If I ask myself what makes us human, one answer jumps out at
me straight away – it is not the only answer but it is the one suggested by the
question. What makes us human is that we ask questions. All the animals have
interests, instincts and conceptions. All the animals frame for themselves an
idea of the world in which they live. But we alone question our surroundings.
We alone refuse to be defined by the world in which we live but instead try to
define our nature for ourselves.
The intellectual history of our species is to a great extent
defined by this attempt. Are we animals like the others? Do we have souls as
well as bodies? Are we related, in the order of things, to angels, to demons
and to gods? All science, all art, all religion and all philosophy worth the
name begins in a question. And it is because we have questions that human life
is so deeply satisfying and so deeply troubling, too.
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