Summa Theologica - Thomas Aquinas

Summa Theologica is a heavy, heavy bit of work.  This is literally true, as Thomas Aquinas is one of only four authors who get two volumes in the Great Books series.  The others are Shakespeare, Gibbon and Aristotle, whom Aquinas most resembles.
The format for Summa is very interesting.  Aquinas follows these steps:

• Ask a general question
• Break that question into smaller questions
• Provide several (numbered) objections to the smaller questions
• Cite some pushback from a respected philosopher or theologian
• Answer the question by his own reasoning
• Respond to each of the objection in particular

This is a brilliant set up and frankly I'd like to see it done with more modern topics.  An opinion piece about a topic like, say, gun control, would benefit greatly from the feeling that the author has a full understanding of both sides of the argument.  It's hard to argue that Aquinas wasn't on topic of his topics.  

Having said that, the arguments have moved quite some space from the time that Aquinas was writing.  His first question, "Whether Law is Something Pertaining to Reason", seems quaint.  Of course the law is connected to reason.  Can you imagine trying to argue the counter to that?  The objections given are wholly unconvincing.

Objection 1: It would seem that law is not something pertaining to reason. For the Apostle says (Rom. 7:23): "I see another law in my members," etc. But nothing pertaining to reason is in the members; since the reason does not make use of a bodily organ. Therefore law is not something pertaining to reason.
Obj. 2: Further, in the reason there is nothing else but power, habit and act. But law is not the power itself of reason. In like manner, neither is it a habit of reason: because the habits of reason are the intellectual virtues of which we have spoken above. Nor again is it an act of reason: because then law would cease, when the act of reason ceases, for instance, while we are asleep. Therefore law is nothing pertaining to reason.
Obj 3: Further, the law moves those who are subject to it to act aright. But it belongs properly to the will to move to act, as is evident from what has been said above. Therefore law pertains, not to the reason, but to the will; according to the words of the Jurist: "Whatsoever pleaseth the sovereign, has force of law."

Aquinas answers well to these objections:

I answer that, Law is a rule and measure of acts, whereby man is induced to act or is restrained from acting: for lex (law) is derived from ligare (to bind), because it binds one to act. Now the rule and measures of human acts is the reason, which is the first principle of human acts, as is evident from what has been stated above; since it belongs to the reason to direct to the end, which is the first principle in all matters of actions, according to the Philosopher (Aristotle Phys ii.). Now that which is the principle in any genus, is the rule and measure of that genus: for instance, unity in the genus of numbers, and the first movement in the genus of movements. Consequently it follows that law is something pertaining to reason.

'Now the rule and measures of human acts is the reason, which is the first principle of human acts'.  In other words, we make rules and measures with our reason.  This is true even if different groups of people make different rules.  Each group relies on reason to make rules.  This is true even when those people sleep.  And we no longer have monarchs (sovereigns) that make their laws by whim.  But even then 'it needs to be in accord with some rule of reason'.
Overall, this was pretty heavy reading and I often wished that I was going through each question with someone else so that we could discuss them.  Not the first time that I've wished that with this reading list and I'm sure it won't be the last.

Rilke - Poetry

I've heard of this poet, but not the poem.  Her name is Rainer Maria Rilke and the poem is called 'The Panther'.

So worn with passing through the bars,
His gaze holds nothing any more.
A thousand bars before him there might loom
And past the thousand bars no world.

The lissom stride of soundless padded pacing,
Revolving in the tiniest of rings,
Is like a dance of strength around a pivot,
Impaling in a trance of mighty will.

Bur rarely is the curtain of the eyeball
Softly parted. Then an image enters in
Which seeps through the tremulous stillness of the limbs
To reach the heart, where it expires.

-

The imagery here is certainly strong.  The big cat is in a pen and, although it can see the people, it choose not to after some time.  Why should it?  The panther's entire world is in the circle that it endlessly walks.
By chance, I happened to go to a zoo today and saw the big cats.  The lions completely ignored us, but they were kind of far away.  The tiger, on the other hand, was laying down next to the glass.  It simply lay there, looking into the distance, not paying the slightest bit of attention to any of us.  We've become wallpaper.
I'd never thought about that before.  Now I'll think it every time.

100 Plays

A couple of years ago I picked up a book at a garage sale called 'The 100 Best Poems of All Time' (finally found it on Amazon!).  For the past couple of years I've been blogging my way through it, about one poem a week.  You can read the full series by clicking on the 'Poetry' link at the bottom of this post.
I've fully enjoyed this side project.  Part of the reason that I decided to the Great Books reading list is to become more well read.  The poetry book has helped with that.  More importantly, it has introduced me to some wonderful, wonderful poems that I'd never read before.  This one might be my favorite.  Unfortunately, I've only got twenty-some poems left.  I'll finish up before the end of the year.  I thought about simply being done and concentrating on the Great Books but I've enjoyed have a side project to help pace my way through. 
Then I remembered that a couple of years ago, when I was trying to figure out if there was some consensus that Hamlet was the greatest stage play ever, I stumbled across a book that tried to rank the 100 greatest plays of all time.  Well.  I know theater better than I do poetry but my knowledge of it isn't nearly so complete that I couldn't stand to expand it.  (This is an understatement!)  Long story short, I bought it and I'm going to work my way through it.
There are some issues, big and small, to figure out.

• A full play is much, much longer than a poem.  I can read and blog about a poem after work on a Sunday night but this simply isn't true about a full stage play.  Instead of one a week, it will be one a month.
• Let's see, seven years at one play a month comes to . . . 84 plays.  Which leaves me 16 short.  Either the drama project will go past the Great Books or I need to do it in a shorter period of time.  Skip the ones that are covered by the Great Books?  Lop off the last 16?  After some consideration, I decided that I'd simply look for months were I could double up and get the whole thing done on time.  
• I'm also going to start right now so that I can get another eight months in.  I might try to cover quite a bit of it this summer, when the Great Books are mostly narrative, so that I can be on a once a month schedule starting in January.
• The book has the plays listed from one to one hundred, which is a mistake in my opinion.  I'm going to work them in reverse order, ending up at the greatest play of all time (per Daniel S. Burt, the author).  Each month I'll let you know what the next play is so you can read along.
• The works are pretty heavily 20th century.  Some of the scripts are available online, especially with the older ones.  I don't personally plan on investing much money here so anything that I can't find online or in anthologies, I'll try and get from the library.  If there is a Project Gutenberg version, I'll link to it.

As with the Great Books project, I'm inviting anyone who wants to tag along and read with me.  It's a big commitment and I'm not looking to hold anyone to it.  If you want to dip in and out from time to time, feel free.

First up is 'Peter Pan' by J M Barrie.  The play can be found here.  

Biography of Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas was born in 1225 to a wealthy family in the Aquino region of southern Italy.  His education started when he was five, first at Monte Cassino and then at a newer university in Naples.  Among his studies were several philosophers including (and especially!) Aristotle.  One of his teachers was a recruiter for the Dominican order.
When Thomas was 19 he decided that he would join the Dominicans.  His family was upset, because they expected him to join the Benedictines like his uncle.  It's hard for me, as a non-Catholic nearly 800 years later, to understand this division, but his family was so upset by this that they imprisoned him in one of the family castles.  While imprisoned his brothers tried to have a prostitute seduce him, but according to legend he fended her off with a hot poker.  His reward was an angelic visit which served to strengthen his belief in celibacy.
After about a year, his mother helped him escape from the castle.  She apparently felt that it would be better for the family if he escaped before political force was wielded to free him.  Thomas went to Paris and gained some fame there.  He was quiet and some of his fellow students thought he was stupid.  This prompted his teacher, Albert Magnus, to say, "You call him the dumb ox, but in his teaching he will one day produce such a bellowing that it will be heard throughout the world".
Thomas bounced around from position to position, both teaching and learning.  Around 1265, when he was 40, he was asked to be a papal theologian and do some teaching near Rome.  It was then that he developed 'Summa Theologica', which he wrote as an instruction for beginning students.  It is one of the foremost works of philosophy and ethics in the entire Catholic canon.
In December of 1273, this happened:

On 6 December 1273 at the Dominican convent of Naples in the Chapel of Saint Nicholas after Matins Thomas lingered and was seen by the sacristan Domenic of Caserta to be levitating in prayer with tears before an icon of the crucified Christ. Christ said to Thomas, "You have written well of me, Thomas. What reward would you have for your labor?" Thomas responded, "Nothing but you, Lord." After this exchange something happened, but Thomas never spoke of it or wrote it down. Because of what he saw, he abandoned his routine and refused to dictate to his socius Reginald of Piperno. When Reginald begged him to get back to work, Thomas replied: “Reginald, I cannot, because all that I have written seems like straw to me” (mihi videtur ut palea). What exactly triggered Thomas's change in behavior is believed by Catholics to have been some kind of supernatural experience of God.

A few months later he died after an accident with a tree branch.  There were some later rumors that he had been poisoned but his contemporaries didn't mention any such thing.  As he was given last rites he said "I receive Thee, ransom of my soul. For love of Thee have I studied and kept vigil, toiled, preached and taught....".  He was canonized 50 years later.  Thomas Aquinas is the patron saint of all Catholic schools.

Robert Frost - Poetry

For a change, this is both a poet and a poem that I know well.  I imagine that Robert Frost is one of the best known poets of the 20th century and this, 'Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening' is one of the most famous.

Whose woods are these I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and froze lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask of there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

The first three stanzas paint a picture.  A very true one.  Having grown up in a place where winter is very real, I can see the exact scene of the forest.  I know very well that muffled time and almost mystical feel of the beginning of a heavy snow.
It's the last part that really steals the show.  'But I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep'.  Who doesn't know that time when you just want to lay down but you can't because those pesky obligations are just too big?  And so we must press on.  Away from the loveliness and down those weary miles.
This is simply a wonderful poem.

Author Timeline

Once again we cross that divide that used to be called the dark ages.

BC
Aeschylus  525-456
Herodotus  484-425
Thucydides  460-395
Plato  428-348
Aristotle  384-322
Euclid  Unknown (300 BC?)
AD
Tacitus  56-117
St Thomas Aquinas  1225-1274
Chaucer  1343-1400
Shakespeare  1564-1616
Milton  1608-1674
Locke  1632-1704
Kant  1724-1804
Mill  1806-1873
Lavoisier  1743-1794
Dostoevsky  1821-1881
Freud  1856-1939

Reading for May

Just one piece and it's on the small side.  After the long readings of the past few months, it will be nice to have a short one.


May
St Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica (part One of the Second Part Questions 90-97) link

This may win the award for the most confusing and hard to find section.  If you're looking in the actual Great Books, it's in Volume 20, pages 205-239.  The title is 'Treatise on Law' and it goes from Question XC through Question XCVII (or 90-97, if the Roman numerals give you fits).