From the Academy

As Charles Baudelaire wrote in his journal, ‘‘True civilization does not lie in progress or steam or table-turning. It lies in the diminution of the marks of original sin.” That being true, our age may be progressing toward extinction.

By what criterion may we measure the vigor and health of any society? Why, by the strength of the love of life prevalent in that society. Any society that answers in the negative that perennial question “is life worth living?” must be decadent: It has lost the object that once gave it purpose.