Love & Friendship
Lecture 9: The Causes of Love: Good, Knowledge, Likeness, and Hope

Transcript
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If I say to the student, you know, I like you, apparently I'm in trouble. If I say I love you, I might be on the way to trouble, right? You see, because love implies it's an intensity, right? Now, I think what's important to see is that liking can be what? Divided into liking and loving. You see, you could use liking as opposed to loving, right? Where loving would be something much more intense, right? By loving someone or something, right? Than by liking someone or something, right? Okay? But you'd also use liking as common to, right? The intense one and the other one. So the one that's not as intense, it keeps the common name, right? And we've talked about this way of naming before, right? Aristotle, for example, in the categories, he divides disposition, sometimes into disposition and habit, okay? Now, disposition is being used to a synthesis, right? So sometimes Aristotle will say habit is a disposition. You'll see, it's a firm, stable, not easily lost disposition, right? And then you'll keep the word disposition for an easily lost disposition, right? So why does habit get the new name? And the easily lost one, right, keeps the common name? Well, because habit adds something significant, right? A certain firm, stability, hard to, you know? This is a habit. Sometimes in English, when you say this, that the boss is in a bad mood today, you know? But that mood might change in an hour or two, right? See? Mood there is a, what? Disposition, right? It's not an habitual thing, right? People's mood changes the size of the weather, you know? In a dark day, and their mood's a little different, right? And then the sun comes out, and their mood changes, right? And, well, the reason why loving gets the new name is that the intense liking, right? Does that add an idea? That's just liking something, but intensely liking it, that gets a new name, and the other one keeps the other name right, see? It's sort of like when we divide sometimes thinking into thinking and knowing, see? But knowing, in that sense, as opposed to thinking, adds to the idea of thinking, it's sort of true, right? See? So you say to me, now, do you think George Bush will be re-elected? And I would say, I think he will be re-elected, but I don't know that he'll be re-elected, right? Now, what about two is half of four? Well, I don't just think that. I know that two is half of four, right? So their knowing adds something noteworthy to thinking, not only that it's a strong thinking, but that I'm sure about what I'm saying, right? I can't be sure that George Bush will be re-elected, right? I think he will be, but I can't be sure about it, right? I already know that he's going to be re-elected. But I do know that two is half of four, right? So, this is the way liking and loving are related, huh? Now, I think English has a kind of, you know, excellence there, and the use of the word lovely derived from love, right? Which shows a connection between the beautiful and love, right? This is lovable, isn't it, right? But also the connection here between the word I like you and because you're like me, right? And this doesn't come out in Thomas there because in the Latin you don't have the same thing, I don't think. But in English, you have a sign there, right? That likeness is a cause of love, we'd say, right? But in English, the fact that liking can be said of love, right? In this way, or generally, fits it in there as a cause. Okay? So just think of those words, you know? Lovable, lovely, and I like you because you're like me, huh? Touching upon the causes. I'm going to take a break for a minute. Go on for a little bit, or... Go on for a little bit? Now, the fourth... cause of love. Whether another emotion or act of the will can be a cause of love. The two gentlemen of Verona. Hope is a lover's staff. Walk hence with that and manage it against despairing thoughts. And hope here is what? Supporting love, right? Story of the fox and the grapes, sour grapes. What's the original story? The fox really liked those grapes, right? They kept on jumping and he couldn't reach them, right? And then he said, ah, they're probably sour anyway, right? It's like the man pursuing the woman, you know, and he's not clever enough to win the woman or something, right? He says, wow, he's got so many friends, he won't be satisfied with one man anyway, you know, who do I want to be married to her anyway? So, you know, so you can say, in a certain way, hope is supporting love, right? If you despair, right, of getting the grapes, right, then you might turn against the grapes, huh? Okay? And it happens with the moderns, you know, they despair of knowing the truth, and so they begin to, what, run down the truth, right? It's not, no big deal, the truth anyway, who cares? We don't know the truth. But really, originally they wanted to know the truth, right? But they lost their hope, and then their love started to weaken and diminish, huh? So, is that easily, is that observable in their, in their, do you can trace that progression somehow? Mm-hmm. I'm going to the modern someday, and I'll give you the three major sources of the modern world as customs, huh? She knew her distance, huh? And did angle for me, matting my eagerness with her restraint, as all impediments in fancy's course. Now, fancy originally meant the imagination, but then got carried over to mean what? Love, right? So she's playing hard to get, right? So on. And that's increasing as love, right? Our motives of more, what? Fancy, right, huh? So something else here seems to be, what? Causing more love, right? And prospero about Ferdinand Miranda. They are both in either's power, huh? They fall in love at first sight. But this swift business I must uneasy make. Okay. Lest the light winning make the prize light, huh? Okay? So the fact that something is difficult to get, we have to struggle to get it, makes us be more, what? Attached to it, right? Here, Aristotle says a man who started out poor and had to work very hard to get some money is more attached to money than the man who's born, what? Wealthy, because he didn't have to struggle for it, right? Notice there's a little passage from Augusta on the Trinity. For what he sees in the light of truth is one thing, and what he desires with his own faculty is another thing. For in the light of truth he realizes how great and how good it is to understand and speak all the languages of all countries. To hear no language is foreign, and to be heard in every language that no one may detect him as a foreigner. The splendor of such knowledge is already seen in his thoughts, and is loved by him as something known. And it is so seen and so arouses the zeal of learners that they are spurred into activity and account of it. They yearn for it and all the labor which they expend in acquiring his faculty, so that they may also embrace and practice what they already know in theory. And so the closer he comes to this faculty and hope, the more ardently he is inflamed with love. For he devotes himself more intensely to those sciences, which he does not despair of being able to what? Master them, right? While one who is not buoyed up by the hope of acquiring something either loves it tepidly or does not love it at all, though he may perceive how beautiful it is. Here hope seems to be a cause of what? Love, right? That's significant when you talk too about the theological virtues, right? Because their hope generates what? Love, huh? So it seems like something other than love is another act of the will, right? Hope is what? Stimulating love, right? So this is what the Thomas Larkin is going to be about. Can some other emotion, right, cause the emotion of love, right? Can some other act of the will cause the act of the will that is love, right? Say it about either love, right? Consequently, since almost all despair of normal languages, each one strives to become particularly proficient in that of his own people, right? So would I love to speak Chinese? Well, I might as well be so. But I would despair if I were learning Chinese, right? Because I don't have very intense love of that, do I? That's what Thomas Aquinas says. To the fourth one goes forward thus. Thus, it seems that some other emotion is able to be the cause of love. For the philosopher says in the eighth book of the Ethics that some are loved because of pleasure, right? But pleasure is a certain emotion. Therefore, some other emotion is a cause of what? Love, huh? Moreover, desire is a certain emotion. But we love some because of the desire of something that we look for from them, just as appears in every friendship which is an account of usefulness. Therefore, some other emotion is a cause of love. I like you because I want something from you. So my wanting is a cause of my liking, right? Moreover, Augustine says in the tenth book of the Trinity, either one loves lukewarmly or one does not love at all that thing which one has no hope of obtaining, even though one sees how beautiful it is. This is, therefore, hope also is a cause of love. I was reading that synod of the bishops, you know, the document that just came out in the Pope's speech. I know you get the Pope's speech there or not. You know, it's always, you know, half, six months behind, you know, the document first comes out. But he's emphasizing really very much the bishop's role in hope, right? You must see this as the age of despair or something. A lot of things to despair about. But most of these quotes I had up here beforehand were talking about the dependence of love upon what? Hope, right? And you see, if a man despairs, Tug is a philosopher now, if a man despairs of knowing the truth, right, then he starts to, what, lose his love of the truth. See? And, you know, Plato is very good on this, on the dialogue called the Phaedo. In the Phaedo, the major philosophical conversation is a conversation about whether the human soul survives death, right? And Socrates, you know, he gives three arguments for the immortality of the soul. And everybody kind of seems satisfied with that, right? And Simeas and Sebas are over there in the corner talking, you see. And Socrates says, are you guys still thinking about this? Or, you know, are you talking about something else? And, well, we've been thinking about this. And then Simeas and Sebas, out of the blue, come up with a couple of objections, right? And all Socrates' arguments seem to collapse, right? And all the friends of Socrates fall into a kind of despair of ever knowing the truth about, what, the immortality of the soul. And the dialogue is being, you know, narrated by Phaedo, who was present there, see, to Eshecratus. To Eshecratus, yes, I had that sinking feeling, you know, when you told me this, you know, what happened, this conversation. And Phaedo says, and Eshecratus says, what did Socrates do then, right? And Phaedo says, I never admired Socrates more. And he leads them gradually out of their despair, right? And then he takes up the objections of Simeas and Sebas and overcomes them, you know? But so long as you're in that despair, right, if you give up, right, then you start to, what? Your love starts to go down, see? See, it's a very key thing, huh, those things. Either one loves lukewarmly, Augustine says, or one does not love at all, that thing which one has no hope of obtaining, huh? So if men despair of obtaining God, right, then are they going to love God anymore? See? Very lukewarmly or not at all, maybe, huh? You see? So hope is very important there, right? Okay. But against all this is that all the affections of the soul are caused by love, as Augustine says in the 14th book in the City of God, right? How do you put these two things together, right? Okay, notice Thomas' reply here. I answer that it should be said that there is no other emotion of the soul which does not presuppose some love, right? Okay, you can say the same thing about what? There is no other act of the will, right? Which does not, what, presuppose some act of the will that is a love, right? Okay? The reason for this, Thomas says, is that every other emotion of the soul implies motion to something, right? Or rest in something, right? But all motion to something, or rest in something, proceeds from some kindredship with, or fitting with, which pertains to the notion of love. So unless there is some agreement of my heart with candy, I would not be seeking candy, right? Wanting candy, would I? Nor would I come to a rest when I have my candy, right? You see? I'm a kid, you know. It's his candy, he's quiet for a while, right? But it wouldn't be if he didn't like candy, right? So my liking candy is behind my wanting candy, my pursuing candy, right? And my resting once I get it, okay? Doesn't satisfy me that much anymore, but as a kid it is more. But all motion to something, or rest in something, proceeds from some kindredship with, or fitting with, which pertains to the notion of love. Whence it is impossible that some other emotion of the soul is the cause universally, he says, of all love, right? It happens, however, that some other emotion is the cause of some love, right? Just as one good is the cause of another, okay? So suppose I love wisdom, right? But I don't have any wisdom. Well, from my love of wisdom arises now my what? Wanting wisdom, right? Okay? And then I meet Monsignor Dion, or Charles DeConnick or something, right? And I see that DeConnick or Dion is wise, right? See? Now I begin to like this man, and I see his, right? So my wanting wisdom was a cause of my liking Monsignor Dion, or liking DeConnick or some other man that I recognized as having some wisdom, right? So wanting is a cause of love, right? But my wanting wisdom that is a cause of my liking Monsignor Dion, or loving him, that wanting wisdom was a result of a previous what? Love, named the love of wisdom, right? Okay? So my love of wisdom was a cause of my loving Monsignor Dion. Is it? Okay? Because he's a good that leads to wisdom, right? Do you see that? Yeah. So in that sense, some other emotion or act of the will can be a cause of what? Love, right? But that other emotion or act of the will has to be what? Caused by some previous love, huh? To the first, therefore, it should be said that when someone loves something because of pleasure, that love is caused by pleasure, right? But that pleasure is again caused from another preceding love. For no one takes pleasure except to the thing in some way loved, huh? Okay? Was it my daughter in grade school there, you know? Who do you love? Daddy. Why? He gives me candy. You see? Okay. So, then all of the candy had to come first, right? Okay? And then I'm a means to candy, so. I give credit for that. To the second, it should be said that the desire of something always presupposes the love of that thing. But the desire of one thing is able to be the cause, another thing is love. Just as he who desires money loves because of this, him from whom he, what, receives money, right? Okay? So my wanting money, my wanting wisdom, right, was a cause of my liking the man who had money, or the man who had wisdom, right? Okay? So wanting can be a cause of liking or loving, but that wanting has to be itself caused by a earlier love, okay? And another good, right? So wisdom is one good, and mancini d'yan is another good, right? And so my wanting wisdom is a cause of my liking, mancini d'yan, but my wanting wisdom is an effect of my liking wisdom, loving wisdom. You see the idea? Now when, what's his name, was talking, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, about the love of God, then they'd be like, no, she's the love of God, right? And again, we don't love God, see, but we love, let's say, our own happiness, right? We want to be happy. And then we get into trouble and difficulties, right? So now we turn to God for help, right? We want God's help, right? Okay? But wanting God's help and turn to God, we get to know God, and then we begin to like God, maybe, huh? So our liking God was the result of our wanting God's help at first, right? But our wanting God's help was the result of our loving our own happiness. You see? So one love can be, what, cause another love, right? Through some other emotion or feeling, right? Or act of the will. Now to the third, it should be said, that hope causes or increases love, he says, both by reason of pleasure because it causes pleasure. So if you have the hope of winning the girl, right, then you're pleased, right, huh? The hope of making a lot of money, right, then you're pleased, right? He said, so the hope increases the pleasure. And also by reason of desire because hope, what, strengthens desire, right? For we do not so intensely desire that which we do not hope for. Nevertheless, the hope itself is also of some good love, right? Now notice how useful that is when you come to talk about faith, hope, and charity, right? Because as Augustine explains, and he's quoted there in the premium to De Verbum, by believing, the world should come to hope, and by hoping, come to love, right? So it's very clear that in via generazioni, in the order of time, in a generation, that hope is generated before what? Love, right? Before charity. You say, well, how can hope come before love? Love, see? Well, there has to be some love, right, before hope, too. But what kind of love is that? Is that the love of God? See? So it's the love of one's own good, right? It's the love of one's own happiness, right? And then we hope in God to what? Get us to heaven, right? To our own happiness, right? And only then, as we become familiar with God, do we maybe begin to love God because he's God and not because he's, what, useful for our day to heaven, you see? So there has to be some kind of love before the theological virtue of hope, right? But it's not the love which is the theological virtue of charity. That comes after the hope, right? You see that? This helps you to think about those things as well, you know? Let's take a little break then. We'll come back and talk a little bit more about the causes of love, okay? Something that I think is worthy of mention, right? But also how does it relate to what Thomas has said so far? The main text here is from Augustine's work, De Catechizondis Utibus. A friend was giving catechetical instructions to, I guess he'd probably say adults, right? The main text here is from Augustine's work, right? The main text here is from Augustine's work, right? The main text here is from Augustine's work, right? And he wrote to Augustine, asking for his advice as to how to do this, right? And Augustine was trying to bring out that the catechetical instruction should be aimed, most of all, at bringing the audience to love God, right? So how do you best lead them to love God, right? And that's where Augustine is talking about a cause of love, right? Let's read what he says here. Moreover, what greater reason could there be for the Lord's coming than that God might manifest his love, ardently recommending it in our persons, because, quote, when as yet we were enemies, Christ died for us. That's from St. Paul, I guess, huh? And for this reason, that inasmuch as love is the end, the goal, or the commandment, and the fulfillment of the law, we also may love one another, and even as he laid down his life for us, so we also may lay down our life for the brethren. And with regard to God himself, inasmuch as he first loved us and spared not his only son, but delivered him up for us all, even at first we found it irksome to love him. Now, at least, it should not prove irksome to return that love. Now, this is a key sentence here. For there is nothing that invites love more than to be beforehand and loving. And that heart is overhard, which, even though it were unwilling to bestow love, would be unwilling to return it. Then Augustine begins to, what? Manifest this, and even with sensual love, he was all the way down to sensual love, to make the point. But if we see that, even in the case of sinful and base attachment, those who desire to be loved in return, make it their one concern to disclose and display, by all the tokens of their power, how much they love, if they also strive even to counterfeit genuine affection, right? In order that they may, in some measure, claim a return of love from the hearts which they are designing to instare. When a man seduces a woman, right? That's what he's talking about. If, again, their own passions are the more inflamed, when they perceive that the hearts which they are eager to win are also wooed by the same fire. If, then, I say, both the hitherto callous heart is aroused when it is sensible of being loved, right? And the heart which was already inflamed is the more inflamed the moment it learns that it is loved in return, it is obvious that there is no greater reason, either for the birth or growth of love, than when one who does not yet love perceives that he is loved, or when he who loves already hopes that he may yet be loved in return, or actually has proof that he is loved. If this holds good even in the case of base passions, how much more so in friendship? For what else do we have to be on our guard against, in no offense, against friendship, than that our friend should think either that we do not love him, or that we love him less than he loves us? It's very, very, very understanding, isn't it? And if he believes this, he will be cooler in that love which men enjoy by the exchange of intimacy. And if he is not so weak that this little offense causes him to grow cold, his affection altogether, he yet restricts himself to that form of affection which has as object not enjoyment but utility. But again, it is worthwhile to observe how, although even those that are superior desire to be loved by those who are inferior, and are pleased by the eager deference these give them. And the more they become sensible of his affection, the more they love them. Yet with how much love is one who is inferior fired when he discovers that he is loved by him who is superior? That can move you even more. For love is more welcome when it is not burnt up with the draught of want. It's the love of friendship instead of the love of what? Wanting, right? Let's see, somebody's called need love, right? But issues from the overflowing stream of beneficence. For the former springs from misery, right? The latter from mercy. The merciful of God. And furthermore, if the inferior person has been despairing that even he could be loved by the superior one, he will now be unspeakably moved to love the superior one, deigns of his own accord. he could be loved by the superior one, to show him how much he loves one who could by no means venture to promise himself so great a blessing. But what could be higher than God when he judges, and what more helpless than man when he sins, than man who had so much the more submitted himself to the custody and dominion of insolent powers which cannot make him blessed, as he had more despair in the possibility of becoming the care of that power which wills not to be exalted wickedness, but is exalted in goodness. You see, when our Lord died on the cross, partly, right, to gain our love, right, huh? Greater love than this hath no man laid on his life for his friends. So, what Augustine says in the day Kennedy designed his ludibus is that you should narrate God's love towards us, right, what he's done for us, because this is the best way of moving them to love him in return. Now, Thomas in the Summa Contra Gentiles, book 4, chapter 54. Since the perfect beatitude of man consists in the enjoyment of God, it was necessary that the affection of man be disposed to the desire of the enjoyment of God. The desire of enjoying something, however, is caused by the love of that thing. It is necessary, then, that man, tending to perfect beatitude, be induced to love God. And now I have to separate out the key sentence here, huh? Nothing, however, that's pretty strong, right? Nothing, however, leads us to love someone as the experience of the same towards us, huh? Compared to what Augustine was saying in the previous page, right? For there's nothing that invites love more than to be beforehand and loving. And that heart is over-hard. Which, even though we're unwilling to bestow love, we're unwilling to return it, right? The love of God for men, however, can be shown in no way more efficaciously to man than to this, that he will be united to man in person, right? He'll become a man, for our sake, right? For it is the property of love to unite the lover with the love so far as is possible. I mean, the first effects of love, we'll talk about it when I give you the first effects of love here. It was necessary, therefore, for man, tending in perfect beatitude, that God became man. He's giving reasons here for the Incarnation, right? Now, if these two great minds, Augustine and Thomas, both seem to be saying the same thing, right? That nothing moves us to love more, right? In the experience of what? That someone else loves us, right? And the more that love is unselfish, right? The more we realize that they're loving us, what? In the sense of wishing well to us, right? And not out of some need that they have for us, right? The more this is going to move us, right? Okay? Now, two things. You know, would you agree with Augustine and Thomas, right? And if you do, then they're talking about a cause of love, aren't they, right? Well, how does this fit in with the cause of love that we distinguished in the four articles? Now, let's look at the aspect first. To be loved. Well, Herschel has a discussion in the quiz on friendship about being loved, right? He takes up the question, does friendship consist more in loving or being loved, right? And he's going to conclude that it consists more in loving, right? But since friendship requires mutual love, right? To be loved is also part of friendship, right? When he discusses to be loved, you know, why do you want to be loved, see? Why do you rejoice in being loved, right? Well, it could be more than one reason, right? You know, someone could be, what? Like to be loved because the good is love, right? When being loved is a sign of some goodness in oneself, right? Okay? So the popular song says you're nobody until somebody loves you, right? But you feel like nobody, right? Okay. So, to be loved is a sign of something good in one, right? At least it's human love, right? God's love is a little different, right? Because God's love is a cause of goodness, right? Now, Aristotle makes a very interesting observation. He says to be loved is, in a way, to be honored. That's a very interesting observation, huh? Because one is honored for some good or some excellence in oneself, right? And to be loved, in a way, is to be honored, right? You know, kind of testimony to what it's worth. But then Aristotle goes on to say, but it's not exactly the same thing, to be loved and to be honored, but they're very close. I think it's very interesting for theology, that thought, too, of Aristotle, because there's a special connection between loving God and praising God, honoring God, right? They're very close, right? But Aristotle says, to be honored is really not sought for its own sake. It may be just because you want to be confirmed that you have some good qualities, right? And therefore, it's not being sought for its own sake, but it's a kind of confirmation, right? So if I come to one of the idealists, some idea I've got, and he praises me for an idea, you know, it's because I wasn't too sure whether I had a good idea or not. And the fact that he honors me or praises me for this idea makes me feel that my idea is good, right? But then the honor is not being sought for its own sake, right? But sometimes we seek to be honored, too, because we want to get something out of somebody, right? And so if they honor us, we can get something out of us. But to be loved, he says, is by itself good, right? It's something good to be loved. And Aristotle makes the point that people seek more to be loved than to love. I think that's true. And that's why I always say, you know, I always quote that prayer of St. Francis, right? One of the things he prays for is that he'd make more, what, love than to be loved, right? So now this guy's a saint. So here's a saint praying, asking God that he would more, what, seek to love than to be loved, right? Which is kind of a sign that we're apt to more seek to be loved than to love. And this is our disorder, right? Now, the fact that to be loved is something good, is that why it arouses love in us? Because Augustine and Thomas are both saying that, right? Nothing moves us more to love than the experience that someone else loves us, especially with unselfish love, right? But if it's good to be loved, is this going to come under the good as a cause of love? Wait a minute. If I move to love you, because I recognize that you love me, and love me in an unselfish way and so on, right? It's an experience, so it involves knowledge, too. Yeah, it involves knowledge, yeah. Okay. But basically, it's not just something that is good, right? You really do love me, right? I love you in an unselfish way. But I wonder if that's the main way that it's a cause. Is it under the good more than under likeness? It makes you know that they see you, the one who loves you, sees you as another self. I mean, it's like... Yeah, yeah. In other words, as we were saying before, when you're talking about likeness and the good, right? that you very wootedly love yourself, right? Because you're more than like yourself. You are yourself, right? Okay? And that's what Richard, you know, says in one of the slipwits, right? Richard loves Richard. That is, I am I. Okay? So, if I very much love myself, right? Now, I was thinking of the seven wise men of Greece, you know, they're supposed to put up the Orc of Delphi. Know thyself and nothing too much. Those are the words they put up. I said, why do they put up the words know thyself, but not the words love thyself? Well, men don't really know themselves very well. But there's no pressure about that. They love themselves. So it'd be kind of stupid to say, love yourself, right? But the second thing, nothing too much. Love yourself, but not too much. You know, this amor sue, usque contemptum de, right? It's really a terrible thing, right? It's pride, right? So we don't really have to be commanded to love ourselves. The commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. But as soon as you love yourself, right? And so we don't have to be commanded so much or urged to love ourselves. We have to be urged to love ourselves not too much. You see? But now, if I could see that you love me, hey, you're just like me. I love myself too. You see? You know? You're loving me, right? And loving me by the love of wishing well as opposed to the love of wanting, right? Remember how I said a long time ago we talked about those two kinds of love? For yourself, you have only the love of wishing well. For candy, you have only the love of wanting. For another human being, you could have you the love, right? And that's where the ambiguity comes in, right? But if I could see that you have, you might say, true love for me, that you have the love of wishing well for me, right? The love of friendship for me, really. Then I see you love me just the way I love myself. You know? So is it more the goodness of being loved that moves me to love you, right? Or is it the likeness now of you to me? If you love me now, the same I love myself. Which is it? More. The likeness. What? You see? The likeness. Yeah. In some ways it seems more the likeness, doesn't it? You see? Now, in my own little notes of these guys here, I also think of the fact that to return your love, right? You see? Is a kind of what? Aristotle compares friendship to justice, right? It's a bit like that, right? And if you've given me some love, right, I kind of owe you some love in return, don't I? You see? And therefore, it's just for us to love God who's loved us in these ways, right? You see? So if I see that to love you is a just thing to do, you know, then it goes back to the good again, right? You see? I see that to love you, to return your love, right? You know, like St. Catherine Siena says, you know, pay the debt of love to your neighbor, right? And kind of is taken from justice there, right? Okay? Owe nothing to your neighbor except love, it says, right? Okay? So if I see that loving you is a just thing, so to speak, to do, right? I have to owe you some love, right? And even, you know, in taking not necessarily base love, but even more monetary love, so to speak, right? If you've done me a favor, I feel like I owe you a favor, right? If you've invited me to dinner, I invite you to dinner or something, you know, kind of, that sort of thing. So if I see that you've given me this love, a friendship, then I feel like I kind of owe you some love in return, right? You see what I mean? And therefore, I'm seeing that to love you is something good, right? Yeah. But it seems to me there's also this other aspect of the likeness there, right? When I see that you love me the way I love myself, then you are very much like me, in a sense, aren't you? Right? So, to some extent, it comes under the good, right? Because to be loved is good, and to return your love is just and therefore good, right? There's some goodness there behind my returning your love, right? That's what he's talking about, huh? You know, being moved to return somebody's love. But it also seems that there's a certain, what? Likeness to you, right? And, you know, there's a lot of people out in the world today, you know, that don't think there's any true friendship, you know? They think it's always, you know, people are just pretending, you know? Maybe there's an awful lot of that pretending, right? And people are just out to get what they can get from other people, you know? And they pretend to have a, you know, unselfish love, and they don't really have it, you know? And so many things are too much out there, you see? Um... But if you do find that someone really does have this goodwill towards you, right, then you're almost, what, pressed, you might say, as the scripture says, in a kind of, something like justice, in a sense, to return that, right? I owe it to you. So it does in some way come under the causes of love, doesn't it? Which are the good, basically the good and likeness of the main cause, and now it's just, you know, kind of a condition of the good, right? And maybe you can say knowing the likeness of the cause too, but the basic cause are the good and the likeness, basically. Those are the main things, right? And we seem to be both involved in this, right? But two ways, to be loved is something good, and to love you in return is something just, and therefore something good. But also, I see a likeness there, you love me the way I love myself, you know? That makes you very close to me, right? That makes us, you know, bonds us very much, right? Do you see? So I think it's worthy of special mention, because the two greatest minds, perhaps, in the Church here, and you can see the Scripture too, maybe Augustine and Thomas both note that, right? That's why, you know, that's why the, you know, I'm going back to St. Alphonsus there, right? The meditation and the passion there, you know? You know, he talks about the importance of that, and he quotes Augustine and other people, you know, that this is the way to gain the love of God, right? You know, you meditate on the passion mainly for the good of your heart, not of your mind, right? You know? Because you become aware of his love for us, right? And nothing would move us more to love him than recognizing his love for us, right? You see? So I think it's really a special mention, but yet it comes in some way under the good, and in another way under what? Likeness, right? I'm kind of defending Thomas' four articles on the cause of love, that every cause of love comes under the good or knowledge or likeness or some other, you know, emotion that goes back to another kind of love. But they all come under there in some way, right? And this, really a very special mention, this cause, does in some way come under them, doesn't it? Right? I see two ways it comes under the good, you know, that to be loved in itself is something good, and then to love you in return is something just in there, or something good. And so I move by some goodness here, right? But I'm also moved by that likeness that you love me the way I love myself. And that's kind of unusual in this world, huh? That's what charity is to that kind of love, right? Love your neighbor as yourself, right? And then your neighbor should recognize that you love them as they love themselves, right? And therefore they should give you the love, like you can say, the kind of love that you're giving them, you know? The side of returning love, you see, you know, as I indicate here, has said that the kind of love was lent to you, right? And therefore there's kind of an idea of justice, right? I have to return the love, huh? I owe you some love. Now, I've got some copies here. How many do you need? Four, six, eight? How many do you need about? Eight, is that enough? Yes. I'll give you ten here. How's that? This is the first three effects of love, huh? This is the third question of Thomas, huh? And there's six articles in there, six effects of love, right? So, this is the first three effects of love, huh? As I mentioned, in that first effect of love, which is union, it has a basic one there, Thomas will expand a little bit and add a little bit about the causes of love, right? You see? Because not only is life as a cause of love, but identity, I am myself, right? Is a cause of love, right? And if I like you because you're like me, well, I'm more than like myself. I am myself, is what it says, right? Amen. But it also makes one stop and think a little bit about the difference between good as a cause of love and likeness as a cause of love. Because if I like you because you're like me, in a way, it's because I love myself that I come to love you, right? And likeness is almost more on the side of the lover than the loved, you see? In a way, it is. Because the lovable, the object of love, love seems to be more than good, right? But I love my, you know, why do I love myself? Let's put it in the way here. Why do I love wine more than beer? Well, because wine is much better than beer, okay? I better taste. But now, why do I love myself more maybe than some other person? Because I'm better than them? Is Don't want me to be better than everybody else? You see? Is it the goodness that is moving me to love myself in such a stable way? I can't get rid of it. It's a stubborn thing, that love of itself. Huh? Absolute goodness. Huh? Shakespeare has a beautiful sign, you know, when the sin of self-love possesses all my soul. He talks about how it's rooted, you know, and he kind of realizes that he's not so a good person. But anyway, it's, you know, it seems to be almost more on the side of the, but for the lover, then the loved, right? Do you see that or not? Is everybody exaggerating that too much? I mean, somebody might come along and say, well, before you can have love, this thing called love, you've got to have a lover. Right? Right? You've got to have something that's love too, right? Okay? Just before, like, before you can have seeing, you've got to have seer, something to be seen, right? Okay? So, love is sort of, seems to be in between these two a bit, right? See? And what is love? Well, Sebastian says, didn't we have a quote for a guest in there? Nothing is love but the good. Right? Okay? So it seems especially the good to be here, right? But, when we talk about my loving myself, because I do so safely, and so much so, there's no commandment to love myself, right? I mean, in that sense, the seven wise men agree with God, right? That don't urge you to love yourself, right? They just say nothing too much. You love yourself too much, right? You can't love God too much. You just can't love yourself too much. That's very subtle, the seven wise men said. They're very wise. And what did, in one of the seven wise men that's in all the lists is, Bias of Praein, and Bias of Praein, we have a quote there from Heraclitus, huh? He's a more account than the rest, he says. But Bias said, most men are bad. So that's not interesting. But the one that said, why would you agree? But, in, in, why would you be nothing too much, right? Or as they say, some men eat too much. You should be able to know about that. Some men drink too much, right? Some men make love too much. Some men get angry too much, right? Some men want money or power too much, right? And some men, all men love themselves too much. So it's darn good advice, nothing too much, right? Now you can say, to be complete, you can add nothing too little, but that reason, where the problem is, maybe, it's nothing too much, right? Maybe you have these modes right around that, even though, I guess, you know, these female disorders, you know, where they fall. I know, I understand. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's kind of crazy. You know, that's what I mean, that's the normal human problem, it's eating too much, or drinking too much, you know, loving money too much, or power too much. That's what I mean. or something, right? But basically, you're loving yourself too much, right? Okay? And, you know, I mean, I don't know if that was kind of strange, but if you're a father, you have to hate your mother and father and even hate yourself, right? It's almost the wrong way of putting it. So, this likeness seems to be, in some ways, on the side of the lover, because I'm saying you're like me, right? Okay? And I'm not the loved in this case. I'm the lover, right? Okay? So, it's going back to likeness to me. But then, even more so, do I love myself? So, even more, I'm more than like myself. I am myself, right? Okay? There's no sorrow in that thing from Bothering Heights, you know. So much that she had like Heath, but I think he is myself, she says, right? But that goes back to the idea of friends and other self, right? So, it seems almost on the side of the lover, doesn't it? You know? It's kind of interesting, the way those two fit up, right? And obviously, the love is more a basic cause of love, than the lover, right? But there wouldn't be any love without the lover. And the lover, you could say, naturally, what? Loves himself, right? He's a twin of God, right? God naturally loves himself, right? Do you say that the good generates the likeness? Well, I'm not saying that. No, I think it seems to me that good is altogether under the love, right? But likeness, or identity, goes back to what? More the lover, right? But it's not just you and me. I mean, you could say even the tree seeks its own good, right? It seeks the water, it seeks the sunlight, right? Every animal seeks what's good for it in some sense, right? So, it's kind of natural, right? To all things, huh? So, it's natural to love yourself, right? It's just not good to it, actually. So, Aristotle talks about self-love. He says, self-love usually has a bad sense, right? And that's because most people love themselves too much, right? Wrong way, so on. But there has to be a good way of loving yourself, right? Otherwise, the commandment of loved ones would say, you know, love your neighbor as yourself, right? Some of those letters that say in Britain of Clairvaux, you know, where somebody, I think, was being appointed to say a high office, you know, a bishop or something, you know, but he hadn't really stated on himself, you know. And that burden is being gentle but firm, you know. I would not want to be directed by you, you know. First, you know, cats can be by your, you know, and I can see what's the healthy neighbor, right? So, you're blinded by your faults. You're hardly able to direct others, huh? So, you have to, in some way, learn to love yourself as you should love yourself, the way you should love yourself, in an orally way and not too much, right? You see. That's not a problem for God because can God love himself too much? No. In fact, you could say God loves himself as much as he is lovable. Internally, right? You see. And I just got, kind of looking at Thomas' article there, the Summa Theologiae. Very interesting. He's talking a little bit about charity there with the articles in the commentated sentences and he says, there's any limit as to how much charity can grow in the creature, right? This length. And Thomas says, no. And he goes back to the example from the Dhyanibata. And he says, there's a difference between a material ability and an immaterial ability. And he goes back to the, he takes the example of Verastautum. Verastautum says, when the senses see something very bright, they're kind of blinded by it, right? When the ear hears something very loud, it's going to even be, almost, be deaf, right? The sense of taste, you know, it tastes something very sharp and pungent, you know, like some of this Chinese food or something, the hot stuff. They can't taste anything afterwards, right? But he says, Verastautum says, when the understanding understands