ABSTRACT
We are floating in a medium of vast extent, always drifting uncertainly, blown to and fro; whenever we think we have a fixed point to which we can cling and make fast, it shifts and leaves us behind; if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips away, and flees eternally before us. Nothing stands still for us. This is our natural state and yet the state most contrary to our inclinations. We burn with desire to find a firm footing, an ultimate, lasting base on which to build a tower rising up to infinity, but our whole foundation cracks and the earth opens up into the depth of the abyss. (Blaise Pascal)
What I want to do in this chapter is to continue what I was doing in the last section of the last chapter, but on a larger scale: that is, to reassess the history in the light of the ideas that have begun to emerge and, at the same time, to develop the ideas.
