Pleasure is the transition from a lesser to a greater perfection, and pain is the transition from a greater to a lesser perfection; these are activities of transition that increase or diminish one’s power of acting, not the states of perfection or imperfection themselves.

By Baruch Spinoza, from Ethics

Key Arguments

  • If one were born already possessing the higher perfection, there would be no emotion of pleasure; thus pleasure is not the perfection itself.
  • Pain cannot be the lesser perfection itself nor the absence of greater perfection (which is nothing); rather, pain is an activity of transition whereby the power of acting is lessened or constrained.
  • He sets aside terms like merriment and melancholy as bodily variants of these basic affects.

Source Quotes

By the term desire, then, I here mean all man's endeavours, impulses, appetites, and volitions, which vary according to each man's disposition, and are, therefore, not seldom opposed one to another, according as a man is drawn in different directions, and knows not where to turn. II. Pleasure is the transition of a man from a less to a greater perfection. III.
Pleasure is the transition of a man from a less to a greater perfection. III. Pain is the transition of a man from a greater to a less perfection. Explanation—I say transition: for pleasure is not perfection itself.
Pain is the transition of a man from a greater to a less perfection. Explanation—I say transition: for pleasure is not perfection itself. For, if man were born with the perfection to which he passes, he would possess the same, without the emotion of pleasure.
Neither can we say, that pain consists in the absence of a greater perfection. For absence is nothing, whereas the emotion of pain is an activity; wherefore this activity can only be the activity of transition from a greater to a less perfection—in other words, it is an activity whereby a man's power of action is lessened or constrained (cf. III. xi. note). I pass over the definitions of merriment, stimulation, melancholy, and grief, because these terms are generally used in reference to the body, and are merely kinds of pleasure or pain.

Key Concepts

  • II. Pleasure is the transition of a man from a less to a greater perfection.
  • III. Pain is the transition of a man from a greater to a less perfection.
  • pleasure is not perfection itself.
  • the emotion of pain is an activity; wherefore this activity can only be the activity of transition from a greater to a less perfection—in other words, it is an activity whereby a man's power of action is lessened or constrained (cf. III. xi. note).

Context

Ethics, Part III, Definitions of the Emotions II–III with Explanation (lines ~2680–2700)