In his weekly Takimag column, our pet-friendly doctor dwells on the appearance and life of his cleaning lady’s pug before pondering his own good fortune.

In fact, this is the central mystery of human existence: how we become what we are, for no inventory of our genetic inheritance and environmental circumstances quite accounts for it. Where human beings are concerned, there is always an unbridgeable gap between what is to be explained and the explanation offered, and I hope that there always will be: For total knowledge would lead to total power, and total power to total oppression.