10. If we consider the happiness to which God has destined mankind, we find that He showed His intention clearly when creating man, since He introduced him into a world furnished with all good things; prepared for him, in addition, a paradise of delights; and, finally, arranged to make him a partner of His eternal happiness.
11. Now, by the term “happiness” we understand not the pleasures of the body (though these, since they consist of the vigour of good health, and of the enjoyment of food and of sleep, can only arise from the virtue of temperance), but those of the soul, which arise either out of the objects around us, or from ourselves, or, finally, from God.
12. The pleasure which arises out of things themselves, is the pleasure that a wise man experiences in speculation. For, wherever he betakes himself, whatever he observes, and whatever he considers, he finds everywhere such attractions, that often, as it were, snatched out of himself, he merges his identity in them. It is to this that the book of Wisdom refers: “The conversation of wisdom hath no bitterness; and to live with her hath no sorrow, but mirth and joy” (viii. 16). And a heathen philosopher says: “There is nothing in life more pleasant than to seek out wisdom.”
13. Pleasure in self is that very sweet delight which arises when a man, who is given over to virtue, rejoices in his own honest disposition, since he sees himself prompt to all things which the order of justice requires. This pleasure is far greater than the former one, according to the proverb “A good conscience is a perpetual feast.”
14. Delight in God is the highest point to which pleasure can attain in this life, and is found when a man, feeling that God is eternally gracious to him, exults in His fatherly and immutable favour to such a degree that his heart melts with the love of God. He desires to know or to do nothing further, but, overwhelmed by God’s mercy, he rests in peace and tastes the joys of eternal life. This is “the peace of God which passeth all understanding” (Phil. iv. 7), than which nothing more sublime can be desired or imagined.
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