chooses to look back on his past excesses, will perceive that
pleasures had a sad ending: and if they can render a man happy, there
is no reason why we should not say that the very beasts are happy
too."

_I answer that,_ Because bodily delights are more generally known,
"the name of pleasure has been appropriated to them" (Ethic. vii,
13), although other delights excel them: and yet happiness does not
consist in them. Because in every thing, that which pertains to its
essence is distinct from its proper accident: thus in man it is one
thing that he is a mortal rational animal, and another that he is a
risible animal. We must therefore consider that every delight is a
proper accident resulting from happiness, or from some part of
happiness; since the reason that a man is delighted is that he has
some fitting good, either in reality, or in hope, or at least in
memory. Now a fitting good, if indeed it be the perfect good, is
precisely man's happiness: and if it is imperfect, it is a share of
happiness, either proximate, or remote, or at least apparent.
Therefore it is evident that neither is delight, which results from
the perfect good, the very essence of happiness, but something
resulting therefrom as its proper accident.

But bodily pleasure cannot result from the perfect good even in that
way. For it results from a good apprehended by sense, which is a power
of the soul, which power makes use of the body. Now good pertaining to
the body, and apprehended by sense, cannot be man's perfect good. For
since the rational soul excels the capacity of corporeal matter, that
part of the soul which is independent of a corporeal organ, has a
certain infinity in regard to the body and those parts of the soul
which are tied down to the body: just as immaterial things are in a