Whether to Enjoy Is an Act of the Appetitive Power?
Objection 1: It would seem that to enjoy belongs not only to the
appetitive power. For to enjoy seems nothing else than to receive the
fruit. But it is the intellect, in whose act Happiness consists, as
shown above (Q. 3, A. 4), that receives the fruit of human life,
which is Happiness. Therefore to enjoy is not an act of the
appetitive power, but of the intellect.
Obj. 2: Further, each power has its proper end, which is its
perfection: thus the end of sight is to know the visible; of the
hearing, to perceive sounds; and so forth. But the end of a thing is
its fruit. Therefore to enjoy belongs to each power, and not only to
the appetite.
Obj. 3: Further, enjoyment implies a certain delight. But sensible
delight belongs to sense, which delights in its object: and for the
same reason, intellectual delight belongs to the intellect. Therefore
enjoyment belongs to the apprehensive, and not to the appetitive
power.
_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (De Doctr. Christ. i, 4; and De
Trin. x, 10, 11): "To enjoy is to adhere lovingly to something for
its own sake." But love belongs to the appetitive power. Therefore
also to enjoy is an act of the appetitive power.
_I answer that,_ _Fruitio_ (enjoyment) and _fructus_ (fruit) seem to
refer to the same, one being derived from the other; which from
which, matters not for our purpose; though it seems probable that the
one which is more clearly known, was first named. Now those things
are most manifest to us which appeal most to the senses: wherefore it
seems that the word "fruition" is derived from sensible fruits. But
sensible fruit is that which we expect the tree to produce in the
last place, and in which a certain sweetness is to be perceived.
Hence fruition seems to have relation to love, or to the delight
which one has in realizing the longed-for term, which is the end. Now
the end and the good is the object of the appetitive power. Wherefore
it is evident that fruition is the act of the appetitive power.
Reply Obj. 1: Nothing hinders one and the same thing from belonging,
under different aspects, to different powers. Accordingly the vision
of God, as vision, is an act of the intellect, but as a good and an
end, is the object of the will. And as such is the fruition thereof:
so that the intellect attains this end, as the executive power, but
the will as the motive power, moving (the powers) towards the end and
enjoying the end attained.
Reply Obj. 2: The perfection and end of every other power is
contained in the object of the appetitive power, as the proper is
contained in the common, as stated above (Q. 9, A. 1). Hence the
perfection and end of each power, in so far as it is a good, belongs
to the appetitive power. Wherefore the appetitive power moves the
other powers to their ends; and itself realizes the end, when each of
them reaches the end.
Reply Obj. 3: In delight there are two things: perception of what is
becoming; and this belongs to the apprehensive power; and complacency
in that which is offered as becoming: and this belongs to the
appetitive power, in which power delight is formally completed.
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