De Anima (On the Soul)
88. Summa I q.77 a.1–2: Differences and Properties, the Definition of Faith, and Why the Soul Has Many Powers
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/088-summa-i-q-77-a-1-2-differences-and-properties-the-definition/

[0:00] The sixth one is simply a misunderstanding of the text, and Thomas points it out. The soul, although it is composed, although it is not composed from matter and form, nevertheless has something of potentially potentiality admixed in it, as has been said above. Now that's even true of but the substance of an angel, because the substance of an angel is not its existence. Only in God is the substance the existence of it.

[0:35] So if the substance is not the existence of the thing, the substance is to existence something as potency is to what act. So that's why

[0:47] Thomas, when he talks about the angels, he'll say that although they're not composed of matter and form, they're not pure act. And so he says,

[1:00] since it's not therefore pure act, it can be the subject of an accident. But the proposition that was induced there, if you know the text of Boethius, has place in God, who is pure act, right? In which matter Boethius introduces that statement.

[1:18] He's a great mind, Boethius. I think he's the greatest mind there between Augustine and Thomas. Okay. Now the seventh objection was saying that we use these as differences, but Thomas points out, rational and sensible, in so far as they are differences, are not taken from the powers of sense and reason, but from the sensing soul and the rational soul. But because substantial forms, which by themselves are unknown to us, and you people can certainly testify to that, the difficulty of understanding the soul, right?

[2:02] They become known through their what accidents, right? Accidents known as sense of properties. Nothing prevents sometimes accidents being laid down in place of substantial differences. Now let me just give one one aspect of that kind of difficult text, but anyway,

[2:29] when Euclid, huh, not Euclid, when Porphyry defines difference, huh, he follows Aristotle, right? And the definition of difference is this: it's a name said with one meaning

[2:52] of many things, other in kind. Signifying how they are what they are. Now the very definition of difference is the idea that it's not set of just one what species.

[3:40] And Aristotle, when he talks about the unity of things and their differences, seem to contradict this, right? There should be one difference, right, that enables you to say what makes this to be one particular kind of thing. Well, Thomas raises that question in the commentary on the Posterior Analytics. He says that the essential differences of things are hidden to us, huh? And that's why we need a combination of differences to what express it, huh?

[4:22] So, if you wanted to take an example, then of this, it would be bad to take as an example rational animal. Down through I can show you all these old popular logic books, right? And the common example of a definition, right, with genus and difference, is rational animal. Where you seem to have one difference, right, that completes what man is and separates him from everything else. And rational set only of one kind of thing, namely man, right?

[4:57] That's contrary to the very definition given by Porphyry and Aristotle, even before that, of difference, huh? What's going on here? Say. Well, Porphyry does define what property, huh? And property in the strict sense is what belongs to only one species, to every member of it, and what always, right?

[5:28] So, if you had a property in that strict sense, one property would separate the thing, right, from everything else, huh? Like half of four separates two from everything else, right? Without being this the difference that makes it to be two, you see that? But if you don't have a property like that, and you're giving differences, you would tend to, in fact, use a combination of differences. That fit only in one thing, as if you lack one, the one essential difference that makes it to be the one thing it is, and therefore I was taking the standard example in class, the definition of square.

[6:20] You know, it's an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral. Well, quadrilateral is the genus, right? Equilateral doesn't fit just square, does it? The rhombus is also equilateral. Right-angled doesn't fit just square. The oblong is also that, right? But the combination of those two fits just this one thing, huh? And that certainly, for the most part, is the kind of difference you're going to find all the way through philosophy.

[6:52] When Aristotle is taking up, let's say, the great forms of fiction there, and he's going to talk about tragedy, right? He's going to talk about the epic, going to talk about comedy, okay?

[7:10] He takes, you know, a great or famous writer of each, huh? He takes Homer, the great writer of epics, right? And he takes Sophocles, the greatest writer of tragedies. He takes Aristophanes, the most famous of the Greek comic poets, huh? And he says, now if you compare these three, right? Sophocles and Homer are alike in representing men who are greater than us.

[7:41] But Sophocles and what? Aristophanes are alike in representing men with this acted out in front of us on the stage, huh? So he has one difference, right, that separates Sophocles and Homer from Aristophanes, right? Another difference that separates what? Aristophanes and Sophocles from Homer. Yeah, yeah. And you need both to really separate tragedy entirely from what? Epic and comedy, huh? So Aristotle defines tragedy, huh? It's the likeness of an action that is what?

[8:24] Serious and of some magnitude, right, huh? And so on, huh? But but say you have a serious action, right? But then he'll add later on, acted out and so on, huh? You see? So he has one difference that's common to to tragedy and comedy, acted out, and one that's common to tragedy and epic, the representing serious things, and you see.

[8:50] So for the most part, you have that, huh? But not knowing the essential difference, you might also use a property in place of the essential difference. Then you might have something that is convertible to the thing. Like to have reason is convertible with man,

[9:10] and then you could say what man is a rational animal, but rational there the name is taken from the ability which is in the genus of quality, right? But you're trying to designate whatever it is in the nature of man, whence it follows upon him to have what reason, right? You see, it's kind of a circumlocution in a sense, right? Because the essential differences of things are hidden to us.

[9:39] I think I quoted the the central thinker there, Heraclitus, and he says nature loves to hide. You see, nature loves to hide. I think I struck a I suppose I was in, the bookstore, you know, and look at the science books there. There's one called Nature Loves to Hide. I said because he's going to Acknowledge that he's stolen this phrase from the central thinker, huh? But that's true, huh?

[10:06] You see, the natures of things are very much hidden from us, huh? And so we tend to know the natures of things through their accidents, which are closer to our senses. And so that's that's solution Thomas is giving here, right? When you say that that man has an understanding soul and the the cats walking around here have a sensing soul and the tree has got a a feeding soul or reproducing soul, right?

[10:37] You're really naming the what kind of soul they have, which is in the genus of substance, from a property, right? From a power that they have, or the ultimate power that they have in their kind, huh? And that power, you know, follows upon the nature of it, huh? And therefore can be used, you know, in place of the essential difference, but it's still that, huh? And so sometimes when you use a property, you have a name that is convertible to the thing being defined.

[11:10] But when Aristotle defines difference, he defines it in this way, because usually what you have is a what a combination, huh? You'll see that, you go through the sciences, huh? Did you ever study the definition of what it is to believe in theology? In the theological virtue of belief, huh? But but you know Thomas follows the definition of what Saint Augustine, right? Oh. You see. And Augustine has a couple ways of defining it, but perhaps the best way is he says that to believe is to assent while thinking about it.

[11:50] You see, to firmly assent while thinking about it. And Thomas says you read Thomas' explanation of that magnificent definition of Augustine. It's really a beautiful definition. Um, to assent firmly to something, we find elsewhere, right? Like for example, I assent firmly to the statement that two is half of four, right? I assent firmly to the statement that no odd number is even, right? Right. I'm not thinking about it because it's obvious to me.

[12:22] You see. But in the case of of of faith, there, huh? What I assent to firmly is not obvious to me, huh? Okay. Other times, right? We think about something before we assent.

[12:42] So we don't assent while thinking about it, but we assent after thinking about it. But that's not what faith is. It's to assent firmly, right? While thinking about it. So you're saying that you would assent, meaning, live it out some some way, and not just think about it. No, no, your mind would firmly agree to it, huh? Say.

[13:10] And in philosophy, right, natural reason, right, you don't assent firmly to something until you've what thought it out, right? Okay. And some things you assent to without having to really think them out because they're obvious, right? Other things you assent to after thinking them out, right? Okay, after thinking about it. But here you assent to something that will not be obvious until you see God as He is face to face.

[13:41] Then it would be obvious that God is this, huh? And that's why you continue to what think about it, huh? That kind of contains in seed the definition of theology of Saint Anselm. Belief seeking understanding, right? It's already implicit when you say you're assenting while thinking about it. So

[14:06] you can't define to believe with just assent, because that wouldn't separate to believe from my thinking that a whole was more than a part, right? It's not by the theological virtue of of faith that I think that a whole is more than a part. It's not by that that I think the no odd number is even, right? It's not by that that I think the interior angles of a triangle equal to right angles, huh?

[14:31] Okay. But that a whole is more than a part, I assent to that without having to to reason it out, right? That the triangle's interior angles equal to right angles, I have to reason it out, think it out, and then I assent to it, huh? Ah, now I see it must be so, right? Well, neither one of those is true of faith.

[14:54] So I don't assent without thinking about it. I don't assent after thinking about it. I assent to it while thinking about it. That's why there can be this thing that you know that the always quote from Saint Anselm, you know, theology is faith seeking understanding, huh? Because you assented to something you don't fully understand and will never fully understand in this life anyway, huh? Then your mind naturally remains what?

[15:23] It wonders about this, huh? You see, that's one of the names of Christ there in Isaiah It says he's wonderful, huh? See? It will be against the nature of your mind not to think about what you assent to.

[15:37] It's not obvious to you, right? Huh? You don't understand it, huh? Your mind should be what? It's fascinating, right, Why there being three persons in God. How can this be? What does this mean, right? Does He have parts? I mean, I don't understand this, right? I assent to it because God has revealed this, right? But I think about it because I don't understand it and see why it should be so, right?

[16:03] And then theology is kind of now you got to be very careful in theology because you don't get a reason in theology that would show you that it must be so, right? Because then that would you know eliminate faith. But you get a reason that Thomas says is a consolation to you. You see, and kind of a consolation until you get to the vision of God as He is face to face.

[16:30] So I just give an example, you know, of something where what you define faith, right, by two things neither of which belongs only to faith. See, and that's in the definition here of difference, right? Instead of many things, other in kind. That's in fact what we do. So at least for the most part, differences are of that sort. You don't have one difference that fits only to the thing you're defining.

[17:05] unless you're using a property in a sense, as he said, but you have you have need of a combination of differences that will what fit only that one thing you're defining.

[17:22] So let's take a little break here, then we'll look at the second article here, which is a little bit shorter, okay? Did we forget seven? By the way. What you see, Aristotle's so modest there in the We didn't do seven, not seven. What? We didn't do odd seven. That's what I'm just talking about. What you just had on the word who said that? That's Boethius. I mean, that's originally Aristotle's definition of difference, but it's also also repeated in Porphyry, right?

[17:59] Aristotle's porphyry. right? Yeah. two articles these days. Okay. The second one proceeds thus: It seems that there are not many powers of the soul. For the understanding soul, most of all, approaches what the divine likeness, huh? But in God there is one and a simple power, which is His very essence, right? Therefore, also in the what understanding soul, huh?

[18:46] Moreover, the more superior a power is, the more united it is. But the understanding soul excels other forms in its power. Therefore, it most of all ought to have just one what? Power.

[19:08] Moreover, to operate is something existing in act. But through the same essence of the soul, man has being according to the diverse grades of perfection, as was said above. There's only one soul, one man. Whereby he has a perfection of a plant, right? You know, can nourish himself and reproduce, but also perfection of an animal, right? Whereby he can sense, but then also the perfection of understanding.

[19:38] Therefore, through the same power of the soul, it operates different, the operations of different grades. But against this is what the philosopher, that's Aristotle, of course, in the second book about the soul, lays down many powers of the what? Soul. I answered that it ought to be said that it is necessary to lay down that there are many powers of the soul, and for the evidence of this, not to consider, as the philosopher says in the second book, de Caelo or as you call it in Latin, De Caelo et Mundo, right?

[20:17] That things which are lowest in things, huh, cannot, what, obtain a perfect goodness, huh? But they obtain something imperfect by few what motions, huh? But the superior superior things achieve a perfect goodness by many motions.

[20:49] But superior to those are things that attain perfect goodness by few motions. This is a very subtle thing that Aristotle is saying, right? He's distinguishing three levels, right? Something that reaches great perfection with very few means, huh? Something that, at the other end, lowest down, that reaches not a very high perfection, right? But also by few means. And then you have something in between that gets a higher perfection than that lowest thing does, but has to use many means, unlike the highest things, huh?

[21:32] Okay. And Aristotle is a beautiful comparison here, huh? Just as that is lowest, disposed towards health, who cannot what get a perfect health, right? But they can get some little bit of health, right, with a few remedies or aids, right? But better disposed is the one who can get perfect health, but he needs many what remedies to do this, huh? And still yet, one who what can get perfect health with few remedies, huh?

[22:19] But best of all, who without any remedy has perfect health, right? That's a very interesting thing that Aristotle is pointing out there. A little bit

[22:32] like you might say that a computer has a lot more perfection than what? Typewriter. Yeah, or a ballpoint pen or something, right? Ballpoint pen has only a few parts, huh? But you can't do much with a ballpoint pen compared to the computer, huh? Computer has all these what complicated parts there in order to what? To do much more, right? Huh? Okay. Well, if you could do much more with what few parts, you'd really have a good machine, huh?

[23:10] You see. And to some extent, you see that in the watches, right? Because? These watches here have a much better what timekeeping, but they're much simpler than the what the old wind-up watches, huh? You see. Remember the old wind-up watches I have one of well good ones that my wife gave me when we got married, huh? And you wind it up and so on, but then after a few months it gets not keeping time properly.

[23:36] You have to take it to a to an expert, right? He takes it apart and oils it and cleans it and all sort of stuff, and then you put it all together again, right? After I get tired of that because it's expensive, you know, to have the thing cleaned and so on, and you can buy a Timex or something, right, for fifteen twenty dollars, and you get better time than this big, you know, clock with all the complicated parts, right?

[23:58] See, that's Aristotle's thing there, right? Huh? Something else might not be able to keep time hardly at all if it doesn't have much in the way of parts, right? Something else can keep good time but needs all kinds of parts to do this with, right? Something else can tell time as well, if not better, but with what just a few parts, right? So, what he's pointing out is that something above and below you might have fewer what parts or fewer means, but the one below you gets a much less perfection than you do with those few means.

[24:32] The one above you a much greater perfection with its few means, huh? Kind of strange, huh? It should be said, therefore, that the things which are below man achieve some particular goods, and therefore they have what few and determined operations and powers, huh?

[24:59] Now, if you compare, say, a plant with a what animal, right? The plant is much simpler than the animal, isn't it? But the animal can do many more things than the plant can do. In order to do it, it's got to have many more what parts and so on, huh?

[25:26] Man, however, is able to what achieve a universal and perfect goodness, huh? Something infinite about man because he can attain to what beatitude, right?

[25:40] But he is nevertheless in the lowest what grade according to nature of those things to which beatitude can belong. A man is much below the angels, huh? And therefore, the human soul needs many and diverse operations and what powers, right? Huh? To get something like. The angels have, but not even as good as they have it, right? See. Now, the the animal, and if it's sorry, the plant, they don't get as much as man, but they don't have to have as many things, right?

[26:12] And the plant less than the what, animal, right? So it's much easier, you know, to to experiment with plants than with an animal, because the animal can easily interfere with with the animal,

[26:28] because it's the variety. I can imagine this cat around the house. There, you know, sleeps and feeds, and doesn't have much variety in the food and so on, right? See, all we do is open a can of that food and give it to her, and that's about it, and some water, and that's about it. Once in a while, hand out from the table, you know, but but we humans we acquire all this variety of things, you know, and and tools and pots and pans and things to make these things like to make my tea and like to make my you know, toast in and something like that, right?

[27:01] But Mappa doesn't need a toaster or a frying pan or a tea kettle or anything like this at all, right? See, just a can of. But for this, you know, high life, I need all these things.

[27:17] Okay, Not to throw a wrench into this, but I remember watching something about a dolphin. How they say that when they put a mirror in front of a dolphin and put a little mark on its body, it actually noticed the difference. Self-recognition, in a sense, you know, self-awareness, and I was just kind of wondering: is that exactly the way you know our kind of recognition, self-awareness? Is that?

[27:38] Does that mean that dolphins maybe are not strictly speaking just animals? is there a possibility that they might be a different category, or maybe even I don't know. No, I don't. They don't think that they would be. Be reason as Shakespeare defines it, huh? You know, but they might be one of the more intelligent of the animals, huh?

[28:02] Okay, but to the angels, right? There is a less diversity of powers, huh? But in God, there is no what power action apart from His essence, huh?

[28:21] That's why God is said to have one verb, right? One thought, the word of God, huh? But as you go down through the angels, they require more and more thoughts, huh? But the higher angels know more with less thoughts. All the way down, take it to man, who seems to need a separate thought for everything he wants to think about in particular.

[28:49] That's interesting reason that he gives then, but it goes back to what Aristotle was showing there in the De Caelo there. Now he gives another reason here in the last paragraph. There is another reason wherefore the human soul. Abounds in a diversity of powers, and that's because as the Greek and the Arab commentators say, man is on the horizon, right, of the spiritual and the what bodily world, huh?

[29:19] He's in the border between the spiritual and the what bodily creatures, huh? And therefore, there runs together in him the powers of both kinds of creatures. So we have in common with the angels understanding and will. We have in common with the dog sensation, and emotion. And we have in common with the tree nourishment and reproduction, huh?

[29:51] So because man is what kind of brings together both worlds, huh? He's going to have to have a more what diversity of powers, huh? And other things make sense, huh? It's very interesting the way Scripture speaks of these things. You know, when you look at these hymns and praise of God and so on, praising God from creatures. You know, praise the Lord, all your works of the Lord.

[30:15] They'll go through the higher things like the angels first, and they'll go down to the material things, and then you end up with what man. And this is the same order Thomas follows in Summa, right? He talks about the angels first, and then about the especially the non-living world, the material world, and then he talks about man, who's kind of what composed of both, right? And when they come to the the last part of the Summa, you're talking about the Trinity, and they say, "Well, could God the Father have become man?

[30:46] Yes. Could God the Holy Spirit have become man? Yes. Or was it more appropriate for God the Son to become man, right? And so on. And but when they talk about the appropriateness of taking on human nature, it's to take back in a way the whole of creation to God, huh? He's the beginning and the end of all things, right? And man is the creature that is what involves both the bodily world, right, and the immaterial world, huh?

[31:13] So taking on human nature, he seems to be taking on what the whole of creation, some way. So, but that fits in with this thing here, huh? That the human soul is sort of, as the Arab commentators say, on the horizon, right, on the material and immaterial world. So man is kind of a a split thing almost there.

[31:41] Yeah. Now, in what way, now going back to the first objection, does man exceed more to God? Well, now you see, there's a little problem there because

[32:02] God is altogether what simple, right? Right. If you look in the Summa, there after you show the existence of God in question two of the Summa, in the same part, then question three, the first question on the substance of God, is the simplicity of God, huh? And Thomas goes through and shows that none of the kinds of composition we know are found in God, and then he shows that there can't be any composition in God.

[32:31] So God is altogether simple, huh? And I remember Saint Teresa of Avila saying in one place that God is altogether simple, and the closer we become to God, the simpler we become, huh? Okay. So there, that there's truth in that, right? There's a way in which you could say Saint Francis of Assisi is simpler than we are, right? The great saints here, or Mother Teresa, there. There's simplicity about these people, huh?

[32:58] Ah, that's marvelous. But. Here, the objection is saying, "Well, man is made in the image and likeness of God. Man is what more like God, right, than the dog is, and a fortiori, man is more like God than the tree is, right? But God is altogether simple, and the tree is what simpler than man?

[33:26] Is it? So it's kind of a paradox there, right? Man approaches more the perfection of God. I can't imagine our Lord saying to the tree, 'Be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect. ' Even to the dog, right? You can say that to us, right? We approach more the perfection of God, but at the same time, we don't seem to have the simplicity that a stone has.

[33:52] Let's say, right? But that's why he added the body, the text there. When Aristotle saw that the highest things, yeah, will reach a great perfection, and also a what Greater simplicity in other things. So the angels are what they're more perfect than we are by nature, and they're simpler than we are. They're both more perfect and simpler. We are more perfect in our life than the animal, and a fortiori than the plant, and much more so than the rock, right?

[34:35] But we're not so what simpler than them, are we? So we're more complicated than them, right? And because of the fall. Well, no, Aristotle, you know, saw something about that when he when he made that distinction there, right? There's some people who can what who seem to enjoy good health without taking any medicine or without doing any of these things, right? Other people can enjoy good health, but they have to take you know some medicines, right?

[35:09] Others can enjoy good health, and they got a whole list of medicines, right? Other people can't attain good health at all, and they can keep going, you know, in some perfect way by just a few things that they do, right? It's better to be able to attain perfect health with the what medicines, right? Than to not be able to have perfect health, even though they have to take all these these medicines, huh?

[35:36] Okay. Or the doctor despairs of making you healthy, healthy, right? We'll keep it going for a while, but if you think you have to do it, you know, and so on. So that's going to be in the reply here now.

[35:59] In this. The understanding soul approaches more to a likeness of God than inferior creatures, that is able to what achieve a perfect goodness, right? Although through many and diverse things in which it it falls short of the superior things, meaning the what angels, right? Okay. So the angels are simpler than us, and certainly in terms of our body, the grass is simpler than us, right?

[36:32] But we can what obtain a perfection that the grass cannot, a perfection resembles that of the angels, but only through many and diverse means, huh? Yeah. It's interesting that when Thomas takes up the the first two questions there in the

[36:56] substance of God, there the first what he takes up is is the what simplicity of God, huh? And then he takes up the what perfection of God. He takes them up next to each other because he says in creatures that are known to us, material creatures, the more perfect things are not as what simple, right? And the more simple things are not so perfect, right? So the the I've always thought I'd rather study botany in some ways than zoology because the plants are much simpler, right?

[37:33] And not so much complications. they not so messy and smelly, either. But they're simpler. But the plant animals are more perfect, right? And man is man's life is more complicated than the the cats, right? I sometimes envy the cats' simplicity of their life, right? Living the way they like. But you have to put up with so much complication for this what perfection, you see. And sometimes you see too, you know, that people who lead a little more perfect life, they require more things than someone who leads a very simple life, huh?

[38:13] Okay. So the farmer might just you know the old days, right? He doesn't have to have all these things that we need, right? Like a stereo to play Mozart, right? Books and so on, huh? Into this start.

[38:31] So Thomas takes those up together because in God they are joined, simplicity and perfection. Now sometimes, huh? Going back to take the example from the Poetics of Aristotle, there, he speaks of how the effect of of the epics of Homer on our emotions, huh, is like the effect of Sophocles' tragedies on our emotions. But then he takes up the question, which is a higher form of fiction, tragedy or what epic, huh?

[39:06] Any reasons that tragedy reaches the same effect as epic, but with what? Fewer, shorter, huh? Interesting, huh? See, well, there the he puts higher, the simpler, right? But you find it, as they say, in sometimes the things we make. The first things we make. I was talking to an old guy years ago, and he's talking about the first radio, and it filled a whole room like this.

[39:39] And they're trying to listen to the national political convention; you could barely hear it. Then we get a little tiny thing, you know, that picks up very clearly. So you get something that, in a way, is simpler, but what? Better, huh? But for the most part, the material world, perfection. Involves what? Complexity. Yeah, composition, right? Not simplicity. So the stone is simpler than the tree, and the tree is simpler than the the dog, and the dog is simpler than you and I.

[40:14] But we're more perfect than the dog. So the order is just the reverse. And so you have to negate that in here, right? You have to see that God is altogether simple, but universally perfect. And that's why he's going to be so interesting to see as he is. Okay.

[40:33] Now I was mentioning that that thing from the letter of John Paul II when he was studying at the Angelicum, right? He was kind of discovering Thomas, huh? And the Thomas could be so simple compared to the other authors. he was, reading. you know, the guys he was reading was, you know, phenomenologists and very, very simple at all to read. But Thomas seems so profound, nevertheless. You know, you can have that perfection of thought and yet express so simply.

[41:00] Yeah, I was thinking what you said about it last week. And if John Paul, being in a communist country as a bishop, where the right is clearly as Thomas, he'd probably be in a gulag by the age of forty. Yeah. So maybe that was out of self-defense that he wrote abstractly, and the people that understood the faith had to, like parables, kind of delve into it, and the communists would be like, "Well, forget it."

[41:22] You know, they kind of stuck by. But I'll tell you, people in their training, you know, they get a a kind of complicated way of speaking. That really doesn't help understanding and gets in the way of it. Yeah. I know when when they tell a joke,

[41:38] Ron MacArthur's wife, you know, Ron MacArthur went up to study under De Koninck, and he was married at the time, see, because he was older, and

[41:50] Ron MacArthur's wife happened to run into Charles De Koninck, and she just asked how her husband was doing, right? And and DeConic says, "Much better now," he says. He's asking simple questions. It's the

[42:03] the questions are getting simpler, but what? More simple. Better. better. You see? You'll see that, huh? You can see it, you know, Plato and Aristotle. They ask the question in a very simple way, but they're very profound. It's very root of the things. huh? As Aristotle says in the in the Ethics there, Plato was right. He used to ask. He says, "Are we on the way from the beginnings?"

[42:33] He says, "Or are we on the way to the beginnings?" What a marvelous question it is! You just have to think about it. Are we on the way from the beginnings, right? Or are we on the way to the beginnings?

[42:52] Heisenberg said the Greeks taught us how to ask questions of principle. And this is the most powerful tool that. Do you have in Western thought the ability to ask a question of principle, a question that what influences all kinds of things, right? It's a central question. Heisenberg said he could see it. Max Planck, you know, was the father of modern physics, the man who proposed the quantum hypothesis in December of 1900.

[43:21] He had been trained to read the Greeks to ask the what right question. And Heisenberg, in his own account, there, but he and Niels Bohr were trying to figure out this quantum phenomena, and they would spend all day, you know, talking about it, and they almost end up in despair, right? And he said, "Go for a walk in the park, " and we said to myself, "Can nature be as absurd as it seems to us in these experiments?

[43:46] " And then finally, they got each other's nerves, and so Niels Bohr went off to go skiing, and Heisenberg stayed in Copenhagen, and they both worked out a solution independent of each other. But he describes when he did it, and he was what alone by himself, and he suddenly asked the right question. I guess as he says in the Gifford lectures, asking the right question is often to go more than halfway to the truth, huh?

[44:11] And once he asked the right question, he almost had the answer like that, huh? He came back and he started calculating to see if the numbers were correct, and he was so nervous, you know, he's making stupid mistakes. When he calmed down and started calculating, they're thinking about perfectly, just, huh? And so

[44:29] there is a simplicity that what involves what perfection, huh? Do you remember where Plato said that about the question of are we on the way from from the beginnings or to the Aristotle reports it in in the the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics. Okay. It's kind of we you know Plato was what right you know you know to ask this question asked it so well.

[45:03] Aristotle was supposed to set up a plaque incidentally to Plato's memory, huh? And the plaque says, "Plato," he says, "the first man to show by word and by example that the happier life is a virtuous life. " Other men had talked about this, but hadn't shown it in their life, right? Other men had shown it in their life, but hadn't taught it. But he's the first man to teach by word and example that the virtuous life is a happy life.

[45:32] Now the second objection is that as a power is superior, so it's more united, huh? But the understanding soul excels other forms in power. Therefore, ought to have what? Most of all, one power. And Thomas says, to the second, it should be said that a united power is superior if it extends to equal things.

[46:17] But a what multiplied power is superior if what more things are subjected to it? Huh. So notice on the case of man, would it be better for man to have reason and not senses, or to have senses and not reason?

[46:40] Well, the angel has reason, understanding without senses, huh? But when you study the angels, you realize that by their thoughts they know not only the universal, but they also know the what. The singular. Singulars, yeah. But we, through our understanding, know the universal, but not the singular. And we need to know the singular through the senses, huh? But the senses can't know the universal. So if the same power can know the universal and the singular, like in the angels, that would be superior, right?

[47:12] But to have what? Not have one power that can know both. It's better to have both powers so you can know both, right? You see. If I could hear you with my eyes, I wouldn't need my ears, right? But it's better to have eyes and ears so I can see and hear you. You see that? Yeah.

[47:41] If I could see and taste the wine, right, with my eyes. But as it is, huh? I need both, huh? You know, the fourth one, the third objection was based upon connection between operating and existing, right? But to one nature of the soul, man has all these what grades of perfection, right? In some sense, he has what the plant has, the animal has, and so on. So why should he have to his soul just one power?

[48:20] And Thomas points out that of one thing there is only one what existence. Substantial existence, that is to say, right? If he had more than one substantial existence, they'd be a man and a dog and maybe something else, right? I can't be a man and a dog and a tree, can I? A man and a beast and a plant? No, it only be one thing, right? And so, if he has something in common with the plant and something in common with the beast.

[48:54] So that I exist in a way on all three levels, right? I nourish and reproduce. I sense. I understand, right? Has to be through what one soul that I do this, right? Otherwise, what would I be? I'd be a plant, and I'd be a beast, and I'd be a man. Wouldn't be one thing, would I? See? But I, but one thing can have many operations, can it?

[49:20] Yeah. But it can't have many existences, right? Right. Yeah. So he says, a one thing there is one substantial existence, but there can be many operations, huh? And therefore, there's only one nature of the soul, but there are many what powers or abilities, huh?

[49:46] Next time we'll be looking at