It’s the best book I’ve ever read about the intoxicating simultaneous joy and danger of ideas, and the rather frightful liberties we’re willing to take with reality in search of the reassurance of meaning and order. The desire to remake the world in the image of our ideals is a strong temptation, and it’s not something that is totally beyond our grasp, but is such wish-fulfillment advisable or humane? That’s the main problem that this book is trying to get at. It’s also a great cock and bull story and a veritable encyclopedia of human knowledge, both spurious and legitimate.