Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
41. Metaphysics VIII, Reading 2: Substantial Form Compared with Accidental Form, and Why Proportions Matter
Class of 2005-10-06
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/041-metaphysics-viii-reading-2-substantial-form-compared-with/

[0:00] Now, at the beginning of the second reading, Aristotle notes that among the thinkers before him, they all agreed that matter, in some sense, was substance, right?

[0:14] But substance as form, right, is more hidden, right? Since the substance is the underlying thing, like we said before, the underlying matter, the subject of change, right, underlying the two contraries, and as matters agreed upon them, and this is the one that's in ability, it remains to say what is the substance as act of sensible things. Now, at this point, he's going to go into the acts or forms that are more known to us, right, because they're sensible, right?

[0:58] And so he's going to discuss the position of Democritus, right, and then said, "Well, Democritus only enumerates some of these accidental forms, right? But the substantial form will be proportional to what accidental form, right? In the same way that we had the proportion of first matter to an actual substance underlying accidental change, okay?

[1:26] So Democritus then seems to think that there are three differences, huh? The underlying body, the the matter for him was the what atoms, right? They're all more or less the same thing, but they differ either in, and these are the older obscure words of Democritus, in shape, right, or in position or in order, right?

[1:53] So straight and curved, right, and upside down or on the side and so on, and before and after order, right? But then in the next paragraph, Aristotle points out that there seem to be many other differences besides these ones that he mentioned.

[2:16] But all of this is just kind of expand the idea that there are many different kinds of accidental form, right? And you want to kind of see what accidental form is, and then proportionally what substantial form is, huh? But that will lead us on gradually to this, right? But there seems to be many differences, such as some things are said by the mode of composition of their matter.

[2:43] That you might say what water is H two O, right? Two to one. Well, he didn't talk about two to one, did he? Carbon monoxide is one to one, right?

[2:55] CO two is okay, two to one is fine, but one to one is a bad ratio. Marriage is good but. in these chemicals is bad bad. Okay, what's that polygamy? I don't want polygamy. one to two. Such as honey water, right? Okay. Or Manhattan. Manhattan is two to one. I think they're even by thing. And the stinger is two to one. Okay. Others by being bound together, such as a bundle, right?

[3:36] Thomas and the physician said, "Like a woman's hair are bound together, right?" Okay. Others by being glued together, such as a book. I don't know what the books are like in those days. Others by being nailed together, such as a wooden box, right? Or screwed together or something, right?

[3:56] And some in many of these ways, and others by positions, such as a threshold and a lintel. I suppose the one is below and the one is what above, right? So why is this a threshold? Why that's a lintel? Because one is above and one is what below, right? Not because they have a different

[4:17] order or shape or something, like he said, but their position. And dinner and breakfast. I guess they get the same thing for dinner and breakfast. They might eat fish there and east. You know, for breakfast as well as dinner. But they differ by the time, right? Breakfast is what you, you know, in the morning and dinner in the evening or something. Others by undergoing some sensible qualities, such as hardness and softness, density and rarerness, dryness and wetness, and general some by excess and some by defect.

[4:52] Now he's pointing out, nevertheless, that these accidental forms, by reason of them, something is said to be what it is, right? So what is this? Well, it's a chair, right? But it's more a chair because of its what shape than it is because of its what matter, right? Okay. It's only that's only a chair in ability, what you might say, right? Okay.

[5:19] So it is clear that what it is will be said in so many ways. I want you to have this sink in about what an accidental form is, right? In some sense, the accidental form is responsible for the thing being what it is, right? But in a kind of accidental way, right? But the substantial form will be responsible for what the thing is in a substantial way.

[5:42] You see, but it's an analogous to that. So it is clear that the what it is will be said in so many ways. It is a threshold because it is placed thus, and the being meaning the. What it is to be a threshold means as being placed thus, while being for ice means having been solidified in a certain way. Very primitive science, yeah.

[6:09] And the being of some things will be defined by all of these, because some parts of them are mixed, others are blended, others are bound together, Others are solidified. So you could say, in the case of the chair, there is what shape. There is also what things parts screw together and there's sort of an order among parts and so on, right? So you have many things involved in what what makes a chair to be a chair, right?

[6:35] Is it the shape of the parts, or is it being screwed together, or is it the arrangement of the parts, right? Well, it's all of these, right? Okay, they're all necessary to make it to be what it is. Okay, this kind of strikes me as interesting here. um, let's take it all, uh, going back a little to a slip earlier, It's interesting that the word substance, if you look at it in the fifth book of wisdom, and the word nature,

[7:07] um, they have a quite different origin. These two words, right? And look at it at the Latin words here. Nature comes from the word what? Natura. Yeah. the word burr. Burr, Okay. Natus. Yeah. The root meaning here and the key is birth, and so nature first means the nativitas, right? Birth. And substance first, you know, from standing under, right, and so on. But the word nature is secondly carried over from birth to the source of the baby within the mother.

[7:48] Okay. And then it's carried over and kind of generalized to the source not just of birth, but of any change, but a source within the thing that is changing, huh? And that's the meaning of nature that Aristotle defines in the second book of Natural Hearing by saying that natural philosophy is about natural things, natural things, and things are by nature. What do you mean by nature as opposed to art?

[8:17] Well, he defines nature as the beginning of the cause of motion, rest in that which it is, right? An intrinsic cause, and then afterwards he points out that nature is matter and form, right? But matter and form in the genus of substance, and he first shows that nature is matter, and then he shows that it's form, even more form than matter. That's interesting, right? And he's very aware of showing it.

[8:53] He says that by nature something is a natural thing. By matter, it's a natural thing. Only ability. By form, it's this or that natural thing in act. So form is even more nature than what? Yeah. What's interesting, huh? He first sees here matter as substance, right? In the previous reading, and now he's going to see form as substance, right? But form is really more substance than what matter.

[9:28] He first sees matter as nature, and then form as nature, and then that form is even more nature than matter. Okay. So it's interesting. These are different words, and they have a different group of meanings, right? But they have a some overlap, right? And what overlap is that? Two meanings of substance: is substance in the sense of matter and substance. in the. Sense of form and two meanings of nature: nature in the sense of matter, nature in the sense of form, and then nature, finally after a little more distance, nature takes on the sense of what a thing is, and that's one of the meanings we saw of substance: what a thing is.

[10:17] It's especially close to what form is. Form is what makes a thing to be what it is, and it's interesting that these words sometimes, right, become synonyms. See, nature and substance you can't see as synonyms because they both have many meanings and they're not exactly the same meanings, right? But sometimes one meaning of nature is the same as another meaning of what? Substance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Substance can sometimes mean, in general, what a thing is, and that's one meaning of nature.

[10:56] Nature of a thing, what it is. Another overlap, as they say, is matter and form, but also the order, right? The nature in the sense of matter is seen before nature in the sense of form, even though form is more nature than matter. And substance, the sense of matter, is seen before substance, the sense of what form, as he indicated at the beginning of this reading. They're pretty agreed about matter being substance, but they don't all see form of some kind being substance.

[11:29] But it's actually not only substance in some sense, but even more substance than matter. You see, so you see how matter and form, and in that same order, right, and and reverse order, right, the order in which they're known, right, and the order in which they are.

[11:55] So form is more nature than matter, but matter is known to be nature before form is known to be nature. And in the genus of substance, matter is more known to be substance than form, but form is more substance than matter. Okay.

[12:18] And so he's going to meet when he talks about matter and form after he knows that they're there. He's going to talk about form first in the third meeting, right, and then talk about matter afterwards. Huh? His form is primarily substance, huh? And you can see these immaterial substances are more like what? Just a form without matter. They're much more substantial than we are. I told you I put that guy in his place there one time in class.

[12:50] You know, he kind of puzzled some reference asked him to meet the angels, and he sort of kind of puzzled and he said, "Do angels really exist?" He says. I said to him, "They're more real than you are,

[13:06] and they are." My old teacher Kasurik said, "you first see your grand angel after your death, you know. This is God, My goodness. This is God, you know. He's an impressive creature, you know, and he'll say, 'No, no, no, no, that's higher, ' because

[13:30] each angel is so unique, each one. He says you never, you never count them because you know he's like, you're seeing two of the same. to count. This is like a wholly new creature. I mean, different

[13:46] creatures. So now, in the next paragraph, the second paragraph, you might say, but the first, the first whole paragraph on page three, talking about how you might try to, in some cases, take some of the accidental differences and reduce them to what's most fundamental, right? So maybe shape might go back to straight and curved, right? Okay, or smoothness and roughness, and so on.

[14:36] So straight and curved are kind of the basic shapes, huh? And I say, what's a semicircle? Well, it's involves straightness and curve, right? But you can reduce it back to straight and curve, right? Because this is straight and this is curved, huh? Okay.

[14:56] Now, in the next paragraph, he's pointing out now none of these forms we've been talking about, because they're known to us, is substance, right? No accidents.

[15:11] It is clear then from these that a substance is the cause of each thing's being. We're not to seek in these what is the cause of the being of each of these things. Now, none of these is substance, even joined with matter. Yet it is the proportional in each, right? Okay. Now go back to the proportion we had there, right? We first see matter in the Jesus of substance.

[15:41] So, let's put the proportion on the board here again, or at least you say the first matter is the man and lion, are two substances, something like clay. Is to sphere and cube.

[16:09] Well, now we can see that if clay is able to be a sphere and able to be a cube, is it by clay that is actually a sphere? No. No.

[16:29] Or is it by clay that is actually a cube? No. So there is something else involved in the sphere and the cube besides clay,

[16:40] and it's that by which the clay is actually a sphere by having a certain shape, right? And it's by some other shape that's actually a cube, right? And be by yet another one, it'd be a pyramid or something, right? Okay. Well, going back to the analogy, then, right? The first matter is able to be a man or a lion, right? But is it a man through being the first matter?

[17:11] No. Is it a lion through being the first matter? No. Well, then there must be something by which the first matter is actually a man, right?

[17:22] And something else which is actually a lion, and something else which is a dog or a cat or a tree or something else, right? Okay. What should we call that? Say. Well, if we say that by which the clay is a sphere or a cube is a some accidental form, right? Well, then we can call this by which the first matter is a man or a lion a form too, but a substantial form, okay?

[17:53] But notice the substantial form is coming to a subject that in itself is only ability, but the accidental form is coming to a subject that is an actual substance. So the accidental form is responsible for the actual substance being in some way, but not being simply. So health is not responsible for me being, but for my being healthy. Geometry is not responsible for my being. It's not to geometry that I am.

[18:32] It's through geometry that I am a geometer. But through the substantial form, I am. So when I was generated, you could say I came to be, right? When I studied Euclid, did I come to be? Only in a qualified sense, right? I came to be a geometer, right? Okay. So accidental form and substantial form are alike in that through them their subject of as being right, but the substantial form is being simply without qualification, and through accidental form only in a qualified sense.

[19:25] When I die, I cease to be. When the dog dies, it ceases to be. Okay. But if I forget my geometry, do I cease to be? Probably, really, if I'm done, you know.

[19:43] I'll cease to be a geometer, right? But losing my geometry won't cease to be. When I die, then I'll cease to be, huh? My soul gone, right? But I won't. because I'm being composed of soul and body, right? When Charles De Koninck had his audience with Pius XII, there, you know, before the definition of the assumption, right? Pius XII, you know, had these private sessions with some of the world's theologians.

[20:20] So De Koninck was was saying in his argument there with presenting to the Pope that if the body of Mary, right, was not assumed into heaven, Mary is not in heaven. Which impressed the Pope, right? Because it was a good reason, right? You know, argument in favor of the assumption. If I only say Saint Peter's in heaven, that's a synecdoche, huh? The soul of Peter's in heaven, huh?

[20:53] Your soul is most of all your soul, right? But still not the whole of you, right? So strictly speaking, you will be in heaven after the last judgment, right? Get your body back. I hope so. Yeah. Doctor Burks, what was the definition of substantial form again? I'm not defining it, I'm saying, you've got to know it by how it is proportional, right, to the accidental forms, right.

[21:28] So I'm saying that since the clay is able to be a sphere, and able to be a cube, but not at the same time, right? Is it a sphere or a cube by being clay? No. By being clay, it's able to be a sphere, able to be a cube, right? So there's something by which the clay is actually a sphere or actually a cube, right? And that could be said to be what?

[21:59] A form, yeah. Because the clay doesn't exist by reason of this, right? But it is a sphere or a cube by reason of this, huh? Well, that was then. If you understand the proportion, right? The first matter can be a man or a lion or a dog or a cat or a tree or a stone, right? But is it one of these in particular because it's the first matter?

[22:28] No, it's all of these in ability, right? But there must be something then whereby the first matter is a man rather than a lion or a lion rather than a dog, right? Which is proportional, right, to that whereby the clay is actually a sphere or a cube or a pyramid or something else, right? And so we call that. Form, right? Not because the word "form" means the same thing, but it's not purely equivocal either.

[23:02] Because it's proportional, right? And so we call it a substantial form as opposed to an accidental form, right? Now, there's a likeness between substantial form and accidental form. You can say they both are act as opposed to an ability, right? And by both of them, something is in some way, right? Okay. But by the substantial form, something is simply without qualification. By the accidental form, it only is in some way, okay,

[23:41] some qualified way. You can say that substantial form comes to a subject that's only ability. So actuality is found first in substantial form, not in the in subject, right? The accidental form comes to a subject that is an actual substance. So actuality is found in the subject of accidental form before it's found in the accidental form itself, and that's why some accidental forms are affected as substance of the thing, right?

[24:15] Because actuality is found first in the subject, but in the case of substantial form, it isn't, right? So as I say, you got the likeness there, but also see the what differences, huh?

[24:33] You know the third and the fourth tools of dialectica, The third tool is the ability to see differences between things, right? And the fourth tool is the ability to see likeness, as Aristotle says in talking about the fourth tool, to see a proportional likeness exercises the mind much more than to see a likeness of two things of the same kind, right? Because it's a more distant likeness, huh?

[25:02] Why to see the difference between things that are close together exercises the mind more. But so you got to, in a sense, see the likeness of substantial form, proportional likeness, a substantial form to accidental form, but you also got to see some of these differences that I mentioned, right? Okay. And as I say, you know, you can point out two likenesses at least between them that both forms are an act as opposed to an ability, right?

[25:35] And by both forms, something is in some way, right? But then you can start to talk about the differences. By the substantial form, something is simply without qualification. By the accidental form, it's only in.

[25:53] Yeah, yeah. Now you know. This is even easy to see if you go down among the lesser categories, huh? You know, it's just an example in class. If I say to a student, "If you leave this classroom, you will cease to be," doesn't that sound like a threat?

[26:22] And if the student charges me of threatening him, right? I say to the judge, "Well, all I meant, Your Honor, was that if he left the room, he would cease to be in the room." Well, no one understands you to have meant that, Mister Burquist, right? You said he would what cease to be? Then you're using it without qualification, right? You mean he would what die, okay?

[26:48] So if you leave the classroom, you don't cease to be. You cease to be in the classroom, right? Okay. And vice versa, right? When you came into the classroom, did you come to be? No, I come to be. Yeah, you could say, "but you have to add that, right? You've come to be in the classroom, right? It's interesting, kind of how in language, huh? We tend to often lengthen something.

[27:18] Like, what's the difference between, say, a name like Anne and a name like Annette? That is the female version of Anne. No, no, no. Anne and Annette is like saying little Anne. Little Anne. Yeah. And I knew someone whose name was Annette, and as she got older, she wanted to be called what Anne and not Annette because it sounds kind of you know little girlish, like. You see what I mean?

[27:54] But I. But you see that in other words, you see in other words, huh? Um. You say dad and then daddy, you know. Daddy's a little more like what the child would say, right? Kind of, you know, with it down, a little closer to them. Well, the same way when you talk about to be, right? You say, "When I was generated, I came to be. When I walked into this room, I came to be.

[28:23] I got to add in the room, right? Okay. When I studied Euclid, I came to be. Ah, period. I came to be a junk, right? So that's being in. Secundum quid, you say, these are Latin, right? But not simply, right? So by substantial form, you are simply, right? If you lose your substantial form, then you cease to be. Accidental form, you come to be in some way, and if you lose your accidental form, you cease to be in some way, right?

[29:01] Do you see? So that's the difference, right? By both of them, you are said to be in some way, right? With substantial form, you are said to be simply accidental form in some qualified, diminished sense.

[29:18] Okay. So you got to see a number of those differences, huh? Or the fact that substantial form comes to a subject, right? That is only an ability, and therefore actuality is in substantial form before it's in what its subject. But the accidental form comes to a subject that is an actual substance, and therefore actuality is found in the subject of accidental form before it's found in the accidental form itself.

[29:54] And then you can say later on, like. Aristotle points out in the end of the first book of Natural Hearing that in substance matter is for the sake of what form, but with accidental form you could say accidental forms are for the sake of the subject

[30:19] because of the imperfection of the substance, right? We need these accidents, right? From my being a man, do I understand geometry? But God, from being God, understands geometry and everything else, right? So, from being what He is, God is everything in a sense, right? He's universally perfect. He's lacking in nothing, as Aristotle says in the chapter on perfection, right? The way Thomas expresses it is universally perfect.

[30:55] He's a man who's got everything, right? The one who's got everything. But for being a man, I don't understand even what a square is, and so I have to have all these what to perfect me, right? Make me a little more perfect. You got to add all these things. Am I just because I'm a man? God is just because He's God.

[31:21] The justice of God is nothing added to God, right? It's the same as what God is, right? So I need to have all these accidents added to perfect me, right? So you say the accidents are for the sake of the perfection of the subject. The subject, in a sense, is the the end, right?

[31:43] Geometry is for the same purpose: understanding what a square is, right? But matter in the genus of substance, right, is for the sake of form. So a lot of you know interesting differences between a substantial form and accidental form. But you first of all got to see the likeness and a proportional likeness, and you should probably see this proportion first, whereby we need to understand the first matter by proportion.

[32:14] Pierre Duhem, the famous physicist, he worked in thermodynamics, huh And then Pierre Duhem was one of the most profound historians of science. huh? Did a great deal of work in the history of science, son. So he's a working scientist himself, right? And secondly, he's very famous as a historian of science. And then finally, he wrote on what you might call the philosophy of science, right? The nature of science, son.

[32:51] So he was able to draw upon his experience as a physicist, right? Plus his knowledge of the history of science, and so if you look at the at the he wrote around the turn of the century, and but the edition I have is is a nineteen fifty edition, you know, fifty years later they're republishing his work on nature, of science, and my edition has its preface the great French physicist of the twentieth century, Louis de Broglie, and it's beautiful.

[33:20] Louis de Broglie, you know, he started out studying medieval history, right? Then he became a physicist, and he's the father of wave mechanics and so on. So he writes good history here, good history of science. But I mean his his sketch there at the beginning of of Duhem's book, you know, noting how he's first of all a scientist and then a historian of science, and then finally on the top of this, he's building his knowledge, right, of what science is.

[33:45] I mention that right now because Pierre Duhem says the most common way that discoveries are made in physics is by seeing a proportion. Okay, so that's interesting, huh? And it's interesting that Einstein, right, in his kind of nearest thing to a history of science that Einstein has, the book called The Evolution of Physics, right, when he's talking about about Louis de Broglie's own what theory, right, that was based upon seeing a proportion, and Einstein says we've seen this more than once as we've gone through the history of physics.

[34:25] That shows you kind of the importance of that, huh? I know myself when when you study the first six books of Euclid, huh? If you can do book one, you can do book two. two, three, and four. But then book five is something different, huh? Book five is the theory of what proportions, and then book six he goes back to the triangle and so on, right? And it's amazing the power he has.

[34:55] You think that the Pythagorean theorem is where he ends up in book one, right? But in book six he shows that this is true not only about the square but about any equilateral equiangular right plane figure, huh? That's amazing what you do, you know. You realize the power, right? Okay. And then if you study theology, right, you see that the parables of our Lord are filled with proportions, right?

[35:24] His discourses are full of proportions, and I remember the famous conversation there where they ask Christ, you know, it's lawful to give tribute to Caesar though if he can catch him, right? And he knows what they're up to, Christ. He says, "Well, show me the coin of tribute, right? " And Christ shows the coin. Says, "Well, whose image is on the coin there? " And they said, "Well, Caesar's, right?

[35:51] " You know. And then Christ says, "Well, then render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's, right? " Now our Lord is stating a what proportion, yeah. And the church fathers, huh? They come back upon this proportion of our Lord, right? And they say, well, look what he's saying. What has the image of Caesar on it? You give it to Caesar, right?

[36:15] What do you give to God then? What has the image of God on it? What has the image of God on it? What's our soul, right? Give to God, right? You see, it's beautiful the way the church fathers, you know, extend that what proportion. But I mean, Scripture, you know, you said the Lord is my shepherd. That's based on the proportion, right? Scripture is filled with proportions, huh?

[36:43] And one time in the senior seminar, the senior philosophy majors had to take this, and I just did it on proportion. And each student had to take a different book of Aristotle's and what bring out the proportions that he uses, huh? But if you go back to Plato, you see the same thing. One of the most famous works of Plato is the Republic, right? And in the Republic, he shows something in book one, and the conversation seems to be completed, right?

[37:14] Beginning of the second book, someone says to Socrates, "You want to seem to have convinced us, or do you want to really convince us?" And Socrates says, "Well, I want to really convince you," you know what I was saying. And so this starts the major part of the what Republic, but it all grows out of a proportion, the proportion among the parts of the soul and the parts of the what city, and the parts of the city are easier to see than the parts of the soul, and so he blows it up, right?

[37:51] So the whole Republic, one of the most famous works of all of Plato, is based upon what developed out of one proportion. But a lot of times when they talk they say about reason and emotions, both Plato and Aristotle they use proportions, huh? You know, Plato sometimes compares. He says reason is to the emotions like a man is to the horse. When the man gets on top of the horse, there's a horse too.

[38:20] He tries to throw him off, right? Or he can give up and let the horse do what it wants to do. Or he can get back on the horse and keep getting back on the horse until the horse starts to what obey you, right? It's like the emotions, right? But it helps you to understand that, right? Aristotle's a very famous proportions. There was talking about reason and emotions, and he says, "Should reason rule the emotions like a master rules the slave, or like a father rules the son?"

[39:01] Well, the answer is, as a father rules a son, right? But notice the difference. When the master rules the slave, it's not for the good of the slave that he rules him; it's for the good of the master. But when the father rules the son, it should be for the good of the son himself, right? And so, when reason rules the emotions, it doesn't—it shouldn't be tyrannizing over them, right?

[39:26] But it's ruling them for the good of the emotions themselves. You can see this in good family life, right? That the children are emotionally more what happy, right? Than in a family where there's no discipline at all, right? Where the children are allowed to go, you know, how about it? And they wear themselves out, right? Because there's no restraint upon the emotions, huh? So you can see. That the rule of the good parents over the child's emotions is for the good of emotions and the good of the child himself.

[40:06] So these proportions are very important in what understanding. You can see how how the parables are, so they're based on proportions. You know, when the man asks, he owes money to the high guy, right? And he forgives him, and then he goes out and grabs

[40:28] the guy and goes, well, that's only our father, right? Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. You can have a proportion with just three things, right? You can say, for example, that nine is to six as six is to what? Four, right? So God will be to me as I am to my what neighbor or something, right? The man who's offended me, right?

[40:51] Okay. So using me twice, right? As God is to me, so I should be to him, right? God's going to be to me as I am. So I mean, you can't understand the Our father without proportion. In fact, they can't understand what it means to say, our father, because that that's based on proportions, huh? So philosophy and scripture and theology and science, right, are dominated by proportions, huh?

[41:22] And so it's not you know something unheard of. We have to use proportions here to understand things. And when you are trying to understand things that are far apart, the likeness of ratios is the kind that you have to use. You see that in these in these words like before and after and so on, in and out and so on, that the word is carried over by likeness of ratios.

[41:53] Like the second sense of before is what before and being, right? And this is before that and being. If this can be without that, and vice versa. And then you carry it over to knowing, right? You can know this without knowing that, but not vice versa. Then this is before that. I can know plane geometry without knowing solid geometry, but not vice versa. So plane geometry is before solid geometry in knowing.

[42:20] Just like bricks are before brick wall and feet. Just like there's a ratio, huh? Okay. So in the third paragraph there, in page three, there, he's saying, but none of these is substance, even joined with matter. Yet it is the proportional in each, right? There is something proportional, right, between substantial form and accidental form.

[42:48] And just as the accidental form is responsible for something being actually what it is, like a chair or a table or something else, right? So the substantial form is responsible for is being what it is a man a lion or a dog right and when you lose your soul you're not going to be a man anymore this body right

[43:13] Aristotle says the eye of a dead man is no more an eye than the eye of the what statue there is it's a comparison right so the lightness there but it's not really an eye anymore it's not able to see right the eye of the dead man sees no more than the eye of the statue there okay

[43:48] now in the next two paragraphs before the last paragraph I do a couple of corollaries of things that follow upon some things that have been said here from these things it is clear that the act and thought of what it is is other than the matter is other for as some it is the composition as some the mixture and as some another of those said well this is the idea that form and matter

[44:20] are like relatives you can't have just any form and just what any matter right okay so take these simple examples again I'm making this chair I guess they had to what? screw this part into that part right okay but you first had to how to shape this part in certain way right okay now if I make myself a Manhattan I get out there get the screws out and get the the whiskey and the vermouth and you screw one to the to the other right yeah no no that's not the form right you see so it's the idea that not just any form is in any matter right this becomes very important when you study the soul because you know you don't have this transmigration of

[45:17] souls Aristotle says for the soul of a man to go into the body of a dog right well these are what we call organic bodies which means in Greek a body composed of tools and that would be like for the art of the cook to go into the what tools of the carpenter or the tailor or somebody else right and each art has its own tools right each soul right has its own body right and it fits so you can't have just anything.

[46:04] Aristotle says something like that about pleasure there in the tenth book of the Nicomachean Ethics. Huh? The pleasure is not what something the same you can sprinkle on all different kinds of things, right? But the pleasure of one activity really fits that activity. There's something unique about the pleasure, right? So the pleasure of hearing Mozart's music, right, is different from the pleasure of seeing a painting or something.

[46:34] You can't really, it's not really the same pleasure. It's not like you know, sugar you can shape as many things, or salt you can put in many things, right? You know, a little pleasure here, a little pleasure there. But no, it's something that arises from the thing itself. And it's very important when you get into political philosophy, right? Where Aristotle would say not just any form of government can be realized in just any what people, you know.

[46:59] Sometimes we used to accuse, you know, our state department and our government sometimes trying to realize maybe the American form of government or something like it in a people that aren't ready for it yet. There's always question about that, right? And you know, at the African countries, you know, after they got independence, you know, maybe prematurely, might say after Second World War and they tried to impose kind of a American or British form of government upon these things, but were they in practice republics or democracies or no, no, they just kind of a colored, you know, like the Soviet probably would be, you know, under the Communists, right?

[47:39] Just a rubber stamp thing there, right? Okay. Now the next paragraph he talks about when you define a thing, you define it by its matter or by its form or by both. Both. By both, you're going to be complete, right? But sometimes you give a kind of definition that's imperfect of just one, right? So you know, take an example in modern science. If you ask somebody, "What is water?"

[48:15] They're going to say H2O. Now he doesn't say how the hydrogen oxygen are united, does he? He just gives you the matter; doesn't give you the form. Well, it's incomplete then, right? Okay.

[48:32] And someone said water is two to one. That's what it is. It doesn't give you the matter, right? When I ask my students what is the Pythagorean theorem, you know, the answer they give:

[48:46] a squared equals b squared plus c squared. That doesn't tell you what the Pythagorean theorem is. I was going by something talking about how precise math is, you know, and instead mathematically, what's the Pythagorean theorem? They give that. You don't get that in high school. See, that doesn't tell you what the Pythagorean theorem. There's no mention about you know equilateral. I mean, a right angle triangle, or or even squares or anything, right?

[49:14] It could be just you know three numbers. You don't seem to see it, right? Okay, we got something in the form there, but something's not the matter, right? Squares and things, huh? Okay.

[49:31] So then, at the end, then he he summarized again. It is clear then from what has been said what sensible substance is and how it is. For this is as matter, this as form and act, and the third is the what Composite of the two, right? Now he's going to say much more about these things, and especially about form, right? But in the third reading now, which we'll be taking up next time, he's going to talk. About substantial form, the thing is, and it's going to be a very interesting way he does this.

[50:04] You'll see.