ON PAIN

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.