![]() ![]() Thus forewarned and forearmed, a representative of the second generation can spot the most distant connections he can unravel problems and give a coherent account of the whole field of study, whose full extent the pioneer can only survey at the end of his life’s work. The second generation has the advantage of a clearer, if still incomplete, picture certain landmarks that at least lie on the frontiers of the essential have grown familiar, and one now knows what must be known if one is to explore the newly discovered territory. It begins just where I, too, if I were granted a second lease of life, would start to gather up the disjecta membra of my own writings, to sift out all those “beginnings without continuations” and knead them into a whole.Īs I read through the manuscript of this book it became clear to me how great are the disadvantages of pioneer work: one stumbles through unknown regions one is led astray by analogies, forever losing the Ariadne thread one is overwhelmed by new impressions and new possibilities, and the worst disadvantage of all is that the pioneer only knows afterwards what he should have known before. ![]() ![]() The author has requested me to preface his book with a few words of introduction, and to this I accede all the more readily because I found his work more than usually welcome. ![]()
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