The Effects of Pleasure

One of the effects of pleasure is a certain expansion of feeling; thus a person may say that his heart swells with delight. We read in scripture (Isa. 40:5): “Thou shalt see and abound, and thy heart shall wonder and be enlarged.”

Another effect of pleasure is the thirst or desire for its continuance or its recurrence. Yet sometimes, when a pleasure has been enjoyed too completely, there is no immediate pleasure in the thought of it, and no actual desire for continuance. Thus a person who has eaten overmuch is displeased rather than pleased at the thought of food which recently gave him pleasure. Pleasures of the intellectual order are less likely to cloy than those of the sentient order. Spiritual pleasure is always enjoyed with a thirst for more.

In the realm of reason, pleasure lends impetus to the mind. The enjoyment of study or thinking keeps us at the work and makes us do the work better. But bodily pleasures hinder the use of the mind by distracting it, occasionally conflicting with it, and sometimes (as in the pleasure of drinking intoxicants) by fettering it.

In general, orderly pleasure within the proper field of an operation gives some perfection to the operation itself. What is done with pleasure is usually done with care and attention.