Prima Secundae
Lecture 136: Natural Habits and Their Causes

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per mixione, right? With a little mixture of some potency, right? And it has less of potentiality or potency, the more it is what? It is higher, yeah. And therefore, as has been said in the Prima Pars, insofar as it is in potency or ability, it needs to be perfected habitually, right? Through some understandable forms for its own what? Operation. But insofar as it is an act, its very substance is an act, right? Separated from matter. To its very essence, it can understand some things, right? At least itself, right? And others, according to the mode of its own substance, as is said in the book De Causes, right? And the more perfectly, the more perfect it itself is, right? So I think, you know, we mentioned before that the angel understands himself, what he is, through his own, what? Substance, right? And there was that famous objection to this, you know, where it said, well, the understanding or the power of understanding of the angel is in his substance, so how can his substance be in his power of understanding? And Thomas solves it by saying that there's a different sense of in, right? Because his power of understanding is in his substance as an accident in his subject, right? But his substance is in his understanding, not as an accident, but as an understandable form, right? That by which he understands, huh? He's amazing, which is those angels. When your soul is separated from your body, that makes it actually understandable. And then your soul understands itself to itself. But in this life, as Aristotle teaches in the Dianima, we know the soul through its powers, and the powers through the acts, and the acts through the objects. So there's a discourse, right? You know? From the objects we know the acts, and from the acts we know the powers, and from the powers we come to know the soul. The book De Causes was thought for a while to be by Aristotle, right? And they discovered it's not by Aristotle. It's got some profound things in it, didn't it? Thomas has a commentary in the Dianima. But because no angel arrives at the perfection of God, but he differs from him... Yeah. On account of this, to attain to God himself, by his understanding and by his will, he needs some, what? Habits, right? That's back to the problem I started the class with, right? You know, why do I need these two ones in the will, right? Hope and charity, right? Just one in the reason. Yeah. And why that is a link between those two. You can kind of see that in a way in philosophy there, you know, because philosophy is named from the love of wisdom, right? Now, is it enough to be a philosopher to have this love of wisdom, right? As far as your will is concerned, I mean. Well, you might say, wisdom is a wonderful thing, but I don't think it's possible for me, right? Okay. So unless you have hope of overcoming the, what? Difficulties, right? You might not ever become a philosopher or pursuer, right? I told you that story when I was first, you know, young student there, and he had some kind of a social function, and I got talking to some woman, and she said, well, I was a majoring in, and I said philosophy. And she said, oh, let me tell you about this young man. He went to the University of Minnesota, and he read author A, and he said one thing, and author B, he said something else, and author C, something else, and author D, and he couldn't, you know, he couldn't make any sense out of it, he couldn't resolve it, you know, and finally he said, I can't take any more, and he threw his books away, and he goes down, he lives on a farm now, works a farm, and he refuses to pick up a book. So she was warning me about the dangerous occupation that I had chosen, right? So given the weakness of our mind, right, and the proneness that it has to make mistakes and so on, you might say, well, I love wisdom, but I don't think I can, what? Yeah. It's like a man pursuing a woman, right? Romeo loves, what, what's her name? Rosalind, right, huh? But she doesn't seem to give him the time of day, so is it enough to love the woman to pursue her? You've got to have hope that she's going to eventually, you know, if you lose complete hope, right? You know, they say, you despair, right, huh? Of winning Rosalind, right, huh? So, um, I'm going to give up the pursuit of it, right, huh? Okay. Um, maybe somebody would love to be president or love to be senator or something, right, huh? But is that enough to run for office, right? So if I have no hope of getting elected, if I despair of winning, I'm just going to go through the, what, motions, I'm not going to really run a good campaign, right, huh? So it's not enough to love to be senator or love to be president, you've got to, what, have the hope that you can do it. You know, there's difficulties in the way, right, you know, under-informed voters, as they call them now. That phrase all the time, the low-informed. That's what politicians thrive on, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, they had something on the TV the other day, they're, um, somebody go around and interview people and see what they really think, you know. And I guess this woman has this program, Judy, Judge Judy? Yeah. She's, yeah, and it's got a program on TV, you know, and so, and so the guy's been around saying, what do you think of Obama appointing Judge Judy to the Supreme Court? Do you think it was a good idea? Well, I think it was, yeah, she, she said, she, you know, I mean, there would have been all the people who had done that, you know. That's it, that's what they did, they did that in Canada, you remember that? When we first got to Canada, it was during the end of the presidential campaign in 2000, and they were going around, Canadians take the life, you know, how stupid Americans are, they were talking to everybody about how Toronto being the capital of Canada is, and every American, all Americans, oh yeah, Toronto's the capital of Canada, they didn't know that Ottawa was the capital of Canada. Yeah. So they got Al Gore. Yeah. And he didn't know that Ottawa was the capital of Canada. Yeah. So, because no angel arrives at the perfection of God, right, but he differs from it, he's distant from it in forever, in infinites. On account of this, to obtaining God himself, through their understanding and will, they need some, what, habits, huh, as existing in potency with respect to that pure act. When Stanisius says that their habits are, what, deformes, by which they are conformed to, what, to God, huh? But the habits which are dispositions for an actual being, like, I suppose, health in us and things of that sort, right, are not an angel's, right, since they are immaterial, right, huh? So he applies then to the first objection that the word of Maximus should be understood about habits and accidents that are, what, material, right, huh? The second should be said, as regards this, what belongs to the angel through his own essence, for that he does not need a, what, habit, right, huh? But because they are not, to themselves, beings, right, but that they participate in the wisdom and in the goodness, the divine goodness. Therefore, insofar as you need to partake of something from the outside, to that extent, it's necessary to lay down in them that there are, what, habits, huh? To the third, it should be said, in the angels, there are not parts of the essence, and the substance of the angel doesn't have parts, like our, my substance has a body and a soul, and my body, there are all these parts that I can't even enumerate, but they are parts according to, what, potency, right, huh? Insofar as the understanding is perfected through many, what, species. species, or forms, and the will of them as itself to many things. Well, thank you very much, Thomas. You spoke about the angels. I don't know if it's altogether necessary in this treatise here, you know. But I'm glad that he's thinking of my guardian angel and his own. I'll tell you, I sit in the 10th pew in the church, did I tell you that? My wife and I, the daily master, go to the 10th pew, you know. So leave the first nine pieces for the angels, you know. One for each order, you know. Does Rosalie know that? Yeah, I told her. How many times? Repetition's the mother of learning, so. Reminder one. I'm in great school, you know, the nuns would say, no, wouldn't you? I need a little room for your guardian angel, you know. I'm not even a bitch. It's a little more sophisticated than that, but it's not much more. Leave nine pews there in front of you for the angels. It's a metaphor, isn't it? Yeah, sometimes the priests get annoyed, you know, of people, you know, sitting too far back, you know, and so on. You know, if I was just sitting up further, you know, I'd leave that for the angels. Okay, now we're coming to question 51, huh? Then we're not to consider about the cause of the, what? Habits, huh? Okay. If you look back at the premium in the beginning of question 49, right, huh? It's the beginning of the consideration of habits, right? It says, after the acts and the passions, one should consider about the beginnings of human acts. And first about the intrinsic or inward beginnings, secondly about the extrinsic beginnings. The beginning intrinsic is the power and the, what? Habits. And those pertain to the first and second species of quality, right, huh? Powers of the second species. And because about the powers when it's spoken in the first part, it now remains that we consider the habits, right? And first in general, and then secondly about, in particular about the virtues and the vices, the good and the bad habits and so on. And other sorts, habits of this sort, which are the principles of human acts. Now we're in that general consideration of habits, right, huh? And there are four things to be considered. First about the very substance of habits, right? And that was question 49, right? Secondly about the subject of them, and that's the one we just concluded with the ad bonum doctrina, you know? Think about the angel stone in for a good measure. Now we come to the cause of generation and the growth and the corruption of them, right, huh? And that's just going to be question 50. They're beginning now. And then there'll be about their distinction, huh? Question 51, right? It's interesting, yes. It's important, huh? Distinction is the most fundamental thing in the life of the mind, right? And in our life too, isn't it? I mean, you sit down to eat there, you have your soup, you know, you consume the soup, you know, and then you take the spoon, you put that in your mouth and swallow that. You should make some distinction between the food and the spoon that you use. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, distinction, you know, between a man and a woman, I think that's something that's kind of neglected nowadays. Notable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But underlying, you know, all this thinking here is all these distinctions, right? Distinction of the ten highest genera, the distinction of the species of quality and so on, right? So it's interesting, we're going to have a question on, you know, we've got to restrain our desire to hear about that until we take up this, about the cause. Then we're going to have to consider about the cause of habits, and first, oh my goodness, there'll be many questions, as regards their generation, right? Second, as regards their, what, growth, right? And third, as regards their diminution and, what, corruption, yeah. So 51, 52, and 53, it says here. Oh my gosh. Okay. About the first four things are asked. First, whether some habit is by nature. Oh, very interesting, they should bring that up. Just read Hamlet talking about that, huh? Fish is small of nature, right? Nature cannot choose its origin, right? Secondly, whether some habit is caused from acts, huh? Now, if you know the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle talks about the virtues as being, what, the moral virtues by repeated acts, huh, you know? It's like Hamlet, he tells his mother there to go to bed with that guy tonight, and then next time, you know, it'll be a little easier to say no, and so on, right, huh? So you have to, what, exercise yourself in saying no, huh? And third, whether by one act, a habit can be generated, right? Well, that might be appropriate when I'm studying Euclid, wouldn't you say, Joshua? One act, huh? One demonstration? And you've got geometry, just like that? Something to be a habit anyway, right? See? By one saying no to the candy is not to be confirmed in virtue yet. And then, whether some habits are poured into men by God, right? Infused. He's poured in, I guess, huh? Yeah. Okay. To the first one goes forward thus, it seems that no habit is by nature, huh? For of those things which are by nature, their use is not subject to the what will. But a habit is that by which someone uses when he wants to, as the commentator says in the third book about the soul. Therefore, the habit is not by, what, nature, huh? Now, seeing some quotes that Thomas said as a commentator, he's talking about the names of God, you know, and so on. And, of course, everybody's familiar, knows Thomas, how many times he takes up criticizing Averroes for talking about the unity of the intellect and so on. He kind of feels sorry for Averroes and so on. But there are other things now where Averroes is beautiful, and Thomas quotes him with approval, right? And he did quote in one text, I see him quote it two, three times here, and I was reading this thing on the names of God and so on. And the commentator was saying that when you say God is living, when you say God is, what, life itself, right, huh? These are not, what, synonyms. Thomas quotes him with approval, right, huh? Because they don't signify the same way, do they, huh? Because living signifies what has life, right? So it's, you know, and when you talk about the e fortiori, then you talk about, say, the justice of God, the wisdom of God, right? They both signify his substance, which is one and simple, but not according to the same, what, thought, right? So they're not synonyms, right? So Thomas is bringing out this idea that these different names said of God, even though they don't signify different things in his substance, right? They're still not, what, synonyms, and Averroes sees that, right? And then when you get to the word perfect there in the fifth book of wisdom, and Aristotle gives three senses of perfect there, which kind of fit creatures, right? And then he talks about something that is lacking in nothing, something that would be universally perfect. I mean, Averroes says, well, this is referring to God. And Thomas says, yeah, that's what Aristotle is talking about, the sense in which God is perfect, huh? He has the perfection of every genius, right? In a simple way. You have to admire some of these wonderful things that Averroes says. says, right, and these wonderful things that Avicenna says too, you know, quote Avicenna. Sometimes it would be very, it would come down very much upon a mistake, you know, but I mean, after all, Thomas, you know, in the Katena Ori and so on, he'll quote Origen, you know, but there's some very serious difficulties in Origen, right? But he often quotes this bigger text here, you know. So, moreover, nature does not make through two what it can do through one, right? But the powers of the soul are by nature. If, therefore, the habits of the powers were by nature, the habit and the power would be one. Moreover, nature does not fail in necessary things, but habits are necessary to act well. So, if, therefore, some habits were by nature, it would seem that nature does not fail, but that it causes all the necessary habits. But it's clear that this is false, right? It's going around with all kinds of faces, right? And just pick up the daily newspaper, right? One act or another, right? Therefore, habits are not, what? By nature, right? But against this is what is said in the sixth book of the Ethics, where he's talking about the virtues of reason. And among the other habits, he lays down the understanding of, what? Beginnings of the axioms, which is by nature, right? So, I call that habit in English, right, the natural understanding, right? They use the term reasoned out understanding for epistemic. But in Latin, they just call it intellectus, and in Greek, just nous, right? But it's by nature, right? You naturally understand, you naturally come to understand that a whole is more than a part, right? Well, let's see what the Master says now. I answer it should be said that something can be natural to something in two ways. In one way, according to the nature of the, what? Species, huh? Just as it is natural to man to be capable of laughter, right? Visible. Visible. That was the old thing in the logic books, you know. That was the example of property of man, right? Because man is an animal that has reason. That's why he has laughter, right? He can make the sound and so on because he's an animal. But he can see the incongruity or the absurdity of something by his, what? The reason, huh? Now, we've had some pet cats around the house, but does a cat really laugh? Or does a dog really laugh? No? I don't know about monkeys, but... It's natural to fire to be born upwards, right? In another way, according to the nature of the, what? Individual, right? Just as it is natural to Socrates or Plato to be, what? Sickly or, what? Healthy, right? Some people are by birth, right? According to their own, what? Makeup, huh? Flexion. So what Shakespeare or Hamlet is talking about there, you know. Ficious mole of nature, right? You might be born with some defect, right? So some people are born, you know, apt to be, what? Irascible, right? Other people are more accusable, right? That's funny. Mothers will know that even with a child in the womb. Or this one's going to be, whatever. I've seen that with certain women, especially if they've had more than one child. Yeah. They can tell by the movement of the child in the womb, what kind of disposition it has. I'm kind of curious. How active a child is going to be? Or whatever, whatever it's disposition. I think they'll save you all. Incidentally, which sense of the natural here is the measure? You said you should, you know, live in the courts of nature, right? Shakespeare, as Hamlet says, you know, to the actors there, or strip not the modesty of nature. Anything so ever done is from the purpose of play, right? Who's in, both in the beginning and now. He's to hold his word and direct to nature. And then he says to show virtue, your own face, and score on your own image, right? But he sees nature as the model, the measure of what is virtue, service, right? Which sense of nature is that here? The species. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In other words, what is private to me, Dwayne Berquist, or private to, say, Francis de Sales or something, right? As an individual man, you may be well or badly disposed to being reasonable, right? So the fact that you say, I guess, was given to anger by nature, right? And he overcame this, you know, by great discipline, right? And someone else might be, you know, claiming some other advice, right? Again, but to be reasonable is something that belongs to us for a reason of our common, what, nature, right, huh? So some people become unreasonable because of their desire to drink, let's say, or something, right? Others because they're angry and they do terrible things, right? So on. Others because they're cowards, right, huh? So they might not be, might run away in battle time or something, right? Again, according to both natures, something can be called natural in two ways, huh? In one way, because the whole of it is by nature, right? In another way, because according to it, something is by nature and something of it is from an exterior, what, principle, right? Just as when someone is healed through himself, the whole health is, what, by nature. When someone is, what, healed by the help of medicine, his health is partly by nature and partly from an exterior, what, principle, right, huh? That's a famous example there because Aristotle and Thomas will use that example of health sometimes coming entirely from within, right, where the body doesn't take any medicine like that, but it, what, your body overcomes the disease, right, huh? And then sometimes you need this exterior help, right? And they apply that to coming to know, right, huh? Sometimes a man is so intelligent that he can discover some great truth by himself, right, huh? But others, you know, what's within them is not sufficient, but they need a little exterior help like the words of the master or something, right? And then that kind of, what, brings them to a healthy state of mind, huh? Okay. That's a famous distinction. In contrast that with making me, what, a chair, right, that's holding by the, from the artist, right? Nature doesn't sometimes make a chair, but nature does sometimes heal you, right, without any exterior help. If, therefore, we speak of habit according as is a disposition of the subject in order to, hey, what, the form or the nature, in both, in either of the aforesaid ways, huh, it can happen that a habit is, what, natural. For there is some natural disposition which is owed to human species outside of which no man is, what, found. And this is natural according to the nature of the, what, species. But because such a disposition has some latitude, right, huh? It happens that diverse grades of this disposition can belong to diverse men according to the nature of the, what, individual. And this disposition can be either totally from nature or partly from nature and partly from any exterior principle, as has been said about the man or about those who are healed through what? Or art, huh? But the other kind of habit, which is a disposition to operation, whose subject is the power of the soul, it can be natural both according to the nature of the species and according to the nature of the individual. According to the nature of the species, the nature of the species, the nature of the species, the nature of the species, according as it has itself on the side of the soul itself, which, since it is the form of the body, the substantial form of the body, it's a specific principle. But according to the nature of the individual, on the part of the body, which is where your individuality comes in, which is a mature principle. But nevertheless, in either way does it happen in men that there are natural habits, thus that they are entirely, what, from nature. In the angels, this happens however, in that they have, what, understandable forms that are naturally, what, you know, which does not belong to the human soul, as has been shown in the first part. So one time, my little son Marcus was going to school, he said, why can't we be born just to know everything we need to know, right? I said, you want to be an angel, not a man. That's what the angels are created, right? They know everything naturally, right? That they actually know. We're not born there, right? We're not born there. But it's not about being an angel, right? It's a temptation, in fact. Yeah. It seems like every school voice. There are, therefore, in men, some natural habits, as it were, partly existing by nature, right? And partly from an exterior principle. But in a different way, in the grasping powers, and in the knowing powers, and another way, in the desiring powers. For in the grasping powers, there can be a natural habit, according to its, what, beginning, right? Both according to the nature of the species, and according to the nature of the individual. According to the nature of the species, on the side of the soul itself, as the understanding of the beginnings, is said to be a natural habit. That's the noose there, as Aristotle calls it in the sixth book, right? Or intellectus, as Thomas calls it. He gives an example here. For from the very nature of the understanding soul, it belongs to man, that at once, knowing what is a whole, right? And what is a part, he knows that every whole is greater than what? It's a part, right? And likewise in other axioms, right? But what is a whole, and what is a part, he's not able to know, except through what? Intelligible forms taken from the images, right? Or from the phantasms, which is a Greek word for image there. An account of this, the philosopher, at the end of the posture analytics, right? shows that the knowledge, even of the principles, comes to us from the senses. So in that sense, you know, I used to, when I was thinking about Hamlet's definition there, of reason, right? It's ability for a large discourse, looking before and after. And I said, well, I often call this a definition of reason as reason, right? But if you want to extend it to include even reason as a nature, right? Where reason knows some things naturally, right? Like the whole is more than the part. It just isn't included in the idea of discourse, right? Discourse there means what? Coming to know what you don't know to what you do know, right? So it seems like what you know by defining and reasoning and calculating and so on. And therefore, you're just limited to what reason knows, not naturally, right? But a discourse. But there's kind of a discourse here insofar as you have experience of wholes and parts and then you come to know what a whole is and what a part is and then you kind of naturally recognize that the whole is more than a, what, part, right? So the way you kind of extend if you wanted to include even this, right, huh? I don't think I'm mistaken in saying this primarily, you know, the definition of reason is what? Reason, right, huh? So Aristotle's a chapter in there in the postural text where he's talking about how the axioms, right, huh? Come in some way from preexistent knowledge, right? So far as the understanding of their parts, right, come from experience through the, what, senses, huh? Secondly, according to the nature of the individual, there is some, what, knowing habit according to a natural beginning insofar as one man from the disposition of his organs, huh? Is more apt to understand well than what? Another, right? Insofar as for the operation of understanding we need the sense powers, huh? Remember this classmate of mine in high school? It was really good, you know, and he had a memory, you know, I mean, he could take a page, a poem, you know, three or four pages, look it over once, you know, close it up and recite the thing. He's really good in mathematics, right, huh? And what the professor would do would, you know, it was time for him to take a course, he'd just give him the exam and then, okay, you've got credit for that course. And of course, the professor said, you know, actually, he'd ask him more difficult things than we didn't do in the course, you know. And he went on and got a PhD in mathematics, right, he was well-disposed in some way for what? Mathematics, right? He has kind of a natural beginning there, right? Was a Jew or somebody talking to me about some people who are really good at numbers? They used to call them idiots, but now they drop the idiots and sound nice. They're kind of like, I don't know if it's a kind of autism or something, but they have, like they can't tie their shoes, they can't carry around an ordinary conversation, but boy, they can do math or some other, they're especially in like one thing. That's what the doctor, what was his name, a Jewish guy in London, I can't remember his name, he wrote a book, Sachs, Dr. Jonathan Sachs I think is his name, and he wrote a book about a bunch of these different people and two of them were these twins, they were like in a mental institute and he wouldn't talk to anybody. Like you could try to talk to them like they didn't recognize your existence, but they would just kind of whisper to each other and grin, and finally he listened and he found out they're telling each other prime numbers, and that was their universe of their happinesses. Then we'd come up with the next highest prime number and then we'd all have a galaxy and then a little bit later the other one would come up the next time. And then he sat there, finally he figured this out and he's sitting with them, he's got a table of prime numbers on them, so they throw out a prime number and then he threw out a prime number and they both looked at him and they looked at him and they grinned. And then he got, well he said, they mentioned they got off the charts and he couldn't keep going with it because they got off the charts of the prime numbers. Well that was their joy, that was the one thing they could enjoy. And it was taken away from them. Yeah, and then it was separated. Yeah, it was a sad story, but that's some people, that's what Sandra Larson told us, that's what this school did in Hardwick, among other things. There's kids who are troubled in various ways, some of it's autism and other things, but they specialize at school, which is enormously expensive, but you get, people will send their kids there because they'll cultivate whatever that one thing is that these children can do. And so it's very, it's very artsy things and that's an evil hill, whatever that school has done. And she was saying when they have these programs, they put on these shows and whether it's music or whatever the plastic are, it's different things and it's just marvelous to go down there. But the kids are a mess, their life is a mess, whatever it is, but they can, they can specialize, they can sort of grow in some particular way. And that's what the school comes in. Beautiful. Thank you. So it's kind of unusual examples of what he's talking about here, right? We have a special Habitus Cognosciativus Secundum Incoationum Naturalis, right, the actual beginning. Insofar as one man for the disposition of his organs is more apt to well-understand than another. Insofar as for the operational understanding, we need sensitive powers right now. And now he goes to discuss this in the desiring powers, in the appetitive powers. In the appetitive powers, there is not some natural habit according to according to What? Beginning on the part of the soul itself as regards the very, what? Substance of the habit, but only as regards, what? Certain principles of it, huh? As the principles of, what? Common justice, which is said to be the seminalia virtuta, right? The seeds in a way of virtues. And this is because the inclination to its own objects, which seems to be the beginning of a habit, does not so much pertain to the habit, but more pertains to the very notion of the, what? Powers, huh? So the will, naturally inclined to seek happiness and so on. But on the side of the body, according to the nature of the individual, there are some desiring habits according to natural inclinations. For some are disposed from the, what? Complexion of their body, from the makeup of their body, to chastity, right, huh? Or to, what? Mildness, right, huh? Or to irascibility or something. That would be the vice, huh? Or to something of this sort, huh? Okay. It's kind of funny, you know, I've got all these grandchildren there, you know, and each of them seem to have a little different, you know, personality, as we'd call it, you know, but, I mean, different to what they're inclined to, right? Yeah. Yeah. Shakespeare talks about humor, you know, people are designed to have excessive humor, right? And others will not laugh, even if Nestor declared it funny, you know? But then, the guy, Byron, he's in the middle, right? He's got the virtue of humor, yeah. Yeah. Now, to the first it should be said, huh? The first objection, huh? That abjection proceeds about nature according as it is divided against reason and will, right? But nevertheless, reason itself and the will pertain to the, what? Nature of man, huh? I gave a talk one time there in this business, and couldn't do it again, but developed a little bit here. I had to talk about TAC there for the St. Thomas Day, you know? Because you have to be very careful when you distinguish between nature and, what, reason, right? Because there's something natural in reason, too, right? And something natural in the will. So there's some things that reason is said to know naturally, and some things that we will naturally, right? So Thomas says we don't really choose to be happy rather than to be miserable. We naturally want to be happy rather than miserable. And, now, what happened is consistent, and that we might choose or something. Now, you read Sartre, you know, for Sartre, there's kind of like an absolute distinction there, right? So that reason, I mean, that the will doesn't will anything naturally, right? That it's got, to be honest, you know, it's completely free, the will, right, huh? You know, so you can choose to be miserable, right? Sometimes we say that about people, right? You know, but strictly speaking, you don't, you can't choose to be miserable, right? And, strictly speaking, and then John Stuart Mill, right, in the SC on liberty, right? He talks about the importance of liberty of thought, you know? It's because we never really know anything, right? Before we've got to keep this open mind, right? But he's denying that we know anything, what? Naturally, right? And so, everybody's opinion is up for, yeah, you can argue about it, but you never remember to resolve anything, right? I always remember what Whitaker Chambers says, you know, when he became a communist. The communists were serious about what they thought, right, huh? He came back to Columbia University, you know, and kind of despised his fellow students who regarded ideas as ping-pong balls, he says, huh? I think he's beautiful, right? He said, ping-pong balls, I'm going to knock back and forth. But you don't take the ping-pong ball seriously, and it gets cracked, it carries, you know? Just, you know, back and forth, right? That's what they do with ideas, right? That's what they do with Columbia, like, ideas back and forth, and play with them, so to speak, but you don't really take ideas too seriously, because you can't be annoyed in any way, you know? I wouldn't do what Benedict said, the tyranny of relativism, right? But this is the kind of tyranny that people are under now. So we can't really know anything. What I think is, this is worthwhile as what you think, you know? Everybody's thought is equal. To the second should be said, that something, even what, naturally can be added to potency, potency, which nevertheless is not able to, what, pertain to that power. Just as in the angels, it is not able to belong to, what, the understanding power that it be through itself, knowing all things. Because it would be necessary to be the act of all things, which is of God only, right? God is, what, being itself, right? So everything that is in any way partakes of, what, of God, right? He's the act of every actus omnium. Now that by which something is known is necessary for it to be an actual likeness of that which is known. Whence you would follow that if the power of the angel through itself knew all things, it would be a likeness in the act of all things. And then be being itself, right? In the I am who am. Whence is necessary in that one add to the power of the understanding of him some intelligible forms, which are likenesses of things understood. Because through the partaking of the divine wisdom, and not through its own essence alone, are they, what, the intellects of them are able to be an act of those things which they understand. And therefore it is clear that not everything that pertains to the natural habit can pertain to the power. Now, the third objection. To the third it should be said that nature does not equally have itself to causing all the diversities of habits. Because some are able to be caused by nature and some not. And therefore it does not follow that if some habits are natural, that all will be what? Natural. Natural, right? And a little break here.