This book was written in eight days in the summer of 1978 while I was staying with Vera and Philip Le Cras at their delightful house in Jersey and I am most grateful to them for providing the atmosphere that made it possible to write the book in such a short time.
I mention this short time not as a boast nor as an excuse although I appreciate it may very reasonably be construed as both. I mention it more as an explanation and as an instruction to the reader to read through the book in the same manner as it was written. Go through the book lightly stepping on each concept before moving on to the next one. Do not expect each idea to carry the full weight of solemn pounding. There may be times when you do wish to pause and to examine in detail the implications of a particular concept. In that case you must use your own thinking and do much more than just react to what I have set down. You may see positive possibilities which have escaped me. That you may see dangerous implications which I have not set down is very probable. But do not let those pitfalls bring your exploration to an end.
It is said that one ought to visit a country for three days or for thirty years. In three days you get a general impression and it may take thirty years to get a true picture. In between you will get distortion as you pursue each aspect in detail. If I had to spend thirty years writing this book it would still be too short a time to do justice to the subject but the book would not be much better for it would be so weighted down with qualifications and hesitations that the brashness of provocation would be quite lost.