  As in the case of intellectual happiness, relief from emergencies is predicated on knowledge. Cardano characterizes his method (ratio) for avoiding misfortunes and preparing against calamities as based on a particular kind of knowledge (scientia) – both useful and necessary – which “teaches us to recognize and obtain known goods, and once they are obtained, it tells us how to use them and how to protect us with them against ills” (De utilitate, OO, II, 17a). The ambivalent role of animus in Cardano’s moral philosophy is particularly evident in his directions on how to draw profit from misfortunes, for both misery and happiness depend on awareness (“the fact that we know our condition”) (De utilitate, OO, II, 88b). Our thinking activity is a key element in turning adversities into opportunities of growth in self-awareness. Any philosophical discussion of ethical matters presupposes that the ethical subject is aware of his or her happiness or unhappiness: “the mind (animus) alone is the one who is happy or unhappy.” We have previously noted how closely Cardano’s notion of the summum bonum is connected to the principle of soul’s awareness. In the same way, all forms of external goods (riches, physical beauty, health, friends, offspring, country, honors) are no part of happiness unless they are related to the mind (quatenus ad animum referuntur).