De Anima (On the Soul)
100. ST I q.78 a.3: How the Five Outer Senses Are Distinguished (Natural vs. Spiritual Change)
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[0:00] use the old word "theorem," right? Something to look at. Yeah. The area, yeah, just it's interesting. Yeah. Um. The theorem I got this friend of mine kind of going. I will hear the whole thing here now. Name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, Lord and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly.

[0:32] Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Praise God. Help us to understand all that you've written. Name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen.

[0:45] So we're in Article Three here, Question Seventy-Eight. To the third, one proceeds thus. It seems that the five outward or exterior senses are not suitably distinguished, huh? For the sense is what.

[1:12] Knowledgeable of accidents, right? And so you contrast that because what's the object of the understanding or reason? Yeah, substance. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And the kind of contrast out the senses knowing only accidents.

[1:36] But this one is starting off from the fact that sense knows accidents, but there are many genres of accidents, as we saw, for example, in what study of the categories, huh? You have quantity, and then you have quality, and then you have relation, and where, and when, and so on. And even there are many kinds of qualities, but all of these are found under one particular kind of quality.

[2:04] Since therefore the powers are distinguished by their objects, it seems that the senses should be multiplied according to the number which there is in the genera of accidents. It should be nine senses, corresponding to the nine genera of accidents, or something of this sort. Yeah. So,

[2:25] what is there special about these accidents that makes them the object of the senses and not other accidents? That's the question. Moreover, magnitude and figure or shape, and the other things which are called the common sensibles, are not sensible per se, but they are divided against them in the De Anima. You may recall that, huh? We took the word what sensible, and we said some things are sensible as such, right?

[2:57] And other things are not sensible as such, but there's something that something else in us knows when we sense, huh? And then they. Subdivided the sensible per se, or as such, into those that are private to one sense, like color, sound, and so on, taste, and then those that are common to more than one sense—not necessary all of them, like shape, and magnitude, motion, and rest, and number, and so on.

[3:31] Okay, so this is taking from that distinction there. It says the diversity of objects per se diversifies powers. Since, therefore, magnitude and figure differ more from color than sound, it seems much more apter to be another what sensitive power that knows magnitude or figure as well as one that knows color and what sound. Okay. Now, just just a minute. Recall from what there in logic, right? The first highest genus was what substance, right?

[4:19] And substance can be divided maybe into material and immaterial, right? Okay. And then the material can be subdivided into living and unliving, and animals and plants, and down to us, right? And the second genus, if you recall, was quantity.

[4:39] That was divided into continuous quantity studied in geometry, and discrete quantity like number studied in arithmetic, arithmetic. And then you had what quality? Yeah. I'm really sorry, but I'm I'm already really confused here because I thought you were talking about the categories of accidents. But what is substance doing up there? Well, I thought you did category accident. I just just enumerate the categories here a bit, right?

[5:10] To make his point more clear, right? Substance is a category, right? No, that's substance, right? That's the first category we're talking about in logic, though. Okay. One underlies all accidents, huh? It stands under, and that's why it's called substance, right? Okay, I know. So, so substance is the first category. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Then we had quantity, quality, and then we had relations, and so on. And just taking these first four ones, which are the ones he takes up at some length, when he takes up quality, he divides quality into four kinds, and the first is called habit or disposition.

[6:03] Incidentally, you know, if you want a place where Thomas. Talks about this division that Aristotle gives, quality into the four. I'm going to give here. He does that in the Prima Secundae, right? He's going to take up the virtues because the virtues are going to be qualities, yeah. And under which of the four species of quality they come? Well, of course, he's going to show that they come under the habit disposition, but he'll go back to this visionary stuff, right?

[6:31] Then you have what we call natural ability, like the ability to understand and the ability to walk, and so on. And then you have these sense qualities, we call them.

[6:49] These are really what were called in the De Anima, in the second book about the soul, the proper or private sensibles, right? Those that are known only in one sense, like color, sound, smell, of a thing. The taste or flavor of it, right? Yes And then the objects that are tactile.

[7:14] And then the fourth species of quality was figure or shape. Yeah. Well, this these objections are saying, hey, the difference between quantity and quality is greater, right, than the difference between different sense qualities, huh? Why don't you have, you know, if the senses are about accidents, why don't you have a sense for this as well as a sense for that, and maybe a sense for other accidents?

[7:49] And then this one here is referring to quantity and figure or shape. Why aren't they more different? Figure or shape, after all, is a different subspecies here of quality from sensible qualities, huh? Why color and sound and smell and taste are subdivisions here, right? So these divisions are under that. Why this is a greater division, isn't it? Why don't you have a different sense for figure or shape, and a different one for what?

[8:22] Quantity. You see, these are we call them the second book common sensibles, right? But if the difference of object, right, gives you a different sense, if, for example, the difference between color and sound, which are two kinds of sense qualities, give you two different senses, sight and hearing, well then figure or shape even more so, right? That's even greater distance, huh? And quantity even more so, right?

[8:53] Okay. That's the second objection, huh? Since magnitude, which would be under quantity, right, along with number, it's entirely different genus, right? Oh yeah. And figure or shape, which is a a what? Different genus under the higher genus quality, right? From sense qualities, would be even more different, right? Why color and sound would be subdivisions of what? Sense qualities, huh? Okay. So obviously things that come under sense qualities are closer together than figure and shape is to any sense quality, right?

[9:36] And if we say oh this is an entirely different genus, huh? So why don't you have more, right? Differences among the senses for objects that are further apart, right? That's the objection, huh? Yeah. Okay. And the first one is taking into account that there are many genera accidents, huh? And subdivisions of them. Why don't you have many more senses than just these so-called five, right? Where did the nine come in?

[10:04] Did you mention there were nine. Well, quantity, quality, relation. Then you have the last six, where, when. So those are the nine what? genera of accidents. Thank you, nine genera of accidents. Yeah, really. These are the ten highest genus. If you include substance, right? But one genus, the substance, and then the nine genera of accidents.

[10:31] Now the third one is a particular what? Difficulty about the sense of touch being one of the five senses. Moreover, he says one sense is of one contrariety. The contraries are the forms that are what? Furthest apart, huh? In the same genus. So, white and black are furthest apart, huh? The genus of color, which sight knows. But touch is knowledgeable of many contrarieties, huh? For example, cold and hot, right?

[11:08] Hot and cold, wet and what? Dry, right, huh? Therefore, there is not one sense, the sense of touch, but what? Many, right? Therefore, there are more senses than the what? Five, huh?

[11:33] Moreover, he says a species is not divided against a genus. You don't divide dog against animal, do you? But as Aristotle often says, taste is a tactus quidam. It's a certain what? Kind of touch, huh?

[11:55] Therefore, one ought not to lay down. Taste as another sense besides what? Touch, huh? So his last two objections are problems that arise with touch in a way, but also taste because it's said to be by Aristotle a kind of touch, huh?

[12:18] But against this is what the philosopher says in the third book about the soul that there is no other sense besides the what? Five, huh?

[12:33] Now Thomas talks about the difficulty people have in trying to assign the reason for this distinction. A number of them. I answer. It should be said that the reason for the distinction and the number of the exterior senses. Some want to take this from the side of the organs, huh? In which one of the elements dominates, as water or air or something of this sort, huh?

[13:05] See, want to say? That's as many kinds of organs as you can have, and they try to explain this in terms of the four elements, of which element dominates, right, in each one, huh? Some try to take it from the part of the medium, huh,

[13:23] that through which it senses, which is either conjoined, as an case of touch, right, it might be your flesh, or extrinsic, as the air, when you see or hear something through the air, right? And this is either air or water or something of this sort, huh?

[13:42] Some want to explain this, huh, from the diverse nature of sensible qualities, according as one is the quality of a simple body, and the other one of a complex body. So, you know, in the ancient physics, there you had what, earth, air, fire, and water. There were simple bodies, right? And they're distinguished by hot and cold, and wet and dry, and so those would be qualities of simple bodies.

[14:07] But taste, right? You're having that salad dressing and that French wine sauce or something of this sort. That's a what? Not a simple body, right? But a complex body, huh? Things, eh? So Thomas mentions some of the common ways people try to approach this, but Thomas says none of these, in his opinion, is a what? Suitable way, right, huh? Now the first way he objects to, huh?

[14:35] For the powers are not for the sake of the organs, huh? But the organs are for the sake of what? Powers. The powers, yeah. Whence there is not an account of this diverse powers, because there are diverse organs, huh? But therefore nature instituted a diversity in organs, that they might be suitable to the diversity of the what? Powers. So notice the power in a sense is to the organ a bit like what?

[15:10] Act. Yeah, like form is to matter, right? And matter is for the sake of form, huh? Okay. Or a bit like the tool, right? Because organon means tool, huh? Okay. And the tool is for the sake of the chief agent, you might say, huh? Okay. So in both cases the organ seems to be for the sake of the power, and therefore there's a diversity of organs to correspond to diversity of powers and not the reverse.

[15:34] Okay. So it's because nature wants to give you the ability to see that's giving you an organ that is suitable for the ability to see, right? Because wants you to hear, it's giving you an organ suitable for the ability to hear, right? Mhm. And so you're taking what's putting the cart before the horse, right? Yeah. If you distinguish the powers by the what? Organs, huh? Okay.

[16:08] Just like you can see, you know, in the different animals, that nature wanted the higher animals to be able to move from one place to another to get their food and their shelter and so on, right? Yeah. So nature wanted them to have the power to move from one place to another, and therefore provided them with suitable what organs, right, to move. But some it gave wings, and some it gave fins, and some it gave, and so on, to fit their needs.

[16:36] And likewise, he says the diverse media to which the object comes are attributed to diverse senses, according as was suitable for the acts of those powers.

[16:51] And he says this distinction. That's a second way of people have approaching it, right? The media now being like the air or the water, right? Yeah. To which you s uh smell or taste. something, right? Yeah. Okay.

[17:11] But the third way, the natures of sensible qualities, for they're base sensible bodies or complex bodies, it doesn't belong to the senses to know the nature of these sensible qualities, but to the what? Understanding, huh?

[17:27] So Thomas now says what he thinks here. He says, therefore, the reason for the number and distinction of the exterior or outward senses should be taken according to that which belongs to properly and per se or as such to the senses, huh? Now what is he saying there, right? Well, he says the sense is a certain what? Passive power, right? It's a power that is apt to be what?

[18:04] Acted upon by its object, huh? Aristotle says sensing is an undergoing, huh? So my hearing sound is a result of sound acting upon my ear, not of my ear acting upon what? Sound, huh? And seeing is a result of light or color acting upon my eye, right? So he says the sense is a passive power which is apt, naturally apt, to be changed by some exterior sensible thing.

[18:41] Therefore, he says something exterior that's able to change the sense is what, as such, is perceived by the sense. And according to the diversity of this, the sensitive powers are what? Distinguished, huh? I notice that you know, just take that principle of sense, huh? That piece of paper acts upon me because it's what? White, huh? Not because it's it's a piece of paper, right? Okay. And if your skin was white, huh?

[19:19] It would act upon me because it's white, huh? Not because it's a face as opposed to a page, right? See? So he says you got to take what is moving the sense as such, huh?

[19:35] Of course, you can see this, especially compare one sense to another sense, because if I look at sugar or salt, let's say, in the bowl over there, huh? My eye maybe won't tell whether it's sugar or salt, right? See? But doesn't act upon the eye because it's sugar or because it's salt, right? But acts upon the eye because it's what? Has a color, namely white, huh? Okay.

[20:05] So you have to see what it is that moves or changes. The sense as such, and it's the difference of that that's going to give you a different what sense, huh? Because you have an object that acts upon us in a different way somewhat, huh? Okay.

[20:34] So he says the exterior exterior ergo immutativo. What you might say from the outside, right, is able to change the sense, right? What from the outside, as such, is able to act upon the sense, right? That's what's going to give you different senses corresponding to differences in that. So he says

[21:06] what immutativum that means is able to change, right? Able to act upon in exterior way is what is perceived by the sense per se as such, and therefore according to the diversity of this, the sensitive powers are distinguished.

[21:26] Now, Thomas is going to speak here now of a twofold what. Kind of changing. Yeah, two kinds of way of acting upon, right? And one he calls natural, and the other spiritual, right? Now, spiritual doesn't mean supernatural, now, right? Okay. Now, what does he mean by these two here?

[21:57] Well, natural, according as the form of the one changing act upon is received in the change according to its natural form. existence, as heat is received in the what thing that is heated, right? And of course, things that don't sense can receive in that way, and in fact do receive in that way, right? Okay. Oh, are you sure about the pot on the on the stove? What?

[22:27] The pot on the stove. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the spiritual acting upon is according as the form of the one acting upon or changing received in the one acted upon according to a kind of spiritual being, as the form of color is received in the pupil of the eye, which does not through this become what colored, huh? Okay.

[23:00] Now. Is his name's William? Huh? No, no, no. Sometimes they describe it this way. They'll say. They'll call that natural reception. Okay. They'll call it material reception sometimes, right? Okay. And the spiritual on a kind of immaterial reception. Oh, yeah. Okay. And they'll say that matter receives in this way. I'll say matter receives the form of another, meaning the quality of another, right?

[23:34] As its own quality, losing whatever quality it might have had. So if the water, let's say, I put on the stove, is cool, right? It's going to receive the heat of the what? Burner. Burner, right? As its own quality, yeah. It itself become warm water, right? And it will lose the coolness that it had. Okay.

[24:03] But this other kind of reception that he calls spiritual here, sometimes they'll call it immaterial, right? And that's where you're receiving the quality of another, not as your own quality, right? But as the quality of a what? Another. While you keep whatever quality you might have had.

[24:28] Now, we mentioned that before when we were talking about the sense of touch, huh? Because this is the most material in the way of the senses. And so when your sense of touch is acted upon by the water, let's say of the shower,

[24:50] there's both kinds of reception going on. But as we said before, you feel the warmth of the water more when you first get in than after you've been in the water for a while. And that's because as you're in the water for a while, your skin is also receiving the warmth of the water as its own quality now, right? And not as the quality of the water that's that's running off, you see.

[25:20] Yeah. And the same way in the reverse example where I was taking of going into the ocean, you know, where it takes me a little while to get accustomed to the cold of the water, right? Even even the southern, you know, down here in Rhode Island or something, right? But you go up to New Hampshire to swim or something like that, and and takes you so long to get adjust to the water, it's hardly worth while to drive up there, you know.

[25:48] But again, when you first go into water, it's chilled, right? And I have to get the water, you have to, and and adjust to it, and then I don't doesn't feel so cold anymore, right? Sure. So I feel the coolness of the water more when I'm receiving it not as. The temperature of my body, but is a temperature of something other than my body, right? See, that's it's a very subtle thing, right?

[26:16] You're receiving, they'll say the form, but meaning in general by form, the quality, right? Of another as your own, losing the one you have. That's material reception, or what he calls natural reception here, or receiving the form of another as other, while what retain the one you have. So, like the difference between the way my eye receives your shape, let's say, and the way marble would receive your shape if Michelangelo should chip you out in marble here, right?

[26:52] See, because the marble would lose the shape it had before he began to chisel, right? And it would receive your shape as now the shape of the marble. The marble does have your shape as its own shape now. You see. Now, I, in some way, must receive your shape in my eye, otherwise I would not recognize you, right? And say, "Oh, I know that person." See, okay. But my eye receives your shape without it becoming the shape of my eye.

[27:32] Nor is there some piece inside me of flesh, I think, or a bone that has now been chiselled out, right? In the way that your shape would have been chiselled out in marble by Michelangelo. Do you see? So I'm receiving your shape now, not as my shape, but as as your shape, while retaining, right, the shape I had. And that's what they call an immaterial or spiritual reception.

[27:57] And this is a distinction that Thomas is making, huh? But to some extent, he's going to see, as you go down, say, from the eye and then the ear, and then the sense of smell, and then down to taste and touch, you have less of a spiritual reception, right, and more aspect of a material reception. huh But we'll see how he explains this.

[28:28] So after he distinguishes the two kinds of reception, he gives an example, notice, of the second reception as the form of color in the eye, right? Which does not, through this, become colored, right? Now he says, "To the operation of sense in general, is required some kind of a spiritual reception, for change, in which the what intention of the sensible form, not its reality, comes about in the organ of sense, a kind of likeness, you might say, of it, huh?

[29:02] Yeah, it was was intention there for a reception that is less than fully what real, you might say, right? In the sense that it becomes your shape, right? Contrast with that. Otherwise, he says, if only this natural or what we sometimes call material reception sufficed for sensing, all natural bodies would sense when they were altered, right? So the pour water on the stove every morning put on for tea would be feeling the what heat of the stove, right?

[29:35] Huh? You see. So it's receiving in that way. That obviously is not sufficient then for sensing, is it? You can't receive the quality of another as your own, right, according to its natural existence.

[29:50] So the intention is only only yeah only used for the the immaterial way. Yeah, there has to be some kind of an immaterial or spiritual reception, as he calls it here, in order to be receiving the way sensing does, right? The other kind of reception is really. Another kind of reception, it's not the reception that is sensing.

[30:17] Okay, so the way in which the marble receives your shape when Michelangelo chips you out in a statue, of you out of marble, you out of marble, is not a way of receiving your shape, whereby the marble would know your shape, right? Okay. In the way that the water in the stove receives the heat of the stove, is not the way in which you would know, right?

[30:41] Or feel the warmth of the stove, huh? See. But if I put my hand on the stove, or like my cat back when I was a kid, smelled something on the stove that smelled pretty good, right? And jumped on the stove and got her her paws kind of singed on the stove, and never, never, as they say later, tried to ever do that again. Yeah. That cat was receiving the heat in a different way than the the meat up there on the on the stove, huh?

[31:10] Yeah. See, is receiving that as the quality of something other than itself, right? Yeah. Okay, so you have to have something that's immaterial or spiritual reception. In in all the senses. Yeah, yeah. But Thomas says here now the next paragraph, and this may be that Aristotle or Thomas himself thought that the reception in sight is even more spiritual than it is. See, we're a little more aware of the fact of photons and photons what hitting the optic nerves and so on, right?

[31:47] Oh. You see. But nevertheless, despite that, the sense of sight still does, in some way, seem more spiritual than the other what senses. Yeah. And a sign of that is our transferring the word seeing to understanding, huh? Which is altogether immaterial.

[32:09] But in some senses, there is found a spiritual immutation or reception only, as in sight, huh? Okay. So, although we might not want to go all the way with Thomas there and say this is a immutatio spiritualis tantum, right? Oh. We might want to say that it has more of this than the other ones, right? Right. That the order might be the same here. In some of them, however, with a spiritual immutation or changing, there is also a natural one, right?

[32:49] And he says either on the part of the object only, right? Which would make it less so than what the next one, or also on the part of the organ. And what does all this mean here? He says on the part of the object. There is found a natural change, according to place, in sound, right, which is the object of hearing, huh? For sound is caused from some what, percussion, right, and commotion of the air, right?

[33:24] Let me say something like that today, maybe more sophisticated, right? According to alteration, however, in what, in the smell, huh, of something, huh, which is the object of the sense of smell. For it is necessary for through the what, Heart, to alter in some way the body, huh, in order that it might what give forth a what odor, right, huh? Okay. My wife went. Wife and I went to seven thirty mass there in the parish there on Sunday, and we leave the church and all these, you know, pancakes and sausages.

[34:06] Oh yeah. Well, I guess the kids downstairs they are trying to raise some money for for their trip to Boston or something, right? Okay. And so. Smell of all during mass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, get those things up there. You see, but but that's there's an alteration going on down there, right, huh? Yeah. It's because you start cooking these things, right? People start what smelling them, right?

[34:29] Yeah. This guy I worked with in the in the I told you about in the package store, huh? Um, he used to have a a custom that on uh, Labor Day, you know, invite all his sons or daughters and their families, you know, for breakfast at his place, huh? And he made the breakfast on the grill outdoors, huh? And of course these guys, you know, they like to have really, so he's up, you know, six in the morning, and this is going all the neighborhood.

[34:53] The smell of this, you know, sausages and bacon and whatever he's got there, and eggs and and the neighbors, you know, you know, they're trying to get their extra sleep there on the Labor Day or something, and they're being woken up by this, huh? But that happens in the house too. Somebody, you know, you know, somebody's upstairs and like that. Somebody downstairs starts to cook, and all of a sudden you you know they they wake up, you know.

[35:15] Sure. Try to get in the good thing, yeah. If your pastor was smart, he would have had the pancake breakfast on the morning that they had the homily on transubstantiation. that would have really helped him in his yeah. Yeah. conveying of maybe someone who knows. Okay. Yeah. So it's really the heat that that the body has to be have some heat to emit this odor and the more intense the heat.

[35:41] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it's a bit you know exaggerated, but but there's some alteration taking place, right? You see, even when the food what, um, you know, smells in the refrigerator or something like that, right? When it's corrupting, right? Right. But that's a kind of cooking or a kind of alteration of it, isn't it? Oh, some alteration. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See. So in the case of a sound, it's something less intrinsic.

[36:04] It's like a locomotion, huh? The disturbance of the air, right? Sure. Okay. And of course it travels much faster. But the alteration when somebody's being cooked or when it's corrupting or something, you know, heating up.

[36:21] The alteration process itself is part of the emits the odor. Yeah, I was talking to somebody yesterday, and she was talking about how she had shared, you know, apartment with some girls, right? And I was mentioning how when I was a bachelor and I lived up on Cedar Street there, and we had, you know, rooms, separate rooms, but we had a common kitchen, and so we shared a common refrigerator.

[36:42] Was always somebody's thing gets pushed to the back refrigerator and starts to corrupt, and then everybody down the kitchen now, and everybody you know together on the refrigerator and find the thing that's that's you know, but it's changing, it's being altered, right? That thing it's undergoing some alteration, and and and it's making its presence known to you, right? And so it's something happened to us She said, you know. You know, so it happened to the girls not just the guys.

[37:07] I mean, it just. Yeah. But even in a family house, you know, if you get the refrigerator really kind of stocked, you know, you can't forget you had something in there, right? And and by the time you find it again, it's it's not usable, really. It's not edible, see. So he's he's taking those two senses, right? That there is a a natural change, right? Right. Um, on the side of the object itself.

[37:32] Right. Okay. Producing the sound, or or giving rise to this odor, right, and smell, right. Yeah. But now, in the other two, it's on the side of the organ, right? And I was giving that example, you know, where the your very flesh is receiving in a material way when you're in the shower there, or when I go out into the ocean, right? Mm-hmm. And the same with the tongue.

[37:56] For he says, in the part of the organ, there's a natural change in touch and taste. Huh. For the hand touching the hot thing, right, is itself becoming hot. Huh. And the tongue is being what? Moistened, right? Through the moistness or the humidity, of the what? Flavors, huh? Okay.

[38:26] And so you notice that sometimes your inside tongue gets dry, you know. Especially if you're got a clogged up nose like I do, and you tend to be breathing, you know, somewhat through your mouth, right? Do you end up with kind of a dry mouth? And but if I took a piece of candy or a clock or something, then I I started licking it, right? Then my tongue would become what?

[38:47] Moist, just as the the lifesaver, where it is, is what becoming liquid, huh? As I suck it, huh? Hmm. So. We seem to understand here, though, that the moisture is coming from the flavor itself. Yeah, or the object, yeah. Instead of the, but we would understand it's really just activating our. Yeah, yeah. Again, it may be a little more complicated than he sees, right? Okay.

[39:18] But he says the organ of smell or or hearing, right? Are changed by no natural mutation in sensing, except what kind of perotidance huh? So in a sense, he's he's he's classifying the senses. What? He's saying the sense of sight is most spiritual, right? Okay. Then hearing and smell, right? And least touch and what taste, right? But notice how also touch and taste seem to be more limited in their object, you know, because it's immediate contact with the thing, right?

[39:56] Right. And the idea, of course, taste is very much something what? Almost within you, right? Okay, and Thomas Thomas will come back to this if you look at his commentary on the Psalms there, because when the Psalm says "taste and see how sweet is the Lord," right? What does it mean "taste" in the sense of the sense of taste, right? But there's a reason why he used the word "taste" there, right?

[40:20] Because taste is a something interior within you, right? And someone whose taste is sweet is the Lord is experiencing something within himself, right? That is pleasant, okay.

[40:39] So he says, "sight, which is without a natural undergoing or change, either of organ or object, is most spiritual, right? " As I say, now that may not be entirely true, but certainly more so, right? Okay, the order here I think would be the same, and it's more perfect among the senses, certainly in terms of its clarity, huh? And of course, Thomas points out how sometimes when something is clear to the other senses, we say "see," right?

[41:10] And I say, like if we're in the kitchen, and I'm talking about now, taste this, and I taste it, you know. Now, if you have a little bit of this, you know, now taste it. Oh, I see what you mean, you know. You see,

[41:23] I'm talking about it's clear to my sense of taste the point you're making, huh? But say I see that, right? See. Or sometimes if you're pointing something out in a class of music appreciation, you play something, and then you say, you say, "Well, he's not really playing that piece very well." See, well, it sounds okay to me, you know. I say, "Okay, now now listen to Badera Skoda playing that same thing."

[41:47] Oh, oh, now I see. Yeah, I see what you're talking about, right? See, but I'm knowing it not by my sense of sight, but my my hearing, huh? Is you know, and but the fact that we borrow the word "see" is because the clarity of it, okay. But then, vice versa, we also carry the word over to the higher things, huh? Yeah. Okay. And so, even the beatific vision we speak of is seeing God face to face, huh?

[42:17] Okay. So it's more perfect among the senses, certainly in terms of its clarity, and it's more common, right? I think by "communior" he means that its object is more common because we know things at a distance, and the our knowledge of the sun and the moon and the stars, right? All this depends upon what the sense of sight.

[42:46] We don't hear things as far away as we hear as we can see, right? And after this comes hearing, right? Where you know things at a greater distance than you do olfactus or smell, right? So you notice if you're working in your house or something like that, you go. Bang, bang! I hear the ricocheting out of the neighbor's house right that way. See, but the the smell in the kitchen doesn't go to neighbor's house right away or as quickly, huh?

[43:17] So after this comes hearing, and then olfactus, which have a natural change in the side of the object, huh? But in the case of the sense of hearing, it was a local motion, right? And local motion is what more perfect and naturally before the motion alteration, as is proved in the eighth book of the what physics, huh? Now one reason why they say the local motion is more perfect is that the object that's being moved from one place to another is already complete, huh?

[43:53] But the object that's being altered is being changed inwardly, right? To something which may be better, but it's on the way to being perfected. But touch, he says, in taste sunt maxime materialis, huh? Okay. About which distinction one will speak later, huh?