When I read Leo Strauss I always am wondering whether he is getting to the answer by defining the question or through truly brilliant logic. Regardless of the answer to this question he is a great writer. This passage from Philosophy and Law (p.32) in discussing the Enlightenment’s attack on Revelation is just a sample:
Animated by the hope of being able to ‘overcome’ orthodoxy through the perfection of a system, and hence hardly noticing the failure of its actual attack on orthodoxy, the Enlightenment, striving for victory with truly Napoleonic strategy, left the impregnable fortress of orthodoxy in the rear, telling itself that the enemy would not and could not venture any sally. Renouncing the impossible direct refutation of orthodoxy, it devoted itself to its own proper work, the civilization of the world and of man. And if this work had prospered, then perhaps there would have been no need for further proof of the justice of the Enlightenment’s victory over orthodoxy; indeed as long as it did seem to prosper it was believed that no further proof was needed.
