Man has succeeded in mechanizing his world. He has organized nature. For its very effectiveness, his deed raises the issue of man's own position in nature with new acuteness. Man himself becomes a greater mystery than ever before. The question arises quite afresh how far man belongs to the natural world and how far, therefore, he can become organized in a social world. The intention of these pages is to reawaken our somewhat blunted consciousness to the fact that we really are faced with a mystery of the first order. "The historical nature of man is the aspect of reality about which we have been basically and emphatically instructed in the epoch of thought beginning with Hegel?Rosenstock-Huessy has concretized this teaching in so living a way as no other teacher before him has done." Martin Buber "Rosenstock-Huessy continually astonishes one by his dazzling and unique insights." WH.Auden "He was a thinker of startling power and originality in my view an authentic genius of whom no age produces more than a handful." Page Smith "Rosenstock-Huessy's is a powerful and original mind. What is most important in his work is the understanding of the relevance of traditional value to a civilization still undergoing revolutionary transformations; and this contribution will gain rather than lose significance in the future." Lewis Mumford