De Anima (On the Soul)
147. Summa I, Q.85, Articles 7–8: Why Some Understand Better Than Others, and Whether We Know the Indivisible First
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[0:00] God, but we don't understand what an angel is, even less than we understand what a dog and a cat is, huh? So next time we'll do seven and eight. We'll be.

[0:18] you know, alright. Okay, okay. Name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Help us to understand what you've written. Amen. The Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.

[0:46] Okay. The seventh one proceeds. It seems that one is not able to understand the same thing better than another. For Augustine says in the book of the eighty-three questions, the one who understands something other than it is does not understand it.

[1:10] Wherefore, it should not be doubted, huh, that there is a what perfect understanding, of which nothing can be more what powerful or more excellent, huh? And therefore, not to infinity things of one go when each thing is understood, nor can one understand it more than another, huh?

[1:38] Moreover, the understanding in understanding is true, but truth is the equality of the understanding and the thing. We've talked about that before, right? You know, you say that what is is not. You're subtracting from the truth. When you say what is not is, you're adding to the truth. So you're not equal with reality, right? When you say what is is and what is not is not, then you're equal with reality.

[2:13] So sometimes they call truth the equality, right, of the understanding things. But equality does not receive more and what less, huh? For not properly speaking, can one say something is more and less what equal, huh? What's that? The thing there, huh? Was it in Animal Farm or was it Brave New World, huh? We're all equal, but some are more equal than others. We said properly speaking, you can't say that one is more equal, right?

[2:52] Okay. In other words, we have three straight lines, and one of them is more equal to a you know the third than the other one is. Well, strictly speaking, you can't say that, right? Or two, you have three circles, and one of these circles is more equal to a third one than the other one is. Now, either equal or not, huh? You either have the truth or you don't have it, right?

[3:20] Moreover, the understanding is what is most formal in man, huh? What makes a man to be a man, right, and separates him from the animals? But a difference of form causes a difference of. Particular kind or species. If therefore one man understood more than another, it would seem that he is not of what one species, huh? So he called Thomas the what? Angelic doctor. Doesn't seem to be the same species as us, huh?

[3:53] But against this is that through experience are found some to be what understanding more deeply than others, huh? Just as that man understands a conclusion more profoundly who can lead it back to the first beginnings and to the first causes, than to the one who is able to reduce it only into what proximate causes, huh? Okay.

[4:21] So if I know you hit me because you're angry with me, right? I don't understand you hitting me as much as a guy who knows why you're angry with me, right? Because he can go all the way back to the first cause, huh?

[4:37] I answer. It should be said that for someone to understand one and the same thing more than another can be understood in two ways. This expression. In one way, thus that more determines the act of understanding on the side of the thing understood, and thus is not possible that one person understand the same thing more than another, because if he understood it other than it is, huh?

[5:15] Either more or or worse, he would what be deceived, right? And would not understand, as Augustine argues, huh? During that eighty-three questions. In another way, it can be understood that determines the act of understanding on the side of the one understanding, and thus one more than another,

[5:42] one can understand the same thing better one than another, because he is of what more power in understanding, right? Just as he sees better by bodily vision something who is of more what perfect power, and in which the seeing power is more what perfect, huh? So did Mozart hear better than we did? They say you sound a trumpet Mozart faint, huh? Because his ear is so sensitive.

[6:18] Remember a guy a guy in a some kind of music course, you know. Professor, you know, hit a chord on the piano, you know, Now, you all know what that, is, don't you? He could never figure out what it is. Everybody else in the class, you know, yeah, yeah, it's the, this is that chord, you know. But to him, it's just a, okay. And of course, I know that from my my experience with wine, you know, some people are what taste the wine more than others, huh?

[6:55] Sure. And I did with my brother Marcus out there when he was a bachelor professor there, huh? Teaching at Saint Mary's College, and there's some wine that's in the bottle. My brother Mark would seal it up in a little container, huh? And then at the end of the week, we'd have what wine tasting, huh? And each of us would test the other guy. The other guy didn't know what wine was being served, and I guess maybe right about 50 percent of the time with his Cabernet Sauvignon, if you know.

[7:24] who are my brother Mark never what? I remember ever was mistaken. And this Cabernet Sauvignon, that's Pinot. Noir that one And I think I told you that story. Ron MacArthur had some dinner. I don't know when he was president or something, but he had some dinner for a number of the professors, and just for the fun of it, he served a wine in a different bottle, and no one knew that it was a different wine, except my brother Mark.

[7:50] says that's not, what the label says you know the label says, you know. And Robert Mark was kind of amazed, you see, huh? And so

[8:02] some of these people do have what a better sense of taste, huh? Some people have a better ear. My brother Mark was telling me too about the eye. One time he was visiting, I think in Detroit there, and his friend there had some artist friends, huh? And these guys are what? You know, they walk into a room and they're all in their eyes, you know, and oh, I've never seen a shade of red just like that, you know.

[8:33] You know how how one thing we notice about men and women now, that women have more names for colors than men do, and they have more of a sense of color, right? But some of these painters, you know, they're very sensitive to a slightly different shade of green, you know. You know, I'm not aware of the fact that I've seen different shades of green in my life, you know.

[8:54] But they, oh yes, that's just, you know. So they they they are seeing better, right? So Thomas is making that that's a similia, as he said from the Magnesia, right? So that some people have a better eye or a better ear or a better what? Somebody who's blowing his nose as much as me must not have much sense of taste or smell left, huh? But so some people also have a better what?

[9:21] Understanding, right? We're able to understand, huh? Okay. Now he says this happens about the understanding in two ways, huh? In one way, on the side of the understanding itself, which is more perfect, huh? That's a interesting thing that he's saying there, huh? For it is manifest, he says, that as the body is better disposed, huh? So it what gains a better what? Soul. Now you got to remember what the soul is, huh?

[10:06] The soul is the what? First act of a natural body, right? Composed of tools, right? And so the body and the soul are what? Relative to each other, huh? And so if you have a finer body, right? You're going to have a finer what? Soul. And therefore, a finer what understanding. Okay.

[10:38] It is manifest that as a body is better disposed, so it gains a better what soul. Which, of course, he says is most manifest in those things which are diverse in what species. So Aristotle is always rejecting the Platonic idea that a soul can what go from one body to another. Huh. Sure. Okay. And that was kind of the Pythagorean idea, huh? And maybe your soul will be reincarnated, huh?

[11:08] And depending upon how good or bad you were in this life, maybe you'll. If you were an irascible guy, maybe you'll come back in a dog or.

[11:17] And so on. I remember in this book I had about cats. On said people who ate cats were rats in another incarnation. An allusion to the old idea. Of course, you find many references to this Pythagorean position. You know, in Shakespeare's play, I mean, the characters will allude to this. Huh. Okay. Um. Now the reason for this is because an act in a form is received in matter according to the what capacity of the matter.

[12:02] Whence, since also in men some have a body better disposed, right? They obtain a soul of greater power in understanding, huh? Whence it is said in the second book about the soul that those what having a good sense of touch, soft in flesh, we see are what apt to see. I mean, they're well apt by their mind. We see that they are well disposed in their mind.

[12:37] Now this can happen in another way on the side of the what lower powers, huh? Which the understanding needs for its operation. For those in which the what power of imagination and the cogitative power and the power of memory is better disposed, are better what disposed to understanding, huh? And I told you how when I tried to do some of the solid geometry there in Euclid, my imagination was having a hard time picturing these things.

[13:11] So I constructed one of these things in a little cardboard, you know, and I had it hanging from the lamp in the kitchen there where we eat our meals, you know, and helped my imagination, you see. But that's shows the weakness of my imagination, right, huh? Okay, so I was pretty good at math, though you know. When I was a freshman in high school, they gave us a national test, and there were three guys of us who got the 99, you know, percentiles.

[13:39] So I was one of them. So, you know, but but if you know somebody who knows got, you know, somebody with photographic memory. I'm not sure. This one guy I knew, one of the other guys who got 99, but he could take, you know, like to give him a poem, you know, with five or six page poem, you know, he'd read it over once, close it, reset it, perfectly from memory.

[14:05] Wow. And I had a professor who had a photographic memory, huh? Of course, you know, he he played the organ, he he knew what I I read Aristotle in Greek with him, and another friend of mine did Arabic with him. My brother Mark did you know Middle English with him and Chaucer and Dante and Italian with him and you know he did I had German French all the rest of these you know.

[14:30] See that was a difficult language. He had to look at the book twice. He said, you know. One Christmas, the organist at our church, you know, we had the auxiliary bishop resided there at Nativity Parish, and so they had a big Christmas liturgy and so on. The organist became sick, so they called upon him to come over and played the organ. I couldn't tell any mistakes he was making.

[14:51] They said he knew physics too. I don't know, but he had this kind of photographic memory, you know. So I mean, some people have better what imagination or better memory than other people do, and this these are used in preparing the images which are then abstracted, and so on. So that's another way that one man can understand better than another.

[15:20] Okay, now from this should be clear the answer to the first couple objections, right? When you say one man understands what better than another, we don't mean that one man what is exceeding the object, right, and not being equal to the thing, huh?

[15:42] For he says the truth of the understanding in this consists in this that one understands the thing to be just as it is, huh? Okay, but one man understands it to be as it is better than another man. Okay.

[16:07] So when I, just like with the senses, there, right? When I taste the wine and can't recognize it too clearly, right? I'm not tasting the wine other than it is, right? I'm tasting it as it is, but not as well as the other man is, huh?

[16:32] Okay. To the third, it should be said that that the difference of form, which does not come about except from a diverse disposition of matter, does not make diversity according to species, but only in number. For there are diverse forms and diverse individuals, according to diversified according to what matter. So notice, huh? You know, and there's a problem about the separated soul. How do you tell the difference between one separated soul and another one, right?

[17:04] And it's because your soul is made for your body. There's something individual about your soul, huh? And if your soul was not made for your body, then there wouldn't be many what separated souls, huh? There'd be no distinction, huh? Because they'd all be like Gabriel and Michael and the angels, right? For each one is a separate kind of thing. There's no two angels. of the same exact kind, right?

[17:37] So the individual differences between your soul and my soul is that your soul is made for your body, and my soul is made for my body, huh? So, so you have to appreciate your parents preparing your body, right, huh? Because your soul could only be the soul of that body, and if your parents had prepared another body, right, um, it would have been a different soul, would not have been your soul.

[18:08] So does that imply, or does that make necessary that the that the body pre-exists the soul in time, or just no, no, it's by the body naturally is what generated first, right? Then the soul is infused in there. But it means that relationship happening in time, or is it just as a as a principle? Well, the body's prepared first, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then the soul is infused, huh?

[18:35] Okay. Now exactly when the human soul is infused, we don't know, okay? But if the soul is the first act of an actual body composed of tools, then you'd think there had to be some diversity of organs, right? Before this would be the matter, right? Suitable, the body suitable for this kind of soul, right? Aristotle uses a comparison. Anybody recall the the animal he's arguing against Plato, right?

[19:08] That they have this transmigration of souls, especially you know where the soul of a man might go into a what dog? You know the famous story is told, you know the thing is walking along and somebody's beating a dog with a stick, and he said, "Stop, stop! I recognize the voice. You know my friend so and so has died. You know his soul had left and come into the dog.

[19:29] " But Aristotle says that would be like saying what that one art would pick up the tools of a what another art, huh? Like the tools of the carpenters say would enter into what and start using the tools of the tailor, right? And it's ridiculous, right? You know, they're going to start you know sewing board to board, you know, and and so each each art has its own what tools, right?

[19:58] And and the two are relative to each other, and the soul is like that because it's the first act, the substantial form of a natural body composed of tools, huh? So in a way, the soul is to this body like the art is to its what tools, huh? And not just any art can use the tools of any art, huh?

[20:21] So the glassblower doesn't use the hammer. He has to use the tools appropriate to him, huh? So, however, your soul may be displeased at the defects of your body, right? This is the only body that that soul could have been made for, right? So, you can't hate your own body too much, however you might, you know, just like its physical weakness or its ugliness, or whatever is wrong with your body, right?

[20:54] This is the only body that my soul could inhabit. So, I've got to be thankful in some sense, right? That my body was prepared by my mother and father. Okay.

[21:12] Okay. Let's look now at Article Eight here. To the eighth, one proceeds thus: It seems that our understanding knows the indivisible before the divisible, huh?

[21:31] For the philosopher, meaning Aristotle in the first book of Natural Hearing, so-called Physics, says that we understand and know scientifically from a knowledge of principles and of elements. But the indivisible things are the principles or beginnings and the elements of the divisible things. Therefore, before to us are known the indivisibles, then the what? Divisibles, huh?

[22:10] Moreover, that which is placed in the definition of something is known before by us, because a definition is from things that are before and more known, as is said in the sixth book about places, so-called Topics. But indivisible is placed in the definition, of indivisible, as point in the definition of line. For a line, as Euclid says, is length without latitude, without breadth, whose extremities are two points.

[22:46] And unity is laid down in the definition of number, because number is a multitude measured by one. That's the definition Aristotle gives in the tenth book of the tenth book after the books of Natural Philosophy.

[23:04] So, metaphysics is in Greek three words: Meta, meaning after; Ta, the article; Physica, the books in natural philosophy. So, metaphysics doesn't mean anything to us, right? So, it's the tenth book after the books in natural philosophy in the order of running. The 10th book of wisdom. The 10th book of first philosophy. Therefore, our understanding before knows the indivisible than it knows the divisible. Of course, Euclid defines number as what?

[23:37] A multitude composed of what ones, right? Okay, so they're both defining it seems the multitude by one. Moreover, like is known by like, but the indivisible is more like understanding than the divisible, because the understanding is what simple, as is said in the third book about the soul. Therefore, understanding knows before the what indivisible,

[24:14] but against this is what is said by Aristotle in the third book about the soul. That the indivisible is shown just as as what as a privation or lack. You know the definition that Euclid has a point as that which has no what parts, right?

[24:39] But privation or lack is known per posterius, right? You have to know what knowledge is before you can know what ignorance is, right? Because ignorance is a lack of knowledge, huh? You have to know what sight is before you can know what blindness is, right? Okay, because you define blindness as a lack of sight, huh? Okay. Therefore, the indivisible, huh? Of course, the word indivisible seems to show this negative in meaning, huh?

[25:15] Okay. Now, Thomas says, "I answer that the object of our understanding, in its present status, huh, when the soul is in the body, right, is the what it is of a material thing, huh, which it takes from the what images, right, as is clear from the body. So sometimes I say that the proper object of our understanding is the what it is, huh, of something sensed or what imagined, huh?

[25:55] Okay. And because that which is first and through itself or by itself known by a knowing power is its object, huh? It should be considered in what way the indivisible is understood by us, right? From the way the indivisible is towards a what it is of the sort we just mentioned, the what it is is something you can imagine or sense, right?

[26:31] Now, the indivisible or undivided is said in three ways. As is said in the third book about the soul. In one way, as the continuous is what indivisible Actually I'd better say undivided in a sense. huh? Maybe the indivisible is not the best way of translating it. Because it is undivided in what act, right? Although it is divisible in what ability, right? Now you know what the continuous is, huh?

[27:11] Aristotle is distinguishing quantity in the categories and distinguishes between what they call continuous quantity and discrete quantity, huh? And quantities always have parts, right? But in a continuous quantity, the parts. Meet at a common limit or boundary, huh? So the left and the right parts, you might say, of the line meet at a what? Point. They're continuous at that point. And in a say a circle, right? The left and the right semicircles are continuous at the diameter in the middle.

[27:53] And if you wanted to take a body, right, huh? It would be a what? Surface, right? Okay. And that's contrasted with a discrete quantity like number, where say the number is seven, the three and the four don't meet anyway, do they? Okay. Louis de Broglie, there, the great physicist, there, French physicist, there, the father of wave mechanics, huh? He has a book called what? On the discrete and the continuous in modern physics, huh?

[28:25] And so that distinction, I say, goes back to Aristotle's chapter on quantity in the Categories. And he gives another definition of the continuous in Natural Philosophy that the continuous is that which is divisible forever. And that also separates it from a number. You can't divide seven forever. Eventually, get down to one, right? But a straight line, you can bisect, and you end up with two shorter lines.

[28:58] You can bisect those ones and get even shorter ones. But you can always what? Bisect the line. And the only way this could stop would be if you what? Cut some line and you end up with nothing. But as Anaxagoras says, that's impossible. You can't cut something and up into nothing, because you cut something up into what it's made out of. And so if you cut something up into nothing, it would be made out of nothing, which is absurd.

[29:30] Now the other possibility some may say, well, when you cut up, you get two points, right? But could you have a point? I mean, a line two points long? See. Well, can you have a line made out of points? Well, sometimes mathematicians say that you know in high school, right, that a straight line is composed, which means put together from an infinity of points. But since a point has no what?

[29:58] Length or width or depth, if two points come together, and they have to come together and touch in order to make a line, if they come together and touch, the whole of one is going to touch the whole of the other. In which case, two points have no more length than one point. The point is no part, so you can't have more overlapping and spreading out that way.

[30:22] And you can't really distinguish, you know, like like you can in a circle between the what? The edge of the circle. And something inside, the point doesn't have any extension. So the only way two points can touch is to coincide. And if ten or a hundred or a million or infinity points touch, the only way they can do is to coincide. And if they coincide, they have no more length than one point.

[30:49] So it's impossible to put points together touching and make some length. So when you cut a line, you never end up with two nothings. Nor two points, but always two shorter points. So the continuous is divisible, but forever.

[31:15] But this is not true of number, huh? Seven is not divisible forever, huh? And it's because of this that Aristotle, I think, we? were talking about the left hand weren't we? It's because of this that Aristotle says that thoughts are more like numbers than like lines, huh? Thoughts are not divisible forever. There are many other likenesses. There's such a thing as a what next number? Like seven is the next number after six.

[31:49] And there is such a thing as a next thought. Like you can see in the syllogism, right? So if I laid down the statement that every what mother is a woman, and no man is a woman, the next thought is no man then is a mother, right? But with points on a line, there's no such thing as a next point. Because between two points, since they can't coincide, right, or touch, there's always a line between them.

[32:21] Of course, that's one of the postulates in geometry, right? Between any two points, you can draw a what? Yeah, if points could come up and touch each other without coinciding, if they could come up and touch each other and remain two points, right, like two circles can, right, then you couldn't draw a straight line between them, could you? And the postulate of geometry would be false, right?

[32:45] So between two points is always a straight line, and therefore it could, you know, designate a you know point in between those two points. So there's no such thing as a next point. Of course, when you talk about time, that's true too, huh? See, if you take the indivisible of time, the now that has no length of time, is there a next now?

[33:13] No, very strange, huh? Strange. So he's talking about the various ways in which something is said to be one. And these are the three ways that Aristotle distinguishes in the physics too, huh? In one way, as the continuous is indivisible or undivided, because it is undivided in act, right? Although it is divisible in ability or in potency, huh? In fact, it's divisible forever, right?

[33:57] And the undivided or indivisible of this sort is before for the understanding, or is understood by us, right? Before its division, right? Which is into parts, huh? Because a confused knowledge is before a what? Distinct knowledge, as has been said. In another way, that is called one or indivisible in species or kind, as the definition of man is something indivisible. And in this way, the indivisible is understood before its division into the parts of reason.

[34:43] So we name a thing, right, in kind of confused way, before we break the thing up into its parts of its definition. And again, before the understanding what puts together and divides by affirming or negating, huh? So I understand to some extent man, an animal, before I put them together to say man is an animal, and I understand man and stone to some extent, each by itself, right?

[35:18] Before I put them together and say man is not a stone, okay? And the reason for this is because this twofold indivisible of the understanding, it understands by itself as its own object, huh?

[35:45] In a third way, that is said to be indivisible, which is altogether indivisible, as the point and the what? Unit, huh? The beginning of number. Now notice the the unit is even what simpler than the point, because the point has what position? Okay. And so if you're talking about three points, they could be in a straight line, right? Or one could be up above the others, right?

[36:14] But if you talk about three ones, you don't have a difference, do you? Because the three ones don't have any what position. So sometimes the the the Platonists would say that a point is a unit with position. That's why geometry is less certain than arithmetic. Because you have to take into account the position of the points. That's why he has sometimes more than one case in Euclid, in geometrical theorem, but you wouldn't have that in arithmetic.

[36:48] Okay. Now the point and the unit are neither what divided in act, nor are they able to be divided. Okay. And it's the indivisible of this kind that is known what. Afterwards, right. Through the privation of the divisible. And then he gives the definition of Euclid, that we spoke about before. Whence the point is defined, or what it lacks, right? And this is the definition that you find in the beginning of Euclid, the first definition.

[37:27] The point is that of which there is no part, right? But sometimes we say too that the point has neither length nor width nor what depth, right? Okay.

[37:41] Now you can approach that by starting with the body, right? Say, what is a body? Well, you say a body has length and width and depth, right? Okay. Then what's the surface?

[37:58] Length and width, but no depth, right? So now you're already starting to what? A negation, right? Okay. And then you go from a surface to a line. What do you say? Length. Length, but no width and no depth, right? I get two negations, right? Now what about the point, which is the end of a line? Well, that is neither length nor width nor depth, right? So as you go from the composed, the body, right, to something simpler, the surface, and something even simpler than that, the line, and something even simpler than that, the most simple, the point, you get what?

[38:45] More and more negations, don't you? Yeah. Okay. And that's a sign, right, if you're talking about the indivisible, in the sense of the point, that it comes what? Is known after.

[39:01] But in fact matter, body is known before surface, and surface is known before line, and line is known before what? Point. And I know sometimes you know in class you get talking about the point. Sometimes you have a student who will deny that there are points. Let's say points don't exist.

[39:27] And anything that exists got to have some what? Some size, right? Point doesn't have any size, right? Okay. Well, now how do you force the student, huh, by the truth itself, to admit that points exist in some way? How do you force them to do that?

[39:50] Well, you have to go back to what he admits exists, namely a body. And then you say, okay, let's take a body. Let's take say to simplify it here, take a body like a cube, right? Okay. Now there are bodies that don't go on forever, right? So there's an end to this body, right? Okay. So the end of the body does exist. It's a finite body. And the end of the body we call the surface of the body, don't we?

[40:21] Okay. Now you ask the man the question. Does the surface of the body have any depth? Say. Well, if you include with the surface of the body. A certain depth, right? Then, in that depth area, you haven't come to the surface yet, have you? You haven't come to the end of the body, have you? Okay. So you force the student to say that that one of those squares, right, that binds the cube, it has length and width, but it has no what depth.

[41:03] And yet it exists because it's the end of the body, and the body doesn't go on forever; it has an end. Okay. Then you ask the next question, right? You say, "Well, what about that square, right? That the side of the cube does that go on forever? If it did go on forever, the cube would have been infinite, right? So it has also an end, right? Now, is the end of the square in any direction?

[41:31] Does that have any width? Well, if you give it any width, the end of the square, you haven't come to the end, have you? See, and yet it does have an end. So now you have an end that has length, but no what width. Now, do one of those lines that are the end of the one of the squares in the cube, Does that go on forever?

[41:58] Because if it did, then the the square would have gone forever, but doesn't it? So it has an end. Now, how long is the end of a line? See, if you give it any length, the end of a line, it's what? No. You haven't come to the end of the line, right? And yet the line doesn't go on forever. So the end of the line has no length, but it exists, right?

[42:23] Now you got the existence of a point. You see that? But notice how I have to lead the student from the existence of the body to the existence of a surface that has length and width, but no depth, and from that to a the end of a surface that has length but no width, and from that to the end of the line and the point, huh? Yeah.

[42:51] So the more negation you have, the less, the longer it takes you to get to this certitude about the existence of it, huh? Okay.

[43:06] And likewise is the what definition of the one that it be something what indivisible, as is said in the tenth book of the metaphysics. And the reason for this is because such an indivisible has a certain opposition to a bodily thing, whose what it is is first and through itself taken by the what understanding, huh?

[43:34] If, however, our understanding understood by partaking of what separate indivisibles. Separate indivisibles, namely the forms, as the Platonists laid down, it would follow that this indivisible of this sort was what was first understood, huh? Because according to the Platonists, the things that are before are first partaken of by things.

[44:08] Okay. This is very important, you know, when it comes to talk about God, right? Huh? Because the first thing, almost the first thing we take up about God after we know that God exists, and in the Summa Theologia is certainly the first thing taken up, it's the what question on the simplicity of God, right? Okay. You know, if you look at the first question here in the Prima Pars, it's on the what necessity and the character of theology and so on, right?

[44:38] Then the second question is on what the existence of God, right? And then he starts to take up the substance of God, and the first question, which has eight articles in it, is about the simplicity of God, right? But as he goes through showing that God is simple, he's always negating some kind of composition in creatures of God, and then finally, of an article he denies, negates any composition of God, right?

[45:06] So although simple is not a negative like indivisible grammatically, right? The understanding of what it means to say God is simple is to say God is not what composed, huh? Okay.

[45:22] And he, you know, eliminates all the kinds of composition you find in creatures, and then he gives some general arguments to show that there's no composition in God, huh? Okay. In the Summa Contra Gentiles, he does the reverse. He shows in general there's no composition in God, and he eliminates all the particular kinds, or most of them.

[45:47] So, yeah. So it's kind of interesting, huh? That Euclid will what begin with the definition of point, huh? It's not really what is first known, huh? Okay. But there's a tendency in in geometry because we're constructing these things, right? When you're constructing, you tend to go from the simple to the composed, huh? That this kind of is the what appropriate order in what geometry to go from the simple to composed, but really because of the fact you're restricting yourself to quantity and shape that you can do that, it's not really characteristic of our mind to know the simple before the composed, and you find these, you know, books in biology sometimes where chapter one is about the cell, chapter two is about tissues.

[46:44] Chapter three is about organs, and chapter four is about the whole animal, right? Which is more known to us, huh? Yeah, yeah. So they're kind of imitating what you do in geometry, right? Where you define a point before line, and angle before figure, and triangle before quadrilateral, and so on. Trying to apply it everywhere, right? As if the way of proceeding in math was appropriate everywhere, and it's not.

[47:21] That's a big mistake of Descartes and Spinoza, right? They want to proceed everywhere like you do in math, and math is. Not very characteristic of our mind.

[47:35] That's that's what they mean when they panmathematizing. That's what. Yeah, yeah. If you look at the title of Spinoza's major work, there says "Ethica, Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata," demonstrated in geometrical fashion. Right. He tries to put in kind of a you know axioms and postulates and so. on. Okay.