C. Response to the Question

113. To the question I say, therefore, that beatitude consists in operation: either essentially, if beatitude be taken for the perfection that is the idea of conjunction with the beatific object, or proximately fundamentally, if beatitude be taken for the conjunction itself, so that, with the exception of the relation to the beatific object, the ultimate perfection intrinsic to the blessed and proximate to the beatific object is operation.

114. The proof of this: no intrinsic perfection is beatitude save insofar as it conjoins immediately to the extrinsic perfective object, which is the beatific object; but, with the exception of the relation, what immediately conjoins to the beatific object is operation;     therefore etc     .

115. The major is plain from the first article [nn.80-85; cf. nn.95-58, 104-105], because things cannot go completely and ultimately well for anything save when it possesses that which is for it supremely to be wanted; this is the extrinsic or quasi-extrinsic perfective thing, which is my statement for God, where the beatific object is the same as the Blessed One himself. But this supremely to-be-wanted thing is not possessed most perfectly unless it is conjoined immediately to the possessor. To be blessed is for things to go supremely well for oneself, from the second article [nn.86-94]; therefore no one’s beatitude consists in anything save in that by which he is more perfectly and more immediately conjoined with the supremely to-be-wanted thing.

116. The proof of the minor [n.114] is that neither essence nor power is conjoined with the extrinsic perfective object save through operation, which is the intrinsic such perfection. However, this operation does not abide in itself or for itself, but tends per se and immediately to the object, to the exclusion of any intermediary absolute form [nn.95-99].