ABSTRACT
That important action should be preceded by information and discussion and not be based on the passing moods or intuitions of a despot is one of the principles of civilisation, and the best minds among the Greeks aimed always at establishing it. They saw this as part of the whole problem of creating order out of chaos, of establishing civilisation instead of barbarism. This is a problem, as the twentieth century has proved beyond a doubt, which cannot be solved once and for all and then put aside; every generation of mankind, every people and nation has to attempt it afresh and every individual ignores it at his peril. Not that earlier efforts at solving it are irrelevant; on the contrary, every other effort may help our own, especially that effort which lay nearest to the early stages of the historical process of the building of western civilisation.
