nonliterate and the literate. The components of Gutenberg 
technology were not new. But when brought together in the 
fifteenth century there was an acceleration of social and 
personal action tantamount to “take off” in the sense that W. 
W. Rostow develops this concept in The Stages of Economic  
Growth  “that decisive interval in the history of a society when 
growth becomes its normal condition.”

     In his Golden Bough  (vol. I, p. xii), James Frazer points to 
the similar acceleration introduced into the oral world by 
literacy and visuality:

      “Compared with the evidence afforded by living tradition, 
     the testimony of ancient books on the subject of early 
     religion is worth very little. For literature accelerates the 
     advance of thought at a rate which leaves the slow