It is not uncommon that scientific work is a most pleasurable activity. But why does it tend to be so satisfying? In my opinion, it is not a scientist who has been able to explain this best. It was a bishop, but a holy bishop –it seems that not all of them are– and father of the Church: Saint Augustine. And it is not that St. Augustine was very devoted to science, which he was not, for he accused it of being pagan by identifying the scientists of his time (4th century A.D.) with the last stronghold of the old Greek mythologies. Nevertheless, he came up with a wonderful metaphor to explain the excitement that often ends up possessing scientists: it is of the same kind as sexual excitement. And so he wrote it down in Book X of Confessions:
In addition to the concupiscence of the flesh, which is the pleasure of all the senses and causes those who enslave themselves to it to succumb to it, leading them away from God, there also creeps into the soul some curious and vain desire concealed under the euphemistic name of science and knowledge.
From the point of view of science few, if any, have been as clear-sighted as St. Augustine. And if we look at it from the point of view of sex, no one, except Woody Allen, has said anything as interesting. But on this there will be occasion to brew another small pill.
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