ABSTRACT
It was my original intention to organise the various themes of this book into a logical picture, one leading naturally to the next. But in practice this has proved more difficult than I anticipated. It was as if the material itself resisted this kind of sequential ordering and each section tended to become an exploration of similar themes from a succession of different perspectives. Instead of the clear linear argument I had aimed at, the direction of my argument seems to have assumed a shape nearer to that of a spiral. Thus the structure echoes the content which, in one sense, is about the integration of linear and cyclic processes.
