The impact of war accelerates many processes in the development of a language that otherwise might have been slow, gradual and imperfect. First and most palpable, the enrichment of the vocabulary—novelties and the new words to describe them. But change may go deeper and further.

The struggle for Sicily in the first Punic War engaged a large proportion of the Roman manpower for more than twenty years. Returning, the soldiers brought with them the words they had used in Sicily day by day. Hence the wide knowledge of Greek revealed by Roman comedy a generation later, before the end of the second war. Then, in a few years Rome became protector of Hellas and arbiter of the civilized world; the language and the literature of the Greeks at once permeated the upper classes.

Pictures nowadays are a mass-produced commodity. They can be widely reproduced by various techniques including electronics. The natural means of communication, gesture and speech, have been replaced by photographs, films, television, posters, comic strips and magazines, all of which make up part of our environment. The invention and transmission of signs, which constitutes culture, no longer stems from a period of reflection, expressed through writing, whose compact print (originating from the Renaissance) never distracts us. Social dynamism, in generating culture, stands on the level of an experience open to the configuration and the violence whose theatre is the world in its concrete space.

The standpoint of this article is, first and foremost, a historical one, giving an introductory outline of a general theory of thrift. More specifically, it aims at comparing the principle (or: principles) of economy of thought and the principle of “natural economy” to coin a short term.

By way of a prologue, a historical and interpretative summary of events shows the consequences of a cultural fact which hallmarks the 14th century and, in itself, restores the first frank expression of a principle of thrift, at once theoretical and practical, to its essential context, thus countering the in flation of abstract entities. Nevertheless, it would not appear, three centuries later, that the nosology of the Diafoirus, at which Moliere poked so much fun, had already adopted this precious standard for itself.

An important aspect of science-fiction is the creation of an imaginative setting by extrapolation from the present frontiers of science and technology. Such projections may be used not only to explore the ramifications which a particular development possesses in itself, but also to examine its significance for its creators. Through its projective analyses, science-fiction possesses a unique capacity to contend with an era in which the geometric accumulation of scientific knowledge is, at an accelerating pace of technological application, sweeping us into an unknown and possibly dangerous future.

Learned and voluminous works, of course, have brought together and compared the representations men have fashioned for themselves of the Beyond—in other words, of the kind of life in store for them after death. Sometimes the authors of such compilations have tried to classify these imaginary worlds and discover by what secret laws the after-universes where the dead live were designed, and in what spaces, both near and irremediably separate, they were located. It is not always easy to reach them, even if it is inevitable. As for returning, it is impossible, aside from a few legendary exceptions: a goddess, Ishtar; a fabled hero, Orpheus; a man who was raised from the dead but of whom nothing further is known, Lazarus.

Weber's studies of non-European (or non-Christian) religions constitute the largest part of his Sociology of Religion—comprising most of the Aufsaetze zur Religionssoziologie (1920-1923), as well as large parts of his treatment in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (1956). Included, as is well known, are relatively full-blown studies of Jewish, Chinese (Confucian) and Indian (Hindu and Buddhist) civilizations, and more dispersed, but very rich appraisals of diverse aspects of other religions. These studies are focused on the internal dynamics of religions and on their relations to crucial aspects of social structure—especially political organization, economic life and social stratification.

This article attempts to bring out the value of oral tradition as a source of data regarding peasant society and culture. Many subtle aspects of social interaction and attitudes that may be left out or distorted by the more formal and expensive techniques of data collection can be made accessible through a careful analysis of oral tradition. This useful source has scarcely been tapped so far. Its proper utilization for scientific purposes would, however, require the development of adequate techniques of analysis and interpretation. Methodological problems involved in the analysis of oral sources as found in peasant societies have also been raised, therefore, in this paper. Analysis of oral tradition is especially valuable for the study of peasant society. Its large volume and pervasive proximity to all aspects of peasant life makes it specially valuable as a source of data about peasant social structure and culture.