of perception and knowledge that it is inclined to prescribe for 
everybody and everything. The mark of our time is its revulsion 
against imposed patterns. We are suddenly eager to have 
things and people declare their beings totally. There is a deep 
faith to be found in this new attitude—a faith that concerns 
the ultimate harmony of all being. Such is the faith in which 
this book has been written. It explores the contours of our own 
extended beings in our technologies, seeking the principle of 
intelligibility in each of them. In the full confidence that it is 
possible to win an understanding of these forms that will bring 
them into orderly service, I have looked at them anew, 
accepting very little of the conventional wisdom concerning 
them. One can say of media as Robert Theobald has said of 
economic depressions: “There is one additional factor that has 
helped to control depressions, and that is a better 
understanding of their development.” Examination of the origin