30. Now, rising in thought to the Good, we must examine whether
pleasure must be mingled with the Good to keep life from remaining
imperfect, even if we should, besides, contemplate the divine things,
and even Him who is their principle. When (Plato[119]) seems to
believe that the good is composed of intelligence, as subject, and
also of affection which wisdom makes the soul experience, he is not
asserting that this blend (of intelligence and pleasure) is either
the goal (of the soul), or the Good in itself. He only means that
intelligence is the good, and that we enjoy its possession. This is
a first interpretation of (Plato's) opinion about the Good. Another
interpretation is that to mingle intelligence with pleasure is to
make a single subject of both of them, so that in acquiring or in
contemplating such an intelligence we possess the good; for (according
to the partisans of this opinion), one of these things could not exist
in isolation, nor, supposing that it could so exist, it would not be
desirable as a good. But (shall we ask them), how can intelligence be
mingled with pleasure so as to form a perfect fusion therewith? Nobody
could be made to believe that the pleasure of the body could be mingled
with Intelligence; such pleasure is incompatible even with the joys of
the soul.