De Anima (On the Soul)
112. Reason, Will and Nature: Why Natural Understanding and Natural Willing Are the Roots of Thought and Choice
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/112-reason-will-and-nature-why-natural-understanding-and-natural/

[0:00] I gave you a talk one time on the distinction between reason and nature, and distinction between will and nature. huh? Do the modern philosophers misunderstand that.

[0:17] They understand the distinction between reason and will, like the distinction between, say, virtue and vice. Not in terms of being good and bad, but different species of cause, right? And different kinds of cause, huh? While the actual distinction is like the distinction between one and two, or between two and three. It's distinction between what is just a nature, and what is something more than just a nature, okay?

[0:50] Or it's like the distinction between man and an animal. We're talking about, right? Okay, man is an animal, but he's not just an animal. It's something in addition to that, right? And so, reason and will is something in addition to what nature has, but they have something of nature too in them. So they naturally understand something, and they naturally will something. Right. I'm sorry. Could Could you just repeat the last couple sentences?

[1:18] Yeah, yeah. What's a very subtle thing, and it's the modern philosophers. They make a kind of distinction between reason and nature, or between will and nature, for that matter, right? They make a distinction like between black and white, or virtue and vice, right? The two entirely different things, right? So that what pertains to nature

[1:47] to be determined ad uno, right determined to one thing is something they deny of reason, something they deny of the will. As if reason knows nothing naturally.

[2:01] Everything it knows is a result of some discourse of reason, some reasoning, right? And the will, for them, wills nothing naturally. Okay. And so that's explicit. I mean, if you read Sartre, for example, very clear. Sartre and Sartre, everything is up for grabs, right? Yeah. Everything is a matter of choice, right? Um, and choices of ends as much as of what means, right? See. Um, so that there's nothing that we will naturally, huh?

[2:43] But that means even you know they would deny even that we will naturally what happiness. They're denying natural will. In that case, they're denying that we naturally understand anything.

[3:05] So there's no there's no determination left anywhere in reason as was in things right. And there's no determination to all the will. Who will anything? And Sartre would say, if you're honest, right?

[3:26] No, are those things? Yeah. Well, I mean, if you're honest, you know, you've got to admit, you know, that everything you will, you are free to will or not will, right?

[3:42] And and I you know I take something like like in John Stuart Mill there the essay on liberty right. And one of the chapters in there is on the liberty of thought, right? And for him, everything is always probable. You never know anything for sure. You never know in the strict sense, huh? And then we got to keep the the conversation going forever. My brother Mark said one time, you know, when he was trying to decide which is the greater wine, you know, Cabernet Sauvignon or pinot noir, he said, "Jeremy's not in favor of perpetual seminars.

[4:22] " Never come to any conclusion. He didn't have any objection to a perpetual seminar trying to decide. So we've seen our brother Marcus just in the last year or so down in favor of pinot noir as the greatest thing in the world, much to the the shockiness of my friends. But I still you know hold sometimes if I have another guest you know and we can have a red meat or something like that, on the side of Cabernet Sauvignon or pinot noir, you know, for dinner.

[4:52] Yes, you can try them and compare them, and this is being known as a perpetual seminar dinner, right? On my birthday, I have a perpetual seminar dinner.

[5:02] But this is what kind of modern minds like now that all things can be discussed forever and we can never know anything, right? You never will know anything, right? This kind of a you know thing. But they have the same position there in regard to the will, say that the will never wills anything but necessarily or naturally, right? There's no natural necessity in the will, huh? Well, that's going to destroy all knowledge, really, huh?

[5:28] Destroy all kinds of things, huh? So you know, is a distinction in other words of. You're just talking about causes there, right? And you divide cause, I'd say, into nature and reason or will. Well, the original basis of that distinction is that nature is determined to one, like Shakespeare himself says there in Coriolanus, nature not being able to be more than one thing. So you put a piece of paper in the fire, and the fire is going to do one thing.

[6:06] Burn the fire, paper, right? It's limited to that, right? But you put a patient from the doctor, and you can what? Save his life or kill him. The doctor can abort the baby or deliver the baby, right? And the doctor could kill you or you know save your life, right? Okay, and they do sometimes both, right? All right. And the same way, reason, you know, can what?

[6:35] Reason to contrary, kind of a conclusion, right? With probability and so on, right? So what you see is that reason and will are not determined to one. That's that's the first difference we see between these two. Okay.

[6:54] The will is able to choose to do or not to do something, right? In order to do this, it goes to that, right? And reason is able to what? Reason on both sides of the question, right? In order to think that something is so, it's able to to think that it's not so, right? So reason and will are not determined to one like nature is. Okay, that's that's what we see as the difference between them.

[7:24] That's the first difference we see. But does that mean that reason and will are in no way determined anything one? Can the will, for example,

[7:43] not will to live well? Huh? Or does one naturally want to live well? Do well. Is one really free to want to be miserable? Let me say it to a kid. You want to be miserable, right? Does somebody really want to be miserable?

[8:06] And the same way for reason. I mean, some things that reason naturally knows, like the whole is more than a what? Part, right? Does reason naturally know that, or is that just something?

[8:21] So that would correspond. The reason corresponds to the first principles we naturally know, and the will to synderesis Yeah, yeah you can see a distinction between reason. As a particular nature, right, whereby it naturally knows some things, right, or naturally comes to know some things, like the whole is more than a part, right? And I say now, sometimes you have a sophist who tries to, you know, argue against these things, but the arguments are not any good, and people get sometimes confused about, right?

[8:54] They don't know that they know them, because of the sophistical argument. But you know, someone says he doesn't really know that, as I say, we'll give him part of his salary this week and part of the dinner he orders and part of the car he he bought and so on. He'll scream and rave and rant because he does know that the whole is more than the part, right?

[9:15] And we'll start the the Islamic law here, you know, and chop a hand off or something, right? Because part is equal to the whole. I mean, it's absurd, right? You see, so there's some things that reason is determined to that a whole is more than a part, right? See that nothing is before itself, right? Nothing is. the beginning of itself, huh? That's what it is. It's the first principles and the synderesis for the will.

[9:47] Well, no, Synderesis is the name for the first principle. They have the first principles in the practical order, but we'll come to that eventually here and there. Okay. That's not what this is. Well, it could be, yeah. You could call it natural understanding too, yeah. Like do good and avoid evil, huh? Yeah. We naturally know that, or naturally come to know that, right? And that's what synderesis is.

[10:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the so there's a distinction between reason as a nature, right, and reason as reason, right? Okay. And we call reason a nature because it is something of the character of nature, but it's not just a nature. So the distinction between reason and nature is like the distinction between one and two, or like the distinction between two and three. In a way, three has two in it, doesn't it?

[10:46] See, but we distinguish two and three, wouldn't we? Because three is not just two; it's two plus one. Okay. And so the distinction between reason and will and nature is like the distinction between two and three, not like the distinction between virtue and vice. You see, vice is not virtue plus something, right? Or vice versa, huh? Virtue is not vice plus something, right? See, but that's what

[11:21] nature and reason are, huh? Reason is not just a nature, or it's like the distinction, as they say, between animal and man, right? Okay. It's not as if a man is one thing and an animal is something entirely different. No, a man is in a way an animal, right? But he's not just an animal, as my mother said, or got me to say. Yeah. Right. You see.

[11:45] I was calling man an animal, and my mother, you know, didn't like that. Well, I don't mean he's just an animal. Well, okay, that's okay. You see. Yeah.

[11:57] Okay. So my daughter has what? Two daughters, but not just two daughters. She's got three daughters now. I know number four. Number four is a boy, but number five is—I don't know who that is. But anyway, do you see the point? You see, so the moderns misunderstand the distinction between nature and reason, and the distinction between nature and will, and there's tremendous consequences for all our thinking and for our moral life.

[12:36] Yeah. I'm sorry. I don't know if we want. I don't know if we want to go over all again, but I don't understand what you just said about nature and reason and two and three. I don't know. Okay, well let me come back to it. Let me just finish the article and then we'll come back to it, okay?

[12:54] Just a minute to relate there. All right. Okay. Oh, let me finish my proportion of it too. You know. Well, I give you the reason why. it says there's a natural understanding, and that is that if you understood nothing, before reasoning, understood nothing at all, you obviously have nothing to reason from. Yeah. Yeah. So it must be an understanding that is before reasoning, and I call that natural understanding.

[13:17] Okay. There's things that you naturally understand or naturally come to understand, right? Yeah. Okay. Because of your acting upon understanding, right? Okay. I've struggled with this for a long time. Now, the first objection was quoting that text of not too much authority, right? But Thomas says if you want to see something true in what they says, that enumeration is according to the order of what acts, right?

[13:45] Not according to a distinction of powers, huh? So I sense something, right? Like the triangle is something true on the board. Then I imagine the triangle, right? Huh? Then I think about the triangle, and then I understand it. Okay. But those last two are both acts of the same power, right? One imperfect, right, compared to the other. Sense, imagine, think, and understand. Is this a trick model?

[14:15] Yeah. Yeah. The four, the four acts there and that. Okay. Four things. Okay. Now the second objection there from Boethius. Eternity is compared to time as the immobile to the mobile, and that's why Boethius compares the understanding to eternity, reason to what time, right? Okay. Don't get too much carried away with that proportion, right? You know, to make it too much, because we can understand things in time too, right?

[14:49] Or come to understand them in time anyway, right? Okay. But it's really, beautiful the way he sees that proportion, right? And to see that proportion is extremely important. That's proportion. This here that reasoning is to understanding as rest is to motion, right? That's really very important for understanding. Reason and understanding, and natural understanding, right? Because that understanding can even to raise the question, right? Is your understanding both before and after, right?

[15:22] Okay. It's easy to see that there can be a rest before motion and after motion, right? And then you can see that there's two kinds of understanding then, right?

[15:38] He says the. Other animals are so below man that they cannot attain to knowing truth, which reason inquires. But man, however, does attain to knowing the understandable truth, which the angels know. But he does so what? Imperfectly, right?

[15:59] And therefore, the knowing power of the angels is not of a different genus from the knowing power of reason, but is compared to it as the perfect to the what? Imperfect, right? Okay. But notice, man is more properly said to have reason than understanding, huh? Yeah.

[16:19] Okay. It's the name of this overshadowed understanding we have, huh? Now, let's come back to this. Yeah. This is something taken up in the

[16:38] ninth book of wisdom. Although Aristotle isn't going through all this there yet. Okay. But in the ninth book of wisdom, it's a book about act and ability, and so on. And he distinguishes between the active ability and the passive ability. Like you, a little bit, you know. And then distinguishes between nature and what reason, right? The two main active powers in the world around this. If. You look around this room, what do you see?

[17:06] Mainly artificial things, right? Right. But your face, your hands are something natural. Okay. You went out in the woods. You might find mainly natural things, right? So some things are made by nature. Some things are made by reason. So Aristotle wants to distinguish between nature and what reason? Okay. Between nature and art, things that's right. Got it. Okay. And the distinction he sees is that nature

[17:39] is determined or limited, you could say, to one of two what? Opposites, right? Okay. So the fire is going to warm the air, right? It can't also cool the air, can it? Okay. Okay. And get

[18:18] to reason, huh? And the same thing would be said about will too. There, there's the same knowledge we see of opposites, huh? And this is something you know that Socrates has already. Pointing out at the end of the symposium, right in the symposium, there everybody's drunk. Let's say under the table, except for Socrates and Aristophanes, the comic poet, and Agathon, who's being honored for his victory in the tragedy.

[18:56] Yeah, his tragedy has been honored, and he says, "If you guys knew what you were doing, Aristophanes and Agathon, you could write both tragedies and comedies. You, Aristophanes, could write tragedies, and you,

[19:14] Agathon, right, could write what comedies, right? Okay. Now that's based upon the idea that it's the same knowledge of what opposites are. This is a famous proposition in the chief philosophers. There, Plato, and Aristotle, huh? and so um. I have some knowledge, say, of of barbecuing, right? Okay. So I can cook the meat just the right thing, just all pink and juicy and flavorful. I can burn it if I want to, right?

[19:55] And my knowing how much to cook it, enables me to know how to cook it too much, or how to cook it too little. Pork should have the temperature of 170, or they say, right? You know, I know what would be too much or too little, right? Okay.

[20:17] Now, what about the medical art, right? See, by the medical art, I know how to maybe heal you, but also how to make you sick, right? See,

[20:32] Aristotle has the fifth book of the Politics, right? It's about how to preserve governments and how to corrupt them. Same knowledge, right? Okay. I have the art of logic. I know how to reason correctly and how to reason what incorrectly by that art, right? I know how to deceive by that art of logic. See what I mean? Yeah. I'm not saying that the art is for both, right?

[21:04] But it gives me the ability to do both, right? Okay. Because of the same knowledge of contraries or opposites, art is not limited to one of two opposites. It can do both, huh? Okay. I told you about this kind of a bright student when I was teaching at Saint Mary's College, didn't I? And he had, you know, learned this idea that the same knowledge of opposites, right?

[21:29] And so he said to us one day, you know, you know, the ethics course was required of everybody, huh? Like some of these Catholic colleges, the ethics course is required. He says, "Well, you shouldn't be teaching ethics because it's the same knowledge of opposites. So if you teach them ethics, they learn not only how to become good, but they learn also how to become bad, right? They learn how to be bad as well as how to be good, since they're inclined to be bad.

[21:52] You're making them worse by teaching them ethics. That's perhaps the most reasonable I might say attack upon the teaching of ethics that I've seen. See? But the same way you see grammar, you know, I can say, "I is your professor, and you are my students, huh? " Is I not your professor? Am you not my students? I can speak incorrectly, right? And I know I'm speaking incorrectly, right, by grammar.

[22:20] And that's the famous, you know, dispute, not dispute, famous point that Aristotle makes and Plato kind of is approaching in one of the dialogues there, that the the man who

[22:35] unknowingly, huh? Does the bad right is better off morally speaking right but artistically speaking right he's defective if he doesn't know what he's doing right see

[22:53] because of this fact that there's the same knowledge of what opposites right see if I give you a dose that that's too much for you and kills you right if I unknowingly gave you a dose that's too much and killed you I grasp with the medical art is is better than if I unknowingly gave you a dose although morally speaking it's a reverse right is what dialogue was it the Lesser Hippias is the one where where Socrates and the guy are talking at the end and seems the guy who does something knowingly is better than the guy who does something unknowingly and ends up there for the guy who would give the dose right knowingly would be better off and so he says something wrong

[23:35] with this argument but that's where the dialogue ends right But Aristotle sees a distinction there between art and and prudence right huh okay see so if I knowingly overcook the meat right you see I'm a nasty fellow I want to give these people a dinner or something like that I want to punish you like a but but but my knowledge of the art of barbecuing is not defective is it see but if I unknowingly cook the meat too long then you can say I don't have a full knowledge of the art of barbecuing, right Mm-hmm.

[24:16] Do you see the idea okay so that so that's the idea there's the same knowledge of opposites and therefore the knowledge enables you to do contrary things huh so Mozart wrote the what the musical joke right you know which is supposed to illustrate all the mistakes that a composer made. yeah yeah I think it's kind of nice I can always piece myself to it but I mean just so obvious you know defects but then there are more subtle ones right that you have to get more into but it's by the same art that he did that and these other wonderful pieces huh you see so

[25:00] that's distinction he makes between reason there and art and nature right that nature determined to one two opposites reason is capable of what opposites right and the same distinction you can make between the will and nature right that if I that the will is able to choose right to do something or not to do it right or to do this or to do that right I can choose to eat steak or not eat steak right I can choose to smoke or not to smoke right or I can choose to eat this.

[25:39] Or eat that, right? Okay, so that's the first difference we see between these, and that's why when Aristotle introduces this, you know, he talks about the soul, right? Because this difference really appears when you get up to the reasons of will, right? But even in the plant soul, right, you see a little anticipation of this because the tree grows what up and down, right? And so starting to already transcend a bit what is characteristic of nature, okay?

[26:16] But especially you get up to these things there, okay? So now, now, you know, is that distinction such that the will is in no way determined to one thing, right? See, see, well,

[26:37] do you really choose whether you want to be happy in this life or miserable? Or do you naturally want to be happy and not miserable? Well, naturally want to be, yeah, yeah. I'd say I would say, yeah. Do you want to, you know, to live well, do well in this life, or you want to, you know, live badly and do badly, right? See, well, there is something that we we naturally will, right?

[27:05] Yeah. See, did you choose at one time to want to be healthy rather than sick? Mm-hmm. Did you naturally want to be healthy, you know. See. Or, or you choose to prefer uh pleasure to pain you choose to prefer pleasure to pain. You choose to prefer pleasure to pain. Are you naturally prefer? Yeah. You see what I mean? The latter. Yeah. Yeah. So

[27:39] the will is determined to some things, isn't it? Yeah. You see. Okay. And so will is in some respects a nature, but it's not just a nature because it has beyond that, right? This ability to choose, right? But not everything does it choose. It doesn't choose

[28:05] happiness rather than misery. It chooses among things that it might. You're not clear which is going to lead to happiness, right? Or it chooses among things that equally, you know, like say when I go home to my house, son, in Shrewsbury, there,

[28:29] I can, you know, turn down this way and come around, or I can, you know, go all the way down here and come around this way, or I can go here and come through here. And there's that kind of road up there. This

[28:43] and all these get to me all just about the same time, right? So, so I might determine to one of those ways. I know.

[28:53] So I say, what am I doing? Quite on the show. I got both the way. You know, it was, and you know, you go down

[29:01] Walnut there instead of South, and and the house could be upgraded, you know, something. You know, you see. See, so it made each each of these ways to get me more or less equally there, right? Okay, and there might be some time I think, well, the police are watching me as I go, or or the see you know the buses coming there, the you know stop and so I have reason to choose one.

[29:29] But in some cases, they just you know makes no difference which one I take. You know, I'm going to go this way, going to go that way today. You know, so. To get my end or goal, which might be will naturally, there are many means I could use. This is the way my God is free too, right? There are many ways He can be as to himself, right?

[29:56] Yeah. Um. So the will wills some things naturally, right? Yeah. And some things it it chooses, huh? Okay. So we say the will is not just the nature. That's fundamental. The things it wills naturally are the reason why it wills other things, right? Okay. Because I naturally want to live well. I naturally want to be healthy, right? I choose certain things, right? Okay. I naturally want to live and so on, right?

[30:30] I see that I make certain choices, you know. Right. Um. Ah. So so the will as a nature, the will is naturally willing some things. Right. Um, is more fundamental, right? The will is choosing, right? But anyway, you can say the will, though, is not just the nature, right? Right. Okay. So therefore, I say the difference between the reason or the will, let's say, nature, is like the difference between one and two.

[31:08] Okay. Or like the difference between two and three, if you want to see it, right? See. It's not that three doesn't have two in it. It does have two in it, right? Okay. Why is three not a two? Okay. Well, because it's not just two. It's two plus one, right? Yeah. Okay. So the will is what a particular nature, right? Yeah. Because it wills some things naturally.

[31:37] Yeah. It's determined, you know. Okay. And natural necessity there, and likewise reason naturally knows some things, right? Like the whole is more than a part. Right. Okay. And those are the beginnings of all its understanding. As

[31:54] the reason for those things to get to some other reason of understanding, but later on, reason reasons things are not always that clear to reason, and it can see a reason to think something is so, and a reason to think it's not so, right? Yeah. Okay. And even reasonable men can disagree about some of these things, huh? You know, are everything so? You know, right? Right. Okay.

[32:17] And you know, courses of action and so on, right? Huh? Mm. You know. Often there's there's reason to think this might be so. Should I? Should I? Should I not? You know. Mm. The flower. So, um.

[32:37] So put it this way: , say, is the distinction between reason and nature, or the distinction between will and nature? Is it like the distinction between two and three, to take one example, or like the distinction between animal and man? Right, it's the same thing. Yeah, same kind of distinction. Or is it like the distinction between virtue and vice?

[32:59] See, yeah, see, but the moderns understand it, a distinction like that of virtue and vice, two absolutely, but different things, right? Nature and reason are two different things. Yeah, and there is reason is not determined to anything. It's totally yeah. It's like it's. It just. Superior is just. Yeah, just just talking, just talking now. Yeah. See, and never reaches any conclusion, right? Right. And and and you're.

[33:28] Yeah. You're a dupe, you know, of your own thinking. If you think you reached a conclusion, right? You're stuck in your categories. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I say, you know, praise this, you know, open-minded, right? you know. Um, I've seen the what is it, bumper sticker? Have you seen this one? Um, uh. If you haven't changed your mind, maybe you don't have one. Have you seen that one?

[33:51] That's not something like that. I seen on campus somewhere. You know. Kind of like a mind, like a parachute, doesn't function unless open. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you haven't changed your mind, you know. This year I think that. Next year I'll think something else. Right. This summer I think one thing.

[34:12] It takes a sign of high intelligence to never. stop Yeah. yeah. I mean, I always called it Oliver Wendell Holmes. you know, if he said, if I had to write down pieces of paper, all the things I'm sure about, I'd leave the page blank. That's a common common thing, right? Among among intellectuals. So who said that that the mind has to have talons? I heard that somewhere.

[34:33] Is that? It's just this whole sense of this needing to, um, or or or to to take you know the mind is like a parachute doesn't function unless open. Well, you can also say, don't be so open-minded that your brain falls out. Yeah, yeah. But see, but the way which modern philosophy is rootless, therefore, right? What? Root rootless. Rootless. Yeah, uprooted, right? Because it has no natural these natural.

[35:01] Yeah. Things that we naturally want, or these things we naturally understand, those are the the the roots of philosophy, right? The roots of all kinds of things, and they're kind of you know uprooted, you know. We speak that way. You don't have any principles. Yeah, yeah. Any principles? Yeah. Dr Berquist, why did you have up there cause with nature, reason, and will all sort of coming down from cause?

[35:31] I have no idea why you did that. Well, we say nature. We say nature is the cause of some things, and reason or will is the cause of other things, right? Okay. So when you say you know art. Artificial things and natural things. We're thinking, you know, this is different, don't we? Artificial things means things made by reason, yeah. Art is something by reason. And

[35:55] okay, sure. I see. If you study ethics, you'll meet the definition: there are moral virtue, which is a habit with choice, right? Existing in the middle towards us is determined by right reason. But it's a habit with choice, aren't we? The habit of choosing.

[36:16] Yeah, yeah. But ethics is really about things that exist in some way by choice. Once again, habit with choice. I'm sorry. Yeah, habit with choice existing in the middle towards us is determined by reason. Existing in the middle. Yeah, that's I'm sorry That's the definition of what. Moral virtue. Moral virtue, yeah. We will meet that sometime. You stay. But I was mentioning, you know, the whole choices in the definition there, right?

[36:58] When you say when I define marriage, I say it's say what stable union of a man and woman by mutual choice for the sake of children, right? Okay. But again, you know, I mean, if you take vows in a sense, you're making certain choice of life, right?

[37:19] So some things are tied to choice, aren't they? Choices cause us something, right? Okay. They say to the students when you get up there from the priesthood to get married, you know, he doesn't ask you do you have wonderful feelings about so and so. You have warm feelings about so and so. He's only you do, but he's asking you, you know, are you choosing this person, right?

[37:48] Huh? You know, it's your active choice, huh? The the the later on when you when you take the idea when you're being true to yourself, right? See, which is more you, your choice or your emotions, right? You know.

[38:08] So if a man says an alcoholic, let's say, and he he is sober, moody, decides he's got to do something about this in his life, right? And he chooses, you know, to join, you know, AA or something, right? And well, then he's going to have this rich drink again, right? Huh? Okay. When is he true to himself when he when he follows his bodily urge or he adheres to his choice?

[38:34] Which is more me, right? See. All right. In this example, there, Shakespeare's play, the two young gentlemen of Verona right? Proteus immediately has chosen Julia as his wife, right? his soul-confirming oaths soul confirming oaths. He's pledged to her right? And then when he goes to the court and he sees Sylvia, right? Then he has this like conflict, right? And of course he says, you know, in order to pursue Sylvia, who's his best friend, the other gentleman, Verona's girl, he's got to betray his best friend and betray Julia.

[39:10] He says, I can't be true to myself without doing this, right? Well, I often ask students to say, now contrast to what Polonius says, "this is above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as a night the day. Now, canst not then be false to any man." Who's right, Polonius or this man here? Right? See? Well, of course that goes back to which is more me. My will, which chose Julia, right?

[39:44] Or my emotions, which is more me? You know, some students will try to think that they're more their emotions than anything else, right? But I ask them when I say, you know, if you're on the jury, right? Are you going to judge other things being equal more severely a murder of passion or a premeditated murder? And they always say premeditated murder, right? See, as if you know you're even more responsible for the premeditated murder than the one of passion because you had time to think about it.

[40:20] So you've done it more, right? You know. And and the interesting thing about human beings, you know, sometimes people say, "I don't want to see you anymore," that sort of thing, you know, lovers quarrels and so on. But they say if you say this in words, you can more easily retract it than if you write a letter and say, "I don't want anything more to do with you, right?

[40:40] You know, there's something very permanent about a letter, right? You know, if you sit down, you write a letter. You had time to, you know, think about this a bit, right? You see, you know. Now you've more made a decision there, right? So the question is, which is more me? My reason and my will, or my emotions? Well, then I always take the example, you know, you're in the bar there, and Joe's about going to get in a fight with somebody, you know.

[41:13] And you see all kinds of trouble. Joe can control yourself, right? But who's