Very little human activity ever proves of much consequence in the anarchic scheme of history, and, whether fortunate or not, the fact is nonetheless irksome; men do not like to be told that they are plowing the waves.
The Roman noet Horace ventured one solution: Through
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art, he claimed, one could erect a monument "more permanent than bronzeupand he was right, at least in his own case. But today men are building a collective, not an individual, monu- ment: the edifice of scientific...