Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth-century Dominican monk and philosopher, put it this way: “Beneath the multitudinous and even conflicting desires of [people] we can see the one desire which gives unity and meaning, force and decision to all human desires. All [people] seek what they seek for one reason: they think it will satisfy them, they believe that the accomplishment of their desires will make them happy. “Happiness,” he wrote, “is the goal of all human activity. The search for happiness is the common ground on which all human desires, all human ambitions meet.” When a child looks longingly
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