Ars imitatur naturam

I wanted to post on this expression before our next class with Prof. Imbach tomorrow morning.  However, I got a bit thrown off this morning, managing to sleep through my alarm and only waking up two hours later.  Now I feel I'm two hours behind schedule, and so rushed.  Perhaps I may leave a few thoughts, however, before going running off to play catch-up with the rest of my day.

The second prologue we considered was that to St. Thomas' commentary on Aristotle's Politics, a work which the Aquinate, as he is often nicknamed, never finished.

Very brief background.
No one had commented on this work before St. Albert the Great, St. Thomas' renowned teacher.  In fact, this work of Aristotle's had only recently been discovered by the Latin West, and the science of politics rather disdained since the time of St. Augustine's City of God showed that the earthly city only existed in view of the heavenly one, and therefore earthly politics were vain and useless.  So the very fact that St. Thomas defended the science of politics was itself quite innovative and intriguing.

Ars imitatur naturam.
Art imitates nature.

Art, recta ratio factibilium, is the intellectual virtue and the practical science of right reasoning regarding making or producing things.  If we take the example of the sculptor making a statue, we see he has some model in mind which he attempts, with varying degrees of success, to bring out in the finished product.  To take another art, airplanes are modeled after birds in some way.  The model is always more perfect than the imitation produced in art.  (A bird flies better than an airplane.  What I want to write is always better than what I actually write.)  The model taken for art comes from nature.  Why?  Nature is better.  Why?  The Creator obviously knows better than we do.  Yet, this comes from philosophy. 

Even in creation, we say that the Creator, God the Father, created through the Son, almost as a model, with the Spirit.

We imitate that when we take a model from nature to produce anything at all.

While this is briefer, less-organized than the post on the previous prologue, I have at least said something, and left plenty room for further thought.