If man is not to do more harm than good in his efforts to improve the social order, he will have to learn that in this, as in all other fields where essential complexity of an organized kind prevails, he cannot acquire the full knowledge which would make mastery of the events possible. He will therefore have to use what knowledge he can achieve, not to shape the results as the craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cultivate a growth by providing the appropriate environment, in the manner in which the gardener does this for his plants.

We are only beginning to understand on how subtle a communication system the functioning of an advanced industrial society is based - a communications system w…

The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against bec…

In the physical sciences there may be little objection to trying to do the impossible; one might even feel that one ought not to discourage the over-confident …

Never trust any complicated cocktail that remains perfectly clear until the last ingredient goes in, and then immediately clouds.

Before we can try to remould society intelligently, we must understand its functioning; we must realise that, even when we believe that we understand it, we ma…

The Augustan constitution remains one of the major products of the human intelligence. It was a whole into which the parts fitted smoothly, but both whole and …