Confessions

by Augustine of Hippo

You have taught me that I should come to take food in the way I take medicines. But while I pass from the discomfort of need to the tranquillity of satisfaction, the very transition contains for me an insidious trap of uncontrolled desire.30 The transition itself is a pleasure, and there is no other way of making that transition, which is forced upon us by necessity. Although health is the reason for eating and drinking, a dangerous pleasantness joins itself to the process like a companion. Many a time it tries to take first place, so that I am doing for pleasure what I profess or wish to do only for health’s sake. They do not have the same measure: for what is enough for health is too little for pleasure. And often there is uncertainty whether the motive is necessary care of the body seeking sustenance or the deceptive desire for pleasure demanding service. In this uncertainty the unhappy soul finds a source of cheerfulness and by means of it has a ready-made defence and excuse.