“You Shall Not Covet” / “The Unsettling of America”

Yet the spirit’s absolute desire, appetitus innatus (innate appetite) though it be, is simultaneously, in relation to man’s last end, an inefficacious desire. Although an absolute desire for the vision of God is inscribed in man’s nature, man cannot achieve this final fulfillment by his own power. This, then, is the ultimate core of the paradox of man: God has destined man for a fulfillment that transcends all of the creature’s expectations. . . .

"It is clearly bad for the sciences and the arts to be divided into 'two cultures. . . .' It is bad for both of these cultures to be operating according to 'professional standards,' without local affection or community responsibility, much less any vision of an eternal order to which we all are subordinate and under obligation. It is even worse that we are actually confronting, not just 'two cultures,' but a whole ragbag of disciplines and professions, each with its own jargon more or less unintelligible to the others, and all saying of the rest of the world, 'That is not my field.'"