De Anima (On the Soul)
101. Beauty, the Higher Pleasures, and Aquinas's Replies on the Common Sensibles, Touch and Taste
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[0:00] Okay. Now, one important distinction of the that people point out is when you talk about the beautiful, right? We use the word beautiful with regard to the object of the sight, sometimes, especially the beautiful is that which pleases when seen. We also use beautiful in reference to what the music of Mozart or something like this, the baroque music, right? Okay. Why we say that the food is beautiful?

[0:37] See, not if we mean it tastes good, right? We say this is good, huh? Yeah. See, and it smells good, tastes good, right? You see. So the fact that you have the beautiful with the sense of sight and the sense of hearing is a sign of there being more spiritual, because beauty is a more what spiritual object, right? A less material object. Ah, because the beautiful again is for its own sake, huh?

[1:11] By what you smell and taste and so on, it's not going to eat It's something more that addresses itself to your bodily need, huh? Of course, it's very striking when you compare a man with the other animals, because the other animals don't seem to delight much in the what beauty of something, huh? So I play Mozart for the cat, and the cat doesn't seem to to appreciate this, right?

[1:37] But if I try to cook something on the stove, right, the cat will be out there looking for a handout, huh? And if I even go and and get some sandwich meat from the refrigerator. Tabitha, especially, would be there, right next to you. You know, you couldn't. She'd be sound asleep all the way through the Mozart symphony. But meant you go out in the kitchen there, and you, you know, wrap him in those piece of paper.

[2:03] She's right there. So again, you can see in the fact that we speak of the beautiful, only respect to the object of sight and hearing, and the fact that the other animals don't appreciate those things. That this is something higher, right, and more spiritual than what the other senses do.

[2:26] And and the the virtue we talk about there in ethics, there moderation or temperance, is concerned especially with touch and taste, huh? Okay, and especially touch, huh? Okay. I was talking about the the groom on there, right? Who wished he had the dick of a what giraffe or something like that. You know, so he has. He's going down his food all the way down. It's kind of an exaggeration, but it shows how kind of gross in a sense this person is.

[2:55] See, Uh so um pleasures of touch and taste are ones that we have in common with the other animals. We may have them in a more refined way, you know. We have haute cuisine and so on, but I found my cats kind of like sirloin. You know, they know the difference between sirloin and the stuff they usually get. When I was, we had our first cat there.

[3:25] You know, we didn't know much about cats, and of course, the cat got its food mainly from the table. Then you tried to feed that cat, you know, canned cat food. They turned their noses at it, and this guy worked out the grocery store. You know, he says, "They said, 'Well, you made a mistake. See, you start them out on what? Yeah, yeah, the cans. ' And then once in a while, as a treat you give'em something from the table, you know, but but you don't start them out of that stuff because they won't, you know, eat that cat food, huh?

[3:59] See, and so they they have some appreciation of good food, at least good meat. One thing we noticed that having a little, we give milk, but sometimes there's some cream or whipped cream left over, and didn't know what to do. So we put it in the cat's bowl, and she would lap that thing. The whole wall would be, you know, spattered. You could tell that she really went for that, you know, if a little bit of cream there in her milk, huh?

[4:34] See, so they have some appreciation of of these things. See, so the pleasures of touch and taste, and even smell, to some extent, we share with the other animals. But smell, especially for them, is you know, to food, right? But practical thing. But the pleasures of the beautiful, they don't what share with us, huh? I mentioned you know this this article by Dr. Osterley there Towards an evaluation of music, right?

[5:07] And he was talking there about the fine arts like painting and music and so on. I think he made a good point. I often repeat. He says that these are too high for the animals and too low for the angels. Yeah, see, because the angels don't have senses, right? The other animals have senses, but they don't seem to use their senses except for the practical. They don't have any appreciation of the beautiful, as such.

[5:40] So man's appreciation of the beautiful in painting and statues and architecture, right, and of music, and you know, that is kind of a stepping stone to the higher life, huh? And if a person doesn't enjoy the beautiful in painting and sculpture and architecture and the beautiful in music, how's he going to rise up to the philosophical life, right, to the life of the mind? See,

[6:17] I'd never really known a philosopher who didn't appreciate, you know, good music or good painting, and you know. But someone can appreciate, you know, good music or good painting or good sculpture, and not want to be a philosopher, right? Because it's too intellectual for them or something, right? You see. But the other point I think Osterley made very well too was, he said that the fine arts are what are most pleasingly proportioned to man.

[6:53] Osterley, John Osterley, in this article that appeared in the Thomist years ago, called "Towards an Evaluation of Music." Huh? This is the article where he talks about the excellence of the music of the 18th century as compared to the 19th century, the Baroque and the classical periods as opposed to the Romantic period and a fortiori, you know, it came after that. And

[7:19] usually, people when they talk about the greatest composers, they'll speak of Bach or Mozart, or you know, and so on. More and more of these composers than the other ones. But anyway, he makes interesting points in there about the fine arts, though, and and this is, I think, one good point, huh? That these are what are most pleasingly proportioned to man because they involve his his reason and his senses, huh?

[7:45] Yeah. And man is is a creature of soul and body, right? While the pleasures of the table and sleep and sex and so on, these are more bodily pleasures that we share with the beasts, huh? And then these pleasures of of of understanding, right? These are pleasures we share with the angels and God, huh? Yeah. I think I mentioned how you know, and I teach ethics sometimes, and to get a little bit of the modern way of thinking, there we read sometimes John Stuart Mill, right, who was one of the

[8:29] famous utilitarians, right? There's a whole series utilitarian philosophers, and for them, the whole basis of good is pleasure, right? Okay. And Mill of course has to answer the objections against this position, and one of the objections is, well, your philosophy is a philosophy for pigs, right? Because that's what the pig does for us, you know, pleasure, right? Well, Mill has an answer to that. He says. You're the pig," he says, because you think that man has no pleasures that the beast doesn't have.

[9:06] Okay, see, you say in making pleasure the end of life, you're doing what a beast does, huh? And therefore, you have a beastly philosophy. Okay, and Mill tries to answer by saying, "Well, no, you're the beast," you see, because you're saying that man has only the pleasures in common with the beast. There aren't some pleasures that man has that beast doesn't have, right? And then Mill, you see, he's in the empiricist tradition, you know, where experience is almost everything, right?

[9:38] And so Mill says, now those who have tasted the lower pleasures and the higher pleasures, right? They say the higher pleasures are greater, and even you know, Plato and Aristotle, right? We'll say that they are so, right? Huh? Okay, and I talk about you know how man can't live without some kind of pleasure, huh? And therefore, if man can't taste these higher pleasures, he tends to go to excess in the what?

[10:10] Lower ones, right? But they don't really satisfy so much. So, but I sometimes correct or go a little beyond Mill and say they're not just human and beastly pleasures. There is what? Angelic pleasures, human pleasures, and beastly pleasures, right? And the beastly pleasures are the pleasures we have in common with the beasts. The angelic pleasures are the pleasures that we have in common with the angels, and the human pleasures are like the pleasures of the fine arts and fiction and so on, right?

[10:48] The pleasures which Osterley says, well, I think, are too high for the beast, they don't have reason and so on, and they're too low for the angels who are purely spiritual beings, huh? And if we come back to these, you can make some other observations. You can say, well, the pleasures we share with the beast we have in a somewhat higher way. So we have the pleasures, you know, of haute cuisine, you know, and wine, and you know this sort of stuff, right?

[11:19] Huh? But the pleasures of understanding we have in an inferior way to the other to the angels, huh? You see, and but the pleasures of the fine arts and and fiction, so on, pleasures of painting and music and and fiction, these are the pleasures that are most proportioned to man because they involve his what? Soul and body, reason and what? Senses, huh? His emotions and so on, and that's why you can enjoy them probably longer.

[11:55] You see, than the bodily pleasures on the one hand, or the pleasures of understanding, right? See, so it's easier for, say, media to go to the opera and and spend two or three hours watching and hearing a Mozart opera, right? Than to sit down for two or three hours study, you know, study these things, right? You get kind of fatigued after a while. You see, and in the same way with with the bodily pleasures, there, as my brother Mark used to say, you know, it's the first first beer that tastes good; the second one doesn't taste very good.

[12:30] In fact, it's just the first sip he says it tastes good. So I mean, there's kind of a diminishing return, right? As your hunger or thirst is is satisfied, these things don't give us much pleasure anymore. So in fact, eventually they give us pain, or you know, like if people eat too much at Thanksgiving. You know, they actually uncomfortable. So I call it the law of diminishing returns when you are pursuing bodily pleasures.

[12:58] Um, but the pleasures of of music or painting or something like that, right? See, one can spend a long time in art museum, right? If he sits down, you know, they get too tired walking around, right? I see, you can spend a long time in the, you know, the, you know, was in London there at the National Gallery, right? Or if you were in Paris, you know, or actually, see, you know, actually, you can spend hours in those places, right?

[13:26] If he sat down, so he didn't get bodily tired, you could go on enjoying these paintings, huh? Have you ever been in the Sistine Chapel there, huh? I see. You can go and you sit down, you know, and stay there for a long time looking at these paintings, huh? The only thing that gets in the way is all people milling around, you know. It's fine. Sorry, somebody come in and say.

[13:46] Have you ever been there? Because people start talking in there, and that's supposed to be talking in there, see? But people can sit down, you know. They can find a seat there and then just kind of, you know, study all these beautiful paintings and the, you know, all the things of Michelangelo and so on. And at that, in the end, it's in the Pope's poem. I just did some excerpts of it.

[14:10] Oh, did you? Yeah, yeah. Because he he he's recollecting his election, everything, right? And the in the election of Pope was Sixtina. And and and you know that takes place there in the Sistine Chapel, you know. Yeah, yeah. Of course, the awesome responsibility, right? That they have electing a pope, huh? And then you got to realize this thing to do with the last judgment, you know, your responsibility of what you do.

[14:33] That thirty-three page poem comes out. Is there any way you could bring it in? We just kind of go spend a class going going over it briefly, or you know, going going over thirty pages more. It's going to appear in Poland, I guess, this summer, you know. But I don't know if it's. Yeah, I think it must be written in Polish. I assume, you know. Yeah, the translation.

[14:50] Yeah, yeah, but they had a little excerpt in one of the in the inside the Vatican there, you know, just just a little part there. I was wondering if the whole thing was going to come. Yeah, I don't know if it's going to come out in translation. I assume it will eventually. I mean, most of his things wouldn't come out that way, yeah. But

[15:10] so anyway, huh? That corresponds to what Thomas is saying here, right? That sight and hearing are more spiritual than what smell, right? And smell is sort of in between, right? That and the other ones, huh? So if you go around and you you smell the flowers, right, huh? That's like in between, you know, enjoying the beautiful and in what you see and hear, right? Enjoying food, huh?

[15:40] Because the flowers is kind of what it's not really worth eating exactly, right? Right. And my daughter is very good at this thing, you know. You see, my daughter, you know, she's kind of a gardener, so she would walk into a bush like that, you know. She'd probably little flock there, you know. She, yeah, just getting the scent of these things, huh? And then she she worked at this famous place there down in Connecticut for a little bit.

[16:03] Logee's, there's all kinds of plants, huh? And you go in there, you know, and you have all these plants that have the smell of different things, you know, lemon and apricot and so on. You know how they speak about wine, you know? Yeah, yeah. Well, actually, there are all these kinds of plants that have what? You know, here's a plant that smells like strawberry. This one smells like lemon.

[16:25] This one smells like like lime, you know. And here's one smells like licorice, you know. It's so it's kind of interesting just to sniff those things. You don't want to really eat the flower, right? So it's more spiritual than eating or something like that. See? And so it's sort of in between, right? But yet, smell, of course, is very much associated with eating, food, and drinking, and so on.

[16:49] And so it's not as spiritual as sight and hearing, huh? But Thomas, you know, when he when he talks there, he says that the pleasures of the senses, right, that are not opposed to the the state of the blessed soul, right, you know, in the resurrection, um, those will be there, right? See, there won't be the pleasures of reproduction or the pleasures of of eating or sleeping, right, which are more tied up with the sense of touch and taste and smell, but there will be the pleasure of what?

[17:22] Seeing the beautiful saints, right, and and the beautiful world around us, huh? And Thomas says there will be laus vocalis, huh, Vocal praise of God, huh?

[17:36] I just seeing a quote there from from Job there, where all the stars of heaven mean the angels sing, right? It's kind of striking there, huh?

[17:48] So there will be, but again, it's a sign that those pleasures of of the beautiful are not incompatible with heaven, right? See, and these saints who have had the you know the vision of the Blessed Virgin, right? She's far more beautiful than the painters that represented her. that's what they say, right? Yeah, yeah. See. Or motherly, like the visionaries would say. She's. Just a mother. She's so much a mother.

[18:14] Yeah. Can't imagine. how much. But she's very beautiful, right? You know. But but kind of beauty that would not arouse or lust or anything like that. you see? Right. it's a very spiritual beauty, huh? Extremely beautiful. So

[18:28] I think you got to bear those things in mind, and then you see that the Thomas here may not have anything exactly down in details. I mean, I realize that that seeing maybe is not as immaterial or spiritual as they they thought, right? There still is that same order, I think you could say, going from sight and hearing, and then to smell, and then down to taste and touch, huh?

[18:48] Yeah. Okay. Yeah. In a sense, to raise somebody up to enjoy or take pleasure in philosophizing or in theology, they've got in a sense to go from the pleasures of the table through the pleasures of the fine arts to the pleasures of what understanding, huh? I say, and and it's different, right, huh?

[19:14] Saint Teresa of Avila says in her autobiography that when she saw the glorified body of Jesus Christ, he had to show her just his hand first. Yeah. He had to proportion her to it, and then he could show her more and more. And he said, "If this seems weird to you, said you don't know how beautiful the glorified body is, you know." Yeah. She said something on those lines.

[19:38] Yeah, just looking at his hand was just put her in rapture. Just looking at his hand, you know, you'd think, you know, so what, a hand, you know? Yeah, and then she says, "Well, if you're thinking that, you haven't seen what I've seen. But you know, you talk about the fine arts. You know, having worked in a museum and that type of thing, and you know, and just the the people that are predominantly, this might sound prejudiced, but anti.

[20:10] Christ, you know, pro do what you want. Very liberal, you know. It seems like the fine arts are, you know, at least the the art as opposed to music. At least that's that's the aspect I've seen. It seems to be, you know, contorted by them by those that are that are that are perpetuating it, as opposed to bringing us closer to the divine being. or they're they're.

[20:38] They're taking us further away. from them. Yeah, yeah. So, why is that? Well, see, that's why I say you read Austerlis yesterday there, and he'll tell you why the music of the 18th century is much better to listen to than the music of the Romantic period. Because the Romantic period would not believe in this this subordination of the emotions to reason, but that would be a common theme there in the music of the 18th century, huh?

[21:03] But actually, emotions representation is much more beautiful because reason introduces what is most essential to beauty: order and symmetry and moderation. Huh? Those are the main forms of beautiful.

[21:20] Just like we say, the poet says, "shall I compare thee to a summer's day; they are more lovely and more temperate." Huh? See, so temperance is is is something that comes from reason moderating things.

[21:34] Okay, now he's going to reply to the um. Just to read the last sentence in the body article. Yeah, that's right. But touch and taste, we said, are most material. Huh? About whose distinction, particularly, we'll speak later here. And this would be in response to the third and fourth objections, right? And hence it is that the other three senses

[21:58] do not come about through a conjoined medium. Okay, because sense of touch, you see, is is embedded, you might say, in the what skin, right? And the skin is the medium through which you touch, right? But in the case of sight and hearing and smell, you go through what air or water in some cases,

[22:25] lest some natural transmutation arrive at the organ, as happens in these two senses of taste and what touch. Now the first objection was saying, well, isn't sensing

[22:40] knowing accidents? Well, that's true, but not all accidents, right? And Thomas will answer that, because not all accidents. to the First, it should be said that not all accidents have a power of what changing something, huh? As such, but only qualities of the third species, and that's what characterizes them.

[23:05] So, my being a just man or an unjust man, as such, doesn't affect your senses or act upon your senses at all, right? Okay. And my having the ability to walk, does that affect your senses? No, not unless I kick you. Yeah. Right over you. And again, the shape of the thing doesn't act upon you if it doesn't have any color or anything, right?

[23:33] And therefore, only these qualities—the qualities of the third species of quality—are objects of the senses, because as is said in the seventh book of the Physics, according to the same things the sense is altered, according to which inanimate bodies are what altered, huh? So these sense qualities seem especially tied up with what motion or change, huh? And the sign of that is that you get into a science like say pure mathematics, huh?

[24:09] When pure mathematics you abstract quantity and figure a shape from any kind of what sensible matter, right? And then there's nothing referring to motion or change, huh?

[24:24] If I had a lead sphere in my head, I'd be have a hard time holding it up like Atlas, right? But geometrical sphere would not in any way affect me, would it, huh? No. If I walked through a moist sphere, I'd get all you know cool and refreshed, you know, like at these things in Disneyland, you know, cool you off, you know, you walk through a misty thing, right?

[24:48] But if I could walk through geometrical sphere, I get neither wetness nor dryness, right? So there's no nothing that's going to act upon my senses. So the fact that you have no motion, really, no change, really, no alteration in these mathematical things, right, is a sign that that's tied up with the sense qualities, and you have no sense qualities in pure math. So geometrical sphere has no color and has no sound and no smell and neither heavy or light or anything else that you first change.

[25:26] That's why you know to some extent the modern scientists and those who who study nature mathematically, right, and apply something mathematical in actual world, they're accustomed to think that there are no sense qualities in the world. You'll find them the modern philosophers sometimes and the modern scientists even, right? And you see in some of the ancient Greeks too who were into the mathematical science of nature like Democritus.

[25:52] Sense qualities don't seem to be real, right? Do you think like that Perhaps, perhaps, yeah. We don't have that many direct quotes, but you have in the quotes that we have from Demarbitus, who is somewhat into the mathematical science of nature. Do every one of these sense qualities acts on one of the five exterior senses. Yeah. Only it has to if it's a sense quality of the third kind it will act on one of the five.

[26:20] exterior senses. Yeah. So color acts upon eye and sound upon the ear, right? Okay. The smell thing. I've been trying to figure out later. Third species. Yeah. Okay. Now what about the so-called common sensibles, right? Why are they said to be sensible per se, unlike the accidental sensibles?

[26:46] Well, he says it ought to be said that magnitude and figure and other things of this sort, which are called common sensibles, are in a way in between, a middle between the things which are sensible per accidens and the sensibilia propria. Ones that are private to one sense another. but they're called, the sense qualities. Right. Which are the objects of senses. For the proper sensibles or the private sensibles, first and through themselves change the sense, since they are qualities that alter things.

[27:25] But the common sensibles are all reduced to quantity, and as regards magnitude and number, it is clear that they are in fact species of quantity. But figure or shape is a quality about quantity, since the ratio or definition of figure is in the what limitation of a magnitude. And so you could define the figure, right? What is contained by limit or limits? Huh? Motion and rest are sensed according as the subject in one way or many ways, according as the subject in one way or many ways has itself according to the magnitude of the subject as in growth or of local distance.

[28:11] As regards the motion of growth and locomotion, are also according to sensible qualities as in the motion of alteration, and thus to sense motion and rest is in a way to sense the one and the what many. Because the thing that's at rest remains the same, right? One and the same, and the thing that is moving or changing is what like a number, right? It's multiplied on its other always.

[28:41] But quantity is the proximate subject of the. Altering quality, as surface is the subject in which color is spread over, and therefore the common sensibles do not move the senses primo per se, right? Notice the word primo there, right? But by reason of the sensible quality, as the surface, by reason of the color.

[29:12] Nevertheless, they are not sensibles per accidens, because these sensible things cause some diversity in the change of the sense. For in another way, the sense is moved by a large surface and by a small.

[29:28] Because also whiteness itself is said to be large or small, according to subject, and therefore is divided according to its own subject. We know that yourself. You ever been out in the summer and you have a big white house or a big white wall and blinded by it, right? See, well, if you had a little small one, it wouldn't affect the senses so much, right? So in that sense, the common sensibles do affect the senses, don't they?

[29:53] Yeah. See, the same way motion does, right? Shakespeare says, "Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs." So the common sensibles do make a difference as such, as regards the way the senses are what moved, huh? The accidental sensible in no way.

[30:25] That's like beauty and that, right? Beauty, the sensible per accidens accident. No, I don't think beauty would be an accidental sensible, because the beautiful is that which pleases when seen or heard.

[30:40] Okay. So it's not sensibilia per accidens is not beauty. No, no, it'd be like like sugar or salt is accidental to what? White. The eye is not affected by sugar or salt as such, right? Right. But affected by the taste, by the color, or by the taste of the sugar or the salt, right? See, it's not in so far as it's salt, but in so far as it's salty, right?

[31:12] Yeah. Not in so far as it's sugar; it affects my tongue, right? But in so far as it is what sweet, right? Yeah. Okay. You can see this, you know, when they try to make imitation, you know, something, right? Yeah. Usually, don't get as good as original flavor. I mean, they're not that clever, you know. Yeah. But they do make some things that do taste right. Yeah.

[31:36] You know, you know these fancy jelly beans. You know, there's forty nine flavors, right? And there's There's a popcorn jelly bean, which I think is kind of good. You know, myself. My son Marcus, he he thinks it's not proper taste to have a jelly bean. Yeah, right. But there's there's a you know like a buttered popcorn taste, and there's the one that's got a caramel corn, right?

[31:58] Yeah. And you know there's there's coffee, you know they got all these different types of ones, you know. And licorice, huh? It's kind of interesting to taste it. What's that flavor you're tasting, right? See. But you see, yeah. So it's sugar as such is not acting upon my senses, right? But the sweet as such is affecting my sense of taste, huh? Mm-hmm. Or the color white is, huh?

[32:28] That's why I could be deceived by the accidental sensible, to thinking that the you know if this is a sugar bowl, and you put salt in there instead of sugar, I could easily you know take salt to put in my coffee or something, you see? Yeah. Um, add the sugar on, huh? Hmm. Okay. Yeah. Or somebody, you know, you know. Put in in in in uh colored liquid, right?

[32:54] You know, something that same color in the same bottle, right? You might pour it into your glass, right? Not knowing what you are doing.

[33:05] But you see, the the common sensibles do affect us. How big the object is, right, and its shape and so on. They do affect the senses as such, and whether it's at motion or at rest.

[33:26] See, so they're kind of in between the two, huh? Now, now you talk about the sensible per accidens In the strict and fullest sense, a sensible per accidens is not perceived by any sense at all. It's known by some other power of man, by his mind or something, right? By his senses. But sometimes we also speak of the sensible prachidens, that what is known by one sense is per accidens in another sense.

[33:57] See, so the sweetness of the sugar is not accidental to the sense of taste, but it's accidental to the eye. The eye is not affected by the sweetness of the sugar at all, is it?

[34:11] But you see, if you see the sugar, right, meaning you see its color, right, then you might think of its being sweet, but that's not because the eye, as such, is knowing that, right? But something else is.

[34:27] Shakespeare has a sonnet there about the mistress, and he says, "I love to hear my mistress's voice, although I know that music hath a far more pleasant sound." See, so is he rejoicing in the sound of his mistress's voice, as such?

[34:50] Huh? Of course she is. Not, not, not. Yeah, he's thinking maybe more, more, more, more of of the wrong things, right, with the mistress. So he's thinking of of something that appeals to another sense, right? When he hears her voice, right. So in that sense, it's not he loves to hear her voice, although he knows that music hath a far more pleasant sound, right? Yeah. So there is two senses of this sensible per accidens.

[35:21] Yeah, what what is not known by any of the senses as such, right? Was known by reason. Yeah, that's the one I was thinking of. Beauty. No, because beauty, in a sense, is is defined as what pleases the senses. I mean, pleases when seen, or pleases when what heard, right? And that's known in the mind. So well, yeah, but but it's pleasing the senses though too. See.

[35:46] Okay. See. So my eye is pleased. Sight for sore eyes, we say, right? Okay. My ear is pleased hearing that, right? Okay. But then you have the sensible per accidens just with respect to one sense, huh?

[36:06] So notice when I hear the voice of a friend, I recognize, you know, the tone of the voice, right? I might rejoice, but not because my friend has the voice of Pavarotti or something, right? He has a beautiful voice. Yeah. But because I what? Recognize the friend. Yeah, yeah. But the ear doesn't hear being my friend, does he? The ear hears the sound, and right away I think of that, huh?

[36:32] Yeah. But that's not the way the common sensibles are. That do not affect the senses as such, huh? So also that big barn, right, with the white surface, you know, affects the eye more. It can be almost blinding there in a bright summer afternoon, huh? I remember one time on my father's factory there, they had on the woodlot there kind of a woodshed, you know, closed on three sides but open on one side, right, huh?

[37:07] It has a roof over it, and I was given the enviable job of painting it one summer, right? It was going to be painted white, you know, so every half hour you got to go and get a drink of water. Wow. But I mean, you know, it's kind of you know getting blinded by the. You can imagine, you know, bright painted in the sunny day. Yeah, the sun is beating down.

[37:27] It's hot, but it's also blinding because it's such a large what surface, huh? Okay. And so the senses, as such, are being affected by the size of that surface, huh? But to the color, right? Yeah. But the sugar, as such, is not influencing my sense of of sight, huh? So the sugar and the salt, they might look just alike. They might have the same color, right? And therefore, as sugar is not affecting my eye, or as salt is not, but simply as white, and maybe how much there is too, right?

[38:04] But that's the common sensible. Okay. So let's look now to reply to the third and the fourth objections, which were talking about the sense of touch, huh? And he says, to the third, it should be said that as the philosopher seems to say in the second book about the soul, the sense of touch is one in genus, right? But divided into many senses according to species, and and in account of this, it is of diverse contraries, right?

[38:38] So it might be when you distinguish the five senses, sight and hearing and smell and maybe taste. Are really what a lowest species to speak in logical terms, but touch might not be a lowest species, but it might have what species below it, right? One for hot and cold, and one for wet and dry, and so on, right?

[39:06] Which nevertheless are not separated from each other by organ, but they are what all through the body, right? And therefore their distinction does not appear like it does with sight and hearing and smell and taste, because everywhere in the body, right?

[39:24] But taste is perceptive of the sweet and the what bitter, huh? Years ago, there when you were reading Plato's dialogue there, and he's developing the proposition that everything is only one contrary, right? And one student says, "So doesn't sweet have two contraries, sweet and sour, and sweet and bitter, right? " But really, is is sweet and sour the ones that are furthest apart?

[40:00] Maybe really is sweet and what bitter are the contraries, huh? And sour is not what you know sweet and sour pork and so on. I mean, it's less opposed, right? Right. Than than bitter is.

[40:19] Okay. But taste, however, which is perceptive of sweet and bitter, follows touch in the tongue, right? Not through the whole body, and therefore is easily distinguished by touch, right? So Thomas, in a sense, is not necessarily rejecting what the objection is saying, right? Right. And we saw before when I was talking about say you divide triangle into equilateral isosceles and scalene.

[40:50] Equilateral is a lowest species in the sense that all equilateral triangles have exactly the same shape, although one might be bigger than another or smaller than another, but not all isosceles triangles have the same shape, right?

[41:08] And so maybe in the same division, right, you have a species that is a lowest species, right, and a species that is not a lowest species, but is a genus with respect to what is below it. And there

[41:29] may be other examples of that, huh? Like like in ethics, there when you divide, say, the first two virtues are courage and temperance, huh? But maybe courage is one virtue, but maybe temperance. You know, you have temperance about food, you have temperance about drink, temperance about sex, right? Maybe those are three different what particular virtues, huh?

[42:00] So maybe temperance is not a lowest species, huh? But it is a genus respect to what is below it, huh? See. And those have corresponding vices. Yeah, yeah. Gluttony, or yeah, and and it seems that people have different you know feelings, and they may be you know somewhat connected, but they're somewhat distinct, right? The difficulty of fighting gluttony, or you know, people have difficulty you know fighting drink, right?

[42:29] Seems to be something different, right? And and sex is again a different kind of temptation, right? Huh? See, so I think it's interesting to note, huh? And see, when we kind of think abstractly, that we think of you start with a genus and you divide it into species, some of which can be divided, and eventually get down to individuals, right? So you might think that you get down to that lowest species. By division, all whose members are our lowest species.

[42:54] That doesn't seem to be so. I say it's said most clearly in in geometry or something like that, right? Euclid will divide, let's say, quadrilateral into square, oblong, rhombus, rhomboid, right? Now, all squares really have the same shape, don't they? Yeah. But do all oblongs have the same shape? Yeah. No. See. And so, although oblong is part of the same division of quadrilateral, it is not a lowest species, but square maybe is.

[43:31] The same thing about triangles. Equilateral might be a lowest species, but not the others, right? And when Aristotle divides the virtues, say in ethics, huh? Like say the virtues of reason, the same thing. You have distinguishes five virtues of reason: art, foresight, wisdom, natural understanding, and episteme, right? But even if you take those three, that are the virtues of looking reason, wisdom is a lowest species. There aren't many kinds of wisdom; it's only one wisdom.

[44:04] Natural understanding, it's only one. But episteme, right? But episteme, right, reason, that knowledge could be divided into geometry, arithmetic, natural philosophy, ethics, logic, right? So in the same division, right?

[44:23] One member is a lowest species, and another member is a what? Genus. With respect to what is below it, one has only individuals below it; the other has. Interesting. Yes. Again, art and foresight are genera because you know Thomas will divide foresight into the foresight of the individual, the foresight of a father, the foresight of of the general, and the foresight of the king. Each of them is a different foresight.

[44:55] And of course, art is divided into the art of carpentry and the art of metalworking and the art of the tailor and the art of the cook and so on, right? So, of those five virtues of of reason, two are lowest species and three are genera with respect to what is below them. Okay. So maybe in this division of of the senses into five, right? Yeah. One of them, touch, right?

[45:21] Yeah. Might not be a lowest species. Oh. But okay. Now Thomas is a little bit not careful about this, huh? He says one can always say that all those contrarieties and each one of them come together in one proximate genus, right? And all in one common genus, which is the object of touch, according to some common notion. But that common genus is unnamed, right? Just as the proximate genus of hot and cold is unnamed, Thomas is not altogether closing the door, right?

[45:59] That there might be, but but he seems at least in the first part here to following the the philosopher as he calls him, right? To be admitting that the sense of touch is not a lowest species, but it has maybe one sense for hot and cold, another one maybe for wet and dry, and who knows else? Okay.

[46:25] Now the fourth objection was based upon the sense of taste being said to be a kind of touch. Now to the fourth, it should be said that the sense of taste, according to the dictum of the philosopher, is a certain species of touch, which is in the tongue only, is not ever distinguished from touch in general, but from touch as regards those species which are what diffused throughout the whole body.

[47:00] If our touch is one sense only, so he hasn't called out yet to close the door to that, right? On account of one common definition of its object, it should be said that there would be a what diverse, but according to a diverse way of being changed, one could still distinguish taste from touch, right? For touch is changed by a natural mutation, and not only a spiritual one as regards its organ, according to the quality which is properly its object.

[47:36] But the sense or organ of taste is not changed by necessity by natural change according to the quality which is properly wet, so that the tongue might would have to become sweet or bitter, right? But according to that foregoing quality in which it's founded, namely the moisture which is the object of of touch, maybe taste is

[48:07] a little more spiritual than touch. It is interesting the way we do carry the word taste over, right? To higher things, so we speak, you know, of taste that are on in what in the fine arts, right? A good taste in music, or good taste in literature, or good taste in architecture, or something like that, right? Maybe even higher things, right? But they also say that about music that he has a real nice touch with the with the violin.

[48:36] Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that in the fragments of the Greek philosophers, sometimes they single out the sense of sight and the sense of hearing. Among the five, like Heraclitus says, the things that can be seen and heard and learned are what I prize most. But they're kind of the senses of learning from another, right? The eye and the ear, especially. But sometimes, like in the fragment of Empedocles, there is one where he singles out sight and hearing.

[49:10] Another one, he singles out sight and touch. And what's interesting about sight and touch is that they are the only senses that know the shape of an object. Oh yeah. And how important is the shape or the form of an object in our thinking? Huh. Very important, right? And we borrow the word for shape, the word form, right? And apply it to all these things. Like in logic, we speak of a species, right, as a form, right?

[49:38] We speak of democracy as a form of government, right? Right. Or I speak of, you know, tragedy and comedy as forms of the play or forms of fiction. And so, but then also the sense of touch has a certain excellence as far as what assertitude is concerned. Of course, the stock example for the Christian is is Thomas, right? He's going to wants to put his finger in the nail holes, right?

[50:07] And in the side where the lance went in. Before you're going to believe, he says, right? Yeah, right. Um. And so, um, you know the old expression, the touchstone of assertitude, huh? But the touch is is the most certain of the senses. In some ways, the sense is the most basic of the senses. And Aristotle and Thomas will often say, the man's got a good sense of touch to have a good mind.

[50:37] Oh yeah, we saw that. Yeah. It's all kind of going back to beauty, you know. Those are the two things that most help you get in touch. Well, in touch to help you really experience the beauty is either the visual or the sensei, that the touch. Well, you know the touch doesn't. We don't really speak of something as feeling beautiful. You see it feels good. See, smells good.

[51:00] It tastes good. It feels good. As long as you get to those two highest senses or most spiritual senses, you know that we speak of something beautiful, right? That we hear or see, huh? We don't, you know. Even the common person doesn't tend to do that, right? Usually, he won't say, you know, well, this tastes beautiful. He won't say that, right? Mmm, this tastes good, right? What smells good, right?

[51:23] That's a very common saying, right? I don't ever say in the kitchen, oh, Rosie, this smells beautiful. That smells good, right? But you might say a rose smells beautiful.

[51:34] Yeah. Even this, you're thinking, though, maybe you know, you know, like he likes to hear his mistress's voice, right? It's because you know they're very closely associated, right? The beauty of the rose. The smell per se is not beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's a rose, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. But it's got a good smell, right? Nice smell. Yeah. See. The other thing I was wondering about about taste is that is coming through with smell.

[52:05] When one holds one's nose and eats, one doesn't taste very much. And by and large, taste is the aromatic vapor of fast food nation. Oh. The taste is mostly smell, anyway. Oh. It's interesting too, you know, with the saints and the devils and so on. You know, when they have a a purgation, you know, when they drive out a devil or something, right? You know, they tend to leave a bad smell in the room.

[52:31] Yeah. And and I, you know, saints when they exhume, you know, the saints or somebody's being considered, you know, and you get this, you know, smell of roses coming from the grave, right? What should be a revolting smell, you know, when you dig up a body, right? Sure. You know, but but it's kind of a sign God sometimes. you know, you know, there's a lot of saints like that.

[52:52] Yeah. Incorruptible Yeah, yeah, but you got you got to smell flowers like that, you know. Yeah. And it's kind of a beautiful sign, you know, of the. I mean, in a sense, we we tend to recognize corruption in food. We and the other animals by the sense of smell, right? Which was kind of appropriate, right? Before you taste it, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's take a little break here, and then we'll see if we can get through the fourth article.