Here we find represented in the Aldus Homer the revival of Greek learning, in the Stephanus Testament the application of this to the free criticism of the scriptures, in the Froben Plato the substitution of Platonic idealism for the scholastic philosophy based on Aristotle, in the Nuremberg book the epitome of mediaeval superstition, credulity, and curiosity on the verge of the new era, and in Morte d'Arthur the fond return of the modern mind, facing an unknown future, upon the naive and beautiful legends of Arthurian romance. An age full of contradictions and strange delusions, but an age of great vitality, great eagerness, great industry, patience, foresight, imagination. And in such an age it was the good fortune of these wise craftsmen who handled so deftly their paper and type to be the instruments of more evangels than angels ever sang, more revolutions than gunpowder ever achieved, more victories than ever won the applause of men or the approval of heaven. In the beginning the creative word was Fiat lux—let there be light. In the new creation of the human mind it was Imprimatur—let it be printed. If printing had never been invented, it is easy to conceive that the enormous learning and intellectual power of a few men in each generation might have gone on increasing so that the world might to-day possess most of the knowledge that we now enjoy; but it is certain that the masses could never have been enlightened, and that therefore the gulf between the wise few and the ignorant many would have exceeded anything known to the ancient world, and inconceivably dangerous in its appalling social menace. Whoever first printed a page of type is responsible for many crimes committed in the name of literature during the past four centuries; but one great book in a generation or a century, like a grain of radium in a ton of pitchblende, is worth all it has cost; for like the radium it is infinitely powerful to the wise man, deadly to the fool, and its strange, invisible virtue so far as we know may last forever.
DESIGNED BY BRUCE ROGERS AND PRINTED FROM MONOTYPE CASLON TYPE BY WILLIAM EDWIN RUDGE AT MOUNT VERNON NEW YORK IN DECEMBER 1921.
OF THIS EDITION ONE HUNDRED COPIES ARE ON FRENCH HAND-MADE PAPER AND FIVE HUNDRED ON ANTIQUE WOVE PAPER.
Transcriber's Note: This text uses both today and to-day.