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. ________________________

EIGHTH ARTICLE [I-II, Q. 32, Art. 8]

Whether Wonder Is a Cause of Pleasure?

Objection 1:  It would seem that wonder is not a cause of pleasure.  Because wonder is the act of one who is ignorant of the nature of something, as Damascene says.  But knowledge, rather than ignorance, is a cause of pleasure.  Therefore wonder is not a cause of pleasure.

Obj. 2:  Further, wonder is the beginning of wisdom, being as it were, the road to the search of truth, as stated in the beginning of Metaph. i, 2.  But “it is more pleasant to think of what we know, than to seek what we know not,” as the Philosopher says (Ethic. x, 7):  since in the latter case we encounter difficulties and hindrances, in the former not; while pleasure arises from an operation which is unhindered, as stated in Ethic. vii, 12, 13.  Therefore wonder hinders rather than causes pleasure.