Nothing but passion, in effect, can please us, which every one may know by experience. For when any man is pleased he may find by reflection that at the same time he is moved. The pleasure that any man meets with oftenest is the pleasure of sense. Let anyone examine himself in that and he will find that the pleasure is owing to passion; for the pleasure vanishes with the desire and is succeeded by loathing, which is a sort of grief.
Since nothing but pleasure can make us happy, it follows that to be very happy we must be much pleased; and since nothing but passion can please us, it follows that to be very much pleased, we must be very much moved. This needs no proof, or, if it did, experience would be a very convincing one; since anyone may find, when he has a great deal of pleasure that he is extremely moved.
And that very height and fullness of pleasure which we are promised in another life must, we are told, proceed from passion or something which resembles passion. At least no man has so much as pretended that it will be the result of reason. For we shall then be delivered from these mortal organs, and reason shall then be no more. We shall then no more have occasion from premises to draw conclusions and a long train of consequences; for, becoming all spirit and all knowledge, we shall see things as they are: we shall lead the glorious life of angels, a life exalted above all reason, a life consisting of ecstasy and intelligence.
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