I am also taking up the question of happiness.

The pursuit of the good life is lasting happiness really possible?

So you might think of the Declaration of Independence.

Our own nation proposes to us that our country was founded to secure life,

liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all of us.

And that's something very common to our understanding of ourselves as a nation.

But we might ask, well, what is happiness?

Father Brent was speaking about that already.

What is the best and happiest life that a human being can live,

or what kind of life ought I to be striving for, or aiming at?

And I would submit, as I think probably many of you would agree, and certainly Father Brent,

that these are some of the most important questions a person can ask.

They're classic philosophical questions, but they're questions

that are not only for philosophers, because in fact no one is exempt from asking them,

and they touch every person, every life. So in a sense, the answer that you give to that

question, to the extent that you reflect on it,

and I think many people reflect on it only in a kind of imperfect way or kind of vague, vague way,

but it is possible to reflect on it in a more explicit way, and that's part of what I'm trying to take up here.

The answer that you give to that kind of question will shed light on every

action in your life, in as much as every action has a goal or an aim in mind. So my goal in this talk

is to go a little deeper on this subject, taking especially my cues from one of the

greats of the Western philosophical tradition that is St. Thomas Aquinas, so no surprise

...