Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
Lecture 10: Thales, Anaximander, and the Search for First Principles

Transcript
================================================================================

proof of some theorems of geometry to Thales, huh? But in natural philosophy, this famous statement is attributed to him. Water is the beginning of all things. Okay? Now, when you read these fragments, you should realize something, and that is that our reason guesses before it knows. Okay? But what's important when you guess before you know is to try to make a, what, reasonable guess? So the central thinker there, Heraclitus, says in a fragment, let us not guess, he says, at random about the greatest things. Now, is he saying don't guess? If he meant don't guess, period, then the words at random would be, what, superfluous, right? He says, let us not guess at random about the greatest things, huh? Let us guess by reason, right? By art, if that's possible, right? The dialectic is an art of making reasonable guesses. Now, if you can get beyond the reasonable guess, that's even better, right? But let's at least try to make a reasonable guess. And a reasonable guess is more apt to contain a part of the truth, right? And advance us towards the truth more than a wild guess or a pretty uneducated guess, huh? Okay? So, for these first philosophers, the philosophers before Plato and Aristotle, we don't have any book of theirs. All we have is fragments, huh, that have been preserved in the later writers. And then sometimes you have discussion of their position in the later writers. And the German scholars, right, especially, but some other scholars too, will gather these little fragments, huh? And that's what this decay after most of these means, right? That's the number in the Diels Krons. Diels is the first guy, Krons, the continue writer. Addition of the Greek fragments, huh? Okay? But they have no significance, not in the region at all, you know? They're just a way of being, referring, you know? Okay? But the arrangement of these can be quite different, huh? And Thales, they don't even give us a decay, but that is what's attributed to him, huh? Okay? Now, is that a reasonable guess? Water is the beginning of all things, huh? Okay? Well, to do justice to Thales, huh? I usually descend from the general to the, what? Particular, right? Since this is the very first guess, you might say, this guess is the beginning of philosophy. The beginning of natural philosophy. First of all, is it reasonable to look for the beginning of all things? Is it reasonable to look for the beginning of things, huh? Well, maybe before I try to go into that question, I'll come back to that phrase I used, a reasonable guess, right? And I think this phrase, a reasonable guess, has two meanings. That a guess can be called reasonable for two different meanings of the word reason. Now, you know there are two meanings of the word reason out there. Okay? And I could play on them and say, you know, our reason might give a reason for something, right? Okay? Okay? So one way that a guess could be called reasonable is that there is a reason for it. There's a reason for thinking this, right? Of course, good, not a necessary reason. There's a good reason for it. Okay? A reason that doesn't maybe show that it must be so, right? right? Because that would be knowledge and not just a guess, right? But a reason that makes probable, right? At least this guess, right? Okay? Now, the other sense of reason, of course, is the ability that Hamlet is defining for us, right? And there you can speak of our reason is naturally, what? Inclined towards us, right? Okay? So a guess could be called reasonable because there's a reason, especially a good reason for it, right? Or because our reason seems to be inclined in that direction without even having a reason, right? And perhaps something could be a reasonable guess in both of these senses, okay? Okay? Is it reasonable to look for the beginning of things? Okay? And which sense is it reasonable? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, maybe Thales had a reason why you should look for the beginning of things, right? But even if he didn't, is there a reason naturally inclined to look for the beginning of things? And as Aristotle says in the politics, that the man who considers something from its beginning will best understand it, huh? And so if I'm writing the biography of Winston Churchill or some other famous man, and I'm trying to understand this man a bit, I'd go back to his, what? You? Yeah, it's got the meaning of a biography there of William Shakespeare. And, of course, you go back to his origin there in Warwickshire and so on, right? Stratford-on-Avon and what the city was and what his family was and so on, right? And so, I get a little better understanding of Shakespeare, right? Whatever author you're writing about, if you go back to his, what? His origin, right, huh? Where he came from, right? Okay. If you're writing the history of a country, right? You go back to the origin of that country, huh? Why do we speak English down here and up in Quebec, they speak French, huh? Well, it's more understandable if we go back to the origin of Quebec, right? And the origin of New England and so on, right? New France, New England, I mean. You see? If you're in charge of kids there and there's a fight and so on, and you've got to decide where justice lies, right? What started? Yeah, on the start, yeah. Well, he hit me. Yeah, but he called me a such-and-such. You go back. You try to work your way back to what is the starting point, right? Okay. Why are the Palestinians and the Israelites in such unhappy confrontation there? We've got to go back, you know, to some events in which this thing, what, started and then someone did something and then someone else did something and they turned and it went on. But you go back to the origin of these things, huh? So it's reasonable that you look for the beginning of things, right? Okay. Now, second step, right? Is it reasonable to look for one beginning of things, huh? I mean, apart from, you know, being water at the one beginning, right? Is it reasonable to look for one beginning? I mean, after all, you have two parents, right? You have one parent, did you? Now, maybe you can give, right, a reason why there's one beginning of all things, but that'd be kind of hard to do, right? At least in the beginning, huh? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. But in the absence of a reason why there's one beginning, rather than two or three or some other number, right? In the absence of any reason one way or the other, what would our mind be inclined to do? To look for one or for many? For one. For one. Yeah, yeah. Now perhaps a way of seeing how this is kind of natural is that our reason always looks for some kind of order in things. That's why every scientist talks about laws, right? We always couple law and order, right? So Shakespeare says reason looks before and after, right? It looks for order. Well, now it's order based on many or on something one. Yeah. The order of the army requires there to be one what? Leader. Leader, yeah. And in a country, if you didn't have one, a supreme government there, right, you'd have a kind of what? Chaos, right? Okay. Even the first sense of order, which is chronological order, right? When we arrange events in history, Shakespeare was born in, what, 1564, right? I was born in 1936, right? Okay. Sophia was born in 2005, right? These events are being arranged in order, aren't they? But in reference to one or to many things. Yeah. We take the birth of Christ, right? And we order all other events before or after that one, right? And notice, if I ordered or arranged events before and after the birth of Dwayne Berkowitz, and you use your mother's birthday or something, right, we couldn't, what, see the connection between the numbers you give and I give, right? Okay, we'd have to translate them, right? Like the Mohammedans use the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina, right, as their thing around 622 in our calendar, right? But you have to go back to one event to order all the other events, huh? So, if you're, if reason naturally looks for order, and order is based upon something one, then reason naturally inclines to something one, right? Okay. See? That's very important, huh? And you find the same thing, if you read the great scientists of the 20th century, like Einstein or the father of modern physics, Max Planck and so on, Heisenberg and so on, Louis de Broglie, they're all looking for unity, huh? You see? And as Einstein says, whatever gives us up, right? And, but there you see the natural inclination of the reason, right? And later on, you get to theology, and we discover there's one God, right, huh? Again, that's in harmony with the natural inclination of our mind, huh? That order is based upon something one. I might add, you want to take this point too. He's looking for something kind of simple, right? And water, at least to our senses, appears as something kind of what? Simple. Simple, yeah. Now, does it make sense to look for something one that is simple, rather than something that's composed of different things as the beginning of things? Yeah. Because obviously what's composed has something before it that's the beginning of it, right? So if I said the word cat is the beginning of all things, you'd say, well, just a minute now. Isn't there something that cat comes to be from? The letter C, the letter A, the letter T, right? Okay. So you want to take something simple, right? And water, it seems to be all the same, that's what it appears to our senses, right? Okay. And these are two attributes of God later on, right? He's the one and simple, right? Okay. Now, I'd like to contrast the beginning of the Bible, right, with the beginning of Greek philosophy, huh? The beginning of philosophy. The Bible begins in the statement, in the beginning, right, God made heaven and earth, right? So it begins with the one maker of all things, right? Now, is water a beginning in the sense of a maker? Or is the water a beginning in the sense of what? Matter. Now, contrast the beginning of the Bible with this beginning here. Is it reasonable, right? If you're looking for one simple beginning of all things, is it reasonable to look for one matter? Before looking for one maker? Well, contrast the Bible again, right? Which is more known to us, right? The dependence of things upon matter or upon a what? Maker. And something comes in here after I leave and he sees the word one on the board there, right? He doesn't see the writer of the word, does he? But even if that word one had always been there on the board, if no one had written the word, right? It was always there. It would still depend upon the letters O, N, and E, what it's made out of, right? Even if this chair, now, I don't see any carpentry to you, you know? I can call upon my experience saying there's a carpenter for this thing, you know? But if we didn't make these things ourselves, what's more known and more undeniable? That this depends upon wood or it depends upon a carpenter? So it's more known to us that things depend upon matter than they depend upon what? Maker, yeah. Now, the Bible is the word of God, right? And if God is the one maker of heaven and earth, he can speak right away about that to us, right? But philosophy is not the word of God. It's the word of man using his reason starting from his senses, right? And therefore starting from what is more known to us, okay? What's more known to us is dependence of things upon matter than upon a maker, right? I'm not saying it would be necessarily reasonable to stock with matter, right? But to begin there, right? Okay? Do you see that? Okay? I was interested in the contrast there between philosophy and the Bible, right? Okay? Now, so we're getting more particular to go along, right? Looking for a beginning, looking for one simple beginning, right? One simple beginning, the sense of one matter, right? Okay? Now, one more step before we get to water in particular as a guest, right? If you're looking for one matter out of which all things are made, right? Would you want to take a matter that has definite qualities? Or do you want to take a matter like water, not necessarily water, right? But like water in being kind of shapeless, colorless, tasteless, right? But able to take on all kinds of colors, shapes, and tastes, right? Yeah. But if you said, you know, that red wine is the beginning of all things, let's say, huh? That everything would be made out of red wine, and everything would be what? Red. Red, yeah. You see? And then the other colors would be excluded from the universe, right? If I said sugar is the beginning of all things, right? Everything would be sweet in this world, right? And nothing would be bitter or sour, right? And so, if that one simple matter has any definite color or any definite taste and so on, right? Then you would eliminate the contrary colors or the contrary tastes from the universe, which would contradict our experience in the universe, whether it's hot and cold, sweet and sour, or sweet and bitter and hard and soft and so on, right? Okay? So, water is a good guess insofar as it's kind of formless, colorless, tasteless, right? Okay? Okay? Okay? Now, that's the next step there, right? You're looking for one formless matter. And by formless, I mean not only shapeless, but with no definite qualities, right? Now, how about taking water, then, as that one formless matter that is the beginning of all things, huh? Well, Aristotle, when he talks a little bit about the opinion here of Ailes, he says that Therese was influenced by living things, huh? Because he saw that the seeds of things did not germinate without, what? Water. And you know that the grass and things don't grow without, what? Water, right, huh? So, in terms of living things, huh? Water would be a very good guess without one matter, right? But even in terms, say, of the non-living world, you might say that the non-living world, you have gas and liquids and solids, right? Is there anything in your daily experience that becomes a gas, a liquid, and a solid? Yeah, it's the only thing. You know, you've got ice there, which is solid, and you've got steam, which is an air-like thing, right? And water. So, whatever is the beginning of all things must be capable of becoming a gas, a liquid, and a solid, and water is the only thing in my experience that becomes those three, right? Maybe in the lab you can get something else to do this, but just in our ordinary experience, water is the only thing, right? So, water definitely must be that one simple, formless matter that is the beginning of all things, right? Are you all convinced now? Right? Okay. It's not a bad beginning, is it, right? This is a reasonable guess, huh? Okay. Now, just a little scientific and a theological footnote, okay? As you know, the modern scientists, as a result of certain experiments, says that water is, what, H2O, right? So, it's more hydrogen than oxygen, right? And hydrogen among the atoms, though, for even a modern scientist, is the what? The products. Yeah, yeah. So, even there, it's not too far off, is it, right? You know? Okay? So, that's what maybe the modern scientists might say about this, right? Now, the theologian would say, well, no, water is not the beginning of all things. God is the beginning of all things, right? Okay? But, the Bible speaks metaphorically at times, right? And metaphorically, God is spoken of as water. Oh, God, you are my God, and I seek for you, my flesh bind, and my soul thirsts. Like the earth, parched, life is without water. That's how I gaze towards you in the sanctuary, right? You know, Augustine, in his commentary on the last psalm there, suggests a division of the psalms into three groups of 50, right? And Thomas adopts that, right, in his own commentary on the psalms. But, if you go through the 150 psalms, you'll find in each of the three 50s, right, there is a psalm of thirst, right? It's a high, long, running water. That's 40, 41, something like that. There's one in each of the three groups, right? Now, let's say metaphorically, right, that God is water, right? But, even a metaphor is based on some kind of likeness, right? So, why is God metaphorically called water in those psalms? Why is the soul thirsting for God, like the hind thirsting for the water? A need between the creature and God. Yeah, yeah. But going back to what Aristotle, you know, saying about theities, that he was especially influenced by living things, right? So, water is seen as a source of life, right? So, God is seen as kind of a fountain of life. So, the thirsting of the soul for the life of God is metaphorically called a thirsting for water. That's very interesting, right? Okay. The second thing the theologian would say about water is that this is the matter of the sacrament of what? Yeah, yeah. And usually, you know, we talk about water being the matter of the sacrament of what? The sacrament of baptism, we do so in terms of water being used to wash the body, right? And therefore it's cleansing us of original sin and even actual sin. But maybe you could also say that baptism is the beginning of a new life, right? And so water is appropriately the matter of baptism, not only because it cleanses the soul, but because it begins the life of what? Of grace, huh? Hmm, okay? So, something we learned, right? Even there from that. Now Thales, just to give you a little bit of geography and numbers, right, you know? Let's get a little, very brief here. Greek philosophy, or philosophy period, it didn't begin on what today we call Greece. What today we call Greece, the Greek tribes, you might say, Dorian and so on, they came down, they partnered with what we today call Greece. They settled down and they intermarried and so on, reproduced and so on. And Greece is a kind of poor land. And so they colonized to the east and to the west, right? So they colonized on the coast of Asia Minor, what today we call Turkey, right? And the islands there, right? And they colonized over in Sicily and in the lower part of what? Of Italy, right? And the first philosophers were in these originally colonial cities, but now independent cities on the coast of Asia Minor, and later on in Sicily and in what? Southern Italy, right? Okay. So you have all kinds of ruins, Greek temples there, right? In fact, actually, Greek temples in Sicily are better preserved than the ones that are left in Greece. You can actually see better what they were. And if you've read the Peloponnesian War, maybe, you know, and the disastrous Athenian thing attacking some of the cities over there in Sicily, right? Syracuse and so on. So the city of Miletus was a city of which Thedes was a, what, citizen, right? And that was on the coast of Turkey, Asia Minor, what we call it today, right? And these next two thinkers in Aximander and Aximenes were also citizens of Miletus, right? So sometimes they're called the Milesians in the book. These cities were eventually picked off by the advancing Persians, right? And so I mentioned how Thedes had proposed a federal former government to resist the Persians, but they didn't listen to him, right? But they didn't want any of them to go up to independence, but they really needed a federal federation of some sort to resist the Persians. Now, about what time was this, right? Okay. Well, with the fictitious sharpness of historical dates, right, we can say it's around 600 B.C. Okay? The only date we have in Thaler's life is that he predicted there would be an eclipse of the sun in the year 585 B.C. So if he could predict the eclipse of the sun that took place in 585 B.C., then roughly, chirp as they say, you'll see, around 600 B.C. you could say his mind was active, right, huh? Okay? Now, when did Socrates die, you know? Well, it's about 399 B.C., right? Okay? So there's about 200 years, you might say, right, of Greek philosophy before the death of Socrates, huh? Aristolo dies in, what, 322 B.C., right? As he sees, what, 388, something like that, 84 to 322 B.C., right? Plato, I think, is 427 B.C. to 347 B.C., right? Just roughly, you know, roughly where these guys are, right? They'll be sure of the dates, but that's where, probably, the time it began. Now, the second thinker is an axiomender, right? An axiomender, if not a student of Thales, he knew the thought of Thales, right? And apparently he proposed interesting consequence of Thales' thinking, right? Thank you. If water is the beginning of all things, but especially of living things, then life should be found in water before it's found on land. So that's a nice deduction from the thought of Thedas, right? But Maxibandria said to have pointed as a confirmation of that deduction, the frog that begins its life as a fish-like thing, they call it nut, I guess, and then becomes a kind of semi-land animal, right? And of course, the modern biologists might say, oh yeah, life did begin probably in the water, right? And you can see the reason for that, right? That water is so essential to life, right? You know, you hang a dishcloth out on the line and it dries out, right? Well, why don't you dry up when you walk around? I suppose you would if you do it long enough, right? But you have to have some means of preserving your moisture, right? Better than the dishcloth can. Otherwise, you would very soon die, right? And that's not a problem, right? I remember listening to a scientific paper by some student years ago at Assumption, you know, and he said, desiccation is a greater problem with land animals than with water animals. But a big word, desiccation, you know, makes it sound very scientific, but you see, drying up or drying out is a greater problem with land animals than water animals. It's kind of obvious, right? So that's the sign that Naximander was influenced by the thinking of Thales, right? And like a good student, he took the thought that water is the beginning, especially of living things, right? And deduced interesting consequence, but confirmed it with this observation of the frog, right? But, as you can see in this first fragment, instead of saying water is the beginning of all things, he makes a very puzzling statement that the unlimited is the beginning of existing things, right? Okay? And this is very puzzling because unlimited, of course, is negative in meaning, right? It means not limited, right? And it's not, not that water is that sensible, but it's not sensible at all, right? Okay? So how do you come up with this idea that the unlimited is the beginning of existing things, right? Well, let's go back a bit. Greek would be what? Ah, Iran, right? The negative prefix in the thing. It means, in a sense, not limited. But there's two ways you could speak of something that's not being limited. Not limited in quantity, or not limited in what? Quality, right? Okay. But now you see a connection between Naximander's thought and Thales, right? Because Thales was thinking of that first matter along the lines of water, which is not limited to any shape, or any color, or any taste, right? Okay? But, is water in the natural environment out there, in the lake, or the pond, is water without any qualities? It has certain definite qualities. Yeah. It's wet, and it's what? Cool. So, in a way, Thales hasn't gone all the way to eliminate qualities, right? To make formless that first matter. He's left with it wet and coolness. So, if the beginning of all things was wet and cool, how would you get hot things and dry things, right? If everything is made out of water, everything should be wet and cool. And, you know how you throw water in fire, it goes out, right? How do you even get fire to go in the first place, right? You know, it's hard to get the logs burning if they're moist, right? You've got to get them dried out, right? But, if everything is made out of water, there will be no drying, right? So, what he's doing, in a sense, is going all the way, right? And, he's still developing the thought of Thales, right? He's saying that you have to remove not only shape and color and taste from that first matter. But also cold and wet, right? Well, now if you remove all qualities from that first matter, you have to describe it negatively. It's the unlimited, right? You can't describe it positively, huh? Because then you'd be giving it a definite quality, and then you'd be excluding the opposite quality, right? So there's some reason to think that the beginning of all things is the unlimited in the sense of what is not limited to inequality, okay? But Darren, could you apply it to both finally because of... We won't, we won't, okay? I'm just saying here his connection with Thales, right? Okay, connection with Thales. Then in a way he's taking the thought of Thales and going all the way, right? Thales is looking for a formless first matter, and water seems more or less formless, but it's not entirely so, right? He's going all the way, right? Now, is there also something in our experience that would lead us to think that the beginning of things is unlimited in some kind of a quantitative sense, huh? In the sense of the word, unlimited word, you can have unlimited chairs. Yeah. And the fact that in the natural world, every spring new things spring up, right? Things keep on coming to be forever in this world, right? So, therefore, the source of them must be in some quantitative sense, it seems, what, unlimited, right? So, maybe even in both senses, right? It makes sense, it's a reasonable guess, right? There's a reason to think this, right? So, even though you can't sense the unlimited, right? You can reason from what you sense, right? You can reason from the fact that there is dry things as well as wet things, right? And hot things as well as cold things, right? That beginning of all things cannot have inequalities, right? You can reason from things coming to be forever, but the source of them in some quantitative sense must be unlimited. You can keep on getting things out of it forever, right? Do you see? So, this is a reasonable guess, right? But it's kind of difficult, right? Because you're not taking something that's sensible, but he's still a natural philosopher because he's reasoning from what can be sensed, right? That's that cloud chamber, they study the motion of elementary particles, right? Well, you don't see the elementary particle, but when it shoots through there, it leaves, what, water droplets as it were in. So, even the modern biologist, or modern physicist, rather, will talk about things he doesn't sense, but he has to talk about them through what he does sense, right? Okay? So, that's the first thing he says, right? Instead of saying, water is the beginning of all things, he says unlimited, but he has a reason to say that. Okay? Now, Thomas, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? My favorite book there, in chapter 43 of the first book, right? That's the chapter about God is unlimited, right? Now, chapter 42 is about God being what? One. Okay? And, of course, earlier, in chapter 18, he talks about God being simple, right? God being simple, God being one. And now, in 43, that God is unlimited. Now, not in the same sense which this guy is thinking of unlimited. But he refers back to the Greeks, right? Thinking of the beginning as being, what? Unlimited, right? As it were, being coerced by the truth. Their mind naturally thinking of the beginning of all things, unlimited, in some way, right? Maybe not understanding the way that God is unlimited, but, nevertheless, their mind clairs in a certain way. Okay? That's very interesting, huh? The way our mind is moving there, huh? And, of course, you see that in modern science, too, where the equation is unlimited in some way, right? You can deduce an infinity of things from it, right? So even a simple equation like F equals MA, force equals mass times acceleration, how many forces can you plug in there and calculate masses and accelerations, or vice versa. Infinity of them, right? There's something infinite about these things. But the second thing that Naximander says, I think, is even more interesting. He says, that from which existing things come to be, and is in them, as Aristotle would say, right, is also that into which they are corrupted by necessity. Now, is that a reasonable guess, right? That whatever is the beginning of all things, right, out of which everything else is made, when you break these things down, or knock them down, you end up with what you begin with. Is that reasonable? Yeah. I take a very simple example in class sometimes. They say, if you buy your little son or nephew or somebody a bag of blocks, right, and you can build all kinds of things out of this bag of blocks, right? Towers and ships and so on, right? Now, when he knocks down the tower and knocks down the ships, do you expect him to have a Lego set? Huh? Well, not if you start out with big wooden blocks, right? You expect him to get back to the wooden blocks, right? But if you bought your little son or nephew a Lego, box of Lego pieces, right? And he built all kinds of things out of those, right? Now, if you knock those down, would you expect him to end up with a set of wooden blocks? No. See? Okay. And if you bought him an erector set, you know, you got the steel or something like that, right? You'd make all kinds of things out of that, too, right? When he breaks these things down, do you have a set of wooden blocks or a Lego set? See? See? Now, you could maybe develop, you know, but that doesn't make much sense, huh? Because what's happened in this case is something's gone out of existence, right? Hmm? If I made some out of wooden blocks and knocked it down, I end up with a Lego set, what happens with wooden blocks? Hmm? See? And, uh, can something just become nothing? Right? Okay. And then what about a Lego set? Where did that come from? It's not made out of wooden blocks, right? So you're getting something out of nothing, right? Hmm? Hmm? So it makes very good sense, right? To say the reality is a circle. That what is the beginning of things is also their what? End. Yeah. Now, notice, this again anticipates theology, right? Where God is the beginning and the end of things. Not in the way matter is, though, right? See? Matter is the beginning and the end in one way, and God in the sense of what? The maker and the end. Or purpose, right? Okay? But notice how on Ash Wednesday, which isn't too far away, I guess, you know, they would say sometimes, dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return, right? But there you're talking about matter, right? What you're made out of is what you're broken down to again. So you see, there's kind of a circle there, right? Except end, in this sense, is your, what? Destruction, right? So it's better to have a beginning and end in the way God is beginning and end. Because end there means not your destruction, but that for the sake of which you are, right? But notice how this anticipates again theology, right? That what is the beginning of things will be also their end, huh? But not in the way in which matter is in getting into things. And that's the way, you know, basically theology is divided, right? You consider God, right? By himself, or in himself, and then God is the beginning, the maker of things, right? And then God is the, what? End, right? Okay? It's very clear in the Summa Congentilis. That's the way it's divided. One of the Summa Congentilis is God in himself, and then two is God is the maker, and then three is God is the end, right? Okay? But that's really followed in the Summa Theologiae, but it's not as easy to see as first, because he goes into so many, much more details of the return of man to God, right? But the second and third part all devoted to that. See how interesting the idea is, right? See how reasonable it is, right? And of course, that reappears also in modern physics when you have the conservation laws, right? See? The same thing remains there, right? Now, if you look at the next two fragments, which are saying more or less the same thing, They are a consequence of the second sentence in the first fragment. The nature of the unlimited is everlasting and does not grow old. If you begin with that, and you still have it when you break things down, then that unlimited is everlasting and does not grow old. It's immortal and indestructible. Now they say in modern science that comes out as a conservation law. But in theology we say God is what? Unchanging, right? And God is eternal, right? It falls upon us being unchanging. But it's already here in a somewhat different meaning, right? It's in anticipation. Now you'll notice when Thomas takes up the substance of God in both the Summa Theologiae and the Summa Gentiles, the consideration of the substance of God is divided into five parts. And the five parts are that God is what? One, simple, unlimited, unchanging. Eternal. Well, that's attached to it as being unchanging, right? Okay. And then the extra one is? Five. He's perfect. Yeah. Okay? Now notice, four of the five are in a sense anticipated, right? Because the theories we talked about something one and simple, right? And now we're talking about something that is what? Unchanging. Unchanging is eternal in some way, right? And it's unlimited, right? So four of the five are already, right? So our mind is tending towards something one, simple, unchanging, and unlimited in some way. But what's left out is the fifth one, which is perfect. Which doesn't really fit back, right? Okay? Okay? Now the other things you talked about in the substance are attached to one or another of these. Yeah. So attached to the consideration of the perfection of God is His goodness, right? Attached to His being unchangeable, as being eternal. Attached to His being unlimited, as being everywhere. Okay? But it's kind of beautiful to see the way the mind is working there, huh? Okay? You want to take a break? A minute of time, you want to take a break? Sure. Let's just finish the next, a Mandarin, and then we'll take a little break. Now the last sentence in DK1 there might seem a little bit poetic, but we forget that we also speak that way, huh? You see, man is by nature a political animal, citizen, right? And so a sign of this is language, right? So language grows up so we can communicate together in the city, huh? And so we have names for things in the city, right? Well, then these guys like Thaddeus go and start studying the natural world. We don't have any names for these things, right? But when they find something out there that is like what you have in the human world, right? We borrow words from the human things. Not that they have exactly the same meaning when they get out there, right? But there's some likeness, right? Now the most common example in modern times, of course, is the word law, right? The word law first is used in human society. You can see that a word like lawyer, you know, is only in regard to human law, right? We don't generally call a chemist or physicist a lawyer, do we? Even though he's talking about the laws of physics, the laws of chemistry all the time, right? Or we use the term the legal profession, right? We don't say a chemist is in the legal profession, even though he's talking about laws, right? Well, why do we carry the word law over from the world? Well, the law, let's say the law to drive on the right side of the street, produces a certain regularity in our behavior, right? And so when we find a regularity in the behavior of nature, what should we call it? Well, we borrow the word law and call it a law of what? Nature, right? And in fact, we even borrow the word obey, right? So you'll find a physicist will say that in free space, the electron, let's say, obeys the laws of Newtonian physics. But it gets inside the atom and doesn't obey the laws of Newtonian physics, and now obeys the laws of quantum physics or something, right? You see? Well, we don't, we're so familiar with those words that we don't notice, you know, how anthropomorphic they might sound, right? But it's not really anthropomorphic, because you don't mean the same thing, right?