Prima Secundae
Lecture 141: Habit Increase, Corruption, and Diminution

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Article 3, whether any act increases the habit, right? To the third one goes for it does. It seems that any act increases the habit. For multiplying the cause, the effect is multiplied, right? But the acts are causes of some habits that have been set above. Therefore, the habits are increased with the acts being multiplied. Moreover, about the same, there's the same judgment. I've got to be careful about that now. But all acts proceeding from the same, what, habit, are similar. Therefore, if some acts increase the habit, any act would increase it, right? Moreover, like is increased by like. But each act is similar to the habit from which it proceeds. Therefore, each act increases the, what, habit. There's an expression here all the time now. Take it to a new level, right? But not every act takes you to a new level, right? Okay. Against this, the same is not a, what, cause of contraries, huh? But as it's said in the second book of the ethics, some acts proceeding from habit diminish it. As when they are negligently, what? Done. So if you're saying your prayers, you're negligently, you might be, what, diminishing your, oh, yeah. I mean, you're hopeless yet, but it means, you know. Yeah. I think some people just say they're kind of rattle off their prayers. Therefore, not every act increases the habit. I answer it should be said that similar acts cause similar habits, as is said in the second book of the ethics, right? You know, in a sense, Mino is asking Socrates, right, how virtue is acquired, right? Whether it can be taught or not, right? Because Aristotle argues that the moral virtues are caused by, what, repeated acts, huh? So if you're a father there, you know, usually your little boy or girl is going to pick up something in the store they shouldn't, you know, that isn't theirs, right? A piece of candy or something, you know, or a little toy, you know? Or you'll see them with a, they go to some other kid's house and they like some toy and they take it home, you know, about. So you see them playing with it and you say, you know, did Johnny say you could take that, you know? They're not confirmed advice yet, right? You know? Don't you think Johnny might lose it, you know? I guess you take that back home, you know, huh? I think I see the kids in there a little bit, you know, and they have some candy, you know, I'd say, oh, could I have one of those pieces at first? Yeah, you know, then, okay. And after a while they become, you know, generally quite generous right now. And they don't think, you know, I wonder if I, with all those ones out there in Kansas or in Missouri, you know, you know, one of my colleagues, they were here, yeah. Colleagues saying he'd come home, you know, and he had to make some candy here. But he's got about six or seven brothers and sisters, you know? So it would be gone like that, you know? I need stuff in your mouth before you go to the house, you know? But little things like that, you know, huh? You know, it's a kind of night, twice, and then finally they start to share. I mean, there's a similar act that's producing a student in, what, habit, right, huh? I told you that story there, the time we found that billfold there, you know, in Minneapolis there, my brothers and I. And, you know, somebody, you know, dropped in the Minneapolis parks there, and so we went down to the food thing, and they didn't have any record of somebody, you know, asking about it. So we brought it back home, and looked in the paper there, and found somebody to advertise for it, you know? So, comes out, drunk, you know, car, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Just as it happens that someone having a habit does not use it right or even does the contrary act right, so also it can happen that he uses a habit according to an act, not corresponding proportionally to the intensity of the act. If, therefore, the intensity of the act is proportional, equal to the intensity of the habit, or even exceeding it, any act will either increase the habit or at least dispose for the, what, growth of it, if we speak of the growth of habits in the likeness of the growth of, what, an animal, right? For not just any, what, food taken in act increases the animal, just as not just any drop of water causes the stone to fall, right, or breaks it down. But multiplying the growth, the food, finally comes about growth, right, huh? So, likewise, multiplying the acts, the habits increase. If, however, the intensity of the act is proportionally deficient from the intensity of the habit, such an act is not disposed to the growth of the habit, but more to the, what, the diminution of it, right? So, if I had kept, you know, down in St. Paul and talking to my friends, you know, about the first chapter in physics, I would not have grown in my habit, right, huh? And I get, kind of has this very intensity, right, huh? You know, and, uh, he makes me understand the first chapter more, right, huh? Then once you, you know, you know, you know, you see how my brother, Marcus' friend, you know, he says, he's kind of tired, you know, I mean, to, you know, he's so intense, you know, you know, and so, you know, and so, you know, and one chorus there, you know, I forgot him text it down as he says, you know, you know, because I'm referring to his forgotten text to Thomas, you know, and, uh, waiting for him to read the text, you know, in all the classes before he got to the forgotten text, you know, you're really, you're really up for it, you know, when the time comes out, you know. The text where Thomas compares, what, logic to natural philosophy rather than grammar, you know, where there's a likeness between logic and natural philosophy and unlikeness to grammar. I think the grammar would be, with logic, because they're born with liberal arts, right? I told you that at the party when David was in Indiana, he's not much good at making small talk, you know, and I could see it a little bit, you know, getting rid of the ears, they're talking to the ladies and so on. So I come over and say, can I ask you a question? Oh, yeah! So I ask you a question, and you start going like this, you know, and we saw the guys, all the students are, oh, yeah! I think there's something like that, even like for a ball player or something like that, right, you know, he might go into something and get a certain, what, increase in his ability, right, because he gets into a little more, what, structured exercises or something of that sort, huh? We'd go out golfing or doing some other sport with somebody who really knows what he's doing, you know, and you start imitating him and so on, and you start to, what, come back better, you know. We sent my daughter over to Rome there, you know, and then the next year, I think, was a place for the study of the language there, what is it, I forget the town, Perugia is it, I guess? I don't remember the system, yeah, and she went there, and it really helped her, you know, get their acts in Italian, and better, I don't know how good their acts, I love it, yeah, but Warren Murray's talking to me on the phone there about these, looking at Dante, kind of, he says, people say he's great, so I think I better get him in, but, you know, he's talking about the Italian, right, he's got, you know, somebody reciting it in Italian, you get a real sense of the kind of rhythm of it, huh? I guess he doesn't have a meter, he has a different meter, different times, in different ways, and so on, but, uh, he's playing over the, over the, over the telephone, you know, but, I guess I can do much good work. I guess I have to read Dante in English, huh? Koa there, we had this professor of English there at the College of St. Thomas, you know, how many languages he had, you know, he had a photographic memory, right, huh? He says to my brother, Marcus, he says, do you know Italian? And Marcus says, no, do you know it? Latin? He says, yeah, well, that's good enough, let's do Dante in Italian. And, uh, another guy, he did Arabic, huh? Oh. And, uh, I read Greek with him, and, you know, he wanted me to read, uh, reading German there, but I didn't get involved in that. He knew all these, you know, languages. Well, it was a difficult language, he said, look at the grammar book twice, he said. And then, and then, one Christmas, we had, we had a high, the flute in the parish there, we had the auxiliary bishop there, you know, resided there, you know, and so on. So, Christmas is a big thing, you have that music ready, isn't it? And the organist got sick, or something like that, desperate, so they called his professor. He comes over and plays the organ, and I'm not an expert, or anything like that, but I couldn't see any, any false noses like that, you know? They say he knew mathematical physics, too, I don't know, you know. My old teacher, you know, he defined a poet as a man with his brains kicked out, right? And Crowell says, that's the first definition of a poet I agree with, he says. He's an English professor, the head of the English department, you know, so he's a solid guy, you know. You go in and see him, you know, for a while, and talk to him, and he says, you know, get the hell out of here, he'd say, you know. He'd come into class, and he'd kind of slam the chair down. He'd get you out of here, and that's, you know, made from class, you know. So they just... People used to come, even the seven-year-old used to go up and say, well, some of them just sit in this afternoon, you know, class there, and kind of make great books, you know. Of course, he gave so many books, nobody could read them all, you know. You guys read all these books? And he didn't give you absolution, you know, for not reading all the books that he had assigned. I guess we have to stop now, huh? I guess so. At the beginning of the next question, any corruption and diminution habits, huh? That's great stuff here. Yeah. Yeah. 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 Grazius. God, our Enlightenment. Guardian Angels, strengthen the lights of our minds. Order and illumine our images and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Pray for us. And help us to understand what you have written. So, we had passages in Timothy. Are you reading Timothy now? No, we have a different schedule. There's one in chapter 3, I think it is, of the first epistle to Timothy. Round verse 16, something like that. The church is said to be the pillar of truth, right? And foundation of truth. I said, I can look it up in the Greek, see what it is. Of course, the word pillar is stolas, right? But the other one, I think, was Ibrion or something like that. I think it comes from the word for a chair, right? But they kind of give it as the meaning of simply foundation, right? But you know how you call Mary the seat of wisdom, right? It's kind of the seat of wisdom to the church, yeah? But it's kind of funny because in the Trinity Home, you know, when they talk to these people, you know, who came into the church, you know, from some Protestant thing. And of course, you know, one of the things that catches them eventually is this sola scriptura, right? And the guy had come across the text, you know, the church is the foundation, the pillar of truth, right? Well, I mean, how can that be true, this sola scriptura, right? Yeah. You know? Usually they get caught because how do you decide the canon, you know? They've got to have a church to have the canon. But also, this is a text they get, right, sometimes. Beautiful little text there, Timothy. Advice to being a bishop, you know. It's got to be a man with just one wife's name, right? That kind of scandalizes people, yeah. That's the thing, that reading accidentally at an ordination. I think it was at our ordination. Our ordination, and the deacon was reading, he read the wrong reading, it was that one. And the bishop looked at his monsignor, he says, since when do bishops get married? When actually did the Western discipline come in anyway? For the East, you mean? Yeah, or the West, the West. When did the discipline of celibacy? Yeah. For bishops? That was pretty early, I think, because, yeah, I think at least in the East, I know always, the clergy, it was common to have married priests, but the bishops were always celibate, always. And that's why, generally speaking, they were always monks, and to this day, the Maronites, the bishops, even if they're diocesan clergy, when they become a bishop, they get a hood, because it's a sign of their celibacy, and it's a consecration like the mosque. I don't know the history of it. I've seen it all talked about Father Pacwa, you know? But he's got rights to say mass in the... Maronites. Maronites, yeah. He's got connections. Is his mother's Lebanese? I don't know, but the reason why he does that... Somebody just told me that the other day, actually, they have all known him, so Father Liza's parents, and I think his mother's Lebanese, and I think he studied in Beirut or something. Yeah, yeah. He has a lot of those foreign languages, you know, under his belt. Yeah, he did biblical studies and whatever. Yeah. I spoke in one of the parishes there up in Northboro, you know, right next door. And so, I think we had the places packed, you know? I was surprised they got that good enough. Yeah. Absolutely. Here's a way of kind of talking his belt to kind of catch it a little bit sometimes. Okay. So, we're up to the corruption and diminishing of habits, huh? That's maybe what's happened to my geometrical habit there, right? You know? Then we're not to consider about the corruption and the diminishing of habits, right? And about this, three things are asked. First, whether a habit is able to be what? Corrupted. It's got to be in the article that chapter in the Prima First Book of the Summa Gentiles where God has habitual knowledge. Well, no, no. It's kind of a beautiful way one of the arguments he had was that the one who has habitual knowledge his substance and his operation are not the same thing because having habitual knowledge he doesn't always have that operation but he always has a substance, right? So his substance is not the same thing as his operation. When God has the same thing some of the operation would say, okay, have you a habitual knowledge? It's kind of a subtle argument. You wouldn't expect that to show up in there but it's kind of beautiful the arguments he has in there. Prejudice, you know. Secondly, whether it is able to be what? Weakened or diminished, right? And third, about the way of corruption and the diminishing. To the first end, one goes forward thus. It seems that a habit is not able to be corrupted, right? Why? Because habit is within as a certain, what? Nature. It's like a second nature we call it. Whence the operations according to habit are, what? Pleasant. Pleasant, delightful, right? But nature is not corrupted, remaining that of which it is in nature. Therefore, neither can I have it be corrupted, the subject remaining. Moreover, every corruption of a form is either by the corruption of the subject or by the contrary. Just as sickness is corrupted when the animal is corrupted, or it's also corrupted by health coming upon one, but sciencia, science, which is a certain habit, cannot be corrupted through the corruption of its subject because the understanding, which is the subject of this habit, is a certain, what? Substance and is not, what? Corrupted, huh? Sometimes use the word intellectual soul, I mean intellectual soul, right? As it's said in the first book about the soul. Likewise, it cannot be corrupted by its contrary because understandable species are not contrary to each other. The definition of vice is not contrary to the definition of ritual. And therefore, the habit of science in no way is able to be, what? Corrupted, huh? Moreover, every corruption is through some motion, some change. But the habit of science, which is in the soul, cannot be corrupted through motion as such of the soul because the soul as such is not, what? Moved. Is moved ever accidentally by the motion of the body, right? But no bodily transformation is able to, so it seems to be able to corrupt the intelligible species existing in the understanding. Because the understanding is the place of species without the, what? By the ends. It's in the animal too, huh? Locus species. Whence is laid down the nearth of old age. Oh my gosh. Nor through death are these habits corrupted, right? Therefore, science is not able to be corrupted. And consequently, neither the habit of virtue, which is also in the rational soul. As a philosopher says in one ethics, the virtues are, what? More permanent than the disciplines, right? So I could lose geometry more easily than by justice, let's say, if I had justice. Now, what does the master say here? The answer, that some form is said to be corrupted as such through its, what? Contrary, right? You skipped the same contract. Oh, excuse me. Oh my God. But against this is what the philosophy says in the book On the Length and Brevity of Life. It sounds like a good treatise to read. Yeah. That forgetfulness and deception are corruption of what? No. Of knowledge of science, yeah. And by sinning, someone is able to lose a habit. of what? Virtue, right? And from contrary acts, virtues are both generated and corrupted, as is said in the second book of the ethics. I answer, Thomas says, it should be said that as such, as he couldn't have said, as such, some form is said to be corrupted through its contrary, but by accident through the corruption of its what? Subject. If therefore there be some habit whose subject is corruptible and whose cause has a contrary, in both ways it is able to be corrupted, just as is clear about bodily habits to it, such as health and sickness, right? You know that, huh? Yeah, this alternation of health and sickness in life. They could be corrupted through the corruption of the body, too, right? Those habits whose subject is incorruptible are not able to be corrupted piratidines, right? But, and I was going to see a distinction here, there are, however, some habits which, although chiefly, principally, are in the, what? Incorruptible. Incorruptible. In a secondary way, they are in a, what? Corruptible. Corruptible subject. Just as a habit of science, huh? Which is chiefly in the possible understanding, but secondarily, in the sense of grasping powers, as has been said above, huh? Yeah, and also, Thomas used that word, what? Apprehensiva, right, huh? He often calls the two powers there, the grasping power and the desiring power, right, huh? Okay. I was kind of struck, you know, thinking about this word, discourse, you know, that you have in Shakespeare's definition of reason, and of course, Thomas has an article where the knowledge of God is discursiva. It's not, huh? But it's kind of interesting that grasp comes from the act of the hand, huh? And discourse comes from the feet, right? So when Shakespeare says, or Friar Lawrence says to Romeo, you know, wisely and slow, they stumble, they run fast, right? The first meaning of that is running too fast, you know, and you stumble. And the second meaning is in your actions in the course of your life, right? You act in haste, repent, at leisure, as they say. And then the third sense is the act of reason itself, right, huh? So it's taken from the word running, cursism, discourse, huh? So it's interesting that, you know, these are, our hands and our feet are kind of, we're very much aware of those two parts, but it's interesting to take the word grasping from the hand, I guess, and running from the feet and apply them to the mind, right? It's called the grasping power, right? This Shakespeare calls it discursive power, right, huh? Interesting, huh? So dependent upon our senses to name things, right? Okay, so he's going back here, he's saying that the science is chiefly in the, what? Understanding, the possible understanding as opposed to the act of understanding, but secondarily in the, what? Sense grasping powers, huh? Aristotle says we don't think without, what? Images, right? And those involve the sense powers, right? And therefore, on the side of the possible understanding, the habit of science cannot be corrupted by the corruption of its subject, but only on the part of the inferior sense powers, right? So as your imagination declines, right, huh? And then you're, what? There's a corruption there, right, huh? You know, in the modern science, you know, most of the people who get the Nobel Prize, you get it for somebody to get it in their 20s or 30s, right? Not somebody to get it in their 60s or 70s, right? You know, it's kind of pitiful, you think of Einstein, you know, in those later years, you know, he'd keep on working, you know, but he announced something, and it, of course, would fall through, you know? But when he's, you know, back in, what, 1905, was it, I think, you know? He had three papers, you know, you see, all three of which are really worth the Nobel Nobel Prize, you know, it's a fertile imagination, but the imagination goes, huh? So in some sense, the younger scientist is more productive, right? That's not so true of a philosopher, because he uses more just the reason, right? It doesn't depend upon the imagination. The scientist does, you know? I used to wonder about Mozart's magic flute, you know, somebody called it a potpourri, a potpourri, you know? He's taking melodies, so it's useful. He could orchestrate them better or something, you know, but I don't know if that's true or not. It therefore should be considered, if these habits are able to be per se, as such corrupted, right? And that would mean by their, what? Contrary, right? If therefore there is some habit which has something contrary, either on the part of itself or on the part of its, what? Its cause. It's able to be, what? Per se, corrupted, huh? If however it does not have a contrary, it cannot be per se, corrupted, right? Now it's manifest that the understandable form, right? Existing in the possible understanding does not have some, what? Contrary. Contrary, right? So health and sickness are contrary in the body, but not in the, what? Not in the reason, right? Okay. Nor again to the active understanding, which is its cause, is able to be something, what? Contrary, right? Whence, if there is some habit in the possible understanding, immediately caused by the agent, what? Intellect. Such an habit is incorruptible, both per se, both per se, and what? Procedence. And of this sort are the habit of first beginnings, both in speculative things, and in practical things, huh? Which by no forgetfulness or deception are able to be, what? Corrupted. Corrupted, right? As the philosophy says in the sixth book of the ethics about foresight, huh? That is not lost in forgetfulness, huh? Augustus is arguing there against the academics, you know? And the attorney taught to him. He said, we don't know anything, you know? Just like today. He said, well, we know we're alive, he says, huh? Because even if we're deceived, we're alive, you know? People accuse, you know, Descartes of stealing that from Augustus, that was probably dead. He said, I know that I am alive, and I know that I know that I'm alive, so I get all the things I know. That's what Augustus says. But there's some habit in the possible understanding caused, right, from reason, right? To it, the habit of what? Conclusions, right? Which is called science, huh? So I can use, in English, I call that reasoned out knowledge, huh? Reasoned out understanding. To the cause of which, there can be something contrary in two ways, right? In one way, on the side of those propositions or statements, from which reason, what? Proceeds, huh? Goes forward, yeah. For to the statement that the good is good is contrary, the one which says that the good is what? Not good. Not good. According to the philosophy of the second book of the Perihameneas. That's the book on statements, right? What the statement is, what statements are contrary, and what ones are contradictory, and so on. In another way, it regards the process or going of reason itself, right? Insofar as a sophistical syllogism syllogism is opposed to a dialectical syllogism, or a what? What is a syllogism? What is a syllogism? Demonstrative, right? A little bit sloppy there, Thomas, right? Beginning of the book on dialectic theory, he used to be four socialisms, right? So you have the demonstrative socialism and the dialectical socialism, both of which are good, although when it's necessary, it's only probable, right? And you have two that are opposed to it, right? The sophisticated one as opposed to the dialectical one, and then the one they call the falsigraphic, right? As opposed to demonstration, right? Yeah, yeah. It's a little sloppy here, Thomas, huh? Stepping up a little bit, you know? Maybe he wrote this in his old age. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, he died when he was 49, and Aristotle says the mind is best at the age of 49. Yeah, I've got one year left. Yeah, well, I've been going downhill for quite a few years now. I've got one year left to do something. He should increase my freshness of salary up to a certain point and then start to decrease his salary, you know? Until they force him out. They should increase his salary if he publishes his retractions. Yeah, that's right, too. That's right, too. The witness ends that confession. I mean, the confession is the day three times, you know, thank God for whatever has come from you, and ask for forgiveness for whatever has come from me. This is beautiful. Well, you just put a mind to you on. Okay. Thus, therefore, it's clear that through a false what? Yeah. Can be corrupted a habit of true opinion, or even one of what? No. Yeah. Once the philosophy says that deception is a corruption of science, right? Now, virtues, some are intellectuals, intellectual, which are in reason itself, as is said in the sixth book of the Ethics, right? On the second, third, fourth, and fifth books, he talks about the moral virtues, right? Which are not in reason, but they're in the will or in the emotions, right? And it can keep some more of a racial appetite. But then in book six, he's talking about the virtues of reason, huh? The greatest is wisdom, right? Tell you about my little grandchild, Sophia? Is that called a lady, wisdom? I asked her twice last time there, what is wisdom? She says, the knowledge of God. Oh, I'm good. She's on her way. We had the feast of St. Sophia. Was it yesterday? St. Sophia, the free honor is worth your faith, hope, and charity. It's obviously wisdom. I'm kidding about it. What is a philosopher, lover, of Sophia, right? Ha ha ha ha ha! The devil can quote scripture, right? Ha ha ha ha! Yeah. These are the equivocation of words. But some are in the desiring part of the soul, huh? Which are the moral virtues, right? Where does the word moral come from, by the way? Yeah. Morse. Morse. You have to get accustomed to these things. You have to be... Practically. ...peated action, yeah. And the same reason is true about the opposite vices, right? Now, the habits of the desiring part are caused through this, that reason is naturally apt to move to the desiring part, right? Whence, through the judgment of reason, moving in the, what, contrary in some way, either through ignorance or from passion or from choice, is corrupted the habit of what? Virtue or vice, huh? And that's got to reply to these objections, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said, that as is said in the seventh book of the Ethics, habit has a likeness to nature, right, huh? But nevertheless, it falls short from it, huh? It's not as stable as nature, right? But, you know, in the distinction... What's the distinction between habit and what? Disposition, you know, like in the categories, right? Well, a disposition is a, what? Easily moved, right? Disposition. But a habit is a stable... Yeah. Right. But still disposition, right? So it's like nature. And therefore, since the nature of a thing is in no way removed from it, a habit is removed with, what? Difficulty, right? Now, what about the second one, right? Although to understandable forms, nothing is, what? Contrary to statements or enunciations, right? And to the process of reason, there can be something, what? Contrary, right, huh? So what did poor Melissa say, right, huh? If being was generated, it had a beginning. But it was not generated, therefore it had no beginning. Does that follow? You're saying if A is so, then B is so. But A is not so, therefore B is not so. Does that follow? Well, see, the same thing. B could, what? Follow from anything besides A, right? You see the students, you know, if Perkowitz dropped dead, then you'd be absent from class, right? He's absent from class. Different. Yeah, see, that's not, that's, we shall think he's, but it's not, that's not true. But I could just say, if Perkowitz dropped dead, he'd be absent from class. He didn't drop dead, therefore he would not be absent from class. Does that follow? Hmm? No. He got fed up with the whole thing. I said, I'm going on vacation. I'm going to Kansas City. Got lost in the woods or what? I'm going to go on. Half is the best of us. So, but to the statement, you know, that two is half of four, it's contrary to the statement, two is what? Yeah. So there's katarati between statements, right? Between arguments, good and bad argument. In English, sometimes, they speak of the enunciation, and sometimes they speak of the proposition, but I think the real word in English is statement. Proposition originally was what, for the premises of a syllogism, pro posito, place before, right? But then they got accustomed, you know, to calling any statement a proposition. Dumb as thousands of things, too. That's what it's laid to custom. Yeah. To the third, it should be said, that science is not removed by bodily motion as regards the very root of the habit, right? But only as regards the impediment of the act, right? Insofar as the understanding needs, in its own act, the sense powers, to which an impediment is brought through the bodily, what? Change, right? So if I can't imagine the geometrical figure, I can't really go back over the theorem, right? Maybe I can't even infer to that, but since I can't recall that, right? But through the understandable motion of reason can be corrupted in the, what? Of knowledge. Even as regards the very root of the habit, huh? Interesting to use the word root there. And likewise can be corrupted in the habit of, what? Virtue. Nevertheless, what is said, that the virtues are more permanent disciplines, huh? Ought to be understood not on the part of the subject or the, what? Cause, but on the part of the act itself, right? Why? Because the use of virtues is continuous throughout all of life. You gotta eat every day, right? So you gotta act. for adoration, you know? You don't think of geometry every day, even I don't do that. Not over the use of the, what, disciplines, huh? Now the question of the lesser one, right? Whether habits are able to be, what, diminished, huh? The second one goes forward thus. It seems that a habit is not able to be diminished. For a habit is a certain quality and a simple, what, form. But the simple, either the whole is had or the whole is, what, lost. Like a point, I suppose, right? Therefore the habit, not though it is able to be corrupted, it is not able to be, what, diminished, right? Moreover, everything that belongs to an accident belongs to it as such or by reason of its, what, subject, huh? But the habit by itself or as such is not intensified or remitted. Otherwise, it would follow that, what, some species is said of individuals according to more or less, right? I should talk about that and say, what do you mean all men are equal, right? Is one man more a man than another man? Is one dog more a dog than another dog? Well, one species is not said more or less of their individuals, huh? Even the genus, huh? Is a dog more or less an animal than a cat? I go to the master morning, you see this lady out talking to two dogs. I call her the two-dog lady. That's numbers, right? If, therefore, according to the partaking of the subjecting in diminished, right, you would follow that something happens to a habit, huh? It's proper to it. That is not common to it and the subject, huh? For to every form there belongs something proper apart from its subject. That form is what? Separable. Yeah, to whatever form it belongs, right? Therefore, it follows that the habit is a separable form, which is impossible. I should understand that. Moreover, the rot seal and the nature of the habit, just as of any accident, consists in being concrete to its subject, right? Whence every accident is defined through its, what? Subject. Subject, right? If, therefore, the habit, according to itself, is not intensified, nor also would it be, what? Able to be diminished according to its, what? Concretion to its subjects, being partaken of its subject. And thus, in no way is it diminished. But against this is said that contraries are apt to come about about the same thing. But growth and diminution are contrary. Since, therefore, a habit can be increased, it seems, that it can also be, what? Diminished. He says, I answer that habits can be diminished in two ways, just as they can be increased, as it's clear from the thing I said before. We talked about the growth of them before, I think, in the summary. And thus, from the same cause, they are increased, of which they are generated. So, also, from the same cause, they are diminished, from which they are, what? Corrupted. Corrupted, yeah. The diminution of a habit is a certain way to, what? Corrupted. It's corruption, right? Just as, reverse, the generation of a habit is a certain foundation of its, what? Okay. Group. My brother Mark was talking about a priest, you know, who, occasionally he would teach Greek, right? Every time he taught, he had to learn it again. Disappearing, but it's been so long time since he taught it. That's what I remember about St. Robert Bellarmine. It was said that he was assigned to teach Hebrew to a bunch of students. He had never learned Hebrew. Yeah. So, he was one lesson they had in the students in the class. Now, to the first objection, that is a simple thing, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that a habit considered by itself is a simple form, right? And by this, or according to this, there does not happen to it diminution, right? But according to a diverse way of being partaken, which comes about from the indetermination of the potency of the one partaking, which, in a diverse way, is able to, what? Partake of one form, right? Or which is able to extend itself to more or to fewer things, right? So, I'm trying to extend myself to more theorems of geometry, right? But you can also understand the same theorem, what? Better, right? I've been to the Summa Kanji until this many times, so it's my mind extending to more conclusions than Thomas comes to in the Summa Kanji. See, I don't think I am. But I seem to understand the arguments better, right? See? I'm partaking of these arguments more and more. To the second, it should be said, that argument proceeds if the essence of the habit is in no way what? Demand. Yeah. But this is not what we're laying down, but that there is a, what? Kind of. Diminition. In essence of the habit. It does not have its principle for the habit itself, but from the one, what? By taking out, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay. So is Thomas' argument becoming stronger or weaker? I'm partaking, I'm partaking of the substance of his argument more and more, right? More and less and less. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It should be said that in whatever way an accident is signified, it has a dependence on its subject according to its very definition, right? Mm-hmm. But in different ways, huh? For an accident signified in the abstract implies a habitude or a relation to the subject which begins in the accident and is terminated at the subject. For whiteness signifies that by which something is what? White. And therefore, in the definition of an accident, in the abstract, one does not lay down the subject as it were the first part of the definition, which is the genus, but that which is what? Second. Second, which is the difference. As for example, we say simitas, right? Snubbness, right? I think it's a no-dict acronym. Is the curvature of the what? Is it no-dict acronym? No-dict acronym, yeah. Yeah. Or it's like you say health is a good condition of the body or something like this, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? Well, body is not the genus there, it's a good condition, you know? Mm-hmm. We say wisdom is the, you know, the greatest perfection of reason, the highest perfection of reason, wisdom. So if you love reason, you should love wisdom, and if you love wisdom, you should love reason, right? Okay? But notice, reason is not the genus there, right? Huh? You're saying wisdom is the highest perfection of reason, right? You should define wisdom in the abstract. But in the concrete, the habitude relation begins on the subject and ends in the accident, right? As the white is what has whiteness, right? Okay? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.