David Bentley Hart

Two issues back, I spoke ill of a modern form of natural law theory that unsuccessfully attempts to translate an ancient tradition of moral reasoning into the incompatible language of secular reason. Because of an obscurity I allowed to slip into the fourth paragraph, several readers imagined that I was speaking in propria persona from that point on, rather than on behalf of a disenchanted modern rambling among the weed-thronged ruins; and some were dismayed… . Continue Reading »

Two issues back, I spoke ill of a modern form of natural law theory that unsuccessfully attempts to translate an ancient tradition of moral reasoning into the incompatible language of secular reason. Because of an obscurity I allowed to slip into the fourth paragraph, several readers imagined that I . . . . Continue Reading »

In 1919, Davidson Black—today chiefly remembered as a colleague of Teilhard de Chardin—was made a professor in the Peking Union Medical College, an institution principally endowed by the Rockefeller Foundation. His American benefactors had given him his post with the strict stipulation . . . . Continue Reading »

The Tale of the Heike Translated by Royall Tyler Viking, 784 pages, $50 If you have ever read Lafcadio Hearn’s collection of Japanese tales Kwaidan , or seen Masaki Kobayashi’s brilliant film from 1965, you will recall “The Story of Mimi-nashi-Hōïchi,” which tells the tale of a blind biwa . . . . Continue Reading »

There is a long, rich, varied, and subtle tradition of natural law theory, almost none of which I find especially convincing, but most of which I acknowledge to be—according to the presuppositions of the intellectual world in which it was gestated—perfectly coherent. My skepticism, . . . . Continue Reading »

There is a long, rich, varied, and subtle tradition of natural law theory, almost none of which I find especially convincing, but most of which I acknowledge to be”according to the presuppositions of the intellectual world in which it was gestated”perfectly coherent. My skepticism, moreover, has nothing to do with any metaphysical disagreement… . Continue Reading »

For the first ten of its eleven chapters, the Metamorphosis or Golden Ass of Apuleius (c. 125-c. 180) seems to be nothing more than a diverting, frequently ribald burlesque; but then, in the closing pages, the tone entirely changes, and all at once the farce gives way to one of the loveliest and . . . . Continue Reading »

For the better part of a century, Carl Jung and (later) his estate kept the manuscript of his unfinished Red Book—or Liber Novus, as he originally entitled it—hidden safely away from public scrutiny. Jung’s most ardent admirers, making their hopeful pilgrimages to Zurich, were denied . . . . Continue Reading »

I rarely talk politics, not because I have none, but because mine are too eccentric to appeal to anyone other than myself and a few equally peregrine souls, and because my pessimism regarding political institutions is often so bitterly bleak that it annoys even me. After the 2008 election, for . . . . Continue Reading »

For the better part of a century, Carl Jung and (later) his estate kept the manuscript of his unfinished Red Book”or Liber Novus, as he originally entitled it”hidden safely away from public scrutiny. Jung’s most ardent admirers, making their hopeful pilgrimages to Zurich, were denied so much as a glimpse into its pages, no matter how plangent their entreaties… . Continue Reading »