Whether Pain and Sorrow Are Assuaged by Sleep and Baths?
Objection 1: It would seem that sleep and baths do not assuage
sorrow. For sorrow is in the soul: whereas sleep and baths regard the
body. Therefore they do not conduce to the assuaging of sorrow.
Obj. 2: Further, the same effect does not seem to ensue from contrary
causes. But these, being bodily things, are incompatible with the
contemplation of truth which is a cause of the assuaging of sorrow,
as stated above (A. 4). Therefore sorrow is not mitigated by the like.
Obj. 3: Further, sorrow and pain, in so far as they affect the body,
denote a certain transmutation of the heart. But such remedies as
these seem to pertain to the outward senses and limbs, rather than to
the interior disposition of the heart. Therefore they do not assuage
sorrow.
_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (Confess. ix, 12): "I had heard
that the bath had its name [*_Balneum,_ from the Greek _balaneion_]
. . . from the fact of its driving sadness from the mind." And
further on, he says: "I slept, and woke up again, and found my grief
not a little assuaged": and quotes the words from the hymn of Ambrose
[*Cf. Sarum Breviary: First Sunday after the octave of the Epiphany,
Hymn for first Vespers], in which it is said that "Sleep restores the
tired limbs to labor, refreshes the weary mind, and banishes sorrow."
_I answer that,_ As stated above (Q. 37, A. 4), sorrow, by reason of
its specific nature, is repugnant to the vital movement of the body;
and consequently whatever restores the bodily nature to its due state
of vital movement, is opposed to sorrow and assuages it. Moreover
such remedies, from the very fact that they bring nature back to its
normal state, are causes of pleasure; for this is precisely in what
pleasure consists, as stated above (Q. 31, A. 1). Therefore, since
every pleasure assuages sorrow, sorrow is assuaged by such like
bodily remedies.
Reply Obj. 1: The normal disposition of the body, so far as it is
felt, is itself a cause of pleasure, and consequently assuages sorrow.
Reply Obj. 2: As stated above (Q. 31, A. 8), one pleasure hinders
another; and yet every pleasure assuages sorrow. Consequently it is
not unreasonable that sorrow should be assuaged by causes which
hinder one another.
Reply Obj. 3: Every good disposition of the body reacts somewhat on
the heart, which is the beginning and end of bodily movements, as
stated in _De Causa Mot. Animal._ xi.
________________________