Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
Lecture 44: Matter, Form, and the Principle of Change

Transcript
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In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angel, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and letter of the Church, pray for us, and help us to understand what you've written. Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. I know it's by translation, it kind of tones it down a bit. Because the Latin says, lumen ecclesia, which means light of the Church, right? And in the translation they were saying, light for the Church. He's light for the Church. But that is strong, like the folk is saying, he's light of the Church. He's enlightened, light of the Church. Christ is the light of the unenlightened. I mean, not the true light. Okay. So the beginning here of Book 8, the first part here, the first reading, is kind of a recalling of some of the things that have been said already, right? Mainly in Book 7, and perhaps earlier too. And then kind of a continuation of what he's going to do in the 8th book here. So he says, one should syllogize on what has been said in the 7th book about substance. And bringing things to a head to complete the consideration of substance. It has been said that the causes and the beginnings and the elements of substances are sought. Now notice he had said in the, what, 4th book, that wisdom is about being as being, right? But that being has many meanings, and the chief meaning is substance. And accidents are something of substance. So it's mainly substance that you study. And I think we've spoken before, but let's say it again. The word cause and beginning and element are not exactly synonyms. When you look at those three words in the 5th book of wisdom, they're considered in the order beginning, cause, element. Those are the first three words in Book 5. And they're in that order because beginning is more general than cause. Every cause is a beginning in some way, but not every beginning is a what? Cause. And the point, for example, is the beginning of a line. Or the edge of the desk is the beginning of the desk or the table. But that's not a cause of the table or the line. That's important to know when you get to talking about the Trinity. Because you can say that the Father is in some sense the beginning of the Son, because the Son proceeds from the Father. And that that you proceed from is like a beginning. Or the Father and the Son together are one beginning of the Holy Spirit. But you really shouldn't speak of them as a cause. Okay? And then cause, of course, is more general than element. Because element, because element, strictly speaking, is said in regard to the first things in the order of material clause, right? Not the very first matter, which is pure ability, but first forms, you might say, of matter. So element is more particular. Now, as Thomas explains, sometimes we appropriate one of these to one of the four kinds of causes. So sometimes the appropriate element to material clause and beginning to the mover or maker, and then cause to the form and the end. And you may have that in mind here, because he mentions causes first. And the form and end are the most important causes for the life man. This cause is the cause of all the other causes. And therefore, most of all, it's appropriate for the first cause. And form is the cause of being, and this is the science of being as being. And then comes the beginning, meaning the mover. And the material cause, of course, is the least important to the wise man. Because that's only a cause of material things, not a cause of everything, right? So in every reasoned out knowledge there, we look for the causes of the subject. The subject here is being, but chiefly, primarily, substance. And now, he says about these substances, looking at them in reality. And some substances are agreed upon by all. And these are the material substances. But some have spoken privately about some. It's a private position, right? Those agreed upon are the natural ones. Such as fire, earth, water, and air. Which the Greeks thought were the elements, the first elements. And the other simple bodies. It may not be as simple as they thought, right? Then plants and their parts, and animals and the parts of animals. And last, the heavens and the parts of the heavens, as they thought were kind of what? Unchanging material substances, huh? Only changing the place. But others, and this would be the Platonists now, right? Say privately that the forms and mathematical things are substances, huh? And one reason that I think we've touched upon before, that Thomas will often allude to. One reason why Plato posited, in addition to the sensible world, with these obvious substances in them. The reason why he posited a mathematical world, right? And then a word in universal forms, was that he had answered yes to the central question. And he was convinced that there was truth in mathematics, because it's most certain. And he was convinced, through the great Socrates, the definitions were the way to know things for sure. When in definition, you know universal, in separation from the, what? Singdivers. In mathematics, you know sphere and cue, in separation from sensible and changeable matter. So if truth requires that the way we know be the way things are, then there must really be, separate from sensible things, mathematical things, corresponding to the true sciences of geometry and arithmetic, and there must really be universal forms, huh? Corresponding to the definitions that Socrates is teaching us to pursue. But Aristotle will take up those two positions, especially in the last books, huh? 30 and 14, huh? He was the final laying to rest of his teacher in 20 years. Now, there's another way we sometimes divide substances, huh? Or the word substance more, more logical way, huh? And substance often has a sense of what a thing is, huh? And, you know, in the old translation of the Maesim creed there, he said they were what? Yeah, substantial. Well, substance there had a sense of what it is, right? The nature of the thing, what it is. They had the same nature. In the categories, when Aristotle was talking about the definition of what a thing is, the Greek would say, logos teisusias, huh? Which they translated into Latin, ratio substantiae. Okay? But the definition of what it is, substance there, meaning what it is. That's one of the meanings of the substance. And if you go back to the distinction of the ten categories in the logic there, as we mentioned, I think, before, they're distinguished by the way something can be said of individual substances. And some things are said of individual substance by reason of what they are. That's the category of substance. Some by reason of how big they are, or how much of them there is. Some by how they are, and it's quantity and quality, and so on. So, um... In the categories where he enumerates all ten of them, and in the book on places where he enumerates all ten of them, he enumerates the same ten in exactly the same order, except in the categories he calls the first one substance, or in Greek, usia. And in the book on places he calls it tiesti, what it is. So that's what it means in substance, what it is. And sometimes it's used in identifying that first genus, right? And sometimes it's carried over to other categories, because you can speak of what virtue is, or what the size of the thing is, or something, right? But primarily what it is is a set of substance. And that's brought out, as we were saying last time, by the fact that the definition of substance doesn't have to bring anything else in. That's why the definition of an accident has to bring in that of which it is an accident. Now in that fourth paragraph, again, he touches upon the way in which some people thought the genus and the species and the universals are more substantive. That goes back to the position that the forms are substances. Now in the fifth paragraph, he's recounting some of the things he talked about in the seventh book. So since one of the meanings of substance is what a thing is, and definition is speech signifying what a thing is, we talked about definition in book seven. And we talked a little bit last time about some of the things he learned about definition. The fact that either there's definition only of substance, right? Or if you're going to say there's definition of accident, you're using the word definition in a somewhat extended sense. And you can see that even in a way from the etymology of definition, which has the idea of limiting something, right? And that's a very precise notion. The limits of a body are a tight fit, you might say. But in the case of accident, you have to go outside the limits of the thing. I can't say what health is without saying bringing in a body of which it is the good disposition. And so it seems to go outside its limits and brings in something else. So either there's no definition of accident or its definition in an extended sense. But I mentioned some other things that we didn't mention last time. So, since the what was to be is substance, and the definition is a speech about this signifying what something is, signifying its substance. Because of this, it has been determined in the seventh book about definition and about the through itself. We talked a little bit about through itself in the fourth book, if you recall. But you could say all reasoned out of knowledge is about what belongs to some subject as such or through itself. And so, what pertains to the definition of a thing, right? Belongs to the thing as such or through itself. The properties in the strict sense belong to the thing through itself. So you might say it belongs to two through itself, to be a number, right? Or it belongs to two in another sense of through itself, but nevertheless a real sense of through itself, to be half a four. Because that's a property that falls upon it, huh? And so in talking about definition, he talked about through itself. And if you have a chance to stay at the posture in analytics, you'll see this discussion through itself coming up a lot. And Aristotle says that the subject of science has to have parts and properties that belong to it through itself. A kathal toh, per se, through itself, huh? And so the geometry never talks about the triangle being green or something of that sort, because it doesn't belong to the triangle through itself, huh? I was saying to the students the other day, if you have plumbing problems, do you call up a pianist? And they say, no. No, you call a plumber. I said, suppose the plumber is a pianist. And when you call a pianist? But you can see there's a necessary distinction there, right? Even if the plumber happens to be a pianist, it's not through being a pianist that he repairs your plumbing. That's accidental, right? It's a plumber as such, and that's the art of plumbing. Right? Who can repair your plumbing, right? Okay? And if the house builder is a pianist, he doesn't build the house as a pianist, huh? But as possessing the art of house building. Then he goes on to other things we talked about in the seventh book. Since the definition is a speech, and we've defined what a speech is as opposed to a name, right? A name is vocal sound, huh? Signifying by human agreement. No part of it signifies by itself. But speech is made up of at least two names, huh? So speech is vocal sounds signifying by human agreement, having parts that signify by themselves, having at least two parts that signify by themselves. So white man is speech, right? Animal is just a name. And statements are speeches. And definitions are always speeches. So a definition is never just one name. As Thomas says in the commentary of book seven there, you can sometimes use a synonym, right, that's more familiar for a word. Like, you know, the students saying, you know, desiccation is a greater problem with land animals and water animals. Or you can get a synonym drying up or something. But a definition is not a synonym. A definition is speech that makes much more distinct what the thing is. And it's because it has parts that signify something by themselves. So when I define the square as an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, that makes much more distinct what a square is than the word square could do. And quadrilateral and equilateral and right-angled, each of the three words in there are names, bring out something about the square. And so, since he says the definition is a speech then, and a speech has parts, it was necessary in the seventh book to consider about the parts. What are parts of the substance and what are not? And if they were the same of the definition and of the thing. Further too, we saw in the seventh book that neither the universal nor the genus is really a substance. Okay? But we must inquire later about Plato's position about the forms in mathematical things, as he does in the 13th and 14th books. For some say, these are substances as well as the sensible substances. But that's sort of a private position, the Patonists. Interestingly, sometimes when Aristotle is discussing the position of the Patonists, they say, we've taken this. Like, he's one of them, isn't there? It's still 20 years. But now he's, you know, disagreed with some things. But let us now, and this is now referring to what he's going to do in the eighth book here now, but let us now go through the substances which are agreed upon, namely the sensible substances, the material substances. And these are the sensible substances, you can call them. Okay? Or the material substances. Of course, later on, Aristotle will talk about immaterial substances. And the philosophers usually call them separated substances, right? But separated means separated from matter. So they don't really use the word angels in talking about them, but we use the word angel because in the Bible, the angels are sent as messengers to us, right? And the word angel means what? Messenger, yeah. Actually, they're called ministers and angels, right? But ministers of God and angels being sent to us. But that's because of the way they become known to us in the, what? Scripture, right? When an angel, when a separated substance is sent, you know, a message to Mary or somebody, right? Okay? But the philosophers will call them separated substances, right? Now, I sometimes fall into, you know, calling them angels myself, because I have my, so much Christian background, but... I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't invoke my separated substance, right? I'm not even supposed to do that, but I'm invoking my separated substance. Okay. My separated substance, my army did. Yeah, that was on the TV show, touched by a separated substance. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Now, what he's going to do in the rest of Book 8 here, after this kind of recalling of some of the things that have been done and the time you have what he's going to do now, he's going to distinguish between matter and form in the genus of, what, material substance, and the composite of the tuba. Okay. And in the rest of this first reading, and in the second reading, he's going to say there's these two things, the material substance. There's the matter underlying it, and there's the form. It's maybe more known to men that there's matter, right, than the form, but he's going to kind of show that there are these two in the rest of reading 1 and reading 2. In the rest of reading 1, more that there's matter. And then reading 2, that there's, what, form in the sense of substantial form, whatever that is. Okay? Okay. And then, in the third and fourth readings, he's going to consider each of those two individually. And in the third reading, he's going to consider form in the genus of substance, or act in the genus of substance. And then, in the fourth reading, matter. And then, in the fifth and last reading, the union of the two, the composition of putting together the two. Make sense? Okay. Just like in the book, the peri-hermeneas, it talks about the noun and the verb, right? And then he talks about the combination of the two in a statement. Okay? So, at the bottom of the page here, in the paragraph at the bottom of page 1, he's kind of anticipating that you can speak of matter and form, the genus of substance, and the composition of the two, right? Okay? So he says, All sensible substances have matter. The underlying subject is substance. But as we'll see more clearly, it's considered by itself, substance only in, what? Ability. For in one way, he says, the matter is substance. And I call matter here, what is not this something in act, but is this something, meaning an individual substance, only in ability, huh? And sometimes you say a lot, in the words, in potency, right? Okay. And in another way is substance, the thought of what it is in the form, which being a this something, is separated in thought. And third, what is from these, of which alone there is generation and corruption. And is without qualification, if you're out, is separated one thing from another, right? Okay? So material substance, at least for the most part, the matter and form don't exist by themselves, right? Okay? That's only the combination of the two, that exists by itself, huh? But nevertheless, you can distinguish between the matter and the form in them. And as you'll point out, and Thomas will be very insistent upon in the commentary, you know this only through the fact of substantial change. And we'll come back to that, because it kind of was first seen in natural philosophy, right? In the first book of natural hearing, if you recall. Now, for our substance is according to the thought of what it is. He's talking about form. Some are separable, and some are not. And Thomas says, there's at least two different things that Aristotle might have in mind here. Okay? He could be thinking of the fact that, well, there are some forms that can be defined without matter. And these are considered in, what, geometry, right? Okay? Or, there's a strange form that you and I have that can exist, right? Apart from matter. As Plato began to show there in the Phaedra, right? But Aristotle more fully in the third book about the soul. And then there are some substances which are not material at all. The separated substances. And they're like pure form, in a sense. Without matter. So he could be hitting at all these things, right? But from the text here, you can't say which one he was trying to emphasize at this point. Now, in the paragraph at the top of page two, where he's showing that there's substance and senses matter. And after stating that, he goes a little bit into what makes us see this. And you can see he's referring to the fact of what changed. Okay? So, let's go back a little bit to natural philosophy, huh? It's a shock here. He had a little natural philosophy, didn't you? From me. Remember the big scandal of Heratitis said, you know, everybody admires Hesiod. He didn't even know day and night. He thought day was one thing and night was something else. You get up in the day and do your work and go to bed at night and sleep, right? So if day was one thing and night was something else. Well, they did one of the same things, right? Now, Heratitis was pointing out something that everybody who's thought about change has seen to some extent. As Aristotle points out in the first book of natural hearing, the first book of the so-called physics, everybody was trying to explain change by contraries, by opposites, and although Heratitis would not know it, even the Chinese at the same time were trying to explain change by contraries. And although he would not know it, the modern scientists are trying to explain change by contraries. As Einstein said, Helmholtz is trying to explain all change by attraction and repulsion between unalterable particles. So these are contraries in attraction and repulsion. Now, more particular than that, people see the change is between contraries, and they even speak as if in change one contrary becomes the other. So they say day becomes night, and night becomes day, and the hard becomes soft, and the soft becomes hard, and the hot becomes cold, and the cold becomes hot. Now, a little bit of grammatical analysis there reveals that the word becomes means comes to be, right? So if the hard comes to be soft, then the hard would be soft. And if the healthy comes to be sick, then the healthy would be safe. And if day comes to be night, right, then day is night, then. And so it seems as if one opposite or one contrary is the other. Now, you might say, you know, well, that's impossible, right? But then, if the sick do not become healthy, then you're sick, you'd always be sick, right? And if you're healthy, you'll always be healthy, right? And this obviously is not so, right? And if it's this, A, it's going to always be day, because day can't come to be night, and as night is going to be always night. So, to hold on to the reality of change, which is what strikes the senses the most, if anything, they thought you had to admit that day can come to be night, and the heart can come to be soft, and so on. And if you don't think it does come to be that, well, why do you say that it becomes? You even hear people saying, you know, love turns into hate, and sometimes hate turns into love, right? Okay? Now, this led Parmenides to say, well, if that's what change is, day being night, and the heart being soft, and the white being asleep, and so on, then it's an illusion, there's no such thing. So, you have this great dichotomy between Parmenides and Paracletus, and often, I'll say to students, whom would you follow? Because Parmenides is saying, you're admitting that something both is and is not, because if day were night, it would both be light and not be light, and both be dark and not be dark, well, that's impossible. So, you're admitting that it's possible for something to be and not be, and that's impossible, and therefore, change is all illusion. And Herod Titus is saying, all things change, huh? Change is real, most real thing there is, I guess. But then the day is night, and the heart is soft, and the heart is cold, and the healthy are sick, and those who are late are asleep, okay? So, whom would you follow? Would you say change is real, and it's possible to be and not be? Or would you say it's impossible to be and not be, and therefore change is not real? Who would you follow? What? Well, most students, you know, say they'd follow Herod Titus, and probably down through history, right, you'd find more people following Herod Titus, or following his words in a way, right? They'd find this, you know, very clearly that Hegel is saying in modern times, or Marx, you know? They want to insist upon the reality of change, of movement, of development, of evolution, of whatever it is, and they're willing to admit a contradiction, huh? So Hegel said there's a contradiction, huh? In becoming, huh? Something both is and is not. Now, I suppose people tend to follow Herod Titus, because change is what most strikes the senses, and that's the beginning of our knowledge, huh? On the other hand, in the great dialogue called the Parmenides, Plato has Socrates say that he's a man to be reverenced, to be feared, okay? And in the great dialogue called the Parmenides, Plato represents Parmenides as teaching Socrates, as a young man, the Socratic method. Because he questions Socrates, and Socrates getting into contradictions, and so on. And whether that's historical or not, whether Parmenides ever came to Athens and talked to Socrates, Parmenides, no one really knows, because they're not sure the dates of these people, right? But I think that's beside the point. The point, really, is that the Socratic method of examining people to see if your ideas fit together, or see if they can't hit each other, and therefore mistaken somewhere, is in fact based upon what Parmenides insisted upon, the impossibility of both being and not being, right? Now, I'd say probably most people, like Ego and so on, would follow Heraclitus, because of the senses, but maybe think twice, because Parmenides and Heraclitus at first seem to have nothing in common, right? The one says that contradiction is impossible, the other, in words, is admitting contradictions, right? The one says that all things flow, nothing abides, changes everywhere. The other guy says, that's illusion, there's no such thing going on. Okay? So all you see at first is disagreement, right? Now, how does the human mind, if it can at all, how does it go forward when two men disagree? Well, one man can say, you know, you're mistaken, because you don't agree with what I say, and the other can determine how you're mistaken, and then they don't go anywhere, do they? The only way that two men can go forward when they disagree is to go back to something that they both had a, what? Yeah. Which they can use to, what? Decide about the disagreement, huh? And so two experimental scientists might have a different hypothesis, and if one says, you know, your hypothesis is a lot of hogwash, because my hypothesis must be the proof, and vice versa, they go nowhere, right? But they might be able to think of an experiment in which there are two hypotheses and make different predictions, right? And they can both perform the experiment and see what happens, and maybe one will be confirmed, and the other one contradicted, right? And therefore they could decide because of the common experiment, right? Okay? Now, the first idea is nothing these two guys have in common, right? Because what the one guy affirms, the other guy denies, and vice versa, okay? But, think twice. What they have in common, at least in their words, is that you have to choose between the impossibility of contradiction, right? And the reality of change. But they're incompatible, right? That's what they have in common, right? Now, why do you have to choose between the two? Well, change involves a contradiction, then it contradicts the impossibility of contradiction. So, in making a choice between the two, what they have in common is the principle of what? Confidation, right? Okay? The ballgame is over. I mean, this is one. You see? Further, you could say, that in admitting in words that something can both be and not be, rather strange thing to admit in words, in order to save, what? The reality of change. Well, Heraclius doesn't even say the reality of change. Because of day and night, we're reading the same thing. Would there be any change from day to night? Or night to day? No. And if the healthy and sick were the same, there wouldn't be any change from health to being sick, or from sick to being healthy. So, He doesn't even say what He's trying to say by giving up the odds, right? And incidentally, He has something like this. When people are down through the years, they run into what seems a contradiction in something they're studying, right? And then they start to think that the axiom about being and unbeing is not true, right? But they're saying it's not true because it is true. They're saying it's not true because something kind of makes it. So, how absurd their attack is. Now, Aristotle, coming on the scene afterwards, agrees that what Parmenides has insisted upon is the natural beginning of all the axioms. It's the most known of all. You can kind of see that because every statement either is affirmative or negative. Every statement either says it is so or it is not so. It doesn't say both. So, every statement presupposes that it isn't both. But... At the same time, it's absurd to deny the existence of what? Change, huh? Therefore, there must be a way of understanding change that does not involve a what? A contradiction. A contradiction, okay? And so, going back to what led to apparent contradiction, let's say the change between the healthy and the sick, or the change between the hard and the soft, or the change between the spirit and the cube, let's say, well, when the healthy becomes sick, does health itself become sickness? No, health could never be sickness, huh? The good condition of the body could never be the bad condition of the body. Okay? Could health become sick? If health is that by which the healthy is healthy, right? Could health itself be sick? No. So there must be something in this change between healthy and sick besides health and what? Sickness. And that's the underlying, right? Subject of both health and sickness. So, let's say the body, huh? Okay? And the body is not the same thing as its health. If the body were the same thing as its health, it could never be sick. And the body is not the same thing as its, what? Sickness. But health or sickness can be in the body, right? But not both at the same time. Or you could say the body is able to be healthy and able to be sick. It's able to be both, but not able to be both at the same time. So this leads us to, what? Something underlying any change which is between contraries or opposites. The same way the change between hard and soft, huh? Does hardness itself come to be softness in this state? Well, that would be a contradiction, right? Does hardness itself become soft? That whereby things are hard, is itself soft? No. So it must be a third thing, huh? Like butter, by the way. And the butter is not the same thing as its hardness, although it's the subject of hardness, right? And the butter is not the same thing as its softness, but it's the subject of which the softness is. And you could say the butter is able to be both hard and soft, but not able to be both at the same time. And when it's actually hard, it's able to be soft, but if it becomes actually soft, it loses its hardness, huh? The likewise of the change in the sphere to the cube, huh? Does the spherical shape now become a cubicle shape? Or does the cubicle shape become a spherical shape? The universe then? No. So there's a third thing, let's say, say clay as an example, and the clay is not the same thing as either one of these shapes, but it's the subject in which these shapes exist, right? But never existed at the same time, right? Or you could say it's able to be, right? A sphere and a cube, but not at the same time. And when it's actually one, it remains able to be the other one, so on. So here you get the idea of the underlying subject, right? And the idea that it's inability towards the what? Two opposites, right? Okay? You can see how this unties the apparent contradiction change. Now, why do we say that the healthy becomes sick? If health cannot become sickness, health cannot become sick, even the healthy as such cannot be sick, right? Why do we say that? Well, because to be healthy is something that happens to what becomes sick. Just like I could say that a pianist built my house, but not as a pianist, right? But because to be a pianist happens to the house builder, I could say in some sense, a pianist built my house. That I'd be speaking by happening, right? It's not through itself. It's not through being a pianist that he built the house. It's not as a pianist that he built the house, right? So we can kind of explain why we speak this way, huh? Or we're speaking kind of by what? Happening. And not saying what really as such is becoming sick, huh? It's the body as such is becoming sick, huh? Okay? When the ignorant come to know. Is ignorance now become knowledge? The lack of knowledge is now knowledge? Don't happen? That would be impossible, right? There must be a third thing, right? Which is the mind, right? That's able to be ignorant and able to know, right? But it's not both in the same way at the same time. Do you see that? But now, the changes that we've mentioned here, or exemplified here, are really what we would call accidental changes, right? Okay? And not what we'd call a substantial change, huh? Health and sickness are in the category of quality, right? The first species. Hard and soft are in the third species, right? Shape is the fourth species of quality, right? Okay? But now, suppose we feed breakfast of the lions, huh? Okay? And so now you have a change between man and what? Lion, right? A man has become a lion. Not figuratively. A man has become a lion, right? Okay? Now, what is the subject underlying change from a man to a lion? Because here you have two, what? Substances, huh? Where Aristotle says in the first book of the actual hearing, that the subject underlying man and lion, which you might call the very first matter, because it's not just underlying accidental change, but not substantial change. He says this first matter is knowable by a, what? Proportion. And proportion, now in a nuclear sense, huh? A likeness of, what? Ratio, huh? Okay? Now, let me state the proportion, right? And then you must understand the proportion. You can say the first matter is to man and lion. Like, and take one example as you had before, or, like play is to sphere and hue. Okay? Now, likeness is a slippery thing, this is Plato. And, here's the dialogue of the style, Stan. Aristotle wrote a book on mistakes in thinking, in a book called, well, sophisticated reputations, parent, but not real reputations. And likeness is a cause for deception. People eat poisonous mushrooms, because they look like them. Now, as a little boy, we used to get these little pieces of metal, look like inks spilled, right? People always spill their ink, you know. Put your mother's white linen on the tablecloth, and then she'd go live, and be a little patty or something for staring the wits out of her. But you're deceived by likeness, huh? If I put salt in your sugar bowl and put that in your coffee, and then you discover that you drank it, well, you were deceived by the likeness, right? Okay, now, I go back to, you know, a very simple example in Rhythmic, that would be the first season portion, so. If I say that 4 is a 6, as 2 is a 3, and someone says, well, 2 is an even number, and 3 is an odd number, right? 4 is an even number, and then 6 should be a, what? Odd number. You say, well, no, no, you misunderstood the proportion, huh? 4 is to 6 is 2 is to 3, not because 4 is to 6 is an even number, as an odd number, right? That's not where the likeness consists. Okay, let me try again. 2 and 3 are prime numbers, right? So it's a ratio of a prime number to a prime number. So, if 4 is to 6 is 2 is to 3, 4 is to 6 must also be the ratio of a prime number to a prime number. How's that? Well, that's not the way in which they are alike, right? These are all differences, huh? 2 and 3 are prime numbers, 4 and 6 are what? Composite numbers, right? 3 is an odd number, but 6 is an even number. I don't say you like this to you. Well, in what way exactly is 4 to 6 like 2 is to 3? Well, you'd say in geometry, or arithmetic, that 4 is the same parts as 6, that 2 is a 3, right? And if someone has a hard time saying that, you'd say, well, think of 4 as being 2 2's, and 6 as being 3 2's, right? So, 4 is 2 of the 3 parts of 6, right? Oh, yeah, nice. Okay, that's how they're alike. That's a simple example, but, you know, you have to see many differences between the different numbers of a proportion, right? And exactly what way they're alike. Now, notice in the example here, that the first matter is to man and lion, as clay is to sphere and cube, huh? That's a proportion. But notice, huh? Clay is an actual substance. The first matter is not an actual substance. It's substance inability, you say. It's not an actual substance. So, that way, the first matter is not like clay, is it? It's different. And sphere and cube, you've got two shapes there and two accidents, right? Man and lion are two substances. You're comparing an actual substance with a substance ability. You're comparing two substances with two accidents, isn't it? It doesn't seem like this, do you? Well, in what way are they alike? Well, you can say they're alike in this way. That just as clay is able to be a sphere or a cube, right? But not both at the same time, right? And when it's actually one, it's able to be the other. But if it becomes the other, it ceases to be. So, likewise, the first matter is able to be a man or a lion, but not both at the same time. And when it's actually one, it remains able to be the other. But if it became the other, it would cease to be the former. That's what the life is consistent, right? But we make known the first matter by its proportion because of the fact that it's really pure ability considered by itself. And therefore, it's not really knowable by itself. It can only know ability in comparison to what? The fact. So, if you tried to know the first matter by itself, you'd be trying to know the unknowable. But everything else in the proportion, you're right, has some actuality. It's either an actual substance or it's an actual accident and so on, right? Okay? Did you see that? So, as Thomas was saying explicitly in his exposition of the text there, the way that Aristotle's indicating that we come to know the first matter, which is matter of Jesus' substance, is through the fact of change, right? Through the fact of substantial change. And we have to understand it kind of by seeing that it is to substances something like clay is to sphere and cube. Or the body is to healthy and sick, right? Or the butter is to hard and soft, right? It's in one of those other ratios, right? But the likeness would be, right? That just as the butter is able to be hard and able to be soft at the same time, right? And when it's actually one, it's able to be the other. If it becomes the other, it seems to be the former. Well, the same way, the first matter is able to be man or lion, but not both at the same time. When it's actually one, it's able to be the other. If it becomes the other, it will cease to be the former, right? So that's where the likeness consists, huh? And in the high-energy experiments in modern physics there, they're very close to the first matter. Kind of very strange, you know, on at that level. But Heisenberg will compare what they're doing there, right, with the first matter of Aristotle. Because the high-energy experiments seem to reveal the complete mutability of matter. You see, why the early Greeks and the early moderns thought of the first matter as being some actual substance. But the first matter is actually only substance and ability. Okay? So what modern physics calls the elements, that is sort of just like a stepping? Well, what the high-energy experiments seem to reveal is that there's no form of matter that is permanent. So if the first matter was an actual substance, it would be some form of matter, right, that would be eternal, right? Okay? And it would never cease to be or come to be, right? Okay? But what the high-energy experiments seem to reveal was that there was no such form of matter, right? And since you can't get something from nothing, right, then you're forced to the idea that the underlying matter is substance only in ability. But it's never going to be isolated by itself, right? Because it's always under some form that couldn't be there. It could actually be there, right, without some actuality which it has to the form. Now, you can say, in a way, substantial form is going to be known by a proportion, too. In case you can't sense or imagine a substantial form. You can only sense or imagine accidental forms. And so you have to understand a substantial form by a proportion, too. But you can see, kind of, you know, once you understand this basic proportion, right, there's got to be something in the man and the lion, right? Like these two forms over here, the sphere and the cube. Let's go to the substantial form rather than accidental form. And you can talk about the differences between substantial form and accidental form eventually. But there's a certain analogy, right? So if the clay is able to be a sphere and a cube, but it's actually a sphere through this form, it's actually a cube through this other form, right? Well, then, likewise, in the first matter, it's able to be a man or a lion, but it's actually a man through this form and a lion through this other form. We call it a substantial form because man and lion are substances. Okay? And I think the most interesting part here of the 8th book is the third reading, right, where he talks about substantial form. It's very interesting we have to talk about it. You'll find out when we do that, when we spend the whole next week's class on the third chapter, you know, and maybe do the fourth and the fifth the week after. But today we want to see the first and the second here. Okay? Now, the last paragraph in the first reading. Now, the last paragraph in the first reading.