John Dewey: “It then operates as a condensed available check on the naturally overweening influence of immediate desire and interest…”

That and that only gives reality to public opinion.

The problem of securing diffused and seminal intelligence can be solved only in the degree in which local communal life becomes a reality.

We lie, as Emerson said, in the lap of an immense intelligence.

Publication is partial and the public which results is partially informed and formed until the meanings it purveys pass from mouth to mouth.