Foreword

The great strength and the great weakness of the Digest are exemplified by a sentence in the instructions that each author was sent in December, 1957. “The scope, style, and thoroughness are largely left to the discretion of the individual author.” This policy of autonomy, which is quite deliberate, results in a shift in emphasis as continuing authors change their interests and their outlooks, and as new authors take up the baton from their retiring predecessors. The Digest is a living entity; its form is continuously changing and its original spirit is, within that form, very much alive. Perhaps the editor´s main job is to ensure this continuity of spirit from one year to the next, though, by his selection of authors and chapter titles, he does have some control of the form of the Digest during his year of office.