As the boy aged, he became a fair disputant in his own right, until at fifteen he realised—with an acuteness of emotional wisdom his father still does not possess—that his course was set for a shipwreck. He had sought, until then, to find favour with Augustine by following in his footsteps, and thereby to laud the achievements of the sire and magnify the family name. Latterly he realised that Augustine hardly wished for another to take on the task of such magnification and indeed desired it to himself in his chosen sphere. Adeodatus, adroitly, changed directions and fixed on medicine not for the soul but for the body, seeking there a greatness to lay at the feet of his sire, and the choice was good. Augustine considered it, of course, a lesser profession—he had already concluded by then that all knowledge not contending with the direct contemplation of God was vanity—but not an ignoble one, and the caring nature of it and the son who espoused it was manna to him, which in turn was manna to the boy.