this, that they need labor
after nothing more. But they think that they are able to collect
together all these goods, so that none may be excluded from the
number. They therefore know no other good than the collecting of all
the most precious things into their power that they may have need of
nothing besides them. But there is no one that has not need of some
addition, except God alone. He has of His own enough, nor has He need
of anything but that which He has in Himself.

Dost thou think, however, that they foolishly imagine that that thing
is best deserving of all estimation which they may consider most
desirable? No, no. I know that it is not to be despised. How can that
be evil which the mind of every man considers to be good, and strives
after, and desires to obtain? No, it is not evil; it is the highest
good. Why is not power to be reckoned one of the highest goods of this
present life? Is that to be esteemed vain and useless which is the
most useful of all those worldly things, that is, power? Is good fame
and renown to be accounted nothing? No, no. It is not fit that any
one account it nothing; for every man thinks that best which he most
loves. Do we not know that no anxiety, or difficulties, or trouble, or
pain, or sorrow, is happiness? What more, then, need we say about
these felicities? Does not every man know what they are, and also know
that they are the highest good? And yet almost every man seeks in very
little things the best felicities; because he thinks that he may have
them all if he have that which he then chiefly wishes to obtain. This
is, then, what they chiefly wish to obtain, wealth, and dignity, and
authority, and this world's glory, and ostentation, and worldly lust.
Of all this they are desirous because they think that, through these
things, they may obtain: that there be not to them a deficiency of
anything wished; neither of dignity, nor of power, nor of renown, nor
of bliss. They wish for all this, and they do well that they desire
it, tho they seek it variously. By these things we may clearly
perceive that every man is desirous of this, that, he may obtain the
highest good, if they were able to discover it, or knew how to seek it
rightly. But they do not seek it in the most right way. It is not of
this world.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

Born near Aquino, Italy, probably in 1225, died in 1274;
entered the Dominican order; studied at Cologne under
Albertus Magnus; taught