Prima Secundae
Lecture 107: Effects of Sadness: Weighing Down, Operations, and Bodily Harm

Transcript
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Thomas just stopped there at the end of his life, you know, didn't finish the Summa Kirojya. Amazing. That's because he saw something good, right? I think it is, yes. So we get time for one more article about now. Yes. Whether the weighing down, I guess, a little different than our word English, aggravate, I think this is more the idea of weighing down, right, huh? Yes. The soul is said to be heavy, right, huh? You see that, don't you, right? Somebody's sad, right? Yeah. Weighed down. Heavy. He's weighed down. He's weighed down. Yeah. Heavy. To the second one goes forward thus, it seems that the weighing down of the soul is not an effect of sadness, huh? For the apostle says in the second epistle to the Corinthians, Behold this thing, right, that to be sad in the way that is in accordance with God, right, as opposed to being sad for his sins, so. To the extent that it, what? What solicitude it works in us, right, huh? But, what, defense? What, indignation? Okay. I was talking about here working out your salvation, fear and trembling, and so on, right? But solicitude and indignation pertain to a certain, what? Raising up the soul, right, huh? Which is opposed to being, what? Weighed down, right, huh? Therefore, our creation is, what? Not an effect of, what? Right. Sadness, huh? I was talking about my teacher at the church, you know, I'd say, do I even go read this to Thomas? Okay, so I'll read this by Thomas, and I'd come back, you know, and I had some more questions. He'd say some, one time he says to me, you know, read very carefully, you know? He says to me, because, you know, I'd say what's in the text that I didn't get out, right? You can bet after that I really read these texts carefully. Until I get back, get out of them, before I went to see them, you know, huh? They want to go back there and have them say, you know, you don't read very carefully. Who taught you how to read? Moreover, sadness is opposed to, what? Pleasure, right, huh? But the effect of pleasure is dilation, right? De la tatsio. To which is not opposed, what? But constriction, right? Therefore, the effect of sadness ought not to be laid down as, what? Aggravation, right, huh? More of, what? Narrowing, huh? You know, well, constriction, I mean, it's kind of, you know, it's going to be that, you know, as opposed to being, you know, expanded like this, you know? You know, these are the arguments like this. You give a whole talk on this, you know, you know, popular audience, you know, about sadness, you know, huh? You know, people are, you know? Moreover, to sadness, it pertains to the absorbed, I guess. This is clear through that of the apostle, huh? Second to Corinthians. Lest by a more, what? Abundant sadness you'd be absorbed, right? Which is of this sort. But what is weighed down is not absorbed, huh? But rather it is, what? Depressed by something ponderous, right? Huh? But what is absorbed is included in the one, what? Absorbing it, right? Right. Rather than something outside weighing you down, right? Mm-hmm. Therefore, weighing down ought not to be laid down is the effect of sadness. How do they translate agravatio in English? Depression. Depression, yeah. But against this is what Gregory Nicenus, huh? And this is Nicius again, that's the question, right? You know, as we were reading a little bit of Euclid there, you know, in the edition there, I guess for centuries there, they were mixing up the Euclid, they wrote the elements of the Euclid and Magar, the common thing, right? Euclid, I guess. Yeah. And here you get two, but, you know, they keep on saying here, Nemicius, right? Like Thomas is confusing two, what? Two Gregory. Two Gregory, yeah? The one guy is Nicenus, and the other guy is Nemicius, you know? I mean, I think I'm originally making a mistake, it should be somebody else, right? I think I'm going to translate it. I was reading the biography of Columbus, right? By my friend, Washington Irving, right? And of course, the Italian is Columbo, right? But he had an uncle called Columbo, right? And a cousin of something called Columbo, right? And there was confusion, you know, what he did as a young man, you know? Something's confusing him with his uncle Columbo, and sometimes with his cousin, how it was, Columbo, right? And attributing things to the end that the others did, right? So that's a common thing, you don't realize how much, you know, there is that confusion, right? It's only, you know... Equivocation by chance. Yeah, these are words equivocal by chance, yeah. In philosophy, it's more, you know, names equivocal by reason, but it follows up. But in history, you know, in biography and so on, it's dependent upon the senses, right? Only a mind which depends upon the senses could be deceived by the same name, right? That's not going to confuse an angel, right? How dumb can you be to say the angel? And you know, there's a problem, you know, about the Marys there in Scripture, you know? Yeah. There's Mary Magdalene, or Mary, the sister, you know? And there's some, you know, difference even among the Tichwavis, you know, as to who's who, you know? Yeah. And don't you have to cross here? There's three Marys at the cross, isn't there? Yeah. Mary's wife of Cleophas or something? Okay, so we're up to here. Okay, so they say, Gregory, Gregory, some Gregory does, and Damacy that they lay down Tristitium agravantum, right? They're weighing down the sadness, right? Now, Thomas says, I answer, it should be said that the effects of the passions of the soul are sometimes, what? Metaphorically named, right? According to the likeness of sensible, what? Bodies, right? In that the emotions of the animal-desiring power are similar to the inclinations of the natural body, right? And in this way, fervor, huh? Fervent, is attributed to love, right? Dialectatio to what? To Dialectazione, yeah. And aggravatio to Stistitia is kind of being said metaphorically, right? Right. Now, a man is said to be, what? Weighed down in that from some, what? Weighed down? He's impeded from his own, what? Motion, right? Well, he put a suit of armor on, right? That's when the knights are knocked off the horses there. They're kind of uneasy. Weighed down with other stuff. Okay. Now, it's manifest to the things before it said that sadness happens from something bad that is present, right, huh? Which, from this, huh? From this very fact that it is repugnant to the motion of the will, right? It weighs down the soul, right? Insofar as it impedes it from, what? Enjoying, right, huh? What it wishes, right? And if it be not so great a power of the evil causing sadness that it takes away, what? The hope of avoiding it or away from it. Although the soul is weighed down in this regard, that for the present is not able to drink or enjoy that which it wishes, right? There remains nevertheless a motion to repelling the harmful thing that is causing the sadness, right? But if it increases to such an extent on the power or force of the evil to such an extent that it excludes even the hope of what? Then, simply, it impedes even the interior motion of the soul that is made narrow, right? Angustio is what? Narrow, isn't it? That neither here nor there is it able to divert itself, right? Just kind of give up, right? And sometimes, also, it impedes even the exterior motion of the body, right? That a man remains, what, stupefied in himself, right? You see people that bad sometimes, right? Now, the first objection from the text in St. Paul, that standing up, you might say, right, of the soul, huh? Comes from the sadness which is, according to God, on account of the hope joined to it of having your sin, what? Yeah, so that can, that has the hope with it, right, huh? So it doesn't, what, completely weigh you down, right? Okay. And the second objection we're talking about is in constriction of the case. To the second should be said that to, as far as pertains to the appetitive motion, to the same thing refers constriction and what? But, yeah, from this that one is weighed down so that he's not able to go forth to, what, outside things freely, right, huh? But to himself he's drawn back, as it were, what? Constriction himself, right? Okay. Shovelled up, huh? So he says that they both can be applied, but for a different reason, right? Okay. You're weighed down so you can't go out to something, right? And you're kind of, what, clasped on yourself, right, huh? The third objection, the absorbed, huh? Sadness is said to absorb a man when, what? Such holy the power of, what? Evil of the... Yeah. That it excludes all, what? Hope. Hope of invasion. And thus also in the same way it weighs down and absorbs, huh? For some things follow each other in those things which are said metaphorically, which would be repugnant if they were taken, what, properly, right, huh? But interestingly, Thomas said an article there, you know, where something is being said of the soul, what, metaphorically, right, huh? Because usually he leaves that to, what, scripture or to the poets, right, huh? But these things aren't so, what, intelligible, right, huh? You know in the beginning of the Summa there where he talks about should sacred scripture use metaphors? And the objection is that metaphors are suitable to poetry, which is infima doctrina, those teaching. And it should not definitely be used in the highest teaching, right? And Thomas says, well, it's used in both because, what, you know, in one way for a similar reason because there's something beyond reason in a way, right? That can't quite be expressed. But in the case of theology, it's something above reason, right? In the case of what? Poetry. Yeah, it's something below. Yeah, I see. So our emotions are something that can't be, what, fully expressed what they mean, right? And I know when I was first, you know, really getting to listen to Mozart's music, you know, and I'd come in to my teacher, Kassarik, you know, and babble about what music meant or something, you know, and he says, you think it has more meaning, Dwayne, than it does, right? And now I'm a little, much more cautious, you know, about trying to say exactly what he's doing, right, huh? You know, to put into words exactly what Mozart is representing, right? You can say it's sad, you can say something like that, but I mean, it's much more subtle than that, right, huh? And in particular what this is, right, huh? What? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but in general what the emotions are, maybe you have to express them partly metaphorically, right, huh? Because you can't, what, quite know them rationally completely, right, huh? The emotions. The emotions we learn in the ethics, right? The emotions of man can partake of reason, right, huh? But that's not to be reasonable simply, right? And so, you know, when you listen to Mozart's music, you realize that he is representing emotions by taking your reason, right? But if you try to say what's, you know, going on, it's not that, what, reasonable. That they can express it, right, huh? That's true even, to some extent, even in drama, right? Even though there it's, you know, words, right? Which are more, you know, a lot of times you hear the operas just say, well, you know, the words are in what the poet is trying to, you know, but if the words were different, you know, you really don't. They don't go together with this music, you know? Isn't the music done, right? What? Isn't that how opera is the music? That's what once I said, yeah, the words must be all together to be in serving the music, right? But they kind of said the stage, you know, for this, you know? But I guess we have to stack that button for 24. What? A ton of applause when you have a phone. A ton of applause when you have a phone. A ton of applause when you have a phone. A ton of applause when you have a phone. A ton of applause when you have a phone. A ton of applause when you have a phone. A ton of applause when you have a phone. A ton of applause when you have a phone. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, Guardian Angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo gratias. God, our enlightenment, Guardian Angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, broaden the room in our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Pray for us. Help us to understand what you have written. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. So, we're up to 37, I guess, Article 3. We'll find out about the effects of sadness, huh? To the third one goes forward thus. It seems that sadness does not impede every operation. For solicitude is caused from what? Sadness. As is clear through the authority of the Apostle induced, huh? But solicitude aids to doing well, right? Whence the Apostle says in the second epistle to Timothy, Chapter 2, Be solicitous, right? To show yourself to be in a, what? Inconfusible operation, huh? That's what I mean, it's a good operation, right, huh? Okay, take care of yourself. Therefore, sadness does not impede operation, but more aids to many doing, huh? To doing well. Moreover, sadness causes in many concupiscence or desire, as is said in the seventh book of the Ethics, right? But concupiscence or desire makes for the intensity of the, what? Operation. Therefore, also sadness, right? Moreover, some operations are proper to those who rejoice, so also some operations to those who are sad as to, what? Weep, I guess, huh? But each thing is increased in what is suitable to it. Therefore, some operations are not impeded, but are aided in account of sadness, right? So I can cry better when I'm sad, right? Didn't I joke about them paying the actors, you know, to weep, you know? And the trouble was, it's the one who paid them, the less they wept. That was the, what was it? It was Liberace, I guess somebody criticized the origin of the statement. Somebody critiqued his style or something, and they thought they might have hurt his feelings, and Liberace's brother, who was his spokesman or something, said, yeah, he cried all the way to the bank. That's what I described. So he was making so much money, it doesn't matter how bad he played, he was making lots of money. But against this is what the philosopher says in the tenth book of the Nicomachian Ethics, that pleasure perfects operation, but contrary, sadness, what, impedes it, huh? Now Thomas is going to see in the body of the article here a simple distinction, right? And he won't even bother to reply to the objections one by one, because he sees the element of truth in them, right? From the distinction right away. The answer, Thomas says, it should be said, that it has been said, sadness sometimes does not so much weigh down or absorb the soul sometimes, right? That it excludes every inward and outward, what, motion, right? But some motions are sometimes caused from sadness itself, huh? Thus, therefore, operation can be compared to sadness in two ways. In one way as to that about which is the sadness. And thus, sadness impedes any, what, operation. So if you're sad about learning something, studying something, it's going to impede your studying of that, right? And what's this vice there? Chidia is not a kind of sadness, huh? So if praying makes you sad, that's going to impede your prayer, right? For never that which we do with sadness do we do as well as that which we do with, what, delight? Or at least that we do without, what, sadness, huh? The reason for this is that the will is the cause of human, what, doing, right? Human operation. When the operation is that about which one is sad, necessarily the action is, what? Debilitated, right, huh? In another way, he says, operation is compared to, what, sadness as to a beginning and, what, cause. The beginning and cause mean the same thing? No. But at the end of the chapter on the beginning there in the fifth book of wisdom, he says, every cause is a, what, beginning. So sometimes Thomas almost uses beginning in that last sense as kind of synonymous almost with cause. But it's also more, what, that word can be more general than cause. So every cause can be called a beginning, but not every beginning is a cause. The point is the beginning of the line, but not really the cause of it, huh? And thus it's necessary that such an operation is increased, yeah, from sadness. Just as when someone is more, what, sad about something, the more he tries, huh, to expel the, what, sadness, huh? So long as there remains a hope of, what, expelling it, right? Otherwise, no motion or operation would be caused from sadness, huh? So then he's seeing the truth in each of those objections, right? In that second way, right? So I told you about the old Dominican, I guess you'd say, you know, never affirm, rarely deny, always distinguish. The other way I heard it said was that, don't say yes, don't say no, say distinguo. Yeah, yeah. Okay, Article 4, For the sadness more harms the body than other passions of the soul. To the fourth one goes for a dust. It seems that sadness does not most of all infer harm to the body, right? For sadness has spiritual being in the, what? Soul. But those things which have spiritual being do not cause a change of the body. Now, justice is clear about the intentions of color which are in the air, from which no body is, what? Color. Color, yeah. So when the red is coming to my eye through the air, right, Thomas says it's a kind of, what, spiritual existence, right? And it doesn't make the air all red to my eye, right? And the color is more bodily than Thomas is to a thought in Aristotle. But you kind of see the point he's making there, right? I'm not so sure about the smells. They're more, like, stick up the place, right? Okay. Affect the air. Moreover, if it makes some harm, bodily harm, this is not except insofar as it has a bodily change joined to it. But a bodily change is found in all of the passions and all of the emotions of the soul, as has been said above. And Aristotle spends some time with that in the premium to the Dhyanima, right? So that this argument is going to define the emotion completely, you'd have to bring in a bodily change that's within him. But this bodily change is found in all the passions of the soul, as has been said above. Therefore, no more does sadness than other passions of the soul harm the body, right? Moreover, the philosopher says in the seventh book of the Ethics that anger and concubiscence make some, what? Insane, right? Which seems to be the greatest harm, right? To the body, huh? Since reason is the, what? Most excellent of those things which are in man. But desperation seems to be more, what? Harmful than, what? Sadness. Since it is the cause of, what? Sadness, right? Therefore, sadness does not more harm the body than other passions of the soul, right? But against this is what is said in the book of Proverbs, chapter 17, verse 22. A, what? Soul rejoicing, huh? Makes a flower, a flowery age, right? But a sad spirit dries out the bones, huh? Doesn't sound very good. And Proverbs 25, just as, what? Moth, yeah? To the pest of the crow. And worm to the wood. I was reading the life of, uh, of, uh, I was reading the life of somebody. Who was I reading the life of? Joshua. Columbus, yeah. Right, right. But, you know, they talk about these worms that get into the wood of the ship, you know? And some of them really get, uh, going down there, huh? That was really a problem with those. We're so used to metal ships, you know? I guess the worms can't do that. But these wooden ones are really, yeah, those really a problem down there in the Caribbean. Especially the worm ones. It would, but it's getting antsy to work, yeah. So sadness, right, harms the heart of man, right? And death hurries from sadness, right? And Washington Irving, one of his books, he says, a woman that died from being abandoned by a man, right? Mm-hmm. What's the one that Dickens has there, huh? Great Expectations? Oh, what's her name? The wretched old woman. Yeah, yeah. She's set the, let the clocks, you know, set the tide. So eccentric. Yeah, yeah. Havishing. But she's kind of, kind of, what, mad, right? Because of this being left at the altar, right? Winning cake there, still corrupting, you know? You know, by the vice. Well, Thomas says, I answer, it should be said that sadness, among all the passions of the soul, right? Among all the emotions, more, what? Arms the body, right? The reason for this is that sadness is repugnant to human life as regards the very species of its, what? Motion. And not only as regards the, what, measure or the quantity as the other passions of the soul. That's kind of interesting what he says there. For human life consists in a certain motion, which is diffused from the heart to the, what, other members. Is that good biology, Joshua, or what do you think? In the heart, the kind of the center there, right? Which motion belongs to human nature according to a determined, what? Measure. Measure, right, huh? They had me counting the money at the church there last Sunday, right? So one of the guys who's there usually, you know, he's just got a pacemaker, right, you know? And so he's saying, I guess the pacemaker, it only helps your heart, but it also keeps you from getting Alzheimer's, right? I don't know. It was pretty upset. You're a little more alert, right? There's hope. Yeah. If, therefore, this motion goes forward beyond the suitable measure, right, huh? It is repugnant to human life according to the measure of the, what, quantity, right, huh? Not, however, according to the likeness of, what, the species, huh? But if it impedes the process of the motion itself, it's repugnant to life according to its own, what, species, huh? Now, it should be noted, huh, that in all the passions of the soul, that the bodily change, which is material in them, is conformed and proportionate to the motion of the appetite, which is the formal aspect, right? And that's the reason he gives there, huh? Just as in all things, matter is proportioned to what form, right? That's why we don't think that Pythagoras is right about the transmutation, you know, the soul going from one body to another body, right, huh? You know, he says, stop being that dog, and I recognize the soul of my friend so-and-so had died, right, huh? In the dog, right, huh? But these things are, what, like relative to each other, right? Those, therefore, passions of the soul, which imply the motion of the appetite to pursuing something, are not repugnant to the vital emotion in their species, but they could be repugnant to it according to their, what, quantity, right, huh? As love, joy, desire, and things of this sort. So some people have died of joy, not because joy as such is, by the reason of what it is, is opposed to this motion, but because it's excessive, right, huh? It's overcoming on his skin. Francis de Sales says in the Blessed Mother, she died of love. Yeah. Excess of love. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and therefore, these, according to their species, aid the nature of the body, but on account of their excess, they are able to, what, arm them, right, huh? Okay. So Shakespeare alludes to that in what play, huh? I guess we'll be able to. No. The Merchant of Venice, right? About the time when Bassani was making the right choice of the caskets there, you know? You know, she's bound by her father's will, right? Okay. And she says, you know, it's overjoyed, but no late, you know, because she couldn't pass out. She couldn't overcome it, the joy of making the right choice, you know, because this is the man. Now the passions which imply emotion of the appetite with flight or what? Retraction, right, huh? Are not repugnant to the vital emotion, not only according to quantity or measure, but also according to the species of emotion. And therefore, simplicitare. Yeah. Yeah. You say simplicitare because it's not what? Qua too much. But simply, whatever, you know, amount of them there is, they're going to be opposed, right? Because they're opposed to the emotion. As fear and desperation, right? And more than all, right, or before all, sadness, which agravatant, weighs down the soul from the present, but evil, of which there is a stronger impression than of the future, which you have, I suppose, in fear and desperation. That's all interesting, touching upon the body there, right? That's what he says. Are you convinced with that argument? Yeah. I think it's kind of interesting what he says here, but it seems as if some would agree with the experience, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And the spouse died in the yellow falls. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Yeah, that's what George Bernard Shaw, when Frances Chesterton died, a couple years after her. Gilbert died or something. And he kind of mused after she died. She said, what did she die of? Was it widowhood? Because she was very fond of her. Now, to the first, it should be said that because the soul naturally moves the body, the spiritual motion of the soul naturally is a, what, cause of the bodily, what, change, huh? Nor is it, like it, huh, about the spiritual intentions, like the color in the air, right, huh, which do not have naturally an order to move in other bodies, huh, which are not apt to be moved by the soul, huh? So the soul is the, what, first act of an actual body, composed of tools, huh, actually moves the body, right? That's a famous example there, the guy who was in the bathtub, you know, and he suddenly thought of the solution to a geometrical problem, right? And he said, Eureka! And he jumped out of the bathtub and started running down the state without too much clothes on, you know? But, you know, there's been a connection between what happened in the mind and the spiritual thing and his jumping out of the bathtub and running down, right, huh? And even that, it makes sense, you know, you discover something, you know? And also, you know, he had to go for a walk or something. That's what they said when St. Thomas was at dinner with somebody and he abstracted the whole time in the middle of the meal. How was his fist on the table? That's how to solve the manikin's problem or something. Yeah, that's how to solve the manikin's problem or something like that. Boom, that'll finish him off. Then he apologized to the king and the king said, no, no, so write down what Thomas said. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That happens all the time here. Yeah. Now, in regard to the second one that says, well, isn't there always some bodily change? To the second, it should be said that other passions have a bodily change, right, that are conformed, according to their species, to the, what? Vital emotion. But sadness, what? The contrary, right? Isn't that Thomas thing you always say about the doctor, you know, he's talking about the man who said the, you know, doesn't want to live anymore or something, you know, he's kind of lost his will to live, right? He's kind of crushed or aggravated by, what, sadness, right, huh? And he's not going to live too long, right? Third objection here, right? From a lighter cause, huh? Living or cause, is impeded the use of reason, right? Then life is, what? Corrupted, right, huh? For we see many sicknesses to take away the use of reason, which do not yet, what? Take away life, huh? But nevertheless, both fear and anger bring greatest, what, harm, bodily harm from the mixture of sadness in them, right? On account of the absence of that which is, what, desired, huh? Sadness itself, huh, sometimes takes away, what, reason, huh? As is clear in those who, on account of sadness, fall into melancholy, right? Or into madness, I guess, huh? My impression is that that's bipolar. Melancholy is down and maybe too extreme. It's interesting when you go through these emotions here. You can go all the way back to the main thing in theology, which is what? God, yeah, yeah. And the names of the 11 emotions, two of them can be carried over from the emotions to the acts of the will and to God himself, properly speaking. And those are, what, love and joy, right? Now, some of the other names can be carried over instead of God metaphorically, right? And so if you understand these emotions well, you can see which can be said or carried over properly, but with a new meaning, right? Which can be carried over metaphorically. Metaphor means carried over, by the way, in Greek. And then which cannot even be carried over metaphorically, right? So anger, for example, is that found properly in God? No. And anger arises from some kind of evil, right? Some kind of sadness. There's no evil for God and so on. But anger is said of God metaphorically in Scripture. And it's by the likeness of the effect, right? So the man who's angry punishes, right? Okay. You're stepping on my toe and I say nicely, you know, you're stepping on my toe and you say, so what? Then I get angry and then I punish you, right? And so when God punishes, then metaphorically, the reason and the likeness of the effect, he's said to be, what? Angry, man. It's not really angry. Okay? And pity is said of God, right? Okay? Because the man who pities, right, relieves the suffering of another, right? And so when God does this by an act of his will, then he's said to, what? Pity, right, huh? But an emotion like, say, fear, could fear be carried over to God even metaphorically? There's really no likeness there, right? God's afraid of something? You know? So you can go all the way back to God, right? From the treatise on the 11 emotions, right? To see what can be said of God properly, what can be said of God figuratively or metaphorically, and what cannot be said in either of those ways of God, right, huh? Can God despair? No. No. I can't despair. I wonder if you can even say of God. I wonder if you can say of God, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right. Right, right.