ambiguity of moving in English, the part which moves something, right, is the soul, right.

[28:51] Therefore, necessary that the other part be such that it be able to be what moved, right. But first, matter is not able to be moved, as is said in the fifth book of natural hearing, fifth book of the physics, since its being only in what potency. Now, shown later on in the sixth book of natural hearing that everything that moves is a what body, right? Okay. So again, this objection is saying, if man is an animal, a self-moving thing, right?

[29:35] It's got to have one part that is the mover and one part that is moved. And the mover, of course, is the soul. But what is moved must be a body. So the soul is one thing; the body is something else. Hence, the body must be what it is by a form other than the soul, right?

[29:57] You see the way the objection is proceeding. Therefore, it's necessary that in man and in every animal, okay, not just in man but in every animal, right? That there be another substantial form through which or by which is constituted a what body?

[30:22] Now, the third objection. Moreover, there is a order in forms to be noted according to their relation to the first matter. Before and after, right, are said in comparison to some what beginning, right? Incidentally, I think I've mentioned before that in the fifth book of wisdom, Aristotle takes up the words that are used in the axioms and used especially in wisdom, and words that are used to some extent in every science because they're so common.

[31:11] The first word he takes up is the word principium, the word beginning, right? In Greek, it's arche. Um. Then a little bit later on, when he's talking about the parts of one, he takes up the words proteron proteron and husteron, before and after, right? And of course, these two words are kind of closely related, huh? Because

[31:41] when he's first taking up the meanings of the word beginning, and he goes through the the six basic meanings, and then he gives kind of a common notion of beginning, huh? That a beginning is what is first, he says, in being, or in becoming, or in knowing. Okay. So he kind of defines beginning by first. Well, if you stop and think about it, first would be defined by before, because first is what is before everything else.

[32:16] But having given this common notion of beginning, when he gets down to before and after. He doesn't do what he does in the categories, right? Where he just distinguishes the meanings of before and after, like we saw before. before, But he recalls the common notion of beginning. How beginning is what is first in being or becoming, or in what

[32:43] being known, right? And then he distinguishes various senses of before and after, corresponding to different senses of beginning. And that's because of what Thomas says here, that before and after are said in comparison to some what beginning.

[33:03] Okay. So when we arrange things and put them in order, we usually start with some beginning, and what is closer to that beginning we put next, and then what is not as close after that, and right down the line, right? So the beginning, in a sense, determines the before and after.

[33:33] You see it very much in the case of numbers, right? You start with one, and then you give them two, three, four, five, and so on, right? And someone said two, three, five, four. You say, oh, no, no, no. Four before five, because four is closer. Okay. To one, then five is.

[34:03] If therefore there was not in man another substantial form besides the rational soul, but the rational soul, the reasonable soul, adhered immediately to first matter, it would follow that it was in the order of the most imperfect forms, which immediately exist in matter.

[34:32] You see what he's saying there, right? It's a little bit like when we we talk about let's say speech, right? And you'd say, well,

[34:47] beginning of speech is really letters, huh? Okay. And then we say, in a word, there is a what arrangement of letters, right? And then in a sentence, there is an arrangement of what words. And then in a paragraph, there is an arrangement of sentences, and so on, huh? And that's ways kind of understanding these things, right? And if you try to put the arrangement of the sentence down there and say the arrangement of the sentence is something exists in the letters, you don't have anything in between there.

[35:23] You'd be making it the lowest form. Okay. But again, Thomas is going to resolve that objection by pointing out that the soul, although it gives the lowest thing that a form can give to matter, namely to be a body, right? It gives all the higher things up till limits. Okay, yeah. So, but like as I say, going back to the comparison of numbers, if you say that in five there is a two, then you're saying five comes right after one because two comes right after one, right?

[36:08] So it's the lowest number, right? Well, if five only had two, then it would be the lowest, right? But it has two and three and four in it, right? It has what two has, but something more. Namely, it has what three has, but something more, namely what four has, right? And something more that four doesn't have, right? So the soul, in that sense, is what higher in perfection, right?

[36:43] Because it gives to matter not only the perfection that the lowest form does, but all the higher perfections. Moreover, the human body is a mixed body, huh?

[37:02] Now you got to understand what they mean by mixture when they speak this. Doesn't mean usually in Thomas or in Aristotle what we mean by mixture. Doesn't mean you're just taking, you know, like my grandchildren there, right? Having cinnamon sugar on their toast, right? So my dad there puts some butter on the bread, right, and then the sugar and cinnamon together, right? But the sugar and cinnamon really haven't become one thing, have they?

[37:31] They're just very small pieces, the two, but juxtaposed, okay? They're put in, you know, into one common shaker, right? But in the strict sense of mixture in Aristotle and Thomas, the elements are not simply juxtaposed, but they've been replaced by something that is one.

[37:59] So he's going on and saying, well, the human body is a mixed body, huh? It's not simply what earth or air or fire or water, one of the simple elements, huh? But it combines the elements, but okay.

[38:18] But a mixture does not come about according to matter only, because then it would be what only a corruption. Okay. Well, if the elements came together and reunited only in the fundamental first matter, right, then all the elements would be corrupted, right? So the objection is saying that the different elements, what, somehow remain together, right? Huh? Okay. In the same way, when we say today, when we say that hydrogen and oxygen come together and they what form water, right?

[39:07] Huh? But we think that hydrogen and oxygen, or we speak the word off a lot of times, is if they are both actually found in the water, right? Huh? Okay. And that may or may not be true. See the fact that you can get. Hydrogen and oxygen from water

[39:32] is a sign that in some way they're in there, right? But are they necessarily actually distinct in the water? See? See? Well, that's maybe not altogether clear, huh? And you read even the scientists, huh?

[39:51] Like Schrödinger, right? The author of the Schrödinger equation, but he's a very famous physicist. But he says, you know, talking about the elementary particles when they come together, and he says they become blurred. He says, right? When I say blurred, he says, I don't mean in our knowledge. In reality, they become blurred, huh? And they lose their what? Individuality, their distinction, right? Now, see? So you got to be kind of careful both ways on there.

[40:23] And you know, when Shakespeare praises, um, at the end of Julius Caesar, right, where as Octavius Caesar, he praises Brutus, right, and how the elements are so mixed in him, right? That all the earth, you know, or nature might stand up and say to all the world, this was a man, right? You know, and then they balance in the man, but that's you know said according to the you know the ancient knowledge, right?

[40:51] That there's a mixture of earth, air, fire, and water in us, but you know, in those of us who are better disposed to be human, the mixture is finer, right? And the more balanced, huh? See? Well, some people might have you know a lot of fire and they're irascible, you know, they don't have control their anger, and others might have a lot of water, and you got you know dropsy, and and some might be melancholic, right?

[41:18] Got a lot of earth or something, huh? Thing, and so on. So, but in the thinking of Aristotle and Thomas, when the elements came together, you didn't simply have earth, air, fire, and water as distinct substances, right? But you had a new substance, right? That something of the power of the different elements, but was really a you know had its own substantial form, okay? But this objection is not proceeding exactly the way Thomas and Aristotle would understand the mixture.

[41:52] And so he's saying the mixture does not come about according to matter only; that they're only in what united in first matter, because then the elements would remain at all. It's necessary, therefore, that the forms of the elements remain in the mixed body, right? Now, Thomas and Aristotle would would deny that, see? Okay. Which are substantial forms? Therefore, in the human body, there are other substantial forms besides the what human, what soul, right?

[42:26] And this is proceeding from a principle that Aristotle and Thomas would think is mistaken, right? But you can see how modern would obviously think that, right? And it's interesting how when you read sometimes the moderns there and they think of your body or my body, we're a many-celled animal, right? And then there are these one-celled animals, right? Well, if you think you know that we're many-celled in the sense that we're composed of many of these one-celled things, we're not really one thing, right?

[43:06] It makes me kind of crawly to think of myself, you see. Like a big colony. Yeah, yeah, it's a big colony of of one-celled animals, right? And you know, if you study some of the lower forms of life, there are ones where these one-celled come together and they seem to form kind of a colony, right? And it's kind of hard to to say exactly is this one thing now or is it just a colony of many one-celled things?

[43:31] But when it comes to you and me, right? Our cells don't really function as what complete individuals, huh? Yeah. That they lose the individuality that the one-celled amoeba has, huh? Yeah. And and if it didn't, we'd be really kind of a chaotic thing, huh? We'd be completely chaotic, all, you see. And again, you know, maybe something like that, you know, when you think about even the lower things, as they say, like the like water or something of this or what we call a chemical compound, do the elements remain as distinct, you know, substances as they were before they came together, right?

[44:16] Or have they, in some sense, ceased to be and something something one unique has has taken their place, huh? You know, modern modern physics in the 20th century became much more subtle, you know, and and much I think closer to the truth, huh? And

[44:44] don't understand too well, but you hear things like the the Pauli exclusion principle, right? And where only certain, let's say, energy levels can be occupied, and other ones if they're occupied, other ones can't occupy them. They don't act like like independent individuals anymore, and they see more and more examples of this. So, but again, as I say, people can can often get into the position, you know, thinking that that

[45:20] you know all these things are families of substances, right? And I used to, you know, sometimes use a simple example there. I take, you know, talking to a college level. I'd say, you know, if a student, let's say from Holy Cross, comes over to Assumption College and beats up an Assumption College student, right? Well, now would it be just for some Assumption College students to, you know, drive over to Holy Cross or the area around there and find some Holy Cross student and beat the heck out of him, right?

[46:02] Quid pro quo? Would that be just? Now everybody would recognize that as unjust. And the same thing, you know, if if a Palestinian comes over and and shoots a Jew there, you know, does a Jew have a right to go over and shoot just any Palestinian? See. Now we recognize that it's not just right to

[46:34] retaliate in those ways, okay? But now, let's say if you hit me, right, with your right fist, then you might recognize I have a right to retaliate, right? But do I have to hit your right fist? See, I can hit you where you are vulnerable. You see.

[47:01] And could you, you know, claim, well, my right fist hit you, and you hit me in the chest, let's say, right? Well, the chest didn't hit you; that was unjust. See. But if I was really a combination of what cellular substances, right? Then to hit my chest because my right fist hit you in the jaw or something, right? Would be like my going and beating up somebody from another school.

[47:38] You see. You know, you see these things sometimes. You know, horrible things like you know, black and white. You know, people sometimes, and and some terrible things done, let's say, by a white man to a black man, or vice versa. And the black man go out to look for some white man to do the same thing that's done to one of theirs, or vice versa, right? And that's crazy for many reasons, but but it's really unjust, right?

[48:02] I mean, this other guy is not doesn't have that kind of unity where you by you can do this, huh? Um. And so you know, if if a a Jew kills a Palestinian,

[48:21] we said not just for the Palestinians to take just any Jew and punish them for that, right? But if I do something bad, I go out and hit somebody or like that, and the state, you know, arrests me and so on. They don't have to punish the part of me that did the damage, right? They can punish me in some other part, right? They can give me twenty lashes or something like that.

[48:44] My back didn't hit anybody; it was my fist, you know. But it's not unjust for them to punish me on my back for what my fist did, right? Because that's I'm one thing, one substance, right? So you see, in the way we look at these things legally and morally, right? They recognize that that we're one thing, right? In the way that assumption, college student body, or the Jewish people, or the white people, or the black people, whatever it is, are not one what substance, right?