Prima Secundae
Lecture 156: Distinction of Moral Virtues by Operations and Passions

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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, you're enlightened. Guardian Angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, or in the room in our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelica Doctor, pray for us. Help us to understand what you have written. Before we begin here with the second article, I guess, question 60. See, I was reading a biography here of Padre Pio, right? I picked up when I was out there. And a little passage here kind of touches upon this suffering, right? She suffered like a stoic, or she suffered like a more human way, right? Okay. He's describing the last part of Padre Pio's life. Padre Pio is now making his way towards eternal life. And every day he is afflicted by ills which no mortal can escape. But he carries them, he doesn't simply bear them, with submission to divine will, to the point that he makes even those who are suffering, and who see his example become resigned to God's will. He does not deny his sufferings when he truly suffers. My son, I feel completely shattered. He would reply to our questions. And then he would quickly add that God's will be done. Agony is a familiar visitor to his soul, his tears are to his eyes, huh? Even if others don't notice this much, as he always appears to be jovial. Father Agostino, who is one of the spiritual directors, something like that, tells us in his diary, quote, I found Padre Pio very disheartened. As soon as we were alone together in his cell, he started to cry. I was upset, but I was able to control this. I let him cry for a few minutes. Afterwards, we talked. The dear Padre told me that he felt this unexpected trial, deep fear. But then, having allowed his humanity to show through, he quickly takes a grip on himself and begins to joke, even about his own problems. And he blesses and thanks the Lord, huh? And he's quoting again from the diary. I found him very much relieved, thank God. How do you spend your days now, he asked him. He replied, I pray and study as best I can. And I know him, my brothers. In what way, I said. I joke as before, and even better than before. He's his own best artist, yeah. Then he clearly said, during the first days of the terrible trial, I felt very bad. But then the Lord sustained me, and so I adapted myself to my new surroundings. May Jesus be thanked. But you must come to see me. I need a friendly, brotherly, fatherly word. So the guy comments here, how comforting it is to find common elements in exceptional men. Marble and bronze heroism arouse astonishment, but they do not warm the heart. Christian heroism, on the other hand, dwells in hearts of flesh without destroying the innocent weakness of human nature. And in this sanctity, he finds strength and beauty. The fact that the saints suffer and are happy to suffer does not mean that they do not feel the pain. They can crucify their flesh, but by doing so, they do not change it into stone, nor render it insensitive. They are not made of stone, and they haven't got any of the qualities of the Stoics, whose ambition it was to, quote, make all feelings die. It cost the Holy Curie of Dars, Curie Dars, a great deal, for example, to get up before dawn every morning. He many times went into the confession with a great sense of reluctance. Padre Pio suffered, he says, humanly, right, and not stoically. He desired to suffer always more and without any comfort. And this constituted all his joy, because those souls who suffer without any comfort lighten the sufferings of Jesus more. Padre Pio would say, quote, I'm an egoist, where suffering is concerned. I want to suffer alone. I should reproach myself if I were to seek to be deprived of the cross, even for a single hour, or worse still, if others were to step in and rob me of it. And in order to alleviate the sufferings of the good Jesus, he remained faithful to his daily program till the end. Choir, altar, confessional, getting there in latter times with the help of a wheelchair. Thus realizing the words he had said to his spiritual director on the 12th of November, back in 1954. I would prefer to be brought to the confessional on a chair rather than not your confessions anymore. That's interesting, huh? Where's the law from the back? This is a noted Capuchin, and his name is Alessandro of Ripa Batoni, a Capuchin friar of the religious province, San Angelo and Padre Pio. He's considered one of the best of the Capuchin religious, best historian of the Capuchin religious province. Mark that page. Mark that page so I can... Do you have a stick Pope in here? Something else. Or you can put this, yeah. It's the Eucharistic Miracle Lanciano. Oh, did you go there too? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's beautiful. See a little pamphlet if I look at it. Yeah, yeah. Put the Pope in there now. You can put this in there if you want. Put this. Oh! Is that on the chair? Yeah, on the chair. That's my son. That picture's with a phone. Toll phone. That's phenomenal. It's a great picture. Sorry if I want to pay for the next page. Thank you. Mr. Lanciano. You were here just the last few weeks ago? Yeah. Go to, you once gone to, where's the house? Loretto? That's that far from there. Went to a place where St. Matthew's buried too. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, in Salerno. In these churches in Matthew, you know? That's interesting. Went to St. Francis, of course, again then. So we're up to Article 2 here in Question 60, huh? To the second one goes forward thus. It seems that moral virtues are not distinguished from each other by this, that some of them are about operations, right? Others about actions or emotions, right? First objection. For the philosopher says in the second book of the Ethics that moral virtue is what? Pleasures. It's operative of the best things about what pleasures and what sadness, right? But pleasures and sadnesses are certain passions. Therefore, the same virtue which is about passions is also about the operations as existing as something operative or doing. Moreover, second objection, passions are the beginnings of exterior operations. If therefore some virtues rectify passions, it's necessary that also consequently they rectify operations. Therefore, the same moral virtues are about passions and operations. Moreover, to every exterior operation, the sensitive appetite is moved either well or bad day. But the motions of the sensitive appetite are passions. Therefore, the same virtues which are about operations are also about what? Passions, right? So you discover something intellectually that you were looking for, right? You feel good. Yeah. So it's emotions, right? Even those things. But against this is that the philosopher lays down that justice is about what? Operations, but temperance and fortitude and mildness, right? Sentleness are about certain what? Passions. And you see that as a distinction, right? I see a text there in Thomas there where he's talking about the moral virtues not the end of life, right? Because moral virtues are over to something else than themselves, right? You can see he says in the greatest of them, guess what virtues he takes up? Fortitude and justice. Fortitude is about passions and justice is about actions. Now Thomas is going to solve the objections, right? Not even take them up individually by the distinction he points to. out here. I actually should be said that both operation and passion can be considered or compared to virtue in two ways. In one way as what? Effects. And in this way, every moral virtue has some good operations, which is productive, right? And also some pleasure or sadness, right? Which are passions, right? But in another way, they can be compared, right? Operation can be compared to moral virtue as the matter about which it is. And in this way is necessary to be other the moral virtues that are about operations as a matter and those that are about what? And the reason for this is because good and bad, in some operations is to be attended according to themselves, in whatever way a man is affected towards them, right? So if I pay my debts happily or sadly, right, I'm a just man, insofar as the good in them, right, and the bad in them is taken according to the reason of the what? Commensuration, huh? To another, right? You agree to pay my house? Agree to pay? Yeah. And in such things, there is some virtue directive of the operations in themselves or by themselves, right? Just as buying and what? And in all doings of this sort in which there is to be noted the aspect of debt or not of a debt to another, right? In account of this, justice and its parts are properly about operations as about its own what? Matter, right? But in some operations, good and bad are to be noted only according to the what? Where they measure well with the one operating. And these are necessary that good and bad are considered according as man is well or badly what? Right. About these things, right? And in account of this, it is necessary that virtues and such things are chiefly about interior affections which are called the passions of the soul. Think about temperance and what? Fortitude, right? Yes. I know, I have to come prepared here. This thing is bothering me well. Oh yes, did you hear about this? What? Oh, sorry, I interrupted you. You should put Vicks VapoRub on your feet, the soles of your feet when you go to bed. You will wake up without any problem. With heavy socks on top. With heavy socks. That's the way before you go to bed. The Vicks VapoRub you used to put on your chest as a kid, it does you more good. If you put on the soles of your feet, wrap them in warm socks, go to sleep, you'll be fine and warm. What? My throat will be? Yeah. Anyway, your name. We were told this recently, that they've done studies that figured this out, that somehow or another your feet absorb this better and it has all kinds of things. So try that tonight and let us know how it works. It can happen that in the operations which are towards another right, the good of virtue is what? Set aside account of the disordered passion of the soul. And then, insofar as the what? Commensuration of the exterior operation is corrupted, right? There is a corruption of what? Justice. Justice. But insofar as there is a what? It's corrupted the commensuration of the interior passion, there is a corruption of another what? Virtue. Virtue, right? As when someone on account of anger strikes somebody, right? And that unsoothing percussion, right? Justice is corrupted, right? And the what? In the lack of moderation of anger, mildness is corrupted, right? And in this way, it's clear the response to the objections, right? For the first argument proceeds from operation according as the effect of virtue, right? Rather than the matter of virtue. And the other two reasons proceed from this, that they run together, what? Operation and passion. But in some of them, virtue is chiefly about operation. In some, about what? Passion. The fourth side of these, right? You know, some virtues, but it's kind of hard to see which one it is, you know? Like liberality and magnificence and so on, right? We'll leave that side. Those problems arise. Now, the third article, right? To the third one goes forward thus. It seems that there is only one moral virtue about operations. For the rectitude of all exterior operations seems to pertain to what? Justice. But justice is one virtue. Therefore, there is one virtue alone about what? Operations. Operations. Moreover, operations most differing, right, are those that what? The order to the good of one. And those which are ordered to the good of the what? Men all. Yeah. But this diversity does not diversify moral virtues. The philosopher says in the fifth book of the Ethics that legal justice, right, which orders the acts of men to the common good, is not other from the virtue which orders the acts of man to one only, except in what? Reason. Reason, huh? Therefore, the diversity of operations does not cause the diversity of moral virtues. This is a difficult text here in the fifth. As it means, but Thomas will. Illuminate us. Illuminate us. Moreover, if there are diverse moral virtues about diverse operations, it would seem that according to the diversity of operations, there is a diversity of moral virtues. But this is clearly what? False. For it pertains to justice, huh? In diverse genera of commutations, right, huh? To, what, the statue, to establish what is right, huh? And also in what? Distributions. Now, commutative justice and distributive justice, the same justice, the species of it, huh? There are not, therefore, diverse virtues of diverse operations. But against this is a virgin, is another virtue from what? Piety. Maybe he's thinking of piety towards your parents or something like that. Of which both, there are what? About operations, yeah. What Thomas says. I am sure it should be said that all moral virtues, which are about operations, come together in a certain what? General notion. General notion of justice. Which is to be observed according to what is owed to another, right? But they are distinguished according to diverse special reasons, huh? The reason of which is that because in exterior operations, the order of reason is established, instituted, not according to a proportion to the affections of man, right, huh? But according to its suitability of the thing in itself, by which a, what? According to which agreement there is taken the notion of what? Of debt, right, huh? From which is constituted the ratio, the notion of justice. Because it pertains to justice, it seems, that each one, what? They render what he owes. What he owes, yeah. Whence all virtues of this sort, which are about operations, have in some way the notion of what? Yes. Yeah. But the debt is not of one, what? Notion in all. For in another way is something owed to an equal, and to a superior, and to a what? Yes. Religious life? You owe something to the abbot you don't owe to the novice? Yes, yes, true. You owe something to the novice you don't owe to the equal, the man who's in the same. Maybe so, yeah. Certainly about the superior. I was thinking of Shakespeare's plays there, the northern European plays, Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear, right? It's kind of amazing reading about King Lear, you know. Shakespeare rarely has anything that's altogether original, and I guess there's about 50, 60 King Lears before Shakespeare. Oh, really? Yeah. I don't know. And he does, you know, over-argeting. He takes something that's gone all the way down through history, you know. He used to have someone at Assumption there who was teaching, you know, a particular story, you know, in four or five different languages or countries, you know. Wow. And they see all kinds of variations, right, huh? Shakespeare is just right, you know. But he never tried to be, you know, too original, right? He wanted to get something that really resonated with people, huh? Yeah. You know, it's the only way back thousands of years. Yeah, that's a wise way to perceive it. It's really kind of striking, though, because in some ways I think King Lear is his greatest play, you know. He was, what, 60? Yeah, 60 versions of it, yeah. Yeah, and of course some of these scholars, when they go back to this one day, you know, he's comparing them to 40 different earlier accounts of King Lear and his daughters and so on. And I was thinking, you know, of, which is worse, you know, like the uncle there of Hamlet has killed his own brother, like Abel, or Cain killed Abel, right? But then if you kill your own father, you know, which is worse, to kill your father or to kill your brother? I think I'd be inclined to like that. Yeah. Because you have a much greater debt to your father, right? You know, you've got your life from your father and you've got your life from your brother, right? So serious as that may be, right? You see how King Lear, in that sense, is even hitting more upon nature, right? Because you have two fathers who are, what, one is being, you know, plagued by two of his daughters and the other by one of his sons, right? And then you have a faithful son and you have a faithful daughter, right? So you see that nature, what's natural and unnatural. So, so he speaks of the difference with regard to a superior, right? An equal and a lesser one, right? Another thing from an agreement and from a promise or from a benefit, what, received, right? And according to these diverse notions of debt, there are taken diverse, what, virtues, right? So why do I owe my grandchildren obedience? I owe my mother and father obedience, right? Even Christ is subject, right, to Joseph and Mary, right? So it's really quite different, isn't it, no? So I got a little Sophia there saying, you know, what is wisdom, Sophia? The knowledge of God, she says. So I have a kind of a duty, you know, to go out and, what, teach that little girl, you know, whose name means wisdom, right? I don't have the same duty to go out and teach my father or my mother, right, huh? And then I have a different thing towards my brothers, right? Now, to the first objection, it should be said, excuse me, and according to these diverse notions of debt, there are taken diverse virtues, as religion, is that by which one renders one's debt to what? God, huh? So religion is the virtue that's closest to the theological virtues, right? But piety is that by which one renders a debt to one's parents or to what? Yeah. It's kind of beautiful, you know, in Socrates there, because if you take the last five dialogues, right, the ones around Socrates' debt, right, not necessarily the five last in time, but the euthyphro is a discussion of piety, right? And it's kind of a broad thing, because you take piety. towards your parents, your country, right? Maybe even towards God. They can't quite figure out what piety is, right? You simply can't give God back to equal what you received. But then in the Crito, after Socrates has been condemned, right? Crito comes to him with a plan to spring him for prison, right? And Socrates says, what's the discussion that I should do this, you know? And he thinks that he should not flaunt the laws of Athens, even though they've made a mistake in this particular case, right? But as if you owe more to your, what, country, right? So the American, you know, Ethan Hale's supposed to say, I wish that, you know, one of my life to give my country, right, huh? As if you're always kind of, what, in debt, you know? And Cicero says that you're always in debt to your father, right? It seems he's been turned upside down. So many of these concepts. Yeah. What you see in Crito and Socrates refusing to go along with his plan to spring him, right? His piety towards Athens, right? Towards his own country. And thanks is that by which one renders debt to one's, what, benefactors, right? And so on about others, right? So what does, you have to pay back the benefactor which you receive to do? You know, that'll be kind of, you know, that'll be kind of, you know, your thanks, yeah. That's what you say in the Mass, right? You say that in the Mass. Let us give thanks. How does it go? We have an answer. Right and just. Yeah, it is right and just. That's what they say now. That's the translation for you. What do we say? Let's give thanks to the Lord. Right. You think that? Yeah, the Roman renders is right and just. And then Daniel introduced the Mass. People said in the priesthood of pizza, you know. And he says very emphasized. Very genuine. Yeah. So he says justice, properly speaking, to the first it should be said, therefore, the justice, properly, right, said, is one special virtue, which pays attention to the perfect notion of what? Death, right? Which ought to be restored according to what? Equivalence, right? An eye for an eye. Okay. But that is said in the ampliato nomine, right? Amplified name, right? Justice. According to the rendering of any kind of death, right? And in this way, it is not one, what? Special virtue, right? You see Aristotle devotes a whole fifth book to justice, right? It says there's, you know, these kinds of complications you're talking about this. You know, to study the moral theology, at least I follow a Dominican author and put these divides up to the card of virtues. And when he got to justice, it was like 700 pages of justice. It's like that was so huge. The other one, not too long, but temperance is a good bit, but justice is huge. Now, the second one here is touching upon something very difficult, the text in the thing. The second, it should be said, that justice, which intends the common good, right, is a different virtue from the justice, which is ordered to the private good of someone, right? Whence the us commune, right, common right, is distinguished from the private one, and Tulli, now, which is the great Cicero, lays down one special virtue, piety, which is ordered to the good of the, what? Fatherland, right, fatherland, right, filiopayate, right, so patria comes to the father, right? But the justice ordering man to the common good is general by way of, what? Command, huh? Because all the acts of, what, virtues, are ordered, ultimately, to its end, right, to the common, what, good, right? Now, a virtue, according as it is commanded by such a, what, justice, right, also takes on the name of, what, justice, right? And thus, the virtue, and thus, virtue differs, does not differ from the legal justice, except by, what? Ratione, huh? Just as, by reason alone, differs a virtue operating by itself, and a virtue operating to the, what? Command and another, yeah. Yeah. Suppose you say this a little bit about charity, right, huh? Charity is the whole law, right? What do you mean? What do you mean? There are all kinds of things, you know? But they can all be commanded by, what? Charity, right? So the same virtue acting, as it were, in its own, what, domain, right, huh? And the same virtue acting under the commandment, charity, right? Differ in ratione, right? Doesn't mean the difference is not real, but it is. To the third, it should be said that in all operations pertaining to special justice, right, there is the same, what? And therefore, there is the same virtue of justice, especially as regards, what, exchanges, right? Commutative justice. But forte, perhaps, distributive justice is of another species from commutative. But we will inquire about this later on, right? So when you say that God is justice, does he have commutative justice or distributive justice? I think distributive. Yeah. He's got commutative. And Socrates gets in that problem there in the Euthyphor, right, then, because how can you have an exchange between God? You give me this God, I'll give you this in return, you know? And there's either a problem whether you can give God anything, right? And that's why Avicenia says, you know, that God alone is, what, liberal in the full sense, right? Because he gives, what, getting nothing from you. He gets nothing out of it. Yeah. Even if we all went to heaven, and we're the best we could find it to be, we don't get anything out of it. Ah. The fourth article there. To the fourth one goes forward thus. It seems that about the diverse passions are not diverse, what? More of which is. For those things which come together in their beginning and their end. And there is one habit, right? Just as is clear most of all in sciences. But of all the passions, there's one beginning. Love. And of all, there's the same end to it, either pleasure or what? I said this. Therefore, about all passions, there is only one moral virtue. Moreover, if about diverse passions, there is diverse moral virtues, it would follow that there are as many moral virtues as there are what? Passions. But this is clearly false. Because about opposite passions, there is one and the same moral virtue. Just as courage is about fears and what? Boldness. Boldness, yeah. And temperance is about what? Pain. Yeah. So temperance, I'm not too pleased with my food, right? I'm not too sad, I don't get what I want to eat tonight. Right? So it's about both sadness and pleasure, right? Therefore, it's not necessary that there be diverse moral virtues about diverse passions. Moreover, love, concupiscence, desiring or wanting, and pleasure are passions differing in what? Species. That's not long ago. But about these, there is one virtue to it, temperance, right? So temperance is going to modify my, what, love of food, right? My desire for food, right? The pleasure I take in food. Right? All three of them, right? But moral virtues are not about what? Therefore, moral virtues are not diverse about diverse passions. But against this is that fortitude is about fears and boldness, right? Temperance about concupiscence and mildness about what? Yeah. The answer should be said that there's not able to be said that about all passions there is one what? For there are what? Certain passions pertaining to diverse powers. For other ones pertaining to the irascible and others to the what? Incubisable, right? That's what's most obvious, right? Just like a virtue in reason and a virtue in the will can't be the same thing, right? So a virtue in the irascible appetite and one in the concupisable can't be the same virtue, right? Nevertheless, it is not necessary that every diversity of passions suffices for what? Incubisable, right? Yeah. So it takes it to extremes, right? First, because some passions there are which are opposed to each other according to what? Contrary as pleasure and what? Sadness. Fear and what? Boldness, huh? And about passions that are thus opposed there's necessarily one in the same what? Yeah. That reminds you a little bit of what you have with the knowledge, right? Plato and Aristotelus is the same knowledge of what? Opposites, right? So is there one ethics about virtue and another ethics about vice? Is there one medical art about health? Another medical art about sickness? No. Okay. It's the same, huh? Knowledge of opposites, huh? Is there one science about longer and another one about short? Hmm? Okay. For since moral virtue consists in a certain what? Mean, right? Go to mean. The mean in the contrary passions is instituted according to the same what? Reason life. Isn't that true? If I want my wine or my beer or whatever it is too much, right, huh? Then there's no wine or beer. I'm too sad. Right? It's the same what? Reason, right, huh? I'd be upset that there's no wine. That's because I want the wine too much. Ruined your meal and everybody else's. Just as in natural things there's the same mean between contraries, right? As between white and flat, you know? When you cook a steak you can cook it too much and I suppose you can cook it too little too, huh? But it's the same thing in a sense, isn't it, right? The mean there between these two, huh? Too much and too little. Secondly, because diverse passions are found repugnant to reason in the same what? Way. As according to the impulse to that which is against reason or according to the withdrawal from that which is what? According to reason, right? And therefore the diverse passions of the concubisable do not pertain to what? More virtues. Because their emotion follows upon what? Because they their emotions follow according to a certain order each other, right? They follow each other, I should say. As they are being ordered to the same thing, right? To it, to achieving the good or to fleeing the bad, right? Just as from love proceeds what? Desire or wanting, right? Incubisence. And from concubisence one arrives at what? Pleasure, right? Right, huh? But the passions of the irascible are not of one order and what they are, what? Order to diverse things. For audacity or boldness and fear are ordered to some great danger, right? Hope and desperation to some, what? Difficult good. Anger to overcoming something contrary that is harming oneself, right? And therefore about these passions diverse virtues are, what? Order. As temperance about the passions of the concubiscible, fortitude about fears and boldness, magnanimity about, what? Hope and desperation and mildness about, what? Anger, right? Remember there was, what? There was, what? Six, what? Virtues in the concubiscible, right? And three of them are contrary to three of them, right? So liking is contrary to disliking, right? Or love to hate, right? And then wanting or Fleeing, and then pleasure and pain, right? So, the reason to put these together, right? Because they're contraries, right? But even when they're not contraries, like love is not contrary to wanting or to pleasure, right? But there's a certain, what? Order, right? So love gives rise to wanting when you don't have what you love, and gives rise to pleasure when you get it, right? So they're connected, right, in that way, right? But in the irascible, you have these five emotions, right? And fear and boldness are opposites, right? But then hope and despair are opposites, right? But it's one of those things with the other so much? No. And then the anger is kind of an odd thing too, right? So you have, it seems, different virtues concerned with those, right? Men, you get powerful men now, they tend to have a sense of anger, right? I remember when I was teaching at St. Mary's there in California, and it was the 100th anniversary of the college, right? So they're having a big celebration and so on. And somebody knew LBJ, right? He was like the vice president at the time, he wasn't president. And so he came out to give a little, say a few words, you know? Well, they had him kind of a side room, you know, before he came out in the prostrum, you know? He was chilling out his supporters there. And he said, yeah, you know, they really have a sense of anger, right? I think you have to have that, you know? I used to say, you know, some people, when they get drinking too much, they get, what, irascible, they're ready to fight, you know? Other people get more amorous, right? You know, but it depends on where they're naturally inclined, you might say, right? Yeah, yeah. Who's got anger there in Shakespeare, huh? Coriolanus, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they try to stop him from getting angry, you know? You have to be false to myself, he says, you know? Where Proteus, right, as his name indicates, Proteus in Greek mythology is always changing his shape, right? So he has, you know, kind of engaged to Julien's, I guess, the 20,000 soul-confirming hosts. And then he sees Sylvia, you know, and he's ready to, you know? So, and he says, I can't be true to myself without being false to Julien, being false to his friend, right? And Valentine, yeah. So, two good examples there, you know? They're not really being true to themselves, but they're being true to their passion, you might say, right? So if you're mainly passionate, you think that's what you mainly are, their passion, then you can say they're being true to themselves, right? But if you're mainly reason and will, right, well, then you're not being true to your reason and your will. Talking to a young man, he's going to get married there in about a month. You know, saying, now, if the man gets married and then he starts to have an affair with his mother or woman, right? Is he being true to himself, right? Well, the point is, is marriage, you know, an expression of mutual feeling? When the priest says, do you take so-and-so as your husband or your wife? Is he saying, do you have wonderful feelings about this person? Well, presumably you do, but that's what he's asking. He's saying, no. Well, do you choose this person as your, what, husband or wife, right? So if after you're married, then you're tempted to, you know, pursue someone else, you're not being true to your choice, right? And that choice is more you than your, what? Yeah, yeah. I used to take students in class and say, you know, other things being equal, which do you look upon more seriously, a crime of passion or premeditated murder, right? Both serious, but the premeditated murder, they always say, yeah, because it's more like you've done it, right? And they say, if you want to break off your friendship with somebody you know, you say, I don't want to see you again. Again, that's not as serious as if you sit down and write a letter and say, I didn't want to see you again, right? Because you had time to sit down and think about the nasty things you wanted to say. Right? You know, once you can, you know, you know, go off and then say, I'm sorry about that, carry away, you know? But as Hamlet says, that's not me, you know, that's my anger, that's my, you know, madness or something, you know? So, what is you, right? The choice is more you, right? I take the example of the guy who realizes he's an alcoholic, right? And then he decides to, you know, give it up and join alcoholics and nonsense on, right? He's going to be tempted again, right? But is he true to himself if he goes back to the bottle, right? Well, if his desire to drink, which is something bodily, I guess, is what he mainly is, but that's not him as much as his choice, right? So, he's being true to himself if he's true to his choice to give this up, you know? Or, you know, for example, I didn't think I'd die or something, you know, because he realizes his health is suffering from this or something, you know? And then he can't resist the... Okay. And then... Because he's being true to himself, right? But your reasonable choice is more you. Then you're, what? Sudden desire for a donut. Whatever, yeah. The cultural today. Yeah. Addiction is the cultural today. We're victims of our addiction. It means a passion, too. Yeah, with being able to rationalize and not being true to yourself, to your rational self. Very interesting. I used to say, you know, when Polonius says, this is above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night of the day thou canst not then be false to a man. Well, here's Polonius, right? He's saying, I can't be true to myself without being false to his best friend, the gentleman of Verona, right? And being false to his fiancée, right? Who's right? Polonius or... And then it raises the question, is he really being true to himself, Polonius? My reasonable choice is more myself than for a woman or for the bottle or whatever it might be, right? The question of four temperaments and being true to oneself, it seems that there's an objective way of being true to oneself regardless of what one's temperament is, but the various winds and storms of passions that come from different temperaments. That can be... Yeah. You see, when Aristotle says in the 10th book of the Ethics, right, that reason more than anything else is man, right? If that's true, right, then when I'm true to reason, I'm being true to myself, right? And when I'm true to my emotion against my reason, then I'm being false to myself, right? So that's the truth of what Polonius is saying, right? Notice we have three different virtues so far in the irascible, right? Courage and what? Magnanimity, right? And then the non-situdo, right? And at least one in the what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, later on, there'd be a more precise question, right? In other words, if temperance is a... about what is pleasing to the senses, right? Well, food can be pleasing to the senses, right? Drink can be pleasing to the senses. A woman can be pleasing to the man, and so on. These different virtues concern these things, right? So the moderation in eating, right? And chastity and so on, they're many different virtues, huh? There are more subtle differences, right? You know, but there's a difficulty of controlling your desire to eat, right? And controlling your sexual desire, they really are the same kind of difficulty, right? Aristotle says that virtue is about the, what? The good and the difficult, right? So when there's another kind of goodness, there's another kind of, what? Difficulty, right, huh? Okay. So maybe the difficulty of controlling your desire to eat or drink, and maybe there's a difference, right? I mean, the alcohol, you know? I know the guy, he said, I don't eat very much. He said, but I do a lot of drinking, you know? And Thanksgiving, he had a case or two of beer, you know, just by himself, you know? I say, well, you better have a problem eating, but you might have a problem drinking, you know? I mean, isn't there a different, you know, difficulty in, you know, in an alcoholic, so to speak, right? And in the glutton, right? Now that the person reads too much, right? Isn't it? In the sexual desire, it seems to be a different kind of thing, right? But Thomas doesn't enter into those details, and that's going to be maybe in the secundae, right? So, so far, all we know is if there's one virtue, which is generic or not, right? Whether the temperance is a generic virtue, there's a species, right? Chastity to regard to this, and sobriety to regard to this, and adoration is something we have to find out later on, right? But at least we know that this temperance, whether it's one virtue or generic virtue, is different from these three we've seen in the irascible, right? The man has to proceed, what? Paulatum, as Thomas says, to the truth? Little by little. Little by little, bit by bit, yeah. I think that's what Thomas says, doesn't he? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think you're imitating nature when you do that, don't you? Yeah, his commentary on Job. That's what it is, I think. That's what he says it? I think it is. I think he says it in other places, too, yeah. Maybe, yeah. Now he says, to the first it should be said that all passions come together in one, what? Common beginning and end, right? Like happiness, right? None other in one, what? Private beginning or end, right? Whence this does not suffice for the unity of, what? Moral virtue, right? On the second ejection there, right? Seek good in, just as in natural things, there is the same beginning by which one beseechs from one beginning and approaches the other. So, in rational things, there is the same reason of contraries, right? So, also, moral virtue, which consents to reason in the manner of, what? Nature. It's like a second nature. There is the same virtue of, what? Contrary passions, right? Now, to the third objection about love, concubus, and subjection. He says, those three passions are ordered to the same object according to a certain, what? Order, right? And therefore, they pertain to the same, what? Moral virtue, right? So, if I like some particular food, then I want to eat that food from time to time, right? And I enjoy eating that food, right? So, does the moderation going to be the same in those three? If I like that food too much, I'll want it too much, won't I? I'll get too excited with it. Sorry, too much, huh? See, these are the times that TV for a beer, you know? Young people having a good time with the beer. I kind of lost my taste for beer, you know? I never buy beer for myself anymore, you know? Every time I have beer is when I brought beer over for my brother-in-law or something, you know? Or something like that's coming, you know? And then there's a few balls left, so... Maybe I'll have it with a hot dog or something, you know? So, see, now a decent meal, you know? Yeah, yeah. Pizza is good. It's interesting to see that, though, right? Opposites and then order, right? Take a little break.