Prima Secundae
Lecture 161: The Causes of Virtue: Nature, Habituation, and Infusion

Transcript
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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, our enlightenment, Guardian Angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, board and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Praise to you, God. Help us to understand what you have written. So should you ask your Guardian Angel to take your prayer up to heaven? Or what? Good. That's a good idea, huh? Add a few of his own on the way, and so on, huh? Deep it up a little bit. Yeah. Correct. Correct you. That really means this. Okay, so we're up to question 63 here in the Prima Secundae, on the cause of virtues. Question 63. And Thomas gives a little frame in here, which he tells me he intends to do, right? Then we're not to consider about the cause of virtues. So Thomas is looking before, right? In the crowning sense here, before. The cause is before the effect. And about this, four things are asked. First, whether virtue is in us by nature. Secondly, whether some virtue is caused in us from the being accustomed or the repetition of works, huh? Deeds. Third, whether some moral virtues are in us by, what? Infusion, right? They're poured into us, right? And fourth, whether the second and third are the same, right? In species. Whether the virtue which is acquired from the repetition, shall we say, of works, is of the same species, huh? With the infused virtue. So let's look at the first article. To the first, then, one proceeds thus. It seems that virtue is in us by nature. It's interesting, huh? Thomas will have this first article. First Damascene says in the third book that the virtues are, what? Natural. How can he say this, right? And they are equally inside, what? All. Oh, right. And Anthony now, the guy that's going to be tomorrow? Or a different Anthony? Mm-hmm. Yeah. The reference down here is from Athanasius. His life is in Anthony. So that's the bishop, the abbot, and so on. Beyond tomorrow. And Anthony says in his sermon to the monks, right? If the will, what? Change. Change his nature, it is? Perverse. Perverse. It's a very strong thing, right? What does Shakespeare say? Abuse. It's a... Yeah. Revolts from true birth, right? Yeah. Which is the word for nature. Yeah. Stumbling on abuse, huh? Mm-hmm. And this is what the great Anthony said, huh? Mm-hmm. Sina turam voluntas muta verit, huh? The will changes nature. It's a perversity, right? If the condition of nature is served, it is a, what? Virtue. Virtue. There's a big element of truth in this, right? That virtue is going to be in accord with, what? With nature. Nature, right? Mm-hmm. But nature doesn't give us, he'll point out the full perfection of virtue, right? It'll complete the thing. And in Matthew 4, upon those words of Christ that he went around teaching and so on, the gloss says, he taught, what? Natural. Natural justices, huh? To which chastity, justice, humility, which man has, what? Natural. Naturally, huh? All right. Moreover, second objection, the good of virtue is to be in accordance with reason, as Dionysius says, huh? Aristotle says, and so on. But that which is according to reason is natural to man, since reason is the nature of man, huh? Okay. Reason, more than anything else, is man, as Aristotle says in the 10th book of the Nicomachean Ethics. Therefore, virtue is in man by, what? Nature, huh? Now, those first two arguments are arguing from nature in one sense, and then the third one would be in another sense. Moreover, that is said to be natural to us, which is in us from birth, huh? But some virtues are in some people, right? From birth, right? As is said in the book of Job, chapter 31, huh? From infancy, right? There grew with me, what? Mercy, huh? And from the, what? Womb, huh? Came forth with me. Therefore, virtue is in man by, what? Nature, right? Now, the standard objection is this. So, but that which is in man by nature is common to all men, and is not taken away by sin, because even in the demons, the natural goods remain, as Dionysius says in the chapter of the Divine Names. But virtue is not within all men, right? You can know for the day of newspaper, right? And is, what? Taken away by, what? Sin, huh? Therefore, is not in man by, what? Nature, right, huh? Well, those first three arguments were probable, right? And therefore, they must have some element of truth, huh? Now, Thomas stands back and looks at this thing in a very general way first. The answer should be said that about bodily forms, some said that they were entirely from, what, within, right, as those laying down a, what, a hiding of forms, right? And this refers to Anaxagoras, right? Everything goes inside of everything, but so small you couldn't see it, right? Obviously, the virtues exist in me, right? They're so small you can't see them. They're there, but you just can't see it. The Aristotle sometimes is hard on Anaxagoras because he's making what's only in the ability of matter be actually in there, right? But as small as to be invisible. But other times, he says he's trying to express the idea of potency, right? Listen to what he's trying to say and what his words actually say, huh? Of course, if you teach, you know, very long, you'll find students often, you know, they don't see what they really mean or what they're trying to say. They can't really say it. But some take the opposite extreme, right, and say that they're entirely from the, what? Outside, right? Just as those laying down that bodily forms are from some separated cause, like the forms that play over spiritual substances or something. Now, usually when you have two extremes like that, the truth is going to lie somewhere in the middle, right? But some say that they're partly from within, insofar as they preexist in matter, in ability, huh? And partly from the extrinsic, insofar as they are reduced to act by the, what? Agent, right? So also is it, as he says, about the sciences and the virtues, meaning by virtues they're now the moral virtues. For some lay them down to be entirely from within, thus that all virtues and sciences naturally preexist in the soul. This is what Plato talks about there in the Mino, for example, right? In other places. But through what? Discipline. Yeah, learning and exercise, the impediments of science and virtue are what? Taken away, right? Which come to the soul from the weight of the body, just as when what? Iron is clarified through what? Yeah. And this was the opinion of the pain in this, right? That the virtues are in us, right? And then what we call learning is recalling what you know, right? It's like when someone says, what's his name? And I know it, but there's some impediment there coming to me, right? And then maybe after a while, ah, I remember his name, you know? So I really knew it, but I just couldn't recall it, right? Well, there's an element of truth in saying learning is recalling, huh? Because you have to recall things that which you learn, but you don't recall what you learn. Others say that they are entirely from the outside. That is from the flowing in of the agent-intellect, which is, now not agent-like, but that of the separate substance, right? As Avicenna lays down, right? But the truth lies in between. Others say that according to a certain aptitude, the sciences and the virtues are in us by nature, but not, however, according to their, what, perfection. As the philosopher says in the second book of the Ethics, right? And this is more true, he says. Modesty there, right? Very assessed. Now he's going to come to this distinction between the first two objections and the third one, these two senses of nature, right? To the making known of this, it is necessary to consider that something is said to be natural to some man in one of two ways. In one way, from the nature of the species, the kind of thing he is. Another way, from the nature of the, what, individual, right? And this is what Macbeth talks about, that distinction, right? Because each thing has its species according to its form, right? It's the form that completes the species, right? But each thing is individuated through, according to the matter. The form, however, of man is the rational soul. The matter is his, what, body, right? Therefore, that which belongs to man according to a rational soul, and the soul that has reason, the understanding soul, as Shakespeare calls it, that is natural to him by reason of his, what, species, particular kind of thing he is. That, however, which is natural to him according to the determined makeup, you might say, of his body, right, huh? It is natural to him according to the nature of the, what, individual, right, huh? For what is natural to man on the side of his body according to his species, we would in some way refer to the soul, because he has this kind of a body because he has this kind of a soul, right, huh? Insofar as such a body is proportioned to such a soul, right, huh? Now he says, in both ways, virtue is natural to man according to a certain, what, commencement, huh? But not according to, what, completion. According to the nature of the species, insofar as in the reason of man, there are naturally certain beginnings naturally known, both of what? Knowables and of things to be done. So what does Euclid call them? He calls them axioms, right, huh? Which covers the Greek word for what? Worthy, right? Worthy of being accepted on their own grounds. Like the whole is more than a what? Part. So if someone says he doesn't know that, we give him part of his meal, right? Or part of his car, or part of his meal. The whole is no more than the part, right? And he would scream and rant, and so he really knows that, right? What do you think I am, so idiot? But yes, you don't know the whole is more than a part. And some things that we do, right, like can it do good and avoid evil, right, huh? Or do unto others as you had to do unto you, and so on, right? Which are, as it were, seed-like things, right? Seminalia, huh? And Thomas is fond of that, the word seed, right? Aristotle and the Greeks were fond of that, huh? And these things that are in their natural, these beginnings, huh? Which are naturally known, both of things knowable and things to be done, which are seeds of the, what, intellectual virtues, namely the sciences, and of the, what? Moral. Moral, okay? And insofar as, what, in the will, there's a certain natural desire of the good, huh? Which is in accordance with, what? Reason. Reason, right, huh? But according to the nature of the individual, the makeup of my body individually, right? Insofar as from the disposition of the body, some are disposed, either better or worse, for some virtues, right, huh? So some men are, what, by birth, more disposed to be brave than other men, right, huh? Other men to be, what? Cowards. What? To be cowards, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some are inclined to be, you know, uh... Chemists. Yeah. And some are inclined to be lascivious, right, huh? Okay? Or to be, to be cowards or something, you know? The little, oldest grandchild there, Davey, and he's kind of a little fresh, you know, you gotta watch him, you know, a little bit, you know? But they went to some amusement park there where they went to visit their daddy, their daddy and, uh... And some of the little girls, you know, were kind of afraid of some of these machines and things, they were like, he was just, oh, go, you know, huh? But he's a little brave, you know, you know, you're more brave than, than, than, than, you know? But kind of, he didn't see this. He's a little rascal, though, you know, when you're out in the summer there, we had the, uh... there's a... kind of a... pledge there, a bit in front of this window, right? And you would tend to put things there because you could plug things in, you know, computers and so on. But he brings the hose around, and... So the water came in and got moved by my wife's computer, you know? Oh, jeez. And the water went in the bedroom, and it went down to the basement, the water, to the floor, and so on. So he's a little bit, you know, nobody, nobody else in the family is quite that brave, you know? There's a bit of a common sense here, you know? I grew up being an engineer. Yeah. Not too socially engaged. You read about Churchill there, and the young boy there, you know, and they're playing the game, you know, and he jumps off the bridge on the tree, you know, and he falls down, he almost kills himself, you know? You know, but... Of course, during the Second World War, they had to kind of keep him, you know, from exposing himself too much to the enemy, right? I mean, he was coming back from one of those conferences, and the Germans almost shot him down, you know? So... He went off, he's an air raid, you know? So, get in there, get in there, get down there. He realized he was being a little bit, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, he had to be out there to the extent of the thing. You can read Churchill's, you know, the story of his early life, which is very interesting, things down in the Boer War and so on. Okay. Insofar as, what, the sensitive powers, right, are acts of certain parts of the body, from whose disposition they are either aided, right, or impeded, huh? These powers interact, and consequently, right, the, what, rational powers to which these sensitive powers are servants, you might say, huh? And according to this, one man has a natural aptitude to science, another to courage, another to, what? Temperance. And in these ways, both intellectual virtues and moral virtues, as well as moral virtues, according to a certain, what, beginning of aptitude are in us by nature, right? But not the completion, the consummation of these, huh? Consummation devout need to be wished for, right? Because nature is determined to one, but the consummation or completion of these virtues is not according to one way of what action, right? But diversely, according to the diverse matters in which these virtues operate, and according to diverse circumstances. So you can see that very clearly in the difference between courage and temperance, right? Because the one, you've got to more go towards the thing, right? Which is naturally going to, kind of, you know, you're in danger of losing your life, so you have to be kind of, but the body has to push you towards it, right? In the case of food and drink and sex, you have to kind of hold back and temper yourself, right? So nature being determined in one direction, nature not thinking it'll be more than one thing, as Shakespeare says, right? You can't really have the completion of both fortitude and temperance by what? By nature, right? And that's why, you know, when Plato has a public education, you know, you have things like athletic, you know, football games, you know, so on. But that's to get, what? Courage, right? But then you listen to, you know, good music and so on, in order to get, what? Temperance, huh? You see? Or you read a tragedy and you feel pity, you know. See, it softens you a bit, right? Makes you, plant it. It's temperance, huh? But you can't have both of these by nature, right? You know. So there's some truth in the three objections, right? I don't know. And therefore, it's very brief as you apply to this, as we'll see. Thus, therefore, it is clear that the virtues are in us by nature according to aptitude and a what? Beginning. Beginning. But not, however, according to their perfection or their completion or their consummation, right? Apart from the theological virtues, which are totally from the what? Outside, huh? And through this is clear the response to dejections. For the first two arguments proceed according as the seeds of virtues are in us by nature, insofar as we are rational creatures. But the third argument, or reason, proceeds according to what? For the natural disposition of the body, which one has from birth, right? For one has an aptitude to having mercy, another to living what? Temperately, another to a what? A virtue, right? So I'll be talking about that in my talk on California, right? But the connection there between nature and beast and will. Article 2. Article 2. Article 2. Article 2. To the second one goes forward thus. It seems that virtues are not caused in us from the, what? The repetition you might say of doing, right? Being accustomed to doing something, huh? Sometimes people want to take moral virtues from the word mas, meaning custom, right? Because it's acquired by custom, right? It doesn't do it anyway. One, because upon that of Romans 14.23. Everything that is not from faith is a sin, huh? That's a strong book. According to the gloss of Augustine says, right, huh? And every life of the faithless is a, what, sin, huh? You really get stone-fledged today, right? And nothing is good without the, what? It's good, right? For where is lacking the knowledge of the truth, false is virtue even in? That's custom. Yeah. I mean, you've got to soften a little bit what Augustine says, right? Make a little bit of distinctions there, right? Because I don't think Augustine 59 can have virtue in some way, some kind of human virtue, right? But it's not virtue in the fullness of sins, right? But faith cannot be acquired from works, but is caused in us from God, according to that of Ephesians 2, chapter, Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8. For by grace we are saved through, what? Faith. Faith, right? It's a gift of God. Obviously, a gift of God is not acquired through our effort, right? Therefore, no virtue can be acquired in us from the, what? Customing of doings, right? Doing. More of our sin, since it is contrary to virtue, is not compatible with virtue, huh? Sin doesn't, yeah, it doesn't allow us. Yeah. But God is not able, but man is not able to avoid sin except by the grace of God, huh? They're but for the grace of God. Why? According to that of Wisdom, chapter 8, verse 21. I have learned, or have known, that I'm not able to be, what? Caught in it. Otherwise. Otherwise, and by God giving it to me, huh? Therefore, either are there some virtues caused in us from, what? Being accustomed to works, but only by the gift of, what? God. Some people are thinking about these things, you know, thought that you can kind of forget about the natural virtues, right? They're acquired by repeated acts, huh? But there's a certain danger of that, right? That an infused virtue, or a theological virtue, can be lost by one act, right? So I can lose charity by going out and murdering my wife or my neighbor or something, right? But a virtue that is acquired by repeated acts, you don't lose it by just one act, right? Grace builds on nature. Yeah. So there's this instability in those natural virtues that didn't seem to be right away in the, even the theological virtues, huh? You kind of need them to give you this instability, huh? And dispose you from the other virtues, huh? Even what you're going to receive from God, huh? That you have them in a more stable way. And they talk about, you know, they used to talk about, when I was younger, they'd talk about the priest's experience with converting the prostitutes and parents. That was the thing, you know? And how quick they, how often they would relax, right? Because you don't have the natural virtue through repeated acts of temperance, you know? Then they have the, what, theological virtues or the spiritual, the higher virtues, infused virtues, being converted by the priests, right? In a kind of unstable way, right, huh? So there's, you know, a criticism of those who said, you don't need those natural virtues. They're perfect anyway. What are you doing for, right? Well, for the sake of stability, you need them more than other things, huh? And of course, grace doesn't go against nature, huh? And the third objection, huh? Moreover, the acts which are in virtue... Oh, sure. Yeah, for the perfection of virtue. That is supposed to be the acts which are producing the virtue, right, huh? But the effect is not able to be, what, more perfect than the cause. There you go. Therefore, virtue cannot be caused from acts preceding virtue, right, huh? You know, Aristotle raised that question there, right? How does man become courageous? By doing courageous things, right? How do you do courageous things? Is that... Don't have the virtue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is another way of... Another objection, right, huh? But I mean, you know, just like when developing the muscles, right, huh? You know? There's one act. It's not... Trust me, I know. But if you repeat the acts, right? You know, the one there, one acts in the virtue of the ones that come before, right? It produces something. But again, this is what Dionysius says in the fourth chapter of the Divine Names. That the good is more, what? Virtues are more powerful than the bad, right? But from bad acts are caused the habits of the vices, right? Therefore, much more from good acts are able to be caused the habits of what? Virtue, huh? You can only know that from experience, Thomas. The famous sermon kind of that Hamlet gives his mother about not going to bed with that evil uncle, you know? Sure, yeah. Yeah. And then, it'll be hard to avoid, but, you know, after a while, it'll get easier, right? Talking about this. Be it acts. I answer it should be said about the generation of habits of Max as what? Above has been said in general, right? But now, especially, as regards to virtue, it either considered, as has been said above, that the, what? Of man perfects him towards the good, huh? But since the ratio of good consists in mode, species, and order, right? This is the famous text of Augustine. As Augustine says in the book on the nature of the good, huh? Or in number, weight, and measure, huh? As is said in the book of Wisdom, chapter 11, huh? There are different ways to explain that, but what's the distinction between mode, species, and order there, right? Or it could be according to before and after there, that mode is the things that contribute to the species, right? And that they're well-blended, you might say, right? Mode. Then the species, the form itself and then the order that what follows upon it afterwards, huh? And then in the good text there from Wisdom, what corresponds to mode is what? Is measure, right? And what corresponds to species is number. That's the famous text of Aristotle there in the physics there. He says that the species of things, the forms of things, are like what? Numbers, right? So if you have a body, it's like one, right? And then you add life, that's two, that's a plant, right? Then you add sensation, and that's an animal. And then you add what? Reason, and now you've got a man, right? So when Shakespeare says, what is a man, right? If his chief good and market his time be but to sleep and feed. Yeah, see, that's like the numbers there, right? If you take away reason now from man, he's no more than a what? Yeah, if you take away sensation from the beast, he's no more than a plant. If you take away life from the plant, he's no more than a stone, right? So they're like numbers, right? So number corresponds to what? Species. And pondering or weight corresponds to inclination or order, right, that you add to something, huh? We can't go and explain that text entirely here, but that's a very famous text, the one from Augustine. He's quite a guy like Augustine, you know? I don't know where he got all his brains, but he suddenly had something by nature there, right, huh? He didn't have all the teaches about a written word or a spoken word that Thomas had, you know? Of course, Thomas had Augustine, too, huh? It's necessary that the good of man be considered according to some, what? Rule, right, huh? Which rule is twofold, as has been said above? To what human reason, right? And the divine law, right? Two things that measure us, right? So my actions should be reasonable, right? And also in accord with the divine law, right? Which is above the reason. And because the divine law is the superior rule, right? Therefore, it extends to more things, right? That is that whatever is ruled by human reason is ruled also by the divine law, but not the reverse, huh? Okay? So one is more universal in what it extends to, huh? I was, you know, taking my excursion after finishing my current rereading, the third book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, which, as you know by now, is my favorite book of Thomas, huh? But sometimes when I get through one of these books, I'll say, now we're going to go on to book four right away. I'll make an excursion and go and read some other things where Thomas talks about things he talks about in book three, right? So I made a nice excursion over to DeMalo, question one, right? Where he talks about the bad, evil, right? As he does at the beginning of book three, right? You know, the consideration of good and bad in the beginning of book three are always in there. And then after he talks about God as being in the whole universe, then he talks about divine providence, right? So I made a nice excursion to the fifth question of the De Veritate, right? Which is about providence, right? And Thomas begins by saying, well, we've got to approach our understanding of divine providence through human providence, right? And then he goes to, you know, Cicero of all people, right? And Cicero talks about human prudence having memory and understanding what's present and then foresight, right? And it's completed kind of by foresight and so on, so on. And he starts to bring out that foresight, you know, is about the means to some end, right? So he's trying to distinguish between what's kind of presupposed to prudence and what is the matter of prudence itself. And he says, what's presupposed to prudence is your natural understanding of what the end of life is, right? And your, what? The moral virtues, as Aristotle said, right? Well, the case of God, of course, it's the divine goodness, it's like his prudence, right? To our foresight, I mean, to our moral virtues. Anyway, he goes on and he says, later on, he says that the divine providence is like the providence of the Father, the prudence of a father, or the prudence of the prince of the king, huh? Now, if you go to the secunda secunde, right, when Thomas goes into the details of prudence or foresight, huh? He distinguishes four species of prudence, right? And the first species is the foresight that I have for the good of Duane Berkwist. And then there's a second foresight, the foresight I have as the father of a family, right? And then if he elected me king or something, then there would be what? Yeah, yeah. He also sticks in the foresight of Douglas MacArthur, right? The general, right, huh? King David. Which is closest to that of the military, I mean, to the political foresight, right? So MacArthur could kind of go from being the way general he was to the administration of Japan, right? So he had some political foresight, too, huh? But he says the foresight of God is like the foresight of the father and of the king, right, huh? But not that of the individual. Why not? You know? I always take the example, I say, and I sit down the evening and they say, now what would it be good for me to do? Well, obviously you need to read the first or the second and the third or the fourth book of the Civil Congress of Argentina. That's what reason tells me, right? That's my foresight, huh? But as a father, right, maybe I should, you know, read a little fairy tale or something to my children, right? Or do a little bit of the rosary with some nice pictures of the scenes you're meditating on, right? But is it good for me to read the fairy tales, to read the Sumo Karni Gentiles? You know, but I'm considering the good of the family, right? The good of these children, right? Which is kind of the common good of the family, right, huh? Okay? I'm considering the good of Queen Breakfast. Okay? I say, that's kind of interesting. The first time I read it already, it didn't trick me in, but what are we saying? And I say, oh, now I see what he's talking about, huh? Because he brings out that prudence is not about the end, but it presupposes the knowledge of the end, right? And the love of the end, and the moral virtues, and so on. But it's really about the means to the end, right? Okay? Well, God in himself, does he need means to an end? Oh, because he's the end himself, right? He's the end. He's there, yeah. Yeah, he's complete. He's universally perfect, right? Of course, there's nothing, there's no foresight in God that corresponds to my foresight to what it's good for doing purpose to do tonight. It would be reasonable for this son of a gun to do, right? You know? But when you rule as the father, or you rule as the king or something, right, you're, what, directing others, right, to the good of, to the common good, right, huh? And so God's foresight resembles that of the father's, or the, what, the king's, right, huh? Kind of interesting, you know, the way Thomas divides the Old Testament on the basis of law. You have the law of the king, right, which is in the Pentateuch, and the prophets who are urging us to follow Moses' law, and then the law of the, what, father, right, huh? Even the way he divides it is kind of interesting, huh? But it would be kind of a beautiful, beautiful text, right? But he approaches it through, you know, human foresight, and then he sees what we, the divine foresight. Of course, the divine foresight is for the common good of the whole universe, right, and not just the common good of my family or the common good of my country or something. But the divine law here, of course, is more universal, right, extends further, right? Now, the virtue of man, ordered to the good, which is, what, measured according to the rule of human reason, can be caused from, what, human acts, right? Insofar as these acts proceed from reason, under whose power and rule such a good, what? Consists, right? A little more modest there than Augustine there, right? Augustine's really laying down the law there. But the virtue ordering man to the good according as it is measured, huh? When Thomas, you know, has explained the word modus there, he does so in terms of the word, what? Measure, right? Quoting Augustine, right, huh? According as it is measured by, what, the divine law, and not by human reason, that cannot be caused by, what? Human acts, right, huh? Whose beginning is, what? Reason, huh? But it's caused only in us through the divine, what? Operation, huh? And therefore, we met this definition before, remember that? And therefore, defining this kind of virtue, Augustine lays down the definition of virtue, which God in us, without us, works, right, huh? That's back in question 55, article 4, the whole definition. Look at it again there, right, huh? Buona qualitas mentis, huh? A good quality of the mind, by which it is rightly, which no one uses badly, which God in us, without us, works, right? And about virtues of this sort, the first, what, argument proceeds, right, huh? Those horrible quotes of Augustine, right? But no, Augustine's thinking there of what virtue is, what, his most perfect form, right? And you apply to the second objection here, right? It says that a virtue divinely infused, especially if it be, what, considered as perfection, does not, what, suffer with itself any mortal sin, right? So by one mortal sin, I can lose infused, what, virtues, right, huh? But a virtue humanly acquired can, what, have compatible with itself some act of a sin, even a, what, mortal one, right? Because the use of a habit in us is subject to our, what, will. This has been said above, huh? But not through one act of sin is the habit of virtue acquired, virtue, right, corrupted, huh? For to a habit is not directly contrary, what, an act, but a, what, habit, right? So you've got to repeatedly be bad, right, huh? Okay. And therefore, although without grace, man is not able to, what, avoid a mortal sin, such that he never, what, sins mortally, huh? He's not, however, impeded, but that he can, what, acquire a habit of virtue, to which he abstains from bad works, ut in pluribus, huh? And especially from those things which are valde, huh, very much so contrary to reason, right? So you can see a certain importance of the natural virtues there. I mean, the human virtues, let's call them, right, is distinguished from the divine virtues, right? Because these divine-infused virtues could be lost by one bad act, right? Why the acquired virtue is not destroyed by one bad act, huh? It would be weakened, huh? And if it continues, it could eventually bury away, right? But not by just, what, one, huh? When I was first, you know, in there, you know, that was a big point they were making, you know, so many teachers, you know, huh? People wanted to, you know, say, well, forget about those human virtues, you know? Well, you know, you get this, the divine ones are important because they fully perfect you, you know, huh? But there's a need for that stability that the human virtues give you, right? There are some mortal sins which man, without grace, is in no way able to avoid, right? Which are directly opposed to the, what, theological virtues, right? Which are in us from the gift of grace. But about these below, you become more, what, manifest, so we'll do that. Okay, to the third, it should be said, this is the one now that is saying, how can you get, you know, something as stable as a habit from an act which is very unstable, right? To the third, it should be said, that as has been said, of acquired virtues, there pre-exist in us certain seeds or beginnings, right? Notice I use those two words, seeds or beginnings, according to nature, right, huh? Which beginnings are more noble than the virtues that are, what? Acquired by them. Yeah, by their power. Just as the understanding of beginnings, of speculative things, is more noble than the knowledge of the conclusions. So when Thomas talks about the virtues of looking reason, which are nous, in Greek, epistemia, and sophia, or in Latin they'll say intellectus, sciencia, sapientia, or I say natural understanding, right? Reasoned out understanding and wisdom, right? Natural wisdom is put first, right, in terms of excellence, right? But then Thomas puts natural understanding before reasoned out understanding. It's the source of that, right? So he's talking here about how these seeds or beginnings that are in us by nature, these seeds or beginnings of what? The moral virtues and of the intellectual virtues, right? They're more noble, right? And the natural rightness of reason is more noble, right, than the rightness of appetite, which comes about through the, what? Partaking of reason, right? Which rectification pertains to more virtue. Thus, therefore, human acts, insofar as they proceed from higher beginnings, right, huh? There we go, huh? Like last night, huh? Higher beginnings, huh? When we're reading Aristotle there, you know, and he's talking about how investigating causes, you should go to the akrotatatos cause, right? And akros means higher, right? And the akrotatatos is like the spirit of that. You should go to the highest cause, right? It's just the cause is above the effects, right? Where he's talking about the, what? Altioribus, right? It's like the Greek there. They're able to cause, what? Human virtues, right? So he doesn't seem to, like this dummy hero is saying, just talking about repeated acts, right, huh? Okay? But sometimes, you know, they take the example, you know, of something that graduated by drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, you know, fighting his way, right? But sometimes that is emphasized too, right? But here he's emphasizing the fact that the natural beginnings are what? Are greater, right? Than what is deduced from them, right? So you're not getting the greater from the lesser, but the lesser from the greater, right? There's an objection there, I was saying, yeah, there's one of the texts there, you know, talking about providence, and he says, the objection says, well, a body can't produce a spirit, therefore a spirit can't produce a body, huh? Well, the body is less than the spirit, right? So that would make no sense for the body to produce a spirit, right? But the spirit is something much greater than a body, right? So maybe a spirit can produce a body, right? Take a break now, or shall we be there next? Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.