The Art of Tetman Callis

“However great and important the virtues may be, we know well enough that they are not common property, but the property of each individual man. Truth and wisdom are common to all, and all wise men are also happy by cleaving to truth.  But one man does not become happy by another’s happiness. If one man seeks to attain happiness by imitating another, he seeks his happiness where he sees the other found his, that is to say in unchangeable and common truth. No one is made prudent by the prudence of another, or courageous by his courage, or temperate by his temperance, or just by his justice. A man is made virtuous by regulating his soul according to the rules and guiding lights of the virtues which dwell indestructibly in the truth and wisdom that are the common property of all.” – Augustine of Hippo, On Free Will (trans. Burleigh)