Love & Friendship
7. Likeness as a Cause of Love: Aquinas on Why Like Attracts Like, and Why Rivals Clash
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/6-love-friendship/007-likeness-as-a-cause-of-love-aquinas-on-why-like-attracts/

[0:01] right? It's Richard against the whole world, right? Interesting, huh? Very interesting the way he portrays him. But that's the opposite now. See, we'll stop there because I can go home. Teach to the class. Name of the Father and the Son and 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.

[0:31] Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, help us to understand what you've written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. We looked at the first two preliminary readings there on likeness, huh? The one was from the Merchant of Venice, if you recall, right? And like Sherlock Holmes, Portia was reasoning backwards, right? If they're that good friends, they must be like each other, right? Her husband and the man she'd never met, right?

[1:03] And so she would like the semblance of her soul, right? Semblance of her husband, huh? But now in the second reading from Richard, Richard thinks love is impossible between him and others, right? Because he's so what? Unlike them, right? Okay.

[1:25] Now in this passage from Washington Irving in the Life of Oliver Goldsmith, as you'll see in Thomas's objections, sometimes those who are most alike are not friends, if they come into what? Competition, right? So if you and I are two lawyers in the same town and there's enough business for both of us, then the fact that you're likely a lawyer is going to drive us apart, right?

[1:53] That's kind of accidental, right? We met at you know a convention somewhere else. We'd be friends, right? Because we had similar interests and so on, but because we're competing, right? And so Irving has noticed that thing, right? And so the famous thing, like in England, the two famous novelists, Thackeray and and Charles Dickens, right? They're non-speaking terms, right? Because each guy was trying to get the best novel out, right?

[2:20] And top the other guy, right? I guess they were reconciled at the end of their life, you know. They passed each other, you know, one day, and one of the guys turned around and offered his hand finally, and. So, but what is it that's getting in the way there? You see? You're competition, right? Okay. So Irving has noticed this. There are no friendships among men of talents more likely to be sincere than those between painters and poets.

[2:50] They are alike enough to be friends, but not in competition in the same art, right? And therefore, the painter and the poet can be a friend more easily than two painters that might be trying to outdo each other, or two poets like or two novelists trying to outdo each other. Okay.

[3:12] So he's talking about the friendship there between Goldsmith, who's a poet, right, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, a famous painter, right. He Says possessed of the same qualities of mind, governed by the same principles of taste and natural laws of grace and beauty, but applying them to different yet mutually illustrative arts, they are constantly in sympathy and never in collision with each other.

[3:39] So he goes on to talk about that. So notice it's paradoxical that those who are alike are enemies, because the likeness as such would make them would tend to bring them together, right? But because of the competition, there might be then they could come into what? If two men had the same taste in woman, and both attracted to the same woman, then they would be what? In competition, right?

[4:09] But if they both like the same movie actors or something, right, that would bring them together, right? Because they're not who's pursuing the same thing, right? Okay.

[4:20] So you see how Thomas will dispose of those objections. Okay. Now, what's the passage here from Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson here? On top of page three.

[4:41] Well, I can be like one man in one way and be friends with him because of that likeness, and be like somebody else in some other way and be friends with him for that reason. But those two guys can't what? Yeah, yeah. So he says it's not like geometry where quantity is equal to the same to each other, right? If you're my friend and you're my friend, does that mean you two guys will necessarily be friends?

[5:06] No, because you might be my friend because of the likeness we have. We both like baseball, let's say, huh? And you and I both like philosophy or something, right? But you don't like baseball and you don't like philosophy, right? So I can be friends with both of you, and you guys can't get along. And that's a thing we've experienced, haven't you? Sometimes you can be friends with two people.

[5:26] who don't get along. Sometimes it's funny you bring them together, you know, and there's friction, huh? Now these selections from Jane Austen, huh? Jane Austen's a very practical woman, right, in her novels, huh? Good ideas of what courtship should be and so on.

[5:47] But these people are not suited to get married, right? In her opinion, their dispositions were so totally dissimilar, as to make mutual affection what? Incompatible, right?

[6:03] And the other novel there, same novel. We are so totally alike, said Fanny. They are so very, very different in our inclinations and ways, that I consider it quite impossible we should ever be tolerably happy together, even if I could like him. There never were two people more dissimilar. We have not one taste in common. We should be what? Miserable.

[6:29] It's a long dispute about whether that's dissimilar, right? And sometimes you don't see the likeness at first, right? Sometimes it comes out, huh? Was it Chesterton said men and women are essentially incompatible. He's commenting on this, you know, divorce, you know, and the reason for divorce, incompatibility. That's not a reason for divorce, he says. Men and women are essentially incompatible. But still, that's been, you know, a likelihood between a man and a woman, right, for them to get along.

[7:10] But in this particular thing here, huh? It seems that they're opposites in some way, right? He is lively. You are serious. But so much the better. His spirit will support yours. Is your disposition to be easily dejected into fancy difficulties greater? than They are. His cheerfulness will counteract this, huh? He sees difficulties nowhere, and his pleasantness and gaiety will be a constant support to you. Your being so far unlike Fanny does not, in the smallest degree, make against the probability of your happiness together.

[7:49] Do not imagine it. I myself am convinced that is rather a favourable circumstance. I am perfectly persuaded that the temperaments had better be unlike. Is this an objection to likeness being a cause of love?

[8:08] It's better that they be unlike, husband and wife, huh? Some opposition here is. I am thoroughly convinced, friendly to matrimonial happiness, huh? So we say opposites attract, right? Is that true?

[8:30] So that would seem to go against the idea, huh? But Thomas will have an answer to that, right? And another reference from James Boswell here.

[8:48] This is the time when he and Sir Samuel Johnson went on a tour of the islands there off the coast of Scotland, right? Cole called me up with intelligence. It was a good day for the passage to Mall, and just as we rose, a sailor from the vessel arrived for us. We all. We got all ready with dispatch. Mister Johnson was displeased at my bustling and walking quickly up and down.

[9:12] He said it did not hasten us a bit. It was getting on horseback in the ship. All boys do it, said he, and you are longer a boy than others. He himself had no alertness or whatever it may be called, so he may dislike it. As odorant Odorant illorum tristes, hilarem tristes, huh? Gloomy people hate a merry fellow, right? But sometimes a gloomy person might sing search out a person who's what humorous, right?

[9:40] Okay. I was giving the logic exam this morning, you know, and one of the nice girls in the class, there, you know, was tempted to say, "How did a nice girl like you end up in a logic class? " And she didn't. Okay, you know, but you never know how they'll take these things in this modern context, you know. So it's better not to say that, you know.

[10:06] Now, in this one from Emily Brontë, notice, huh? She's attracted to two men, right? But to one of them because of the good qualities that man has, the other man because he's like her. Okay,

[10:29] and so you have a nice contrast here, right? That one person is moving her to love him because of the good in him, the other because of his likeness to her. Now, the second thing that's interesting about this passage is, in her own thinking, which does she think will win out, goodness or likeness? What does she say?

[10:58] Yeah, likeness. Yeah, there's a certain danger there, right? Okay. This is nothing, cried she. Look at the last paragraph there. I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home, and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to the earth. And the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath, on the top of Wuthering Heights, where I woke sobbing for joy.

[11:38] That will do to explain my secret as well as the other. I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven. See, he's the guy who's good, right? And if the wicked in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I should have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now, so he shall never know I love him, and that not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am.

[12:06] Okay. Aristotle he talks about self-love and love of a friend, right? A friend is another self, right? And so the love you have for yourself, in a way, is being carried over to the person who's like you. You see them as another self. That's what she's saying there, right?

[12:27] He's not even handsome, right? Not even that. Goodness, but he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. And Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.

[12:47] My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and so on. All these things she's been through with Heathcliff. And the next page there, my love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath. A source of little visible delight but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff.

[13:15] He's always in my mind, not as a pleasure any more than I'm always a pleasure to myself, as my own being. I think it's interesting, huh? That you may be more attracted to somebody because they are like you, right? Than the person who's what? Who, right?

[13:37] I think I was mentioning how Monsignor Dion was saying, you know, sometimes a student is attached to a professor because he's what? Like the student, right? Rather than because he he knows more than the other professor. So you might one professor who knows more is wiser, and the other professor is more like you. So you tend towards the professor who's more like you, right? Rather than the professor who knows more, so in danger in the life of the mind, huh?

[14:08] But now, as Thomas will point out, when we get to the first article on the effects of love, he's talking about whether union is an effect of love, and he'll make a distinction there between the union that is an effect of love and the union that can be a cause of love, right? And he's going to kind of expand on the idea that likeness is a cause of love.

[14:30] Because if I love you because you're like me, what about loving myself? See, I'm not really like myself. I am myself, right? So in that sense, my love of myself is even more stable, right? Than my love of someone who's like, me. Okay? Okay. Now, you see a sort of danger there, right? Let's take a theological situation here. If you take God and your neighbor, right? Who's better?

[15:05] Infinitely better, God, right? But who is more like you? Neighbor, huh? Neighbor, yeah, yeah. So if you love more the one who's like you than the one who's better, then you'd love your neighbor, right? More than God, which would be disorder there, right? This is the same thing that she's undergoing there, right? And since you are even more than like yourself, you are yourself, right? You might like yourself more than what God, right?

[15:43] See, the famous words of Augustine, huh? Amor sui, the love of oneself, Usque ad contemptum dei, makes the city of man, huh? And the amor dei, right? Usque ad contemptum sui, the love of God going as far as to have a certain contempt for oneself, right? Makes the city of God, right? But if there's some truth to what the novelist there, Weathering Heights, is pointing out, right?

[16:15] That we tend to be more what attached, right, to the person who's more like us than the person who is, let's say, better than us, huh? Do you see?

[16:30] And maybe more attached to ourselves than anybody else. But there's obviously a danger in there for the Christian, huh? I'm going to be more attached, right, to myself, maybe, than to God, huh? You know how Christ says, you know, if you love your mother or father or brother or sister more than me, you're not worthy of me, right? Okay. But these others are more what? More than God.

[16:57] Yeah, yeah. And maybe that tends to be very strong, right? So you're fighting against something that's very, very, very rooted in you, right? You see that? I think it's very interesting this particular passage she has there in the novel, right? But you can see other applications in life, huh? Like I told you how my mother used to always say, you know, when you choose a doctor, don't choose a doctor for his personality being like yours, right?

[17:28] But choose a doctor for his what? Medical competence, right? I think there's there's some you know practical wisdom in what Mother was saying, right? It's like the advice that Dionne is giving about teachers, right?

[17:44] Sometimes people vote somebody into office because they're what like themselves, right? Rather than because they're the person who's best qualified for this position, and that's has terrible consequences, right? But the supreme one is loving your neighbor or yourself more than what God, right? Because the neighbor is more like you than God, huh? And like like the Vatican, not Vatican, the fourth Order of the council, right? The one that they quote a lot.

[18:17] It says you can never notice a likeness between God and the creature without a greater what unlikeness, huh? And so you have many references in Scripture to this, so in some sense our neighbor is more like us, right? And therefore we might love our neighbor, or ourselves because we're more than like ourselves, we are ourselves more than God. You see the danger there?

[18:46] On the other hand, if you go back to the the words of Saint John, there he talks about the beatific vision, right? In the epistle there, he said one first epistle, I think it's third chapter, second verse. When he appears, we shall be like him, he says, for we shall see him as he is, right? So when we see God as he is, we'll be more like God than we ever were before, right?

[19:10] And therefore we'll love him more than we ever did before, right? So likeness there is a cause of love, right? Saint Teresa of Avila says God is altogether simple, she says, and the closer one gets to God, the simpler one becomes. It's very interesting the way she says that, huh?

[19:38] Now another quote from Jane Austen there, but again her common sense there, huh? Towards the end of the last paragraph, Elizabeth really believed all his expectations of felicity going to marry her sister, right? To be rationally founded because they had for their basis the excellent understanding and super excellent disposition of Jane, and that's good things in Jane, right? And a general similarity of feeling and taste between her and himself, right?

[20:15] Okay. So they are the two causes of love, right? Goodness and similarity, huh? Let's look at what Thomas has to say about this. One goes forward to the third. Thus, it seems that likeness is not the cause of love, for the same is not a cause of contraries.

[20:48] Now, contraries are what love and hate, right? So, if likeness were a cause of love, then unlikeness would be the cause of hate, right? Right. So, this is a probable statement that we bring out of philosophy of nature, right? Contrary effects have contrary causes, and vice versa. Contrary causes tend to have contrary effects. So, I say, if the butter becomes hard sometimes and the butter becomes soft at other times, and hard and soft are contraries, would you expect the same cause of the butter becoming hard and the butter becoming soft?

[21:26] No, you expect there to be contrary causes, right? And maybe hot is the cause of the butter becoming soft, and cold is the cause of the butter becoming hard. So, contrary causes, hot and cold, are causes of contraries, and vice versa, contrary effects and contrary causes, right? So, if likeness is the cause of love, then likeness shouldn't be the cause of hate, but it should be opposition or difference, right?

[21:57] Okay. For the same is not a cause of contraries, but likeness is a cause of hate. For it is said in the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament, chapter thirteen, verse ten, that there are always disputes between the proud, right? Okay.

[22:18] So, if we both want to be the top dog, right? We're going to be in what competition, right? Like Hotspur and the Prince, right? In the? Play. Henry England cannot stand two Henrys, right? And the philosopher Aristotle says in the eighth book of the Ethics that potters quarrel with each other, right? Okay. Have we touched upon that in our previous readings, right? You know, why is it that painters and poets are apt to have sincere friendships, like he saw in the example of Goldsmith and Sir Joshua Reynolds, right?

[22:55] But you saw in his own life, right? Irving had many friends among the what painters, right? Okay. But because there's a sufficient likeness there for love, but it's not a likeness in something that they compete in. But the two potters, I want to sell my pot, and you want to sell your pot, and there's only one buyer. Well, then I hate you because you're interfering with my business.

[23:18] You see? Okay. If I want to be president, you want to be president. We're just equally ambitious, very much alike, aren't we? Both want to be president. We can't, both be president. So now we, you know, each other's what throats. You see? But is that per se or per accidens? Is the likeness as such driving them apart? It's because they get into some kind of competition because of likeness, huh?

[23:46] If they didn't, then they would be what attracted to each other, right? Okay. Um. So tell us when we point that out. I'm sure it's a plaid objection. Moreover, Augustine says in the fourth book of the Confessions that someone loves in another what he would not want to be, as a man loves an actor who would not wish to be an actor. This, however, would not happen if likeness were the cause of love, for thus a man would not love in another what he himself had a wish to have.

[24:31] Therefore, likeness is not a cause of love, huh? So let's take the example of men, women, there. I say, if a man is masculine, right? Does he want the woman to be masculine? No, he wants her to be feminine, right? Huh? If the woman is feminine, does she want the man to be effeminate? No, she wants him to be masculine, right? Okay. So this seems to be an objection, right?

[24:56] To see the likeness is a cause of what love there, right? Huh? Moreover, each man loves what he needs, even if he does not have it, as the sick love health, and the poor love wealth. But in so far as he needs and lacks them, he has an unlikeness towards them. So here, the poor man loves the wealthy, right? The sick love health, so the like the opposite of what they are.

[25:30] So how can you say likeness is a cause of love, right? Now you're loving what is the opposite of what you are. Therefore, not only likeness but also unlikeness is a cause of love.

[25:47] Moreover, the fourth objection: the philosopher says in the second book of the rhetoric that we love those who have done well to us in matters of money and safety, and likewise all love those who preserve friendship towards the dead All, however, are not such. Therefore, likeness is not the cause of love. So we naturally what? Love a brave man, right? Does that mean we're all brave? And we naturally love a man who's generous with his money, but some of us might be what?

[26:19] Stingy, who love this generous man. So how can the stingy man love the generous man because they're opposites, right? How can the coward love the courageous man when they're opposites, right? See, the objections there.

[26:36] But against this is what is said in Ecclesiasticus. I guess they call it Sirach now, don't they? Chapter 13, verse 19. Every animal loves what is like itself. They have Plato as a dialogue in this whether likeness or opposition, and Aristotle refers to that in the beginning of his books on friendship, right?

[27:05] Now, Thomas again sees a fundamental distinction. I answer that likeness, properly speaking, is the cause of love, but it should be considered that likeness can be found between two things, between things rather, in two ways. In one way, from this, that both have the same in act, as two having Likeness are said to be what Alike right? In another way, from this, that one has ability and in a certain inclination, but the other has an act.

[27:45] And give an an example from the older physics, as we say that a heavy body existing outside its place has a likeness with a heavy body existing in its place, or also as ability has a likeness to act itself, for act is an ability itself in some way.

[28:05] So, if you actually know something, right, and I'm able to know it, are we in some way alike? Not as much as if you actually know something and I actually know it, right? Then we're much more alike. But for me to be able to know what you know, right, is a certain likeness to you, right? And a lot of times you see in the arts, you know, that an older man, right, may recognize in a younger man a kind of innate ability for something, right?

[28:47] The way Mozart's father recognized that Mozart had this musical gift, right? But it needed to be what developed, and that's why he set off around Europe, introducing him to all the styles of music in Europe and so on, right? And he could learn from people. Okay. I remember one time one of the basketball players at some, say, you know, play on the basketball team, let's say, how some guys are natural athletes, right?

[29:14] And in a shorter time, they'll be, you know, hitting the basket better than the guys been doing it for years, you know. So if I'm a good player in basketball, wherever it might be, baseball, football, and I recognize in you kind of a what an ability for this sport, right? See, you got to develop that ability, right? You've got, you've got, you know, you see. So there's a kind of a likeness between us, right?

[29:40] And what I what I have in in actuality, you have an ability and in seeds, so to speak, right? Okay. So, but like almost like saying an acorn like a oak tree. Well, not actually, no, but in ability it is, right? An oak tree, yeah. So that's a kind of more distant likeness. And so I can be attracted to someone who's actually like me, that I'm actually like them, right?

[30:06] Or I can be attracted to to someone or something who has an act, but I have in what ability, and that's a kind of likeness too, but a more what distant one, right? Okay.

[30:21] So Thomas distinguishes two kinds of likeness, and now the next paragraph he talks about how one likeness causes more the love of what friendship or wishing well. And the other more the love of what wanting right okay the first way of likeness therefore causes the love of friendship or well wishing for from this that any two are alike as having one form they are in some way one in that form as two men are one in the form of human nature and two whites in whiteness and therefore the affection of one tends toward the other as in something one with one itself and therefore it wills the good for the other as just as for itself So I want to say in the Greek proverb

[31:11] a friend is another self right if I see you is just like me right then some of the love that I have for myself gets carried over to what you and just as I wish well to myself so do you who are just like me

[31:30] and therefore the affection of one tends toward the other as in something one with itself and therefore it wills the good for the other as just as for itself but the second way of likeness where I have an ability but you have an act right Causes the love of wanting right or the friendship of the useful the pleasant for there is a desire for its act in each thing existing in ability as such and it delights in reaching this if it is sensing and what knowing right so if you know something actually that I'm able to know then I can be attracted to you because you're useful to what me huh developing my knowledge of the subject do you see

[32:18] so he distinguishes two kinds of likeness then right likeness of act to act and of ability to act and then ties it up with the two kinds of what love that we distinguished. Before, it's beautiful he does that, right?

[32:37] It has been said above, however, that in the love of wanting, the lover properly loves himself when he wills that good which he wants.

[32:49] However, one loves himself more than another because he is one in substance with himself, but to another in the likeness of some form. So if I like you because you're like me, even more so do I like myself because I am myself, a unity thing.

[33:09] And therefore, if from this, then another is like him in partaking of a form, he is himself impeded from reaching the good he loves. The other is made hateful to him not in so far as he is alike, but in so far as the other is impeding his own good. And because of this, potters quarrel with each other because they impede each other in their own profit.

[33:32] And there are disputes among the proud because they impede one another in their own excellences which they want. So professors are always wrangling, right? Always disagreeing, right? Everyone wants to excel, right? Okay.

[33:50] So you have to see the distinction then between what The as such and the by happening, right? The per se and the per accidens, huh? Likeness, he's saying, as such is going to bring us together, right? But if it happens that because of our likeness we pursue the same thing that we can't both have, then it what impedes us, right?

[34:16] Not so much with truth, you see, as such, right? Because if I know the Pythagorean theorem, that doesn't prevent you from knowing it doesn't.

[34:27] But if it's something that we can't both have, we can't both be president, right? We can't both marry the same woman. We can't both occupy the same position, maybe, right? You see, then we come into competition, right? Okay. So two philosophers might be competing for the same position at a college or something like that, right? So the two philosophers are at odds with each other. Why the philosopher would be a friend maybe of the political scientist because they're not competing for the same chair or position?

[35:03] You see, that's kind of still per accidens, isn't it? Because as such, the two philosophers would be what more brought together, right? Having very, similar interests and so on. Okay, so that's the reply he says to the first objection, right? Which is potters quarrel with each other, right? And there's always disputes between the proud.

[35:31] Is that true of other vices? If there's a likeness in vice that's other than pride, does it tend to? Or I don't know if there's an answer to that. We see, you see, if because of our, our likeness something that leads us to pursue something that we both can't have, right? Then we come to conflict, right? See, you see, I said truth isn't that way, you know.

[35:58] But if you're talking about say discovery, right? You know the honor of being the first man to discover something, right? And you see this competition between scientists sometimes, right? Or even between nations, you know, who was the first discoverer of calculus? Was it Leibniz or or Sir Isaac Newton? You know, there's all kinds of conflict sometimes, you know, in the scientific world. You see, both of us can know the same thing, right?

[36:23] But we can't both have the honor of being the man to first discover this, right? Okay. So I'm trying to beat you, be the first man to discover it, right? Do you see? Because the honor is, we can't both have that honor. Okay.

[36:43] What we both have is full, right? Okay. Now the second objection. No, go back to the same objection for a second. A man loves an actor who would not wish to be an actor, right? Okay.

[37:10] Now Thomas sees here a more distant likeness, but a what? Proportional likeness, huh? Okay. To the second, it should be said that in this also, that someone loves in another what he does not love in himself, there is found the likeness according to proportionality. For just as the other is toward what is loved in him, so the man himself is towards what he loves in himself. For example, if a good singer loves a good writer, right?

[37:41] Or in Washington Irving's example, the painter and the poet, right? There can be noted there a likeness proportion, according as each has what belongs to him according to his what art, right? Okay. So for a man to be masculine is like a woman to be feminine, right? You see that? Okay. So in a way, for the masculine man to like the feminine woman and vice versa, um, is likeness, right?

[38:14] Not likeness of the same kind, right? But proportional likeness, because masculinity is to the man what femininity is to the what? To the woman, right? You see that?

[38:32] And so a man in one art who's excellent in his art, right? Right, loves someone who practices another art who's excellent in his what art, right? Okay. So Mozart and Shakespeare would have liked each other, right? They've been contemporaries, right? Because Mozart is to music what Shakespeare is to the drama, okay?

[38:56] Or Sophocles is to tragedy what Homer is to the epic, right? Okay. They used to say the Greeks, you know, that Sophocles is Homer writing tragedy, and Homer is Sophocles writing epic. There is a likeness there, right? But Sophocles is to tragedy what Homer is to the epic, right? And so they would be attracted to each other, huh? Notice, the first objection is based upon a likeness in the very same thing, right?

[39:30] And therefore, what the puzzle is: why don't they like each other? They're so much alike, you know. Or two guys who have exactly the same taste in books, right? And when they use bookshop, and there is the rare edition of the rare book, you know, and we both what? Want it, Yeah. See, or two women, you know, down in Filene's Bargain Basement there in Boston, the old days, you know, and where these things are really, you know, being marked down their price, you know, and there's a dress they both want.

[40:01] There's only one dress left, right? And then actually would be fights down there, you know. Here's two women who got exactly the same taste in clothing and so on. Why are they so opposed? Because there's only one dress that they can that they both want. And who'll get it, you know? Fights on there, and we we didn't have fights on there after they'd bring a book.

[40:23] But on the second one, the second objection is is a little different, though, see, because there you don't see the likeness at first, right? You see, so if I'm masculine, why don't I want women to be masculine, you know, well, for for her to be masculine wouldn't be like for me to be masculine. For her to be feminine would be like for me to be masculine, right?

[40:45] Yes. See that yet? Just like I buy a pair of shoes that fits my foot, and you buy a pair of shoes that fits your foot, right? And therefore, we're alike proportionally, right? That's a that's a more distant likeness, so you don't see it right away, huh?

[41:07] And now the third objection, an even more distant likeness, because here you have someone who doesn't even have a proportional likeness, right? He lacks the thing that he wants, huh? And loves, huh? But he has a likeness of ability to act, right? Which is much more distant, huh? To the third, it should be said that he who loves the very thing he lacks has a likeness to that which he loves, as what is in ability to act, as has been said, huh?

[41:39] Okay. So I'm attracted to the man who actually knows, not because I'm ignorant. In fact, if my ignorance was inseparable from me. I wouldn't be a friend at all of a man who knows. But it's because I'm able to know, right? That I have an affinity with him, huh? I'm attracted to him because I'm able to know, and he can make me actually know. Do you see?

[42:07] So it still is a likeness there, right? But even more distant than a proportional likeness. Do you see that? And to some extent, that's true of us in respect to God, right? We're able to have something of what God actually has, right?

[42:38] That's a very distant likeness, right? There's some ability in us to see God as He is, face to face, but with God's help and so on, right?

[42:58] We can partake of eternal life, which God actually has, what He actually is, eternal life, huh? Now, like that is the reply to the fourth objection. To the fourth, it should be said that according to the same likeness, of ability to act, the one who is not liberal or generous in his money, right, loves him who is liberal or generous, in so far as he expects from him something that he wants, right?

[43:37] You know the famous tag on the philosophers, one of the ancients said, "How come?" He says, "How come? You see the philosophers around the doors of the rich man. You don't see the rich man around the doors of the philosophers. How come? Oh, you know what the philosopher answered? Well, that's because the philosophers know what they need, but the rich men don't.

[44:10] So, because I'm able to what have some of your money, right? That you actually have, right? I'm attracted to you with at least the love of of wanting, right? You see, if I wasn't able to, you know, have some of your money, I wouldn't be attracted to you at all, right? Do you see that?

[44:35] In so far as he expects from him something that he wants, for on both sides it seems to be a friendship of usefulness. Or, and I guess another solution to this, or it ought to be said that although all men do not have virtues of this kind according to complete habit, they have them nevertheless according to what seed-like things are reason, right? The seeds of all the virtues are in reason.

[45:04] See, and reason tells me I should be courageous, right? So even though I'm a coward and not courageous, my reason tells me this is where I should be, and therefore when I see this courageous man, I respect him, right? Do you see that?

[45:23] They have them nevertheless according to seed-like things of reason, whereby he who does not have virtue loves the virtuous as conformed to his natural what. Reason, huh? You see that?

[45:40] So a man who can't control his anger, right, huh? Might like the man who is what mild and has anger under control, right? Because he sees that's the way a man should be, right? But it's not the way he is. But his natural reason. See, there's. There's a likeness there, right, between the seed of of sobriety and the man who is a sober man. Do. You see that?

[46:08] Okay. So notice the difference then between the first objection and the other objections, right? The first objection was based upon the fact that we saw the likeness between these two people. They're both potters, or whatever they are. They're both proud. And then why are they in conflict? If likeness is the cause of love, right? And there the solution was that it's per accidens. It happens, right, that they become in conflict, right?

[46:35] Because because of their likeness in something, they're both pursuing the same thing they can't have, right? I want to sell my painting. You want to sell your painting. So we're in conflict, you and I, right? See what I mean? Yeah, there's the married couple. The husband's a composer, yeah, music, and the wife is an artist. Yeah. The Russians who come here. Yeah. Is that she's a she's in the yeah yeah, but because plastic arts would have been called yeah.

[47:03] But that's a different example. Sorry. Yeah. That's just don't have any. But then in the other objections, as you go further away to more distant likeness, right? The likeness of ratios, huh? Masculinity is to the man as femininity to the woman. And then the ability, the likeness of ability to act is even further away in a sense, huh? And then you can't say, well, these people aren't alike, so why are they attracted to each other?

[47:29] Well, just a minute now. They are alike, but in a more what, more remote way, right? Okay. And there's a likeness of us to God too, right? You know Shakespeare's exhortation to use reason. There he speaks of reason as being what, God-like, huh? Very, very distant likeness, but there's something Godlike about reason, huh? Okay.

[48:05] Now let's stop you just for a moment about the words here. Pick the word lovable, and I guess in English you can put the e in or leave it out.

[48:23] Looking the dictionary there, lovable. Take that word, and I take the word lovely. Both the word lovable and the word lovely are derived from the word for love, right? But what would be a synonym for lovable?

[48:49] What is lovable? Desirable. That's for the word, yeah. Likable. But in terms of the causes here, what is lovable? Beautiful. Well, you see, lovely would be a synonym for beautiful, right? Okay. So synonym. But lovable would be what? Good, yeah, yeah. So Augustine would say nothing is lovable but the good, right? But among good things, being good-looking, another expression we have in English, but as you can see with the expression good-looking or good looks, right?

[49:40] It's something more particular than good, right? You see that, especially the senses, huh? Because you give me a nice tasting food and say, "Hmm, this is good," right? I won't say this is lovely, right? Okay. So even with the senses, you can see that good is broader in meaning than what lovely, right? Lovely is used only with respect to music, maybe, or the painting or something, right?

[50:05] The eye and the ear, right? But good is used for all the senses, right? You can see it in this expression of good-looking, right? It's no more particular than good, right? You see that? Sometimes they say the good is what pleases, and the beautiful is what pleases when seen, right? When known, right? Okay.

[50:31] That's going back to the first cause of love, right? And now this likeness. If I say I like you because you're like me, I think it's interesting that the word "like." For sure, it's a verb, and there it's more like I don't know, just here or something. They're connected, right? You see.

[51:17] So the English word kind of indicates that there's a connection between likeness and liking, right? Now let's compare the two words here: liking and loving. Right?

[51:38] Are they the same, or are they different? Liking and loving. What? There's a certain something. Yeah, yeah. Remember my daughter saying, "You know, I don't like this; I love it." So it's liking and loving the same thing.

[52:03] If I love candy, do I also like candy? If I love God, do I like that? If I'm a lover of wisdom. do I like wisdom?

[52:18] So, are they synonyms, or is there any some difference between liking and loving? Both. What's the difference? Like a grain. Yeah, yeah. Love is more intense, right? See, if I say to the student, "I like you," probably won't get in trouble. If I say I love you, I might be on the way to trouble, right? You see, because love implies a certain intensity, right? Now, I think what's important to see is that liking can be what divided into liking and loving.

[52:59] You see, if you use liking as opposed to loving, right, or loving would be something much more intense, right, by loving someone or something, right, than my liking someone or something, right? Okay. But you'd also use liking as common to, right, the intense one and the other. So the one that's not as intense keeps the common name, right? And we talked about this way of naming before, right?

[53:33] Aristotle, for example, in the categories, he divides disposition sometimes into disposition and habit. Okay. Now, disposition is being used in two senses here, right? So sometimes Aristotle will say habit is a disposition. You'll see, I'd say firm, stable, not easily lost disposition, right? And then you'll keep the word disposition for an easily lost disposition, right? So why does habit get the new name, and the easily lost one, right, keeps the common name?

[54:17] Well, because habit adds something significant, right, a certain firmness, stability, hard to, you know, this is a habit. Sometimes in English, when you say that the boss is in a bad mood today,

[54:35] but that mood might change in an hour or two, right? See, mood there is a what disposition, right? It's not an habitual thing, right? People's mood changes because of the weather, you know, in a dark day and their mood's different, right? And then the sun comes out and their mood changes, right? And

[54:57] well, the reason why loving gets the new name is that the intense liking, right, has that added idea that's just liking something but intensely liking it. That gets the new name, and the other one keeps the other name, right? See, it's something like when we divide sometimes thinking into thinking and knowing. See, but knowing, in that sense, is opposed to thinking. Adds the idea thinking, certain to, right?

[55:30] See, so he said to me, now. Do you think George Bush will be reelected? And I'll say, I think he will be reelected, but I don't know that he'll be reelected, right? Now, what about two is half of four? Well, I don't just think that; I know that two is half of four, right? So, their knowing adds something noteworthy to thinking—not just a strong thinking, but that I'm sure about what I'm saying, right?

[56:02] I can't be sure that George Bush will be reelected, right? I think he will be, but I can't be sure about it. I don't know that he's going to be reelected, but I do know that two is half of four, right?

[56:15] So, this is the way liking and loving are related. Now, I think English has a kind of, you know, excellence there in the use of the word "lovely," derived from love, right, which shows the connection between the beautiful and love, right? This is lovable and the good, but also the connection here between the word "I like you" and because you are like me, right? And it doesn't come out in Thomas here because in the Latin you don't have the same thing, I don't think.

[56:47] But in English, you have a sign there, right? That likeness is a cause of love, we'd say, right? But in English, the fact that liking can be said of love, right, in this way or generally, fits it in there as a cause. Okay, so just think of those words: lovable, lovely, and I like you because you are like me. Touching upon the causes. I'll take a break for a minute.

[57:24] Go on for a minute. Pause