is concerned. One of our principal sources of understanding of what it means to be human is given us through the great literature of the world. Often it is apparently secular in its character, though I believe that in reality it is based on hidden foundations in the sacredness of life.2 Literature’s deepest insights do not come from tales of a generalised Everyman figure, but from the specificities of an Emma Woodhouse or an Alyosha Karamazov. When we turn from the content of science to the practice