Commentaria in Summam contra Gentiles, Liber III

After St. Thomas has shown that happiness does not consist in the goods of fortune nor in the goods of the body, he wishes now to show that it consists in no operation of the soul¹.

I. And first, he shows that man's supreme good is not in the goods of the sensitive part.

Now he proves this, first, because these are common to man and the brutes.

Second, because the good of the intellect is better than the good of sense, just as the intellect is better than sense.

Third, because it would be necessary that the supreme good be in food and sexual pleasures, since the greatest pleasures according to sense are in these.

Fourth, because the senses are loved for the sake of utility and for the sake of knowledge. But this utility is referred to the goods of the body; and sensitive knowledge is ordered to intellectual knowledge.

II. It should be noted, according to the doctrine of St. Thomas, I-II, q. 3, a. 3, that although beatitude does not consist essentially in the operation of the senses, nevertheless it pertains in some way to man's beatitude. For to imperfect beatitude, such as can be had in this life, it concurs antecedently, inasmuch as the operation of the intellect pre-requires the operation of sense. But to perfect beatitude, such as is had in heaven, it is related concomitantly: because, according to Augustine in the Letter to Dioscorus², after the resurrection, from the soul's beatitude there will be a certain overflow into the body and into the corporeal senses, so that they may be perfected in their operations.