Choose a topic from Part 2A:
1. Delight (pleasure, joy, enjoyment) is a passion of the sensitive order, and comes from awareness of possessing what is suitable and pleasing. It is, like other passions of sentient origin, a passion of the soul because it is readily permitted by the will to arise from the sensitive order to the intellective order.
2. Delight or pleasure does not involve in itself any reference to time, although it is aroused by possession of present good; conceivably it could go on without end.
3. The words delight, pleasure, joy, and enjoyment are not perfect synonyms. Both animals and men can be stirred by pleasure or delight, but only man can experience joy; joy comes of achieving the object of rational (nonnatural) concupiscence or desire.
4. Delight rises from sentient to intellective order if reason permits; and, indeed, in reason itself, apart from sense movements, there is joy of fruition in the activity of the intellect and will. There are intellectual or rational pleasures as well as pleasures of sense appropriated or approved by reason.
5. Bodily pleasures are often more intense than intellectual pleasures, but they are not so great or so lasting. The objects of bodily pleasure quickly pass away; spiritual goods are incorruptible.
6. In the sensitive order, pleasures arising from the tactile sense (touch; feeling) are greater than the pleasures of the other senses. Indeed, the sense of touch must serve the other senses by giving their sense organs contact with their respective objects. However, if we speak of the sense pleasures of knowing, omitting those of using, we find that the sense of sight is the source of the greatest pleasures.
7. There are pleasures in accord with nature, and there are also nonnatural pleasures which exist because of some defect or disorder in the one who experiences them.
8. Pleasures as emotions or passions are sometimes incompatible and are in conflict with one another.
"The more you know and the better you understand, the more severely will you be judged, unless your life is also the more holy. Do not be proud, therefore, because of your learning or skill. Rather, fear because of the talent given you."
Thomas á Kempis
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"If you wish to learn and appreciate something worth while, then love to be unknown and considered as nothing. Truly to know and despise self is the best and most perfect counsel."
Thomas á Kempis
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"The name of Jesus, pronounced with reverence and affection, has a kind of power to soften the heart. "
St Philip Neri
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