But history which is not brought down close to the actual scene of events leaves a gap and exercises influence upon the formation of judgments about the public interest only by guess-work about intervening events.
Dewey critiques the limitations of historical accounts that do not connect to the immediate context of events.
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We lie, as Emerson said, in the lap of an immense intelligence.
Ideas which are not communicated, shared, and reborn in expression are but soliloquy, and soliloquy is but broken and imperfect thought.
But the wingèd words of conversation in immediate intercourse have a vital import lacking in the fixed and frozen words of written speech.
The problem of securing diffused and seminal intelligence can be solved only in the degree in which local communal life becomes a reality.