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Objection 1: It would seem that likeness is not a cause of
pleasure. Because ruling and presiding seem to imply a certain
unlikeness. But "it is natural to take pleasure in ruling and
presiding," as stated in Rhetor. i, 11. Therefore unlikeness,
rather than likeness, is a cause of pleasure.
Objection 2: Further, nothing is more unlike pleasure than sorrow.
But those who are burdened by sorrow are most inclined to seek
pleasures, as the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 14).
Therefore unlikeness, rather than likeness, is a cause of pleasure.
Objection 3: Further, those who are satiated with certain
delights, derive not pleasure but disgust from them; as when one is
satiated with food. Therefore likeness is not a cause of pleasure.
On the contrary, Likeness is a cause of love, as above stated
(Question 27, Article 3): and love is the cause of pleasure.
Therefore likeness is a cause of pleasure.
I answer that, Likeness is a kind of unity; hence that which is like
us, as being one with us, causes pleasure; just at it causes love,
as stated above (Question 27, Article 3). And if that which is
like us does not hurt our own good, but increase it, it is pleasurable
simply; for instance one man in respect of another, one youth in
relation to another. But if it be hurtful to our own good, thus
accidentally it causes disgust or sadness, not as being like and one
with us, but as hurtful to that which is yet more one with us.
Now it happens in two ways that something like is hurtful to our own
good. First, by destroying the measure of our own good, by a kind of
excess; because good, especially bodily good, as health, is
conditioned by a certain measure: wherefore superfluous good or any
bodily pleasure, causes disgust. Secondly, by being directly
contrary to one's own good: thus a potter dislikes other potters, not
because they are potters, but because they deprive him of his own
excellence or profits, which he seeks as his own good.
Reply to Objection 1: Since ruler and subject are in communion with
one another, there is a certain likeness between them: but this
likeness is conditioned by a certain superiority, since ruling and
presiding pertain to the excellence of a man's own good: because they
belong to men who are wise and better than others; the result being
that they give man an idea of his own excellence. Another reason is
that by ruling and presiding, a man does good to others, which is
pleasant.
Reply to Objection 2: That which gives pleasure to the sorrowful
man, though it be unlike sorrow, bears some likeness to the man that
is sorrowful: because sorrows are contrary to his own good. Wherefore
the sorrowful man seeks pleasure as making for his own good, in so far
as it is a remedy for its contrary. And this is why bodily pleasures,
which are contrary to certain sorrows, are more sought than
intellectual pleasures, which have no contrary sorrow, as we shall
state later on (Question 35, Article 5). And this explains why
all animals naturally desire pleasure: because animals ever work
through sense and movement. For this reason also young people are most
inclined to seek pleasures; on account of the many changes to which
they are subject, while yet growing. Moreover this is why the
melancholic has a strong desire for pleasures, in order to drive away
sorrow: because his "body is corroded by a base humor," as stated in
Ethic. vii, 14.
Reply to Objection 3: Bodily goods are conditioned by a certain
fixed measure: wherefore surfeit of such things destroys the proper
good, and consequently gives rise to disgust and sorrow, through being
contrary to the proper good of man.
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