might be the "'satiable curtiosity" of Kipling's Elephant's child. The snag is that I never had the pluck really to go in depth in any area, by specializing -- and putting on blinders. The question of man, of what makes human beings human, of their relationship to what is around them (nature) or above them (the divine) has been keeping me running for years. At the same time, I am interested in a particular type of humanity, the Western type. First, because I belong to it, second because its achievements like science and technology spread all over the globe, third because I am not sure that it has a future. We generally attribute to Andr Malraux the saying "the twentieth century will be religious or will not be." You are known for your sense of humour, so, could we say that Rmi Brague transformed Malraux's saying into "the twentieth century will give life or will not be" or "procreating or not, that's the (western) question"? Malraux was very good at bombastic and empty formulas. But one need no deep thinker to say what is glaringly evident, i.e. that the survival of mankind, as a living species, depends on its willingness to reproduce itself. Your Mom should have told you: There is no such thing as a nice stork that brings babies. Or, for that matter, there are no nice imps who repair at dead of night the mischief we do to our environment by daylight... Whether there is a real