A Wonderful Thing About A Book, In

The Most Important Lesson Of American History Is The Promise Of The Unexpected. None Of Our Ancestors Would Have Imagined Settling Way Over Here On This Unknown Continent. So We Must Continue To Have Society That Is Hospitable To The Unexpected, Which Allows Possibilities To Develop Beyond Our Own Imaginings.

The Institutional Scene In Which American Man Has Developed Has Lacked That Accumulation From Intervening Stages Which Has Been So Dominant A Feature Of The European Landscape.

The Variety Of Minds Served The Economy Of Nature In Many Ways. The Creator, Who Designed The Human Brain For Activity, Had Insured The Restlessness Of All Minds By Enabling No Single One To Envisage All The Qualities Of The Creation. Since No One By Himself Could Aspire To A Serene Knowledge Of The Whole Truth, All Men Had Been Drawn Into An Active, Exploratory And Cooperative Attitude.

In Fast-moving, Progress-conscious America, The Consumer Expects To Be Dizzied By Progress. If He Could Completely Understand Advertising Jargon He Would Be Badly Disappointed. The Half-intelligibility Which We Expect, Or Even Hope, To Find In The Latest Product Language Personally Reassures Each Of Us That Progress Is Being Made: That The Pace Exceeds Our Ability To Follow.

Knowledge Is Not Simply Another Commodity. On The Contrary. Knowledge Is Never Used Up. It Increases By Diffusion And Grows By Dispersion.