De Anima (On the Soul)
130. Summa I, Q. 82, Art. 4: Does the Will Move the Understanding? End and Agent as Two Kinds of Mover
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/130-summa-i-q-82-art-4-does-the-will-move-the-understanding-end/

[0:00] funny. Um, you know, there are pockets around the country, you know, where. Yeah. Every one time we were driving out to Minnesota, we were driving across New York State, and we just picked out arbitrarily a place to stop. You know, it had a Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, order, to, illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly.

[0:25] Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Amen. God the Father strengthen the Pope and God the Holy, God the Son, lighten him, and God the Holy Spirit fills heart with Your love. Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:46] Okay, we're up to Article Four here in Question eighty-two, and this is whether the will moves the understanding. The fourth one proceeds thus: It seems that the will does not move the understanding. Thomas objects against what he's going to show, as usual. For the mover is more noble and before the moved,

[1:15] because the mover is the one who acts upon the moved, and the one acting upon is more noble than the one what undergoing. It's more divine to give than to what receive. Okay, as Augustine says in the twelfth book upon Genesis to letter, and the philosopher in the third book about the soul. Remember, he's acting, distinguishing between the undergoing understanding, the possible understanding, and the active understanding or acting upon understanding.

[1:52] And that's where he stated this principle, so that if the undergoing understanding was immaterial, even more so with this active one. But the understanding is before and more noble than the will, as has been said above in the previous article. So therefore, the will does not move the what understanding, huh? Okay, that's a nice argument, huh?

[2:26] The second argument, huh? Is saying, moreover, the mover is not moved by what is moved, huh? Except perhaps accidentally, but the understanding moves the will, because the desirable thing when it's been grasped by the understanding is a what unmoved mover, huh? But the desire is a moved mover. Therefore, the understanding is not what moved by the will. That's what he's saying there, right? If one thing is the cause of the other, it seems the other is not its cause, right?

[3:19] If I'm your father, you can't be my father, right? Huh? And so he's saying, if the understanding moves the will, then it seems that the will is not going to be moving the understanding. Okay.

[3:40] But as we will see, there may be hidden here a what equivocation in the word mover, huh? Yeah. Of the mover. Yeah. Moreover, we are not able to wills unless something be understood. Huh?

[4:02] Let's put that a little more better English. Nothing is able to be willed unless it be understood. Huh? If, therefore, to understand the will moves us by willing to understand, right? It would be necessary also that that willing be preceded by some other understanding, and that understanding by some other what willing, and thus this would go on forever, which is impossible.

[4:41] Therefore, the will does not move the understanding. Okay. The reply that's going to be very interesting, and you can kind of see he alludes to Aristotle's argument in the Eudemian Ethics and applied to that, huh? And it's kind of a second argument for the what unmoved mover, instead of based upon you know natural motion like the argument in the seventh and eighth books of the physics, the natural hearing, Aristotle in the Eudemian Ethics will talk about God being behind what?

[5:16] Yeah, yeah. But we'll see that when he applies to that. But against this is what Damascene says, the great Saint John Damascene, huh? And this great book on the Orthodox faith, huh? That in us we are what

[5:38] we can will right to perceive in the art and to not perceive. huh That may not be said as well as it could be said, huh?

[5:49] That we can what think about something or not think about it when we want to, huh? Okay. My students don't want to think about some things. I think.

[6:01] You know what's the old saying? You need a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. That's true about the students. Yeah. I came into class there, you know, after the Columbus Day, we had a day or so to go off, and I asked them and I said, "What shape did Columbus think the world was?". And some of them said flat. I said, "Well, when he had sailed west to get east, he thought the earth was flat."

[6:30] Such ignorance, you know. And I was driving up here. I pulled the stop sign there, and this other car pulled up, and I could see the bumper sticker, and it's something about the right to be stupid. Yeah.

[6:50] Well, we had that one Archbishop that was talking about a right to be wrong. Yeah. One year. Yeah. Yeah. The right to be wrong. These things kind of build up too, you know. It started out like you know, one year I'd see a whole bunch of stickers saying "challenge authority," huh? Yeah. And then, and about a year or so later, "challenge reality." Yeah. Wow. They go from one.

[7:14] Yeah. So the right to be stupid. I suppose the Supreme Court will find it in the Constitution somewhere. Okay. Who made the great system altogether? So he says, "I answer. It should be said that something is said to move in two ways, and here he's really distinguishing two meanings of the word 'to move. '

[7:44] In one way, by way of the end, as the end is said to move the efficient what cause, and in this way, the understanding moves the will.

[8:02] So it's the beauty of what Juliet that moved Romeo to climb over the what garden wall, right? But then her beauty is moving him not as a

[8:16] efficient cause, as a third kind of cause, right? But in the sense of the end or purpose, it's for the sake of seeing her that he climbed over the wall, right? Okay. It wasn't, but he had been lassoed and pulled over the wall, then he would have moved in the other sense, but efficient cause, huh? Okay. We also use that word in English sometimes, the word "attract," right?

[8:40] And "attract" means literally from Latin there to draw towards one, right? You see, now if I lasso you and draw you to me, that's obviously different than when you say there's a performer down at the centrum down there who's a big attraction and he's drawing in all kinds of people, right? Okay. But he's moving them in the sense that it's for the sake of hearing him or seeing him, right?

[9:07] That they are coming there, right? Okay, and that's different from you know when you lasso the animal and you pull the animal towards you, and the animal is moved in that way. Well, you tie a rope around something and you pull it towards you.

[9:23] Now it's true that we sometimes use the words that are tied up with that third kind of cause, which is called the mover or the maker. We talked about the four kinds of causes before. I'm in here. The first kind of cause we talk about is matter, and the second is form, and the third is called the mover or maker.

[9:51] Then finally, the cause in the sense of end, hein, finis, there. But sometimes we transfer the words from this cause to one of the other causes. So sometimes we speak of the end as your motive, right? The motive, and motive comes from the word to move. But it's not what is meant by this third kind of cause, okay? And sometimes we use the word make even for some of these other ones, huh?

[10:24] Like we'll speak of the spherical shape in the rubber, whatever it might be, makes it to be a ball, right? Okay, okay. And my what? Knowledge of geometry makes me to be a geometer. or my health makes me to be what? Healthy, right? Is that making in this sense of this third cause? No, no. Say. So

[11:01] you've got to realize that the word mover or maker or to move or to make are sometimes used what? Equivocally, huh? Okay, yeah. Not the same word, meaning, and for different kinds of causes. So he says, in one way, something is said to move by way of of an end, huh? As when he said that the end moves the efficient cause. Efficient comes in the Latin word for what?

[11:34] For maker there. And in this way, the understanding moves the will, because the good understood is the object of the will, right? And the good in the primary sense is the end, huh? So when the understanding proposes this end and sees this end as good, right? Then the will is moved to what? Desire it, right, or to love it, huh?

[12:07] But in another way, something is said to move by way of being a what? Agent, right? Just as the one altering moves the thing that is altered, right? So the fire softens the wax or softens the butter, right? Or the the the fire there on the grill there, huh? Alters the meat, right? Okay. And the one pushing or impelling moves the thing that is pushed or impelled, right?

[12:40] And in this way, the will moves the what? Understanding, yeah. And all the powers of the soul, although Thomas excluded, on the vegetative powers, right? As Anselm, Saint Anselm says in the book about likenesses, huh? About similitudes, huh? Okay. So notice, huh? this is a corollary that Aristotle gives after he's talked about the four kinds of causes. You know, he gives the first corollary that there could be many kinds of causes of the same thing, but then he points out that things can be causes of each other.

[13:19] But in different ways, huh? Would make any sense for me to be your father and you to be my father, right? Okay. But exercise, say the typical example. Exercise is a cause of health or or strength, right? But health or strength might be the cause of exercise too. But health would be a cause of what? Of exercise in the sense of the end, is for the sake of your health that you exercise.

[13:47] But vice versa, exercise is a cause of health in the sense of the what? Make makes you healthy, right? Okay. I say to students, you know,

[14:02] do you know because you studied, or did you study in order to know? Which was it? Both, yeah. But according to different kinds of cause, right? You studied for the sake of knowing, right? Therefore, knowing is a cause in the sense of that for the sake of which, which is the definition of end, huh? But you're studying what produced you might say, right? Some knowledge in you that wasn't there before.

[14:44] Now, if we want to know the the area of this table, right? Well, you could multiply the length by the width, right? Okay. Now, is multiplying the length by the width the cause of you knowing the area?

[15:03] Or is knowing the area the cause you multiplying the length by the width? Oh, it's both in different ways. Yeah, yeah. But multiplying the length by the width would be a cause of you knowing the area in what sense of the four causes? Yeah. But knowing the area would be the cause you're multiplying the length by the width in the sense of what? The end, yeah, yeah.

[15:29] The same with the syllogism, right? In the syllogism, you put together two statements and you're able to draw conclusion from them, right? Okay. So do you know the conclusion because you put the two premises together? Or is knowing the conclusion why you put the two premises together?

[15:49] Well, as Aristotle points out, they can both be right responsible for the other, but not in the same sense of responsible. Okay. So it's like that with the reason and the will. The will is a cause of understanding in the sense that it moves us to understand something, right? But the good is what understood, right? Is the end, and therefore it moves the will as an end.

[16:22] Okay. Now, the reason for all this, Thomas says, huh, is because in active powers that are ordered, right, that power which regards the universal end moves the powers which regard the particular ends, and this appears both in natural things as well as as in political things. I take an example from the ancient science, huh? For the heavens, right, that act for the universal conservation of things, generable and corruptible, moves all the inferior bodies, right?

[17:14] Of which each one acts for the conservation of its own kind, or even of the individual, right? But you see something that even today, when the sun is a kind of universal what cause extending to all plants, huh? And to all of us to some extent, huh? For the king also, who intends the common good of the whole kingdom, he moves through his own command, right? The individuals that are what set up in command, right?

[17:46] You might say, or the cities, right? Who give their care of the regime to the singular cities? Okay, that's a common thing developed by Aristotle in the what? Nicomachean ethics too, where he talks about how one art or one science comes under another one, right? And so the medical art might command the art of the pharmacist because medicine is subordinated to what? Health, which is the end that the medical doctor is aiming at, huh?

[18:17] Okay. Or in our government, the president, right, commands all the heads of all the departments because he's intending the common good of the whole city, right? And they're intending some particular good, huh?

[18:34] So he's the commander in chief too, right? Because the victory of the army, the defense of the country, is ordered to the good of the country, huh? Okay.

[18:45] Now he says the object of the will. He's going to apply this principle to the will. The object of the will is the good and the end in general, right? Okay, it's complete the universal. Notice how, like Aristotle before him, he couples good and what end, as if they're basically the same thing.

[19:10] And notice just to recall, the definition of end. As we mentioned a minute ago is that for the sake of mentioned a minute ago, is that for the sake of the end? Okay. The definition of good is what all want or what all desire.

[19:34] Well, obviously those two are going to go together, right? Because if something is wanted, people will what aim at it, right? And therefore, it becomes an end or a goal. And vice versa, if people are aiming at something, you can be sure that they think that it's something good, right? And so these two go together: the good and the end.

[20:05] Now, sometimes we say the means are good too, but the means are good because they lead to the end. Studying is good because knowing. Is good, or medicine is good because health is good, and so on.

[20:22] Okay. Now each power is compared to its own good that is suitable to it. That's a particular good, right? As sight, for example, to the what sensing or perceiving of color, right? The understanding to the knowledge of what is true, huh? And therefore, the will, in the way of an agent or by way of an agent, moves all the powers of the soul to their acts, right?

[20:58] With the exception of the what natural powers of the vegetative part, huh? Which are not subject to our what judgment, right? Huh? Okay. So I fall asleep at night, and I guess the digestive your food at night, huh? Partly, right? And without my even saying, now digest.

[21:21] Okay. Okay. So what he's pointing out there is that the will, as as its object, the end and the good in general, right? And so the particular good of any part of us, right, can come under the what command of the will, yeah. Okay.

[21:46] That's more universal, he might say, huh? Okay. In other words, my my eye is just concerned with seeing or seeing well, right? My stomach with digesting or digesting well, right? Huh? But the will has its object not just some particular good, but good in what general, right? Huh? And I can even aim at the what common good of the city what my family, or even more so the common good of the city, right?

[22:17] Or I can go all the way to God, right, with my will, huh? And He's the common good of the whole universe, huh? He's the good of every good, as Augustine says, huh? So in that sense, the will commands, right? Reason to what understand, right? Huh? But also commands me to what look very closely at the painting over there or something else, right? Okay, or to listen to Mozart very, very carefully, huh?

[22:52] Yeah. Now let's go back to the first objection, right? First objection was saying wasn't what we learned before in the previous article that the understanding is before more noble than the will. And the agent and the mover is more noble, right? Okay. Well, Thomas is going to point out some very interesting things here.

[23:19] To the first, therefore, it should be said that the understanding can be considered in two ways. In one way, as the understanding is able to grasp being and true universally, huh?

[23:42] Okay. Notice how universal that is. Huh? The Greek philosophers used to say, "You can't get something out of nothing." And we understand what that means, right? You can't get something out of nothing, huh? And and how universal is something?

[24:01] Yeah, the only thing outside of something is nothing, right? Right. So the same way with being or true, right? Huh? They extend to everything, right? Okay. And therefore, there's a complete universality there. Okay. So in one way, you can stop and consider that the understanding has as its object something that covers everything, and therefore the understanding is in some way what infinite, right?

[24:32] But in another way, we can look at the understanding as it is a certain particular thing, right? Okay. Just like my sense of sight is one particular thing, my my ability to digest is another particular thing, right? And so on. It's just one of many powers that I have, right? Okay.

[24:53] And he says, likewise, the will is able to be considered in two ways. In one way, according to the commonness of its object, right? Insofar as it is desirable or desiring good in what in general, right? Okay.

[25:20] In another way, as it is a certain determined power of the soul having a determined act, right? Okay. That's kind of interesting. There's two ways of looking at it, right? You can say, "Well, you know, why you get so excited about about the understanding get so excited about about the understanding, you philosophers, right? It's just one of many powers. You got the power to digest, the power to grow, the power to see, you know, the power to walk, the power to get angry, and so on, right?

[25:45] You know, I say, yeah, but there's something about this particular power, right? If you look at it another way, its object is something that extends to everything, huh? Say, why my eye extends only to what color? Say, it doesn't extend to everything, right? And my ability to digest extends just to food, and maybe not all foods. Is it? But you know, I can think about food. I can think about color.

[26:13] I can think about sound. I can think about anything, huh? I've opened everything. Okay. I may not get very far in knowing everything, but my mind is open to everything, huh? So in some way, it's it's very universal. That's where Aristotle said in the third book about the soul that the soul is in some way all things, huh? And in that way, it's in the image of God, right?

[26:39] I say. Okay. You know, I've often quote those words. You know, God says to, I think both Abraham and to Moses, but, you know, follow me, and I will show you every good. And Thomas says that is myself. Because since every good is found in God, right? Okay. But you can see that our soul, in so far as it has understanding and will, is made in the image of God, right?

[27:08] Because in some way the soul is open to what knowing, loving, right? All things, huh? So once you realize that you can look at these these two ways, right? The understanding and the will.

[27:31] He says, therefore, if one compares the understanding and the will, according to the what reason of the commonness of their objects, right? Then, as has been said above in the previous article, the understanding is simply higher and more noble than the will because its object is more simple, right? than what it is, right? These things. If, however, we consider the understanding by the commonness of its object, and the will now, according as it is a certain determined powers, thus again the understanding is higher and before the will.

[28:12] Why? Because under the notion of being and the true, which the understanding grasps, is contained the will and its act and its object, right? In other words, my reason can know the truth about all kinds of things, right? And one particular group of truths it could know is the truth about the will, right? And the truth about the object of the will, and so on, right? But it can know the truth about the eye.

[28:42] It can know the truth about the horse and the dog and the cat and the stars, even to some extent, right? Okay. So in that sense, the will, considered as a particular what power with a particular act, right? And a particular object is just one of many things that the reason is able to know the truth about, right? Okay, just one of many things is able to know what they are.

[29:07] Okay. Once the understanding, he says, understands the will and its act and its object, just as other particular things understood, as a stone, he says, or a piece of wood, right, right, because all these are contained under the common definition of being and of what true, right, okay. If however right, this is the reverse now, right? If one considers the will according to the common definition or notion of its object, which is good, then the understanding, according as it is a particular thing and a particular power, it comes thus under the common notion of good.

[30:01] It's contained under the common notion of good, right? Okay. So the what I can say that the understanding is one of our goods, and it's knowing the truth is one of our Goods, right? Okay, and then but we have other goods besides that. So the will, you know, extends down to the good of the understanding, but the good of all the parts of man, and maybe the good of my family, or the good of my country, or the good of the whole universe in some way, right?

[30:30] You see? Okay. So the psalms here and so on. Bless the Lord, all your works, the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever. Right. Well, then you are extending to the good of the whole universe. So the will, in that sense, is more universal, and the reason looks like something just, you know, particular, right? Underneath it, huh?

[30:58] Okay. Just to repeat myself a little bit. If therefore one considers the will according to the common definition of its object, which is a good, the understanding, according as is a certain thing and a special power, thus is contained under the common notion of good as something what special or particular, right? The understanding itself and its what act of understanding and its object, right, which is the true, right?

[31:29] The true is is one of many goods. The understanding and its act, okay, of which each one is its own special good, and in this way the will is higher than the understanding, and is able to what move it, huh? As you mind a little bit of one of the arguments Thomas is giving in the Summa Contra Gentiles when he's reasoning that the understanding is not a body, right?

[31:59] Okay, and he says I can, in a way, what in my mind contain your mind, right? I can grasp your mind in some way by my mind, right? But vice versa, you can grasp my mind by your mind, right? Okay, so that my mind is in your mind, and your mind is in my mind. Now is that possible with two bodies? Bodies, no, no. See, if my body is inside this room, can this room be inside my body?

[32:34] No, no. See, but the fact that my mind can be in your mind, is in my mind, so to speak, right? And vice versa is a sign that our minds are not what two bodies, right? But the same, you know, in a way, applies here to the what a little bit to the understanding and the will, right? That the understanding, in a way, because the universality of its object, in a way, finds the will and its act and object just a particular thing under its universal object, right?

[33:09] Okay. So just as my understanding can know the truth about many other things, it can also know the truth about the will and its act and its object, just a particular truth, and the many truths that I open to by my mind. But then, vice versa, the understanding seems to be contained under the will and its object, because that just wasn't good, right? They have an understanding and to understand and and the truth, right?

[33:36] And so, good in that sense is more universal than these particular goods. So they kind of contain each other, right, in their object. That's kind of unusual, right? See, you don't find it if you take, like, you know, like my senses, for example. My eyes know only colors, or or what can be known through colors. Your no sound, but sound doesn't come under color, right? It's a particular kind of color.

[34:02] Sound is it? Nor does color come under sound as a particular kind of what? Sound, yeah, yeah. See, but that's the way the understanding and the will are, right? Yeah. The object of the understanding is not color, but the true, understandable. Hmm. It is understandable in a sense, and the will is among many things that are understandable to some extent. Okay. But likewise, the object of the will is the good, and the understanding is a particular good, and its act of understanding and its object, truth, is a particular good.

[34:42] Huh? You see. Is that is that because ultimately truth and good are convertible? I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's also dealt with the fact that these are immaterial powers, huh? And therefore, they're not. They have a certain what infinity to them, huh? See. You got to be careful there. You know, if you read what's his name, Feuerbach right? The thinker that comes between Hegel and Marx and Engels, right?

[35:13] Yeah. He has a perverse little book there called "The Essence of Christianity." Yeah. But where he tries to show that man is God, right? Yeah. You see. And that not that God became man, but that man himself is God. You know, the incarnation is just just a a mythical way of saying that man is God. See. But his middle term is, you know, man's mind is infinite.

[35:39] The infinite is God. Therefore, man's mind is God, right? See. But of course, the word "infinite" is a word that's very often what? It's very equivocal. Yeah. That's kind of interesting. Read Aristotle, you know, the the first book there, Natural Philosophy, there, the the so-called Physics, first book of Physics. There, he's refuting Melissus, who mixes up two meanings of the word "infinite." Oh. Now, now, back in the you know, was the 19th century, I guess.

[36:06] Sure. You find Farbach, you know, confusing two other senses of infinite, huh? Sure. You know. Because when you say God is infinite, you mean He's what universally perfect, huh? There's no what limit to His perfection, huh? When you say man's mind is infinite, you know it's like Aristotle said there. It's a blank tablet to begin with, right? So it's very imperfect, right? And it's constantly what able to learn more, which means that it's always imperfect in some way.

[36:38] It's always incomplete. So it's quite different from the infinity of God. But Feuerbach and and and I mean Marx and Engels, when they read this, they were convinced by it, right? But it seems like it takes a little bit of pride and help there to be convinced by this too, you know. But is the most common mistake in thinking the mistake from mixing up different senses of the same word, right?

[37:01] And but anyway, the element of truth that that is in their position is that there is something infinite, right, about the even human understanding and the human will, huh? Okay.

[37:26] Now, from these things, it appears the reason wherefore these powers, by their acts, in a way include each other, right? Because the understanding understands the will to will, right? Okay. Now, by understanding, I understand that my will wills, right? Okay. And the will wills that the understanding understands, okay.

[37:58] And for a like reason, if you take the objects of these two powers, the good is contained under the true, in so far as it is a what certain true thing understood, right? And vice versa, the true is contained under the good, in so far as it is a certain good that is what desired, right? Okay. So in one way, the reason is what superior to the will in these distinctions he's making, right?

[38:29] And the more universal power, right? If you look at the will, simply as what not in terms of the community of its object, but in terms of being a what

[38:43] one particular truth you can know about, right? But vice versa, right? The will seems to be more universal, right? Than the reason or the understanding. understanding. Consider the understanding as being a particular what good, right? And its act and its object is one among other goods, right?

[39:11] So in one way one is superior; in other way, the other is superior, right? That's why he's solving the objection, right? Now he's not denying that the mover, in some senses, but superior and more universal, right? Say, okay, but you have to see those distinctions, right? Two ways of considering it. Now the second objection is saying that the the mover is not moved by the moved,

[39:43] but the understanding moves the will. Okay. He says to the second, it should be said that the understanding, in another way, moves the will than the will the understanding, as has been said. Now, to bring back to the body of the article, where we made that distinction that we're pointing out here, right? That sometimes the end is said to to move us, right? So um uh now they asked the famous bank robber. You know why he robbed banks?

[40:15] He says, "that's where the money? Is right? " You know, but still, the question that was. But notice the money that is in the bank, or the large amount of money that's in the bank, is what moves him to what rob banks rather than to rob you or me. Sure. That's what the money is. But notice that's in the sense of an end, right? That for the sake of which, huh?

[40:42] Okay. For the sake of of money, right? That he robs banks, huh? Okay. So the understanding moves the will in the sense of a what end, right? Is said to move, huh? But the will moves the what understanding in the sense in which an agent is said to move, right? Okay. So t here is an equivocation there in the word "what move," right? So it's not really the same kind of cause.

[41:18] As Aristotle's pointing out, see, because you know, t here is an old axiom that nothing is before or after itself, right? But notice the word "before" and "after," like all the words in the axioms, they're equivocal by reason. They have many meanings, right? And nothing prevents

[41:50] one thing being before a second thing in one way, and that second thing being before the first thing in another way. Right. See, so Chaucer is before Shakespeare in time, right? Right. What's the first sense of before? But all the critics put Shakespeare before Chaucer. Hmm. That's another sense of before. I mean, better, right? Yeah. See. Now, t here is no problem in Chaucer being before Shakespeare in time, and Shakespeare being before Chaucer in what excellence?

[42:28] Yeah. Goodness, huh? Sure. But it wouldn't make any sense. if. It was the same sense of before. Hmm. Sure. If Chaucer was before Shakespeare in time, and Shakespeare also came before Chaucer in time, that wouldn't make any sense, right? Hmm. See. Well, the same way here. See, see, cause is before the effect. I see. So, you know, if you say that A and B are causes of each other, if you say A is a cause of B, but B is also a cause of A, then if A is before B, A is before whatever B is before.

[43:05] Therefore, A is before A, and now you have denied one of the axioms that all thinking is based on: nothing is before or after itself. Well, today can be before tomorrow. And after yesterday, but can today be before today? No. Or be after today? No. See. But notice, huh? If A is is before B in one sense as an end, and B is before A in the sense of a mover or maker,

[43:40] then you have two different senses, really, huh? You have two different senses of the word cause here. So, not only is is the cause before the effect, one senses before, but since there are four meanings of the word cause, there's even four meanings of before and that. I see. I see. Would make much sense to say I'm your father, and you're my father, right? Because then we'd be causes of each other in the same way, right, huh?

[44:19] Okay. Now the third objection was saying, "Hey, if the will is always moved by some good understood, right? It's always an act of the understanding before any act of the what will. But if you understand because you will to understand, then it seems going to have an infinite what regress, right? " Most Thomas's answer, and to third, it should be said that it's not necessary to proceed infinitely, but one stands in the understanding, right?

[45:05] One stops in the understanding, as in something what first altogether. For it is necessary that some grasping, some knowing, huh, precedes every what motion of the will, huh?

[45:27] But a motion of the will does not precede every what grasping or knowing, huh? But the beginning of what taking counsel and of understanding is some what principle of understanding higher than our understanding, right? Which is God, as Aristotle also says in the seventh book of the Eudemian Ethics, huh? That's the amazing Aristotle saw that. I was just thinking that. Yeah. I know my one of my cousins there.

[46:05] She was what they call it a blue baby, you know. I forget exactly that means, you know, but she wasn't expected to live, right? Okay. But she lived, you know, into her forties, fifties, huh? Mm-hmm. But she, you know, she had to take great good care of her health, right? Mm-hmm. But she never had a chance to go to college anything like that, you know. She worked as a secretary, I think.

[46:24] But she took one of these, you know, miniature great books things. And being a Catholic, you know, of course, when they did a little bit of reading Aristotle, she was kind of amazed because things that you you think only a believer, right? Yeah. Would know Aristotle was talking about, huh? Sure. Remember her remarking, you know. Sure. Just just little miniature selection thing with those short things, but enough to kind of impress you, right?

[46:53] Yeah. But this is very impressive, you know. Aristotle says that, huh? Amazing, yeah. And in this way, he shows that what does not proceed in infinitum. But it's like a second argument for the unmoved what mover, right? An argument for God.

[47:24] Interesting things in Deumian Ethics there. So