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What reply can be given to the objection that pain is
something positive and not merely privation, as when we
speak of a painful toothache?
The reply is given by St. Thomas: "Just as two
things are required for pleasure, namely, the union with
some good and the perception of this union, so two things
are required for pain, namely, the union with some evil,
which is evil because it deprives of some good, and the
perception of this union....Thus pain, like
pleasure, is a movement in the intellective or sensitive
appetite. Hence pain, when it is in the sensitive
appetite, is properly said to be the passion or suffering
of the soul."[1008]
Pain and pleasure are contraries, and as pleasure is
connected to some good act easily exercised, such as the
grace of youth, so pain is connected with some act more or
less impeded, or some immoderate act which produces
fatigue. Hence pain is not something privative, but it
is connected with privation and arises from the perception
of the union with some evil.
What is to be said about the pessimists, who say that
pain is something primitive, and that pleasure is
secondary and negative, that is, the cessation of pain?
We reply with Aristotle, whom Descartes and Leibnitz
follow on this point, that there are certain pleasures
that precede all pain, and therefore pleasure is not
essentially the cessation of pain. For example, the
pleasure of seeing a beautiful scene or hearing a beautiful
symphony can precede any pain; so also the pleasures of
taste can precede any pain of hunger or thirst. Nor is
every desire accompanied by pain; for example, the desire
for food at the opportune time is often experienced without
the pain of hunger. And in reply to Kant, it may be
said that not every effort is painful, indeed moderate
exercise which is proportionate to our strength is
pleasant, such as a brisk walk, a ride, or a hunt.
On those occasions when pleasure comes after pain, there
is not only a cessation of the pain. This cessation of
pain is the condition of the delight, but the cause of the
pleasure, as St. Thomas says,[1009] is the union
with some good and the perception of that
union.[1010] The desire for the pleasure is greater
than the flight from pain because the good is desired for
itself, whereas the evil is fled only as the privation of
good.
Hence pleasure is not negative but positive. Pain,
too, is something positive, but it is joined with the
perception of some privation, and therefore pain is in
itself something posterior, just as privation presupposes
the good that is denied, and just as darkness cannot be
conceived unless the light is first known which is denied
by the darkness. Pleasure follows a good act easily
performed even before pain follows an impeded act.
All this is in agreement with common sense, or natural
reason, and exemplifies the transition from natural
reasoning to philosophical reasoning. Common sense would
say it was ridiculous to assert that pleasure is the
cessation of pain, as it would be ridiculous to say that
light is the cessation or privation of darkness.
The principal conclusion of our article therefore stands:
Although good and evil are opposed to each other by the
opposition of privation, yet the following are
contraries: pleasure and pain, true and false judgment,
virtue and vice, as well as a virtuous and evil act, such
as a sin of commission which, as many Thomists hold, is
formally constituted by something positive, which supplies
the basis for the privation, namely, the tendency to some
changeable good which is out of harmony with the rules of
morals.[1011] Therefore that which makes a sin of
commission evil is the privation of the rectitude that is
owing to the act.
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