4. Delight comes of activity, not necessarily of change, except so far
as activity itself involves change, as it always does in mortal man.
Delight sits upon activity, as the bloom upon youth. Bloom is the
natural sign of maturity; and the delight that we come to take in
doing a thing shows that we are at least beginning to do it well: our
activity is approaching perfection. In this sense it is said that
_delight perfects activity_. As the activity, so will be the delight.
But the activity will be as the power of which it is an exercise.
Powers like in kind will supply like activities, and these again will
yield delights alike in kind. There is no difference of quality in
such delights, they differ in quantity alone. Thus taste and smell are
two senses: the difference between them can hardly be called one of
kind: therefore the delights of smelling and of tasting fall under one
category. We may exchange so much smell for an equal amount of taste:
it is a mere matter of quantity. But between sight and hearing on the
one hand, and taste and smell and touch on the other, there is a wider
difference, due to the fact that intellect allies itself more readily
to the operation of the two former senses.
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