Whether Likeness Is a Cause of Pleasure?
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.
Obj. 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.
Obj. 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 (Q.
27, A. 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 (Q. 27, A. 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 Obj. 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 Obj. 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 (Q. 35, A. 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 Obj. 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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