A Publisher Who Writes Is Like A

The Integrative Tendencies Of The Individual Are Incomparably More Dangerous Than His Self-assertive Tendencies.

In The Index To The Six Hundred Odd Pages Of Arnold Toynbee's A Study Of History, Abridged Version, The Names Of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes And Newton Do Not Occur Yet Their Cosmic Quest Destroyed The Medieval Vision Of An Immutable Social Order In A Walled-in Universe And Transformed The European Landscape, Society, Culture, Habits And General Outlook, As Thoroughly As If A New Species Had Arisen On This Planet.

All "if" Statements About The Past Are As Dubious As Prophecies Of The Future Are. It Seems Fairly Plausible That If Alexander Or Ghengis Khan Had Never Been Born, Some Other Individual Would Have Filled His Place And Executed The Design Of The Hellenic Or Mongolic Expansion; But The Alexanders Of Philosophy And Religion, Of Science And Art, Seem Less Expendable; Their Impact Seems Less Determined By Economic Challenges And Social Pressures; And They Seem To Have A Much Wider Range Of Possibilities To Influence The Direction, Shape And Texture Of Civilizations.

Innovation Is A Twofold Threat To Academic Mediocrities: It Endangers Their Oracular Authority, And It Evokes The Deeper Fear That Their Whole, Laboriously Constructed Intellectual Edifice Might Collapse.

Wars Are Not Fought For Territory, But For Words. Man's Deadliest Weapon Is Language. He Is As Susceptible To Being Hypnotized By Slogans As He Is To Infectious Diseases. And Where There Is An Epidemic, The Group-mind Takes Over.