Abstract

The main feature of happiness requires the desire to be fulfilled by the achievement of the desired good, and in this quietness the subject feels pleasure. Then the highest experience of delight consists in the achievement of the last end, of the supreme good, able to satisfy the human desire completely. Hence two different kinds of happiness arise: the one is earthly happiness, which the body takes part to, consequent to the possession of finite goods; the other is eternal happiness, derived from the highest good. Thomas Aquinas states the same formal feature for both earthly and eternal happiness, namely their connection to the most proper human activity: knowing, contemplating, understanding the good. For this reason Thomas argues for the strict connection between the pursuit of human happiness on earth and its final achievement, because the man, even as searching for earthly happiness, aspires to eternal beatitude.